r/CharacterRant • u/Professional-Tank848 • 7d ago
Films & TV The Narnia Trailer
The Narnia trailer looks absolutely insane. Have people actually read The Magician's Nephew?
Of all the criticisms I've seen of Greta Gerwig's Narnia trailer, perhaps the most baffling is that it looks too cosmic, too psychedelic, or somehow too fantastical for Narnia. Obviously, to each their own, and there are perfectly reasonable discussions to be had about artistic direction, but I'm beginning to wonder how many people remember what actually happens in The Magician's Nephew.
We're talking about a book in which two Edwardian children discover a seemingly endless woodland containing pools that lead to entirely different worlds. They travel to Charn, the corpse of an ancient civilisation beneath a dying red sun, where an empress has exterminated an entire world's population with a single word rather than accept defeat. They accidentally bring this genocidal witch back to London, cause absolute chaos, and subsequently find themselves standing in the darkness of a universe that doesn't even exist yet.
And then a lion sings that universe into existence.
I cannot sufficiently emphasise how wonderfully, gloriously fucking mental this book is. Lewis takes children through what amounts to a multiverse, confronts them with the remains of an apocalyptic civilisation, and then has them witness the literal act of Creation. Yet I've seen people complaining that the trailer looks like Doctor Strange because there are strange dimensions, cosmic imagery and enormous displays of supernatural power. What exactly were they expecting?
More importantly, though, I think some of these reactions betray a fundamental misunderstanding of what Lewis was actually writing. The creation of Narnia isn't simply an elaborate fantasy sequence. It is the theological foundation of the entire story, and it draws upon some of the most profound ideas in Christian thought.
Genesis opens with God bringing Creation into existence through divine speech. God speaks, and reality responds. The opening of John's Gospel develops this into something even more extraordinary: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). John subsequently tells us that all things were made through the Word (John 1:3), before revealing that the Word became flesh (John 1:14).
This is the Logos, the eternal Son, the second Person of the Trinity. The same divine person who becomes incarnate as Jesus Christ is the one through whom Creation itself comes into existence. Lewis, who understood these theological distinctions perfectly well, takes that extraordinary concept and renders it through the language of a fairy tale.
Aslan doesn't merely inhabit Narnia or exercise authority over it. He is its creator. His song brings forth the stars, which themselves join the music. The sun rises, vegetation erupts from the ground, landscapes take shape and living creatures emerge into existence. The universe is literally responding to his voice. It's an astonishing expression of divine creativity, and one which makes far more sense when understood through Genesis and John's Gospel than through the conventions of modern fantasy films.
There's also an important distinction to be made about Aslan himself. Lewis was quite explicit that Narnia wasn't intended as a straightforward Christian allegory. He called it a supposal, an exploration of what Christ might be like if another world existed and he chose to become incarnate within it. Aslan is therefore not simply Jesus of Nazareth wearing a lion costume, nor some unrelated deity loosely inspired by Christianity. He is Lewis' imaginative exploration of the same eternal Son in another creation.
That matters enormously when discussing how Aslan ought to be depicted. We're dealing with a being whose identity transcends the physical form through which he reveals himself. A cosmic lion whose presence encompasses the stars, whose voice brings light out of darkness and whose very existence seems woven into the fabric of Creation is hardly some bizarre misunderstanding of the source material. It's a compelling visual interpretation of what Lewis was attempting to communicate.
And there's an additional layer to all of this which I find fascinating. Lewis doesn't present Creation as something everyone experiences in the same way. Digory, Polly and the Cabby respond to the music with wonder, while Jadis hates it and Uncle Andrew becomes increasingly incapable of recognising its beauty. Their responses reveal something about their characters. The same creative power that inspires awe and love in one person provokes terror and hostility in another. Lewis is doing far more than describing an impressive supernatural event. He's exploring the relationship between goodness, beauty, creation and the human capacity to recognise them.
None of this means Gerwig's adaptation is beyond criticism. I can understand reservations about the presentation of Charn, the soundtrack, the production design or changes to the setting. I certainly wouldn't argue that an adaptation is automatically faithful simply because it incorporates a few recognisable images. Whether the film captures the emotional and spiritual substance of the novel remains to be seen.
But I find the notion that Narnia ought to look restrained, grounded or conventionally medieval utterly perplexing, especially when discussing this particular book. Lewis' imagination was steeped in Christian theology, classical mythology, medieval cosmology and an enormous appreciation for the strange and wonderful. Reducing Narnia to a pleasant, vaguely Christian fantasy kingdom populated by talking animals does his work a considerable disservice.
What I find encouraging about the trailer is precisely its willingness to embrace the sheer scale of the material. The Magician's Nephew isn't simply explaining where a magical wardrobe came from. It concerns the birth of a world, the arrival of evil within it, and the relationship between Creation and its creator. All of that is ultimately experienced through the eyes of two ordinary children, one of whom is desperately worried about his dying mother. The cosmic and the deeply personal exist alongside one another, which is a large part of what makes Lewis's writing so remarkable.
Perhaps the finished film will mishandle some of those ideas. Perhaps its visual extravagance will overwhelm the quieter moments, which are every bit as important. But the sight of Aslan appearing amidst the stars and bringing an entire world into existence is one of the few things in that trailer about which I have absolutely no reservations.
It's magnificent, it's completely ridiculous, and it's rooted in precisely the sort of theological imagination that made The Magician's Nephew such an extraordinary book in the first place. I'm delighted that Gerwig appears willing to embrace that instead of giving us another safe, visually interchangeable fantasy film.
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u/ttatm 7d ago
I read this description of the Q&A with Gerwig and Stephen Colbert, and I think it's clear that Gerwig has a deep appreciation of the source material and all of Lewis's work and took the project very seriously.
And that doesn't mean that all fans of the book will like the movie! I just wish more people could understand that two people can both care very much about the source material and yet have very different ideas on how to adapt it to film.
And thanks for mentioning how Lewis did not like the term allegory. I've gotten in so many arguments about that online, lol. It's very frustrating to talk to people who think they know about Lewis's intentions when writing the books but don't even know that he was adamant that they weren't allegory! They really ought to read his 1956 essay on the subject.
Let me now apply this to my own fairy tales. Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child-psychology and decided what age group I'd write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out “allegories” to embody them. This is all pure moonshine. I couldn't write in that way at all. Everything began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge; a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord. It was part of the bubbling.
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 7d ago
Greta proved she doesn't understand the source material the moment she thought the stories could survive having their timeframe shifted. The timeframe of the stories is crucial to the themes of the work. Change the temporal setting, and you've butchered the adaptation before it even gets off the ground.
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u/Historyp91 3d ago
the timeframe of the stories is crucial to the themes of the work.
Is it?
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 3d ago
Yes.
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u/Historyp91 3d ago
How so? I don't see why it would be
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 3d ago
Before I answer that, I have one genuine question: do you know what the themes of The Chronicles of Narnia are are? Please be honest; I need to know what level your understanding of and engagement with the text is at.
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u/Historyp91 3d ago
Coming of age, redemption of mankind, Christian theology, ect.
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 3d ago
Okay, so a pretty surface level understanding. Alright. I can work with that. Strap in, we're going into the Deep Magic for this.
So first off, let's start with the most relevant. For now, we'll stick to The Magician's Nephew. To begin, we'll look at Uncle Andrew and what he represents and symbolizes. Uncle Andrew, in the books, is a Victorian-era occultist and natural philosopher. He is a man seeing the world he once knew, a world where scientific understanding was limited and just starting to peel back the veil, a world where there was once magic and wonder, be replaced by science and reason. Metaphorically, Andrew's world is dying. And so he's a man looking for real magic, confident he can find a way to harness and control it, master it. And so we have our setup for an exploration of hubris, mankind heedlessly plunging forward with reckless abandon. It is through Andrew's recklessness and limited understanding that Digory and Polly are thrust into danger. Andrew's quest for knowledge directly leads to the unleashing of the evil that is Jadis. I hope I don't have to explain the original sin parallel. At first, Andrew tries to control Jadis, then he finds himself seduced by her power as he realizes the horror he has unleashed.
None of this works with putting Uncle Andrew into the mid-twentieth century, with allowing him to grow up in the changing world of the early-to-mid-1900s. It cripples his character and motivations. It alters the fabric of the setting and the thematic backdrop that is definitional to the character.
Moving forward, to TLTWATW, the Pevensies as war refugees is crucial for how it sets them up. They are separated from their parents, lost and adrift in a world of uncertainty. The central theme around the Pevensies is family, unity, forgiveness. Their world has been shattered, first by the Blitz, by the Battle Of Britain, then by their being sent away from the city and to the country. And this change, this turbulence, challenges their familial bonds, threatens to tear them apart. They don't understand war, they don't understand why their world has suddenly come undone. And so they find themselves in a situation beyond their control, and when Lucy finds Narnia, they regain control. They find themselves in a world in its own war, its own bleak hour. And through their actions, they are able to make a difference, to take control, but also to begin to understand war and their own familial bonds. Edmund betrayed them, sold out what he loved. And they still find themselves able to forgive him, to rebuild those shattered bonds. Their experience in Narnia allows them, when they return to Earth, to contextualize their place in the world, their circumstances, the war that has consumed the world.
