On Moses' Savior and Aslan's Actor

Several years ago, I watched the first Harry Potter movie with my son...

I complained about it for a week: it wasn't true to the book, the drama was underplayed, some of the scenes were just horribly wrong... 

So, as you can imagine, when some time later I metioned to my wife that perhaps I should watch "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," just to see how it was done, my wife absolutely forbade it. After all, if it took a week of complaining about Harry Potter, can you imagine how long I would complain about "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"?

She was right, of course, and to this day, I have never seen those movies. 

So, when the news came out that Netflix was going to take its turn in transforming the Chronicles into movies, I didn't think much of it - I wasn't going to watch them anyway. But there's lots of news about these movies and some of the latest news got me thinking as to what would make a good movie.

In truth, there is a book much more important than any of the Chronicles parts of which have been turned into movies several times. Of course, I refer to the bible itself. And it happens that, despite some diregard to the biblical narrative, I really loved The Prince of Egypt. The reason, I think, is that mostly the changes were superficial, Moses being lifted from the water by Pharoah's wife instead of daughter. The whole part of Tzipporah in Egypt and being offered as a wife to Ramses. I'm not quite sure why those changes were made, but it did not at all appear to be an attack on the source material, the bible. 

In fact, in some ways, making a movie of the bible is easier than making a movie about a book. Biblical stories are generally short, lacking explicit detail, and even internal emotion of the characters. Prince of Egypt capitalizes on this in portraying the evolving relationship between Moses and Ramses, inventing how Moses learned he was a Hebrew, and giving some time to Moses long stint in Midian. And of course, the bible is not a musical so there aren't that many songs.

Nonetheless, adding in these details can cause harm should they counter the main themes of the particular biblical story, somehow unmoor the story from the rest of biblical history, or undermine the biblical view of ethics and morality. For example, a vindictive Moses showing scorn to Pharoah as the Egyptian economy is deciamated, an authoritarian Moses chastising the Hebrews who question whether he in an emissary of God, a triumphalist Moses ridiculing Ramses as he is thrashing in the sea could have been inserted into the movie without violence to the biblical story. But doing so would have sharply violated Judeo-Christian ethics and morals and thus undermined the movie. I don't think the movie did that. Quite the opposite I think the details enhanced ethical and moral lessons of the story. But, there still is a lot of leeway in filling in those details. 

The Narnian stories are much more detailed than the biblical ones. That means there's a lot more materital that, if changed, can be regarded as blasphemous in the eyes of the viewers. It also can raise questions as to what is important in the stories themselves. For example, Lucy is clearly described as "golden-haired" in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Yet, I didn't hear any complaints that her hair was brown in the most recent movie. Now, in truth I might say Lucy's golden hair is not coincidental, but that it reflects Lucy's servitude to Aslan whose mane, fur, back, and even voice are described as golden throughout the Chronicles.   

Now, I'm not trying to make the color of Lucy's hair a complaint. I am simply noting that with more details come more potential changes from book to movie, and therefore more room for people to criticize changes in what they regard as integral to the books. 

So, the first step of a director transforming a book into a movie is to identify what is fundamental and what is not. What is important in the Chronicles of Narnia? 

As with the biblical stories, this question must resonate on a number of levels. There is the integrity of the story in front of us, the newest one being The Magician's Nephew, how that particular story fits in with the other Chronicles (and, being a prequel, this is most important), and a fidelity to the morals and and ethics of the story's source. And here, in this last level, is where most of the drama in the directing of the movie will take place. 

One can, in fact, forget the Christian allegory of the Chronicles. One need not be a Christian, or even a theist, to enjoy the stories. But it is difficult to imagine that one who does not have a basic working knowledge of Christianity and at least respects the values it represents can fully appreciate the stories for what they are. Thus, ignoring the Christianity of the Chronicles will fundamentally undermine the stories, making them less faithful to their original, less important to their audience, and, at the end, less enjoyable as a story.