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Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Chronicles of Narnia, The: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Blu-ray) (2005)

Chronicles of Narnia, The: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Blu-ray) (2005)

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Released 4-Jun-2008

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Fantasy Featurette-Bloopers
Informational Subtitles-Discover Narnia Fun Facts
Audio Commentary-Production Team
Audio Commentary-Andrew Adamson (Director) And Stars
Game-Battle for Narnia
Featurette-Creating Narnia
Featurette-Creatures, Lands and Legends
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 2005
Running Time 142:51
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Andrew Adamson
Studio
Distributor
Walden Media
Walt Disney Studios Home Ent.
Starring Georgie Henley
Skandar Keynes
William Moseley
Anna Popplewell
Tilda Swinton
James McAvoy
Jim Broadbent
Kiran Shah
James Cosmo
Judy McIntosh
Elizabeth Hawthorne
Patrick Kake
Shane Rangi
Case ?
RPI $49.95 Music Tim Finn
Harry Gregson-Williams
Imogen Heap


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Linear PCM 48/16 5.1 (4608Kb/s)
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Swedish Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Norwegian Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Danish Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Polish Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Icelandic Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Finnish Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.40:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 1080p
Original Aspect Ratio 2.40:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    To coincide with the June cinema release of Prince Caspian, the original Narnia film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has been released in high definition. Until Harry Potter, C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia were the best selling fantasy books. But despite their success, the Narnia books remain deeply controversial, having been dismissed as being merely haphazardly written, Christian propaganda, and also widely criticised for Lewis' apparent racism and sexism. Perhaps because of this, it took over half a century before The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe made it to the big screen. Ultimately, the result is disappointing - an uneven film, which often appears rushed and lacking cohesion. I imagine this first Narnia film will be enjoyed by most children, but it will also leave many adults feeling unsatisfied. That noted, according to Disney, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is one of their most highly anticipated high definition titles, and I'm happy to report that the quality of the Blu-ray discs are excellent.

    Clive Staples ("Jack") Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898. A prolific and popular author, he lived most of his life in England. A bookish bachelor who preferred the company of males, Lewis did not marry until he was nearly 60, and died of osteoporosis, shortly after in 1963.

    Lewis and his older brother were brought up by their father, following his mother's untimely death when he was just nine. Educated at home for three years, Lewis read many, many books as a child, and he particularly favoured those filled with fantasy, such as Norse myths. He is remembered for being a very creative child, and he started writing his own fantasy stories very early in life.

   Considered to be a well-read and very scholarly young man, Lewis graduated from University College, Oxford, in 1923. His love of reading and books in general led him to become an English tutor at Oxford. A position he held for nearly thirty years (1925-54). Following this, he was to become a professor of Medieval and Renaissance English at Cambridge University.

    Along with his university friends and colleagues, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams, Lewis formed a literary group called The Inklings, which held lunch time discussions of books that held their interest. It was here that both Tolkien and Lewis discussed ideas for their fantasy novels. It is also during this time that it is believed that the strongly committed Catholic, Tolkien, interested Lewis into returning to Christianity. A decision that was to influence Lewis' later works, such as The Chronicles of Narnia, which until J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, were to become the best-selling fantasy series.

    Many of Lewis' detractors, such as Philip Pullman, the best-selling children's fantasy author of the trilogy, His Dark Materials, have dismissed The Chronicles of Narnia as being merely badly written, Christian propaganda. But in Of Other Worlds, Lewis denied the books were inspired by Christianity: "Some people seem to think that . . . (I) 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. It all began with images; a faun carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion. At first there wasn't anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord."

    Of note, Pullman himself has his share of critics: His best-selling novel, Northern Lights, which was recently made into the film, The Golden Compass, has been widely accused of being anti-Christian, and anti-religion, with its obvious attacks on organized religion and a plotline featuring a central church authority which seeks to control free-will and stifle scientific research and thought.

    However, it is not just Lewis' Christian evangelism aimed at children that bother some readers. Throughout his life, Lewis made a number of derogatory comments about both women and people he saw as "foreigners", such as Muslims. In Lewis' Narnia, girls almost always come second to boys, and there is not a single positive female supernatural figure in any of the books. The positive supernatural figures, and great leaders, in Narnia, are always male. Furthermore, clearly in reference to his dislike of Muslim people, Lewis was happy to employ racial stereotypes. For example, in The Horse and His Boy, turban-wearing, dark-skinned people called Calormenes, who live in a desert south of Narnia, are cruel and ignorant, and threatening to invade, and destroy Narnia. These desert people are referred to as "darkies", and just about everything about their ethnicity, including their love of "oily and garlic" food is attacked by Lewis in his book.

    Personally, I have no problem with Lewis' Christian allegories, and while I doubt these children's books would be published today in their current form, I do not view his work as any more sexist or racist than a number of other popular children's books, especially those written before the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

    However, I do object to Lewis' crude mixing of various myths, derived from other sources. For example, apart from all the Christian mythology, in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there are a variety of mythological creatures ranging from the traditional giants, dwarfs, ogres, mermaids, dragons, sea monsters, wizards, and witches, to the fauns, satyrs, dryads, naiads, minotaurs, unicorns, and centaurs taken from Greek mythology; then on top of this, we have armies of talking animals, and even Santa Claus in his sleigh drawn by reindeer. Santa, let alone a Santa that arrives to hand out weapons as Christmas gifts to children, is so completely out of place in this story, that his appearance is like fingernails down a chalk board. I recall that his appearance in the book even made me cringe as a child, when I first read the story.

    Interestingly, despite their long friendship, Tolkien, who had spent decades planning his complex and coherent world in The Lord of the Rings books - its geography, history, botany, and languages, apparently hated The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, describing it as "carelessly put together out of mismatched scraps".

    As with the Star Wars films, there is a difference between the books' release dates, and the chronological order of the story.

Published in the following order, The Chronicles of Narnia are:

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
2. Prince Caspian (1951)
3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952)
4. The Silver Chair (1953)
5. The Horse and His Boy (1954)
6. The Magicians Nephew (1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)

The chronological order of the story, however, is:

1. The Magicians Nephew
2. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
3. The Horse and His Boy
4. Prince Caspian
5. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle

    In a letter to a young fan, published in Letters to Children, Lewis expressed a preference for readers enjoying his books in their chronological order. As he explained in his letter, "the series was not planned beforehand . . . When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found as I was wrong".

    Interestingly, Walden Media has optioned all seven of Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia books, and while Disney has made no firm commitment to producing the entire series of Narnia adventures beyond the first two films, it seems that Disney and Walden Media have opted to produce the films in their own order, depending on their financial success. Prince Caspian is about to be released in cinemas, but I seriously doubt The Horse and His Boy will ever make it to the big screen.

    As for the plot, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe follows the magical adventures of the four Pevensie children: Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skander Keynes), Peter (William Moseley), and Susan (Anna Popplewell).

    The Pevensie children are sent to live with an eccentric Professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent), in a large old country house during the WWII Blitz, when Germany was raining bombs down on London. Bored, one afternoon the children play a game of hide and seek. Lucy hides in a large wardrobe, and finds that it is a magical doorway to the fantasy land of Narnia.

    Once in Narnia, Lucy meets a fawn, Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy), who warns her about the evil, ruling White Witch (Tilda Swinton), and the struggles in this mystic land.

    Travelling back home through the wardrobe, Lucy is to later return to Narnia with all her siblings. Once there, the Pevensie children find themselves in the midst of a battle for control of Narnia, where the forces of good are lead by a talking lion, the Christ-like Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson).

    While I imagine most children will enjoy Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, older viewers who have been treated to the brilliant Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter films, will probably find Narnia to be lacking in many areas. Directed by Kiwi, Andrew Adamson (of Shrek fame), it is an uneven film, which often appears rushed and lacking cohesion. It's often overly simplistic and even cartoonish one moment, and then heavy-handed, or far too contrived the next. Perhaps the worst thing I can say about the film, is that at times I found it far too slow and boring, and that I never felt personally involved with the characters, or their story.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    Visually, Narnia is stunning. There are many epic scenes in this film, such as the final battle, and some very beautiful photography by Donald M. McAlpine. Fortunately, the BD's high definition transfer is truly wonderful, and noticeably more detailed than the DVD's transfer.

    However, despite coming out of some the same New Zealand SFX workshops and studios that did such a brilliant job with The Lord of the Rings films, Narnia lacks the same degree of technical polish. Three different companies worked on  the visual effects concurrently, Rhythm & Hues Studios, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Industrial Light & Magic, and small glitches in the special effects pop up frequently, giving the film an unfinished look. Perhaps the biggest problem is that some of the main characters, such as the CGI Aslan and the CGI Beavers, never look real. They appear far too soft and cartoonish when composited with the live action characters and backgrounds. Of course this fault lies in the source material, but seems even more noticeable when viewed in high definition.

    Furthermore, Narnia opens with a WWII Blitz sequence that looks more like a video game, rather than a feature film. It is far too soft, lacks definition, and is sharply contrasted by the live action scenes that follow it. While the compositing is generally good, the uneven special effects work, particularly in the area of CGI, plague Narnia throughout its running time. The effects vary from looking absolutely wonderful, to looking downright cheap and hurried.

    Shot on Super 35, and released with a theatrical ratio of 2.39:1, the 1080p/VC-1 encoded transfer is beautifully presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.40:1, in a native 16x9 frame.

    As one should expect with a high definition transfer, the sharpness of the live action scenes is great. The sharpness of the BD's transfer is noticeably better than that of the DVD's. For example, with the high definition transfer, consider the detailed shots of the dense forest at 29:47 and 46:52. The black level and shadow detail of the live action content is also excellent throughout.

    Colour is an important part of the story telling, as Narnia's "eternal winter" changes to Spring. The colour was excellent on the original DVD, showing off the film's locations, costumes, animals, and armour. The high definition transfer also exhibits a well-saturated palette of colours, and the skin tones of the actors are accurate.

