Narnia!

[GhaleonOne]

The entire series has religious symbolism in it as far as I understood.

[Roas Atrades]

The entire series has religious symbolism in it as far as I understood.

Well, I guess since I'm not overly religous the symbolism was lost on me all these years, heh. I just saw the stories. I guess it means you don't need to know the hidden meanings in order to enjoy them well enough.

[Rune Lai]

The series is perfectly enjoyable without having ever noticed a lick of religious imagery. I read the entire series as a ten-year-old without ever having been the wiser. It wasn't until college when someone pointed out the religious imagery to me that I was able to find it. Up until then it was just part of the story and nothing strong enough to call notice to it. That's one of the things I like about Narnia. It's religious if you want it to be, but it doesn't bash you over the head with it if you don't.

I think we'll see Prince Caspian coming down the pipeline. The ads have always displayed the full title The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so it wouldn't be that difficult to do The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian as the next installment. I would be very intrigued to see how they do The Last Battle. The religious imagery is at its strongest in that book and as a kid I liked it the least. Not because I recognized the imagery, but because unlike the other books it's not much of an adventure story. I can't even remember a single protagonist from that one--only the two miscreants causing all the trouble.

[Alunissage]

The religious symbolism is here and there, but the good thing about the series is that it works just fine as is. It's very noticeable in the last book.

I haven't seen the movie yet. Did they actually call him Santa Claus rather than Father Christmas?? O_O

[Kizyr]

The religious symbolism is definitely around in LWW. Though, they did cut out a few of the more overt parts. Even then it works fine in the movie, and the overall story still has that religious flavor in it.

I haven't seen the movie yet. Did they actually call him Santa Claus rather than Father Christmas?? O_O

No, they called him Father Christmas. Everyone just remembers him as Santa Clause. KF

[Sonic#]

I understand the gift giving or even the symbolism of hope in the winter, but there was no mention of him at all when he just shows up.

I could've sworn that Lucy mentions how wonderful winter must be, to have all of this stuff going on, including Christmas! Then Mr. Tumnus says that they haven't had a Christmas in so long. The power of the White Witch keeps him out.

I'm glad you explained what you meant concerning the character interactions though. I can't argue that further, as it depends on how you receive it. I was satisfied. ^^;;;

[Silver Phoenix]

Lucy did talk about Christmas but there was no mention of Father Christmas or Santa Clause at that point. He basically just shows up during a tense situation when the children believe a certain someone is chasing them.

[Pisces]

I didn't find the Father Christmas thing abrupt at all, in either the book or movie. If you really look at the story from a child's perspective, it works very naturally that he should appear there - especially since Father Christmas is really an embodiment of good will and the happiness and warmth a child experiences early in life.

As for the religious symbolism - C.S. Lewis did not deliberately set out to make an allegory - the Christian beliefs and concepts were so integral into his life and way of thinking that they simply came out naturally within the story.

I actually go into a lot of the religious symbolism, but it would take some time - a lot of people don't see it because they don't understand the true spiritual implications of the concepts of Christianity. They know the stories and everything, but they don't translate it onto a level of symbolism and meaning.

What C.S. Lewis basically did was take a lot of his Christian beliefs and showed them on a PHYSICAL level rather than a spiritual one --

One example is when Aslan comes back to life and says "There is a Deeper Magic the Witch did not know. That when an innocent person who had committed no crime was killed in the place of a traitor, then the Stone Table would crack and Death itself would start to work backwards."

This is a concept of Christianity made literal and more physically manifested than the real world. In Christianity, when Christ was killed upon the cross, he paid the full penalty for sin in the world and thus overcame Death, which was Satan's domain and greatest weapon. Basically, Satan is the persecutor of human sinners (much like the Witch's claim on Edmund), and Christ's sacrifice at the cross was Satan's ultimate defeat, where he lost any true power he had over humanity, as Christ brought the promise of Eternal Life to humanity.

Anyway, I'm not trying to preach or anything - I wouldn't do that. I'm just showing an example.

It's actually all very neat the way C.S. Lewis conveyed these things.

[Imperial Knight]

I haven't seen the movie, but I always did enjoy the books. I read through each of them at least twice when I was younger.

In regards to the religious symbolism, I don't remember how aware I was of it the first time I read the books, but I did notice it on my second reading. I do seem to recall reading somewhere that C.S. Lewis considered the series to be more of an alternative history than an allegory.

[Rune Lai]

I agree with Pisces about the Father Christmas thing. It's something that would seem very strange to me if I had been introduced to it as an adult, but was the most natural thing as a child. The White Witch was keeping out Christmas, so of course the surest sign that she was losing her hold on Narnia would be for Santa Claus to show up, because that would mean Christmas was here.

[DragonmasterDan]

That's now 3-1 in favor of it being a great movie. The only one that didn't like it was DragonmasterDan.

Sorry to jump into this thread so late, it's not that the movie wasn't enjoyable it's that the movie wasn't produced in as clean of a manner as other big fantasy book to film conversions in recent years (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter for example); I felt that two of the children (Peter and Susan) were quite poorly acted and didn't seem to give me the feeling of actually being in a fantasy world and forced to cope with the situation around them. I felt there was an abundence of one liners and a lot of the character development was lacking, It was a decent movie, but compared to the book or compared to other recent big budget fantasy films in the same genre it doesn't really stand out to me as being anything spectacular.

[GhaleonOne]

Finally got around to seeing it, and I was quite happy with it. Perhaps it's because I haven't read the books (which I will now be doing in the next few months). I definately saw the Biblical connections, especially with Aslan. I'm now thrilled to read the books when my brother finishes our compilation book of the 7 novels.

Side note: The next Pirates movie was previewed. Looks friggin' sweet.