Rating: Summary: Harrah for the BBC ! Review: The BBC may not have had the budget available to them to produce this on the same level as say a "Merlin", but it did the best it could with what it had. These shows are wonderful and enchanting. They are also faithful to the books although I would have like to have seen "Prince Caspian" and "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" done as two separate shows. The show features well known Brit actor Samuel West ("Iris" and A&E's "Longitude" and "Jane Eyre") as the young adult Prince Caspian. It is a must see for Narnia fans
Rating: Summary: The imagination is better in this case Review: The idea was great, but unfortunately the casting was not in many cases. The children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe were too similar looking in age. Not enough distinction in their sizes and mannerisms. Good White Witch, but she overshadowed the others due to weaker casting. The fantasy characters would have been better if they had been done as a stage production with people in costume instead of the cartooning. Sometimes, a movie lives up to the book, but in this case, it's more fun to just imagine the world of Narnia and the characters who dwell there.
Rating: Summary: C.S. Lewis is a genius! Review: The reason I am giving this DVD 5 stars is because I love the way C.S. Lewis puts these chronicles and tells them as if he were telling about Heaven and Hell, especially Book 2, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I even found out that he was practicing to be a Christian at the time he wrote "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
Rating: Summary: there is news Review: there is new news on the chronicles of narnia that it is said that when the trilegy of the lord of the rings is fineshed being relesed that the drecter is going to start making the hole chronicl in move thes comes form a study that i did on C. S. Lewis on tee web a study that took me three month to do
Rating: Summary: Great production, for teens Review: These are great movies of classic fantasy books with a Christian influence. ("The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" is a retelling of the story of Jesus, the betrayal, the crucifiction, and the resurrection in a magical kingdom of Narnia.)
The only downside, which may not be all that bad, is that they can be slow paced at times and do not have great special effects. As such, they perhaps do not warrant the full-production price tag.
Rating: Summary: Old Favorite Review: These are wonderful tales, I grew up on them and now at 22 I look back with a great deal of fondness. They are great for a cold rainy day to watch them straight through. Wonderful tales, perfect for all ages.
Rating: Summary: Great for now Review: these dvd's just leave you kind of hanging, but its okay. I believe the only reason that we don't see all of the books on dvd is because production and costs would have cost too much in the time these dvd's were created. It shows in the cartoon demons and griffins and monsters that are everywhere. Sometimes i wish NBC or some big network would do the thing for a pretty long miniseries. There has to be some following in the United States for Narnia. until then, you have to settle for the best the BBC could offer.
Rating: Summary: Great for hard-core Narnia fans and not much of anyone else. Review: These movies obviously suffered from an unrealistically low budget. Additionally, in my opinion they tended to follow the books far too closely, which made them very slow-paced. The exception is Prince Caspian, where the pace is no quicker, but they cut out more than two thirds of the material and combined it with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in a single movie. These movies are also very sanitized. In Prince Caspian it seems that this was intentional, as the battle scenes lack any realism, and the subplot with the tree spirits, Bacchus, etc., has been completely removed. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is sanitized basically due to budget constraints, because it's impossible to feel any fear at the death of Aslan when half the evil creatures around him are hand-painted cartoons. Of the three movies, I think that only The Silver Chair is much good, and that is mostly because Tom Baker as Puddleglum steals the show. He is funny, deep, and powerful, all at the same time--it's comparable in many ways to Johnny Depp's performance in Pirates of the Carribean. Camilla Power as Jill also makes it a better movie, since she was the only child actor in the series who could actually act; and Richard Henders as Prince Rillian gives an outstanding performance as well. The Silver Chair is perhaps further helped by the fact that we only have to endure about fifteen or twenty minutes of humans in animal costumes, while they are present throughout the other two movies. Such costumes work great in a well-done stage performance, but look absolutely silly on screen. All hard-core Narnia fans should own these movies. Unfortunately, it's not because they're especially good, but rather because they're a piece of Narnia.
Rating: Summary: Great for hard-core Narnia fans and not much of anyone else. Review: These movies obviously suffered from an unrealistically low budget. Additionally, in my opinion they tended to follow the books far too closely, which made them very slow-paced. The exception is Prince Caspian, where the pace is no quicker, but they cut out more than two thirds of the material and combined it with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in a single movie. These movies are also very sanitized. In Prince Caspian it seems that this was intentional, as the battle scenes lack any realism, and the subplot with the tree spirits, Bacchus, etc., has been completely removed. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is sanitized basically due to budget constraints, because it's impossible to feel any fear at the death of Aslan when half the evil creatures around him are hand-painted cartoons. Of the three movies, I think that only The Silver Chair is much good, and that is mostly because Tom Baker as Puddleglum steals the show. He is funny, deep, and powerful, all at the same time--it's comparable in many ways to Johnny Depp's performance in Pirates of the Carribean. Camilla Power as Jill also makes it a better movie, since she was the only child actor in the series who could actually act; and Richard Henders as Prince Rillian gives an outstanding performance as well. The Silver Chair is perhaps further helped by the fact that we only have to endure about fifteen or twenty minutes of humans in animal costumes, while they are present throughout the other two movies. Such costumes work great in a well-done stage performance, but look absolutely silly on screen. All hard-core Narnia fans should own these movies. Unfortunately, it's not because they're especially good, but rather because they're a piece of Narnia.
Rating: Summary: Classic British product at its best Review: This is a dramatization of four of the seven volumes of children's stories written by C. S. Lewis that have become popular with two generations of adults and children. This series of books is so popular around the world that they have been translated into something like 30 languages. The dramatization stays very closely to the books except for some omissions of scenes which would be expensive to dramatize and do not advance the story. The wicked witch is mundane and almost ugly which is the exact opposite of what Lewis described in his writings about the story. He claimed that evil disguises itself as beauty; otherwise people would not be attracted to it. This does not detract from the story very much. The production quality is superb, including the costumes, casting, music, and special effects. The main theme of the whole series of books is the necessity to be honest, brave, and trustworthy in the face of all odds. Good will triumph in the end even though dark, dangerous times will come before.
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