    This is a well-authored disc, and there are no problems with MPEG artefacts. There are also no problems with Film-To-Video Artefacts, such as aliasing or telecine wobble. A pristine print was used for the transfer, and I never spotted any film artefacts. Some edge enhancement is noticeable from time to time, but considering the vast amount of green screen work in this film, this appearance might actually lie in the source material.

    There are a number of subtitle streams provided, and the English ones are accurate.

    This is a BD-50 (50 GB) disc. The feature is divided into 24 chapters.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Originally released theatrically with dts, SDDS, and Dolby Digital audio, the audio options on the DVD are: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), and Czech, Hungarian, and Slovak dubs, and two audio commentaries. The audio options on the BD are: English Uncompressed Linear PCM audio encoded at 4.6 Mbps, English 5.1 Dolby Digital encoded at 640 Kb/s, as well as Svenska, Norsk, Dansk, Suomi, Polski, and Islenska 5.1 Dolby Digital dubs, all encoded at 640 Kb/s. There are also two audio commentaries.

    As mentioned above, the BD's Linear Pulse Code Modulation (Linear PCM) audio is encoded at 4.6 Mbps. Linear PCM is not necessarily lossless, but the higher the sampling-rate and the bit-depth, the closer the LPCM audio is to the original recording. Although LPCM is supported by the DVD standard, it is very rarely used because it requires such a high bit rate, which takes up valuable disc space. But with dual-layer BD's enjoying 50 GB of disc space, movies on BD can take advantage of uncompressed PCM as an audio option.

    While I have never been a fan of talking animals in films, I must admit that the dialogue quality and audio sync are generally excellent on the default English audio track. As you can imagine, there is a lot of ADR work in Narnia, and some times the use of looped dialogue is noticeable, but it was never distracting.

    Narnia features a sweeping orchestral musical score credited to Tim Finn, Harry Gregson-Williams, and Imogen Heap. There are a number of character-based themes, and the score works quite well, in underlining the drama on screen.

    Narnia has an excellent sound design, and as with the DVD, the surround presence and activity is immersive and impressive. The surround sound mix is very aggressive, and the rear speakers are used throughout to help carry the score and to provide ambience. There are also a few rear directional effects, such as panning between speakers, which adds spatially to the cacophony of the battle scenes. As I have noticed with other BDs, there is also a very noticeable improvement in the clarity of the sound in the rear speakers.

    The subwoofer is also utilised very effectively to support the film's many sound effects throughout.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    Narnia has been released as a two-disc Blu-ray edition, with plenty of extras.

Floating Pop-Up Menu

    As with other BDs, the menu can be accessed while the film is playing.

Disc One

The Bloopers of Narnia (4:36)

    Featuring letterboxed clips from the film, we see some behind the scenes bloopers, which mostly consist of the cast forgetting or fluffing their lines, and the odd accident, such as a cast member tripping over. The behind the scenes footage highlights the extensive green screen work in the film. This extra is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby Digital stereo audio.

Discover Narnia Fun Facts

    Introduced by Douglas Gresham, a stepson of CS Lewis and one of the film's co-producers, selecting this option allows the viewer to see a series of Informational Subtitles, which pop up onscreen throughout the film.

Audio Commentary 1 - Production Team

    Director Andrew Adamson is joined by Production Designer, Roger Ford, and Producer, Mark Johnson, for a screen specific commentary that focuses more on the technical elements of the film, although they do discuss the film's structure and story at times. There is some discussion of the film's many visual effects, and the changes made to the original story. They also point out some cameo voices, provided by the crew.

Audio Commentary 2 - Andrew Adamson (Director) And Stars

    In the second commentary, Director Andrew Adamson, is joined by the child stars, Georgie Henley, Skander Keynes, William Moseley, and Anna Popplewell, for a chatty and light-hearted, screen-specific commentary. There are a few anecdotes throughout, and the children share their views on the finished film.

Disc Two

Battle for Narnia

    A BD-Java-enabled kids' game of "skill and strategy" to defeat the white witch.

Creating Narnia

    This extra is a collection of featurettes which look at a number of different aspects of the film, and is divided into the following chapters:

Creatures, Lands and Legends

    This extra has two sections, Creatures of the World and Explore Narnia, which provide more information about the characters and geography of Narnia in an interactive manner.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    Narnia was also released as a two-disc BD edition in the US, and their version seems to have the same content as our discs, except theirs contains a number of theatrical trailers as well.

Summary

    Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is an uneven film, which will be enjoyed by most children, but I imagine it will leave many adults disappointed.

The video quality of the high definition transfer is excellent, but the sharpness of the image suffers at times due to the visual effects in the source material.

The audio quality is excellent and very immersive.

The extras are plentiful and genuine.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Brandon Robert Vogt (warning: bio hazard)
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Review Equipment
DVDSony Playstation 3 (HDMI 1.3) with Upscaling, using HDMI output
DisplayPanasonic High Definition 50' Plasma (127 cm). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
AmplificationSamsung Pure Digital 6.1 AV Receiver (HDMI 1.3)
SpeakersSamsung

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