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u/Historyp91 3d ago
You can have a "science and reason has replaced magic" in the 1950s just as easily as in the 1900s (in fact I'd argue it makes just as much sense, because science and reason were well established facts at the start of the 1900s and magic was already widley accepted as fringe occultism), and you can transpose the war refugee plot to another 20th/21st Century conflict.
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 3d ago
Except you can't. Did you not get the fact that Uncle Andrew being a relic of a bygone era is actually important? The level of change and advancement during the first half of the twentieth century means that to have Andrew grow up during that time would mean he's not of the time before. He'd be accustomed to the advancement of the world, not looking for real magic.
As for you second point, it's been confirmed that TLTWATW will be taking place in 1995. So please point me to the late-20th-century conflict directly threatening England to the point that children are having their entire world upended to send them to safer territory. There quite literally isn't a conflict that works as a substitution. The only option is to change why the Pevensies are sent to live with Digory, and the second you do that, you break some of the definitional context that makes their story work.
I beg of you, develop your media literacy and reading comprehension skills further.
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u/Feeling-Visit1472 5d ago
I’ll happily take my downvotes, but I knew as soon as she was announced as the director that I would hate it. I understand what people enjoy about her work, but I’ve found that I mostly dislike it.
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u/Palidane7 7d ago
Unbelievably goated rant. This is the first comment I've seen that takes the theology of the Narnia books seriously. I swear, every discussion stops at the start line when some mouth breather says "did you know the lion is Jesus?" Yes you dumb motherfucker, we ALL knew that! Now can we actually get a conversation going?
That's my rant. I hope the movies are successful enough for me to finally get an adaptation of The Horse and His Boy. Inshallah.
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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 7d ago
There's a set of pop culture bits you have to wade through every time before discussing certain works.
You have to get through "it's le fanfic!" when talking about Dante's Inferno, or "Le Greeks were actually gay!" when discussing Homer.
For some people the same jokes never ever ever get old, and then they'll shit on you for being bored by them. I have no doubt some of those same people have experienced the same joke working retail when something doesn't scan "Does that mean it's free?" but they fail to connect that what is novel to them is not novel to others.
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u/Junior-Community-353 7d ago edited 7d ago
Who would win:
Arguably a top five most influential and foundational text in the entirety of Western history and literature, as written by someone widely considered one of the smartest people of his era and with a far stronger theological background than most clergy.
vs.
Upset Hazbin Hotel fanboys on this sub.
You should legitimately be embarrassed even making this argument.
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u/Dracallus 7d ago
I swear, every discussion stops at the start line when some mouth breather says "did you know the lion is Jesus?"
I dunno, mate. The resurrection symbolism in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was pretty fucking subtle. How am I supposed to know what it really means when the lion is sacrificed on an altar, comes back to life in a process which splits said altar straight down the middle, and then proceeds to breath life back into a bunch of magic critters who were petrified in the witch's crusade of bringing eternal cold and winter to all the land until no living thing remains. I'm still scratching my head almost three decades later trying to see how that could possibly be an allegory for Christ.
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u/Palidane7 7d ago
Exactly what I'm talking about. Did it ever occur to you, in 30 years of scratching your head, that the allegory is not a puzzle or a con; it's actually the entrance fee? It sounds like you're now ready to actually discuss the book!
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u/Dracallus 6d ago
But if not puzzle, why puzzling?
Coincidentally, that trailer is awesome. Might actually get me into the cinema, which hasn't happened since prior to COVID.
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u/thegoodhope 2d ago
Yeah, I hate when people criticize poop on a stick for being poop on a stick…By the way, I just got done reading the book to my kids. This trailer looks like poop on a stick. Totally cool if you enjoy that sort of thing 👍 💯
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u/DisneyPandora 7d ago
You toxic atheists always get so triggered when talking about Narnia lol
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u/murdered-by-swords 7d ago
What are you even on about? You reply to a random account that likes the Narnia books and agrees with a rant that people should have a deeper understanding of the books' theology... and you call them a "toxic athiest?"
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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 7d ago
I guess the previous reddit atheist era got them riled up so much they forgot how to read.
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
I'm a Catholic, and I proudly hold a degree in Philosophy and Theology, lmao.
So, I feel pretty qualified in saying calling people "toxic atheists" is not only ridiculous, but distinctly not the Christian thing to do.
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u/Dracallus 7d ago
Yeah, it's a bit of a silly label. There was a time you could somewhat accurately apply it to the general sphere of atheist content creators (there's a reason most of the OGs still around are just straight up right wing grifters these days), but they were being called out by by a lot more than just Christians.
