Chronicles of Narnia, The: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1 Disc) (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Fantasy	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Andrew Adamson (Director) And Stars Audio Commentary-Production Team Outtakes Informational Subtitles-Discover Narnia Fun Facts Easter Egg
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	137:12
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (68:52)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Andrew Adamson
Studio Distributor	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	$39.95	Music	Tim Finn Harry Gregson-Williams Imogen Heap

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Slovak Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.40:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired Czech Hungarian Arabic Croatian Slovenian Serbian Czech Audio Commentary Hungarian Audio Commentary Croatian Audio Commentary Slovenian Audio Commentary Serbian Audio Commentary Czech Audio Commentary Hungarian Audio Commentary Croatian Audio Commentary Slovenian Audio Commentary Serbian Audio Commentary English Information Czech Information Hungarian Information Croatian Information Slovenian Information Serbian Information	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    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 - dismissed as being merely Christian propaganda, and criticised for Lewis' racism and sexism. Perhaps partly because of this, it has taken over half a century for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to make it to the big screen. Ultimately, the result is disappointing - an uneven film, which often appears rushed and lacking cohesion. I imagine Narnia will be enjoyed by most children, but it will also leave many adults feeling unsatisfied.

    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 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. Lewis is remembered for being a very creative child, and he started writing his own fantasy stories very early in life.

   The well-read and scholarly Lewis graduated from University College, Oxford in 1923. His love of reading and books led him to become an English tutor at Oxford, a position he held for nearly thirty years (1925-54). Following this, Lewis 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 in history.

    Many detractors, such as Philip Pullman, the best-selling children's author of the trilogy His Dark Materials, have dismissed The Chronicles of Narnia as being merely 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."

    However, it is not just Lewis' Christian evangelism aimed at children that bothers 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 Nania 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 in the 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 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 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 it.

    Interestingly, despite their 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 the books' release, 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 Magician's Nephew (1955)
7. The Last Battle (1956)

    The chronological order of the story, however, is:

1. The Magician's 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 continuing the series of Narnia adventures beyond this film, it seems that Disney and Walden Media have opted to produce the films in their own order, depending on their financial success. There are some industry rumours that Prince Caspian is already in pre-production, with a 2007 release date. I seriously doubt The Horse and His Boy will ever make it to the big screen.

    As for the story, 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.

    Traveling 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 led 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 simplistic and 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 too slow and boring, and that I never felt personally involved with the characters, or their story.

Video

    Generally speaking, the transfer of the DVD is excellent, and faithful to the look and feel of the film's theatrical print. There are many epic scenes in this film, such as the final battle, and some beautiful photography by Donald M. McAlpine, and I encourage you to view Narnia with a good quality projector if you have the opportunity to do so.

    However, the issue I have with the DVD's video lies in the source material. Despite coming out of some of the same New Zealand workshops 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.

    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 film stock, and released in a theatrical ratio of 2.39:1, the DVD's transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The sharpness of the live action scenes is great. Consider the detailed landscapes at 45:00 and 105:07. The black level and shadow detail of the live action content is also excellent, as can be seen inside the beavers' candle-lit house (dam) at 45:55.

    The colour is excellent throughout, and an important part of the storytelling as Narnia's "eternal winter" changes to Spring. The transfer 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, or film-to-video artefacts. A recent pristine print has been used for the transfer, and film artefacts, such as tiny black or white flecks are very hard to spot. 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: English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Czech, Hungarian, Arabic, Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Czech Audio Commentary, Hungarian Audio Commentary, Croatian Audio Commentary, Slovenian Audio Commentary, Serbian Audio Commentary, Czech Audio Commentary, Hungarian Audio Commentary, Croatian Audio Commentary, Slovenian Audio Commentary, Serbian Audio Commentary, English Information, Czech Information, Hungarian Information, Croatian Information, Slovenian Information, and Serbian Information. The English subtitles are accurate.

    This is a Dual Layer disc, with the layer change placed at 68:52. The feature is divided into 25 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 this DVD are: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), Czech Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s), Slovak Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s), English Audio Commentary 1 Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s), and English Audio Commentary 2 Dolby Digital 1.0 (96Kb/s).

    The default audio track is the English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. As with the recent Harry Potter films, the 5.1 track has been encoded at the inferior 384Kb/s, as opposed to a 448Kb/s 5.1 EX track. Considering that there is no dts track on the DVD, as the R1 consumers get, I find this compromise disappointing.

    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 Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. There is also a lot of ADR work in Narnia, and sometimes 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 the DVD boasts a very immersive surround presence and activity. The surround sound mix is cleverly done, and the rear speakers are used to help carry the score, such as the swelling music at 17:52 and 105:24, which is very effective. A nice touch is that the rears are not only used in the obvious scenes, such as the noisy crowd at 88:10, but also subtly, such as the background ambience in the prison scene at 59:01, or the brewing storm at 10:58. There are also a few rear directional effects, such as panning between speakers, which adds spatially to the cacophony of the battle scenes.

    The subwoofer is also utilized very effectively to support the film's many sound effects, such as the thunder of hooves at 28:39 and 69:25.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

    This review relates to the single disc edition of Narnia, which is identical to the first disc contained within the Two-Disc edition. Obviously the Two-Disc edition has a second disc with many additional featurettes, but in terms of a one disc edition, the extras here are genuine and good.

Menu

    A series of animated menus with Dolby Digital stereo surround encoded audio.

The Bloopers of Narnia (4:24)

    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 surround encoded 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-Andrew Adamson (Director) And Stars

    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. The audio is mono.

Audio Commentary-Production Team

    With the second commentary, 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. Again, the audio is mono.

    Narnia was also released on DVD in Region 1 with the choice of a single or Two-Disc edition.

    In terms of the single disc edition, the Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• English dts 5.1 audio
• Trailers for The Little Mermaid, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Glory Road, Eight Below, Cars, Brother Bear 2, Airbuddies, Lost and Expedition Everest

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• Nothing

    With the option of dts, I would favour the R1.

    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 transfer is excellent, but the sharpness of the image suffers due to the visual effects in the source material.

    The audio quality is excellent and very immersive.

    The extras are genuine and good.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall