In a recent interview on Faith Radio, Bob Crittenden asked me what has come to be the defining question on the upcoming film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Can Christians trust Disney to faithfully deliver Lewis’ book to the silver screen?
It is not hard to understand the persistence of that question. On the one hand, Christians are intensely protective of The Chronicle of Narnia — a beloved series shared by generations of readers. On the other, Disney has a habit of taking famous fairy tales and twisting them into crowd-pleasing films — often by eviscerating them of their original intent or infusing them with modern sensibilities foreign to their creators. One need only read The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Andersen, or look at the tales of Hercules or Tarzan and compare them with the films to recognize the difference. Few would deny that the Disney brand has a long history of making family-friendly blockbusters, but strict faithfulness to the text has not always been high on their priority list.
Still, I have great hope that the version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will ring true to the novel because of the production company behind it, the promises being made, and the sheer folly of getting it wrong.
The Walden Connection
Much is made of the Disney label attached to Narnia. Fortunately, the answer to the “trust” question does not have to rely on Disney, but on the production company, Walden Media. With the exception of Around the World in Eighty Days (a fun, but unfaithful romp), Walden Media enjoys, and deserves, its outstanding reputation for its adaptations of children’s books.
It is nearly impossible to reproduce a novel on the screen. Some things cannot be imaged — a character’s thought processes, for example, are notoriously difficult — and often the complexity of the text overwhelms the 90-120 minute time constraints of the cinema. Nevertheless, if you saw Because of Winn-Dixie earlier this year, you witnessed how fully Walden Media can put a book on the screen. Walden wants to make films that cause children to read books — it is their stated aim. If they could not get the story right, their credibility with the target audience of their mission statement — educators — would be at risk. They will do their best to deliver.
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