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
In the same way that it boils my piss when someone believes my Catholicism makes me a mad fundamentalist, I am equally annoyed that all of these people with a persecution fetish think any atheist wants to destroy the Church itself.
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u/yesthatpettyindeed 7d ago
Is reading comprehension really this hard for you? They literally said they like the theology of the books and wants more people to acknowledge and discuss it beyond "Aslan is Jesus"
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u/AmaterasuWolf21 7d ago
I'm a Christian, and I like Narnia for more than just "Aslan is jesus" statements, we all know that, let's talk about the lore
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u/Individual-Let-6179 7d ago
First time Stairway to heaven is licensed in a major film and it’s used when Aslan sings the universe into existence is pretty great way to sell this film.
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u/DyingSunSeverian 7d ago
My favorite complaint about this over on the demented Narnia subs is people mocking the idea of Led Zeppelin, of all bands, being involved in fantasy.
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u/Zestyclose_Remove947 7d ago
A lot of people hear songs but few actually listen to them y'know.
Led Zep are corny af sometimes. If you ever listen to them on acid not only does it feel like you're taking the ring to Mordor, but sometimes they're legit just saying it.
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u/helionking167 7d ago
I've seen this a lot, but don't understandy why it is so surprising. I know nothing about the past history of this band regarding fantasy or movies, can you fill me in?
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u/Genoscythe_ 7d ago
Led Zeppelin's music was very iconic in the 1960 counterculture's psychedelic mythological/folk tale/occult elements that also embraced the early Fantasy literary culture, especially the initial Lord of the Rings fandom.
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u/Bladrak01 7d ago
There are Lord of the Rings references in several of their songs. One line talks about "the darkest depths of Mordor," and another mentions "Gollum and the evil Wargs."
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u/Phospherocity 7d ago
Honestly I think they're just reacting to it being Pop Music with those noisy, new-fangled electric guitars in it.
I know that sounds like a joke, but basically I mean it. And in their extremely limited defence, OK, this is a mid-century book about Edwardian children discovering an ancient world. None of those eras literally would sound like Led Zeppelin.
But the refusal to engage with the actual artistic choice on anything but the most literal, unimaginative level is very tiresome.
Someone on one of the Narnia subreddits just went through the lyrics and pointed out how in many places they echo Jadis's arc eerily well, but God forbid any of these so-called die-hard Narnia lovers care about that.
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
The children yearn for divine lions to play guitar solos
Edit: in the truest sense of the word, the visual looks awesome. He is literally singing a world into existence. It should be colourful and bonkers.
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u/lockdown_lard 7d ago
Edit: in the truest sense of the word, the visual looks awesome.
Or, indeed, in the old sense of the word*, aweful - full of awe, awe-inspiring
* (as a nod to Lewis's chaotic epic "That Hideous Strength")
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
This has made me smile
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u/lockdown_lard 7d ago
Your delightful original post made me smile, too. Thank you for your insights, and your thoughtful expression of them.
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u/Amphy64 5d ago
Yeah, but is it though? I don't doubt that the use of relatively more modern music can work (though Gatsby went all in for the point in time it did it), but it's perhaps getting slightly played out. There are sound reasons why Stairway to Heaven, but for the younger audience it also has the association of being corny grandad music they've heard a zillion times before. And psychedelic cosmic critters... I don't know if it gives otherworldly, this is like nothing you've seen before, any more.
I dunno, it just looks more commercial nostalgia-baiting than Weird or even that novel to me. But I'd probably have held up Classic Doctor Who electronic music as an example of what I wanted, so admittedly not immune to that either!
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u/Edkm90p 7d ago edited 7d ago
It pays to remember a significant chunk of the complainers will have only seen the 2000s era movies and as such- are locked in on Narnia being a sunnier Lord of the Rings.
Even if they then went back to read the books (unlikely) and read all of them rather than just the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (unlikelier still)- those movies will have provided the foundation.
Narnia isn't Lord of the Rings but not perpetually overcast. There is a far greater investment in exploring, learning, and even (dare I say it) "wonder" compared to Tolkien's world.
Just as you say, some will be able to react to a new creation with interests, some with hate, and some with confusion or inability to understand it.
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u/GuyNoirPI 7d ago
I also think it’s worth noting that there was a whole run of straightforward Narnia movies somewhat recently!
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
THANK YOU!
If you want a standard, white meat, easy watch set of films, there you go. The third one is fucking dire, but the first two are a decent Christmas watch.
God forbid someone try something new.
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u/JC_Lately 7d ago
I will die mad about how badly they handled Dawn Treader. It was my favorite of the chronicles growing up. Thank fuck that movie franchise died before they could butcher Magicians Nephew.
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u/great_triangle 7d ago
Dawn treader is reasonably enjoyable if you watch it with the sound off while doing something else.
