In a 3-page news article today, Christianity Today asked “Will The Dawn Treader Float?” The answer is a very hopeful “yes.” CT said filmmakers acknowledged mistakes in Prince Caspian but “believe they have righted the ship for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” How?
New film distributor — 20th Century Fox
New director — Michael Apted
“[R]enewed commitment to the message of the books”
Another important part of selling the movie and generating excitement among Narnia fans was last week’s “Narnia Summit” – “where they showed clips from Dawn Treader and went through the entire script.” Who were the attendees? “100 Christian leaders” from large churches, “parachurch organizations,” “publishing companies,” “Lewis experts,” and “online fan sites” — some really tough Narnia critics and experts! So what were their reactions?
Steve Bell, executive vice-president of the Willow Creek Association:
There seems to be a high level of respect for the material. My sense was that they really want to go to the authenticity of C. S. Lewis, maybe more so than ever. They’re very aware that they have to turn the corner from Prince Caspian. They know that the ball got dropped, and they’re trying to recapture that momentum.
Christian author Philip Yancey:
They’re clearly making an effort to say that they respect and understand the spiritual focus of the book in a way that perhaps [Prince Caspian] did not. . . .They don’t seem to be cutting any corners; they’re throwing the whole ball of wax at this, and that’s a good thing.
Many Narnia fans have expressed concern about two major scenes in Dawn Treader: (1) Eustace’s “un-dragoning” and (2) the interaction between Aslan, Edmund, and Lucy at the end of the novel. Why does it matter? According to Wheaton College professor Jerry Root, if filmmakers ruin the latter scene, “they might as well close up the shop and produce no more films, for they will not be Lewis’ stories any more.” However, the reactions of Walden Media president Michael Flaherty and pastor’s wife Kathy Keller–who wrote letters to C. S. Lewis as a child, was converted through his writings, and wrote her senior thesis on Lewis’s “Mythopoetic Understanding of Literature”–should make Narnia fans both relieved and excited about how the filmmakers have approached these two scenes.
On Eustace’s “un-dragoning”:
Keller says she learned that writers originally wanted Eustace, still in dragon form, to fight a sea monster and “earn” his return to human form. But she says Flaherty, a committed Christian, “put them straight that you don’t earn grace, you receive it once you are humbled and aware of your need.”
Flaherty told CT, “This book is the most theological of them all. There are more complex themes, particularly grace, that aren’t easy to get right [in a movie]. We must’ve spent an entire day talking about grace, and the importance of showing that it can’t be earned; it has to be given. This is something that Eustace can’t do on his own; he has to ask Aslan to do it for him. I think it’s a really powerful illustration of grace.”
On Aslan, Edmund, and Lucy:
Keller . . . says she was mostly satisfied with what she saw and heard. “I’m glad the final interaction between Aslan and Lucy was there in its unadulterated entirety, because I consider that the pinnacle of the entire seven books.”
Fans have to wonder where Edmund is in all of this. But maybe he was unintentionally left out in viewers’ responses.
A further concern on the part of Narnia fans is introducing extra-literary subplots in the Dawn Treader script. According to Kathy Keller, they’ve done just that. She gives another major plot spoiler:
“I was less than enthusiastic about the imposition of an invented quest to recover the seven swords of the seven lords to undo some evil magic of a new witch,” she said. “It is a fairly innocuous addition, but as a purist I would have been happier without it.”
Narnia fans will have to wait and see whether or not they like this addition come December, and whether filmmakers were right to introduce it.
Finally, many showed concern about the choice of agnostic director Michael Apted, for “some wondered if his agnosticism would prevent him from ‘getting’ the spiritual and theological meat of the books” — especially since Apted once appeared “to brag to reporters about gutting Amazing Grace . . . of its religion.” According to Michael Flaherty, “Can an agnostic director get the deeper meanings of the book? The answer is yes, because this agnostic did.” But according to Planet Narnia author Michael Ward, it doesn’t really matter.
“I think an agnostic or for that matter an atheist could do a good job adapting the book, since the requirements are literary sensitivity, sympathetic imagination, and aesthetic judgment, not commitment to Christ. The vital thing is that he immerses himself in the book, and maybe even some of the better literary criticism about the book, and resolves to be faithful to its spirit.”
Professor Root, who has “high hopes” for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, gives some final thoughts on last week’s Narnia Summit.
“While I haven’t agreed with everything that has been done so far with the films, I have largely been appreciative of the effort and for the most part I have enjoyed them. Whenever Hollywood makes a Christian-friendly film, I am encouraged. Furthermore, if someone’s first exposure to Lewis’ work is through a film and that drives them back to the literature, I am pleased.”
Click here to read the article. Don’t we all wish December were here?