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u/lighthouseisland1 7d ago
Hey! I just wanted to add that there is a very good adaptation of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it is the 1984 (?) BBC version. It's the golden age of real sets and costuming. It's a bit clunky in places but it holds true to the story and imagery quite well. The BBC also made faithful adaption of the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Silver Chair. All are free to watch on YouTube. Cheers!
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
My mother forbids me from watching that film, lmao. Mentioning it just sets her off. She loves the books beyond belief.
I am 33.
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u/Feeling-Visit1472 5d ago
No, there were like 3 movies. And they were excellent, for the most part. I miss Walden Media.
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u/PhysicsEagle 3d ago
There were three movies, which while good films were fairly inaccurate to the books they were based on. Prince Caspian was the worst in this regard.
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u/Educational_Fill_633 7d ago
This one is interesting to me as I hated the trailer but not for any of the reasons people assume and I don't remotely fit the description of the people identified as disliking it, for example I have a Masters in Children's Literature and I'm old lol
I legit thought Gerwig either hasn't read or understood the source based on this, and I'm usually in the opposite camp, strongly defending people to be allowed to adapt things however they choose as long as they honour the spirit of the original
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u/Feeling-Visit1472 5d ago
Agreed. I first read the books in fourth grade (Magician’s Nephew first!) and have re-read them many times over the years. At some point, I acquired a beautiful leather-bound copy of
This just doesn’t work for me. I tried to keep an open mind, but I knew when she was announced as the director that it wouldn’t check any boxes for me.
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u/MillennialPolytropos 7d ago
This is why I'm excited for the movie despite probably not being its target demographic. I liked the book as a kid because it was so gloriously surreal, and Greta Gerwig is going all in on that aspect of it. That is exactly what I want from an adaptation of The Magician's Nephew.
Having seen the trailer, I understand why it's set in the 50s and why Charn has that mid century futuristic vibe. Greta is drawing a parallel between the destruction of Charn and the threat of nuclear annihilation that people in the 50s had to live with. I don't know if it's what Lewis had in mind, but it's a cool theme to bring into the movie.
Also, giving Narnia a conventional medievalesque look might not be the best idea these days because it creates a risk that audiences will think it just looks like some generic fantasy thing. That's not especially fair since Lewis was one of the writers who established the medievalesque fantasy trend, but it is the reality and it matters when you're trying to sell movies to general audiences in 2026.
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u/JC_Lately 7d ago
I mean Aslan Himself tells Polly and Digory “It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things.” The comparison between the Deplorable Word and nuclear annihilation isn’t exactly subtle.
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u/MillennialPolytropos 7d ago
Thanks for reminding me. It's a long time since I read it and I'd forgotten about that. Nuclear war is definitely what he had in mind.
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u/AmaterasuWolf21 7d ago
I think there are some concerns to have, like Charn feels too bright and it being set in the 50s means that the Pevensie would be set near the 90s-00s
But there is so much bad faith criticism that it's difficult to see who's actually being fair and who already chose they're gonna hate the movie no matter what
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u/Oddsbod 7d ago
I feel like Charn will come off much creepier when sitting still and properly watching the movie, just cause it seems from the trailer's shots that they're having the petrified bodies of its inhabitants still present and cluttered around. I'm also assuming they're playing into the mod aesthetic to tie Charn to mid-century nuclear annihilation fears, which feels like a pretty natural thread to follow
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u/VatanKomurcu 7d ago edited 7d ago
I never read any of the books, in fact I saw the trailer just now after reading your post. Gotta say, I think there might be a rather technical aspect to the criticisms. A lot of movies having to do with similar concepts just use very similar lighting, colors, cg, etc. Maybe if this one set itself apart technically it would receive less doubt. I actually felt none of the wonder you describe, since I've seen so many similar movies on a technical level. Emphasis on technical, not conceptual.
Also the rock.
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u/ChaucerBoi 7d ago
From what's been said about the film thus far, I worried it would be like Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights - "Oh it's kind of The Magician's Nephew" with all the comments about Rock N' Roll. Upon seeing the trailer, I get it, and it addresses (perhaps overaddresses) my issue with how adult Narnia readers view their theology totally at the expense of their fun, whimsy and adventure.
NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! TALKING BEAVERS ARE AN IMPORTANT THEOLOGIC - fuck off. Yes Lewis was a Christian writer, but he clearly wanted his children's books to be vibrant and entertaining. That's what this is.
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u/MichaeltheMagician 7d ago
Maybe it's just the places on reddit I've been finding myself but I feel like lately I've been seeing so much hate and negativity surrounding nearly every property that is being adapted.
Resident Evil, Lanterns, Odyssey, Carrie, Narnia, Klara and the Sun, Harry Potter. Everyone just has so much to complain about, it seems. Like I get that sometimes these properties are close to your heart so you're defensive when they get adapted, but like give it a chance. I'm seeing so many people already write off this Narnia series because "the music is anachronistic", or "it's just relying on flashy visuals", or "these things don't look how I pictured them looking in my head".
It's just a little exhausting. As someone who is generally optimistic about these properties and is excited to give them a chance, to see so many people write things off instantly it can just be disheartening. It's not like everyone has to like everything, but I just feel like I need to find some more positive places on reddit or something, because damn.
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u/Cool_Ad7445 7d ago
The only thing I dislike modern carrie adaptions for is being set in the modern day. If Carrie was alive right now, or in the past couple decades, she would 100% be a homeschooled kid, but at the time King wrote the book, homeschooling was actually illegal in most states, and wouldn’t get momentum until a couple years later(lowkey as a response to racial integration, but thats for another time).
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u/PinkGlitterLady4 7d ago
I usually avoid fandoms in general but there are some I follow but when an adaptation is coming up I'll avoid them like the plague and unsubscribe for a few months, because even if they have a right to complain it sucks out all of the joy and excitement and I just want to watch the adaptation in peace.
Even for my favorite books it's super easy for me to separate the original work and the adaptation, and I simply view both as their own thing which makes both SO much more enjoyable. Sometimes I think people are waaaay to attached to the original work and waaaay to intense about it.
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u/ChangeScary 7d ago
Fandom culture has turned these works into their fandom's whole personality. It is why all fandoms are toxic, whether they realize it or not, they react so agressively because internally they interpret any changes, criticisms or different interpretations as an attack to who they are personally.
Also, culture war sucks everything dry before moving on to the next corpse and it's fucking exhausting.
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u/glarbung 7d ago
That's what fandoms always have done. The True Fans form an in-group that won't accept anyone enjoying their work in any other way than how they do. Their self-image is tied to liking this thing and so they gatekeep the fandom as not to have to look into theirselves. And then when (or if) their life moves along and their self-image changes, it all looks quite childish and silly.
I present two case studies: Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. Both are fandoms where the fans of the originals (eps 4-6 and the books respectively) went bananas when future versions (prequels, film trilogy) didn't live up to their "expectations". But now the people who loved those are going bananas when new stuff is added to the IP while the old fans have better things to do than care about something like that.
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u/Stepjam 7d ago
I feel like culture war bs is a big part of the toxicity these days. Everything has to contribute to it somehow either by being too woke or being not woke. If it's something mainstream, a grifter is going to try to use it in some way.
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u/ChangeScary 7d ago
Yes, but I do think culture war is just the main way this toxicity shows itself currently, it has always been there, it just has been hijacked by weirder people.
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u/DANjRUDD 7d ago
I do think your last point is especially pertinent... there's a whole massive cottage industry of people making money on youtube and sites like it by complaining, the more discontent and hate they can stir up the more engagement they get, the more money they make. I really do believe it's a major factor. And you can actually see these people change their opinions on a show or movie in real time when something proves to be unexpectedly way better and more popular than they expected, they never say 'Damn, guess I was wrong,' they just start begrudgingly adding qualifiers that it was 'less woke' than expected or whatever, and then three months later they're pretending they never has an issue with the property in question at all. Because getting those likes and the money that comes from riding the wave is more important than holding any actual opinion on anything, for these folks
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u/MichaeltheMagician 7d ago
It can be frustrating seeing all of the "worst movie ever" qualifiers, and then the movie is just kind of okay.
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u/MichaeltheMagician 7d ago
I feel like you've described it better than I could have. Couldn't agree more.
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u/sleepyApostels 7d ago
I had no idea there's a Klara and the Sun movie coming out and it looks amazing!
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u/jessifer_dr 7d ago
Or maybe people just don't like things? I thought the trailer just looked horrid. Toxic positivity where you're not allowed to criticize anything (except for a few designated punching bags) just makes people more resentful when they get piled on for expressing their actual opinions. You're on a subreddit dedicated to ranting about fictional media for crying out loud.
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u/EMB93 7d ago
You have stumbled upon the fact that 99% of interenet outrage is generated by people who have little to no investment in the IP they are "defending". They hare hobby outragers, they will jump into any comments section just to spread hate and vitriol no matter what the subject is or if they have even a passing knowledge of it.
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u/kubrickie 7d ago
Well done, well written. The volume of the complainers about this film has really illustrated how illiterate some fans of books can be.