UPDATE: in the CT article, Narnia Summit attendees also discussed various problems with LWW and PC. And NarniaWeb’s Tirian “confirmed the bit about the seven swords, but added: ‘I haven’t seen any evidence of a new witch being added to this story.’”
UPDATE #2: Paul Martin at NarniaFans.com is unhappy with CT’s revelation of major plot spoilers in VDT, wanting them to be saved for the film’s December release. Regarding the addition not in the book, he considers it “a terrific addition, that adds a connective tissue and sense of urgency to the quest, making it less of an arbitrary deal for the Narnians.” He also warns that CT’s “article is very out of context and incorrect with the plot point.”
NarniaWeb reports that last night at the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Alanis Morissette performed “Wunderkind,” which appears in the closing credits of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Click here to watch Morissette’s performance.
By snagging Incarceron, a young-adult fantasy series, Fox is hoping to continue its success in the fantasy genre. Variety reports:
Fox 2000 has won a bidding war for the film rights to Brit author Catherine Fisher’s young-adult tome “Incarceron,” with an eye to spinning the dystopian fantasy into a franchise. . . .
“Incarceron” is a priority for Fox 2000 and Seed, with the project going out to directors and writers to adapt. At least two other studios were vying for the film rights.
Published just three weeks ago in the U.S., Fisher’s book immediately won a slot on the New York Times children’s bestsellers list. Tome was published in the U.K. in 2007.
“Incarceron” tells the story of a young boy who lives in a prison that is a complete society; outside the prison, the world is stuck in the 17th century and run by computers. The boy comes into contact with the warden’s daughter, who lives in her own sort of jail, and they find a key that can change everything.
If all goes well, we’ll also get to see an adaptation of the next book in the series, Sapphique, which won’t be out until next January (after all, Incarceron was only published three weeks ago). But of course the first film still needs screenwriters, so this project is just getting warmed up.
Ron and Kathleen Jones are ballet teachers at the Columbia County Ballet (Augusta, Georgia), which they have run for 25 years.
Since its first year, the school has performed the Roar of Love, based on C. S. Lewis’s novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The next performance is scheduled later this month.
“A lot of children in the area have learned to love C. S. Lewis as a result of this,” Charlotte Carr said.
The Joneses started performing the Roar of Love when they found a record with the same title and got the rights to use the music. The production has grown over the years. Today, students perform at Bell Auditorium.
They continue the tradition because they love the story and its message. Outside the school is a statue of a lion representing Aslan, the lamp post from Narnia and an entrance sign that reads “You are entering Narnia.”
When Ron asked Kathleen to marry him, the first present he gave her was C. S. Lewis’s series The Chronicles of Narnia. He had read the books when he was touring with the Atlanta Ballet.
“The Roar of Love has served as a foundation for us. It gave our students a vehicle, and they could look forward to going into Narnia again and going in to the next character,” Kathleen said.
You can learn more about Ron and Kathleen’s love story, as well as the ballet school’s history, here.
According to the Associated Press, when they’re off duty many U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are finding comfort in reading.
Staff. Sgt. Daniel Clemons of Lexington, Alabama, tries to read a couple of chapters a day of “Mere Christianity” by C. S. Lewis, the British thinker and author of the “Narnia” fantasies.
“It talks about morality first, and then it talks about the virtues of Christ, like faith and hope and love … you’ve got to have a strong faith. My faith has gotten stronger. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life,” said Clemons, 27.
He described his old self as a “very selfish, self-centered person” whose moral character has changed since deployments in Iraq and Kosovo.
“My wife, she bought me a book for Christmas. It’s called ‘Tender Warrior,’ by Stu Weber. Even though I’m a soldier, it’s about opening up and showing my feelings toward my family and my friends instead of holding it all in. … I’ve always held it in and she wanted me to show my emotions a bit more, instead of holding it all in until I can’t anymore and then I explode.”
Clemons was in Iraq in 2004-2005, and during that time, four roadside bombs exploded near his vehicle. He was unhurt.
“I believe I have a guardian angel,” he said. “I believe that.” But he wants to be a state trooper when he gets home, figuring that giving out speeding tickets is a lot safer than what he’s doing now.
He is staying in a compound that was earlier occupied by another Alpha platoon, and when he moved in, he found “The Screwtape Letters,” another C. S. Lewis book, on a shelf. He’ll read that next.
A new book on the history of American film is out: George Lucas’s Blockbusting, with a foreword by director Francis Ford Coppola. IndieWire reports that the nearly 950-page book
sets out to trace the history of American film, decade-by-decade. While it ostensibly focuses on 300 so-called blockbuster hits, its chapter-opening essays, sidebar notes and statistics provide an informed and impressive overview of changing trends in moviemaking—and moviegoing—throughout the 20th century and into the dawn of the 21st. While at first glance it appears that the book’s emphasis is on the business end of movies (providing revealing, inflation-adjusted statistics on admission prices, star and director salaries, production costs and box-office figures) it also devotes considerable space to artistic advances and milestones.