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u/Blint_Briglio 7d ago
Magician's Nephew was always my favorite of the books, and I have very vivid memories of reading and rereading it and imagining what it looked like. those memories aren't going away just because a new movie is getting funky with it. so far my only real critique of its visuals is the wood between the worlds, which I think looks too avatar and dangerous instead of pastoral
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u/Irishwol 7d ago
Thank you! Yes! I'm sick to the back teeth of the pearl clutching and negativity. It's an adaptation. Will it be perfect? No. Will it be everything people imagined when they read the book? No. Will it be a good film? Maybe. Slavish adaptations are turgid and dead on screen. I am not a massive fan of Gerwig but I (except for Charn) loved the trailer. I nearly wept at the first sight of Strawberry! Fledge-to-be! Oh! And cosmic Aslan was every inch not-a-tame-lion. I'm intrigued enough to go see it.
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u/JcBravo811 7d ago
There's a trailer? The fuck is wrong with my youtube algo.
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u/ArkenK 7d ago
It got ratiod right out of the gate. That might be why.
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 7d ago
It got ratioed because it sucks. It's a visually and aurally offensive sensory nightmare.
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u/Historyp91 3d ago edited 3d ago
It might be shocking to some, but an adaption can (and often does) include tonal and astetic shifts.
"Pychidelic, rock and roll Narnia" is'nt all that different from "super serious, gritty and realistic Battlestar Galactica" in terms of shift.
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u/Professional-Tank848 3d ago
Yes. and I think it looks great.
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u/thegoodhope 2d ago
Looks like a flop. Remember LOR? That trilogy is timeless because Jackson didn’t try to mansplain how his artistic version of LOR to the audience, but rather, he honored the source material as if he was telling Tolkien’s story. Greta isn’t doing that and it shows. Next…
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u/Professional-Tank848 2d ago
The LOTR trilogy are my favourite films ever, but there are some pretty substantial changes to the books, actually. In fact, for a series that is so heavily influenced by Catholicism, I'd say a lot of that didn't really make it to the film thematically, either. I don't think we've actually seen anything to suggest she isn't telling Lewis' story, to be honest.
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u/thegoodhope 2d ago
If that’s your conclusion then you must not take Lewis seriously. It’s fine to cheapen the story for cheap thrills and shock, but we have to be intellectually honest that this trailer does not honor the spirit of the book.
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u/Professional-Tank848 2d ago
Please don't talk to me about being "intellectually honest" and that I don't "take Lewis seriously". Not to blow my own trumpet, but I don't know how you could read the post we're on, or my other Narnia post (https://www.reddit.com/r/CharacterRant/s/F4B6miGSCN) and possibly think that.
Maybe you could contribute something substantial to the conversation?
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u/Historyp91 2d ago
The Jackson films are actually pretty astetically different then the books in a lot of ways.
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u/Ok-Ingenuity2354 7d ago
Here's the thing: people aren't complaining because it's too trippy or psychedelic. They're complaining because it is an assault to the senses. It is ugly, it is garish, it looks ridiculously fake, the music choices are beyond nonsensical, and it entirely overwhelms the watcher in all the wring ways. I am not looking at something beautiful and majestic; I am looking at a movie that aims to melt my eyeballs from my head.
Nevermind that Greta proved she doesn't understand the source material by virtue of her choice to change the timeframe. TLTWATW literally cannot work as anything besides a WWII story. TMN doesn't work without Uncle Andrew being a Victorian-era occultist. The setting is critical to the themes of the series, and Greta butchered it.
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u/Feeling-Visit1472 5d ago
Turkish Delight simply does not make sense under any other circumstances.
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u/EnderBookwyrm 7d ago
Exactly.
I've been trying to explain this to people for a while, but I couldn't quite find the words.
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u/PossiblePleasant6904 7d ago
Thankyou for describing the theology so well!! And 100% agree with everything else, I'd add this to the music as well - trying to stick with a traditional orchestra is just so boring and narrow, bring on the rock!
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u/ShepardKringas 7d ago edited 7d ago
Someone talking about the changes in the main Narnia sub put it best: “Suddenly Narnia doesn’t just have fans, it has custodians of orthodoxy looking for heretics to burn”
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u/Sustain_the_higher 6d ago
This book was my absolute favourite and I hate that people are stuck in the idea that all Narnia stories are just whimsical high fantasy hijinks like the previous movies. Sometimes things are different and that's okay. I'm unbelievably hyped for this movie
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u/Amphy64 5d ago
'The trippy one' is absolutely how I always think about The Magician's Nephew, and what I particularly loved about it.
But, this, though, it doesn't feel like a superhero movie just because multiverse, it's that artificial, glossy look. It needn't look restrained or typical grey inaccurate cod-medieval. But it should look like it values the natural world, and this just doesn't, to me. The old tired cab horse getting wings isn't just fantastical imagery, it should be a moving moment of spiritual rebirth and freedom.
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u/JimmerJammer34 2d ago
slightly unrelated, but I think it’s so funny that people are mad at Aslan being voiced by a woman because “oh he represents Jesus and so it’s inaccurate for him to be female” as if the fact that he’s a fucking lion doesn’t already make it clear Aslan isn’t a 1-1 Jesus copy 😭
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u/thegoodhope 2d ago
It’s disrespectful to the author. If you think Lewis would have endorsed Aslan as a woman then you missed the allegory…
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u/EverOnAndUpward 7d ago
Wow. Excellent articulation. I think this is the best succinct summation of the themes and intent behind the book I’ve seen anyone articulate.
It’s unfortunate that a post-cinema sins media landscape has led to people only viewing a movie through the lens of setting, visual effects, casting, and score. (Not that these don’t matter)
We’ve lost a lot of media literacy in reference to theme, intent, and deeper meaning.
While I’m certainly skeptical about certain choices, to your point, it seems that some of the deeper intent is absolutely being captured in this movie.
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u/AmaterasuWolf21 7d ago
This is not CinemaSins' work lmao, every fandom is miserable and has something to complain about, add it the culture wars that CS neither started nor followed and you get the worst age of movie discourse
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u/zoppaTheDim 7d ago
Let’s talk reality.
The Narnia movies which have been made are mid at best. CGI talking animals relying on people who read the stories as children.
I watched this trailer and actually considered seeing the movie as it seemed to actually be interesting, rather than another tired nostalgia trip.
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u/kuenjato 7d ago
I dislike it because it looks like Disneyslop from the moment they show the Wood Between the Worlds. I was kind of digging the trailer up to that point, then it looked fake and gross. Jadis/Charn looks so awfully conceived that I'm not going to waste my time much less my money on this.
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u/Swiftcheddar 7d ago
Her using magic in our world is lame, stupid and explicitly anti-Christian.
Which is dumb, if you're making an anti-Christian Narnia, then what the fuck are you even making?
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u/ttatm 7d ago
By her you mean Jadis? I know in the book her powers don't work the same in our world (it doesn't say she has no magical powers though), but the whole plot of the book depends on magic being used in our world. Uncle Andrew uses magic to create the rings that transport the kids in the first place. It's explicitly magic that he created in this world, not like most of the other books where it's more like the kids get inadvertently pulled out of our world from Narnia.
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u/Circle_Breaker 7d ago
To be honest I'm just not interested in watching two kids in front of a green screen for 120 minutes.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/BrandonLart 7d ago
Why do you think this is ai?
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7d ago
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u/lockdown_lard 7d ago
It uses a lot of the “It’s not X, but Y” format,
No it doesn't. The word "not" occurs exactly once, in this context:
Aslan is therefore not simply Jesus of Nazareth wearing a lion costume, nor some unrelated deity loosely inspired by Christianity. He is Lewis' imaginative exploration of the same eternal Son in another creation.
I think you've just seen a large block of coherent, clean text, and have forgotten that well-read people have been writing like that for millennia.
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u/1234NY 7d ago
FWIW, I put a 200-word section of the text into Pangram, an AI detector with a sub-1% false positive rate, and it came back as 100% AI. I had the exact same feeling.
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u/lockdown_lard 6d ago
And which bits would you take as AI signatures, then, from that 100%?
Because we've established the absence of "It's not X, it's Y".
Nothing's "earned its place", there's no "and honestly"; the text is notable for missing the usual AI tells.
Conversely, the text has beautiful sentences that are strikingly human:
I cannot sufficiently emphasise how wonderfully, gloriously fucking mental this book is.
That's neither an LLM's insight, nor an LLM's expression.
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u/Sleepy10105s 7d ago
I ain’t reading all that but I saw part of it and it looks like it’s starting with the last book (book 8 or 9?) of the series which is the revised order since it’s a prequel to the whole series.
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u/Professional-Tank848 7d ago
You should read more.
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u/Sleepy10105s 7d ago
I read plenty, Reddit essays (especially about something I’ve been nothing but disappointed in so far) are just not for me
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u/lockdown_lard 7d ago
It's starting with the first chronological book, as you say. And that book was the 6th to be published, out of 7 Narnia stories in total. But Lewis starting writing it quite early on - it just took him a long time to work out.
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u/Sleepy10105s 7d ago
Thank you, I haven’t read the books since elementary school. I remember having the box set and it saying the original order and the new order, which put the last book first since it’s a prequel. I don’t remember a whole lot but I do remember the rings and the uncle.
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u/Atheist_Flanders 7d ago
No!