#113 at the box office in Lucas’s 300 select films, which IndieWire notes is “adjusted to reflect fixed monetary values,” is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The movie entry “include[s] all the relevant facts and figures, and award recognition, as well as background information on the production (including last-minute cast changes and other ‘fun facts’).” You can read more here.
For those who want to see Alice in Wonderland, which hits theaters this Friday [March 5], Best Buy is offering a free movie ticket with the purchase of select DVDs. Both The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian are on the list, along with 11 other movie selections. The offer expires April 4. Click here for more information.
In the latest installment of his “Narnia Nostalgia” series, Mark Sommer reviews BBC (1988) and Focus on the Family’s (1998) radio plays of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Click here to read the reviews.
Earlier this week, The Huffington Post’s Janet Kinosian interviewed Billy Graham “on death, dying, and faith.” In the interview, Kinosian asked Graham, “Is there one temptation you’ve struggled with throughout your lifetime — one you find yourself confessing to God over and over?” Here was his response:
Ruth and our children used to kid me about being a pessimist, and worrying too much about some situation we might be facing. Sometimes they even called me “Puddleglum,” after one of C. S. Lewis’s imaginary characters in The Chronicles of Narnia who tended to be a pessimist. But their comments had a serious side to them, because they were reminding me that I wasn’t trusting God the way I should. Once we understand that God loves us, we can commit the future into His hands and quit worrying about it all the time.
This is not the only connection between Billy Graham and C. S. Lewis. The two met on the campus of Magdalene College at “Cambridge University in 1955, while [Graham] was conducting a mission to students.” In a May 1963 interview with Sherwood E. Wirt of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association [BGEA], Lewis told Wirt that he liked Graham “very much indeed” and called him “a very modest and a very sensible man.”*
There’s a final connection. Both The Marion E. Wade Center [which houses the largest C. S. Lewis collection outside the UK] and The Billy Graham Center are on the campus of Wheaton College (Wheaton, Illinois).
* “Cross-Examination,” God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics, ed. Walter Hooper, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970, 258-67 (265).
UPDATE: I forgot something else that’s pretty important! Both Billy Graham and his deceased wife Ruth Bell Graham (d. 2007) were 1943 graduates of Wheaton College. Click on the links for short biographies of them.
The latest from Tumnus’s Bookshelf (NarniaFans.com) is a review of Douglas Gresham’s autobiography Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis (HarperOne, 1994). Below is a book summary. Click here for the review.
Life for Douglas Gresham was anything but typical. While the early days of his childhood were happy, they soon turned sour. His mother, Joy’s conversion to Christianity after reading the works of one CS Lewis, and his father converting to Dianetics, along with his fathers’ drinking and verbal and physical abuse of Joy, and Douglas led the family to drifting apart .While visiting Lewis in England William Gresham had an affair with Joy’s cousin. This was the lass raw and the marriage soon dissolved.
Joy took Douglas and his brother David to England where he got to meet CS Lewis, the man who ‘discovered’ the land of Narnia. Their passport soon expired and in order to keep them in England, Jack entered into a civil marriage with Joy. The two eventually fell in love.
However a dark cloud loomed over that love as Joy was diagnosed with cancer. During this time, Jack and Joy were officially married, and Jack became Douglas and David’s step-father. To Douglas he was the warmest and most loving step-father he could have. The cancer soon took Joy’s life and the two were forced to mourn her.
Douglas grew up and went to college. Then one day, on the evening that President JF K was shot, Douglas received word that Jack had died as well. He mourned for the loss of his step-father and for his old life.
Later Douglas married and had a family. They briefly settled down in Australia.
By snagging Incarceron, a young-adult fantasy series, Fox is hoping to continue its success in the fantasy genre. Variety 
Ron and Kathleen Jones are ballet teachers at the Columbia County Ballet (Augusta, Georgia), which they have run for 25 years.
According to the Associated Press, when they’re off duty many U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan are finding comfort in reading.
A new book on the history of American film is out: George Lucas’s Blockbusting, with a foreword by director Francis Ford Coppola. IndieWire reports that the nearly 950-page book
In the latest installment of his “Narnia Nostalgia” series, Mark Sommer reviews BBC (1988) and Focus on the Family’s (1998) radio plays of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Click 
The latest from Tumnus’s Bookshelf (NarniaFans.com) is a review of Douglas Gresham’s autobiography Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis (HarperOne, 1994). Below is a book summary. Click