Narnia and other stories

[bunn]

The film finally made me realise the reason that I've never quite liked the Narnia books as much as I felt I probably should. There's just too many special effects, the man doesn't know where to stop.

Father Christmas! Talking Beavers! riding unicorns and attack cheetahs and a king lion anna Witch an Centaurs anna Rhino an Magic an Stuff! An they all end up Kings and Queens!

It sort of works in the book, but in the film where you can see the effects, it's like being pelted with huge deadly suffocating marshmallows. (Despite the desperate attempt to make the children seem less posh and more ordinary, which was a nice try but just could not overcome the whole 'lookit him riding a unicorn in his shiny suit' factor.)

I was kind of going with it until we got to the Narnian army, and then it was just like a big bathmat with the words BATH MAT!!! printed on it. Too much.






Big space in case anyone wants to read the first one but not the second. Or viceversa, though that might be harder.







I really liked the new Sarah Jane Smith Adventures trailer, despite the silly Cthulu monsters, the obligatory Stern Lady, and the presence of that daft lad with foolish hair, who was in Hex.

They are clearly trying to make it a children's series, but weirdly it ended up being, I thought, more adult than the endless 'novelty sex of the week' quest of Torchwood.

It had the BEST quote, which I may have to make into an icon: "There are two sorts of people. There are people that panic. And then there's us". Now THERE's a line to live your life by!

It was all about growing up and taking responsibility (and not believing the labels on things), whereas Torchwood seems to be mostly about screwing things up, shouting, and, well, screwing things. And people.

This week's Torchwood novelty sex flavour was repressed 40's homosexual flavour, and also Welsh Special Offer flavour. So, two for the price of one, but I'd really rather they'd left that bit and worked a bit harder on the creepy club manager / caretaker, who seemed to have such promise then just turned out to be an off-the-shelf monster-worshipping nutter.

Comments

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I liked the repressed '40s homosexual flavour. It was repressed and doomed! They'll have me writing slash next.

Missed Sarah Jane Smith except for the obligatory sermon 'Aren't Humans Wonderful, Part 452'. (Even Jack's sermon annoyed me. If I were living every night like it was my last, I'd stay up late and not go to work in the morning, and presently I would lose my job.) But Bilis was wonderfully creepy, wasn't he!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

The very thought of slash Torchwood makes me quail. What on earth could you slash it with that isn't already in there???

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Er, crossover Buffyverse? Seeing as the Rift is a big ol' Hellmouth and Abaddon was clearly the end-of-season Big Bad, the characters would have a lot to talk about ;-)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I would have liked the repressed 40s homosexual flavour, had it been less public. When the sexual tension was crackling between them in private, then I liked it, but when they went and danced together in public...! in the 40s...! in public...! in front of manly military guys...! in public! I just sat there cowering and shouting "Noo!" at the screen.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Me too - they would have been mauled by the crowd. My guess is that Jack A spooked Jack B sufficiently that he knew he was a goner the next day and no longer cared. I cowered (but not enough not to appreciate the eye candy). I still cried when Jack B saluted though *is embarrassed*.

[helflaed.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure that they would have been mauled- I suspect that everyone was so shocked and embarassed that they just stopped dancing and stood there staring, then pretended that that they hadn't seen it.

They managed to capture that whole wartime romance very neatly, and the added twist of the fake Jack knowing that the real Jack is going to die the next day just adds to the tenderness of it.

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

Actually so long as it was just dancing during the war I think I've read somewhere that guys would dance together for want of women, look at the number of military entertainments were men cross-dressed (It Ain'tHalf Hot Mum is based on such troupes even if for that show things were taken a little further than the norm). And whilst male homosexual acts were illegal at the time and thus closeted, people knew what was going on and certain activities had a blind-eye turned to them so long as the chaps were discreet. Christopher Lee has a story about a film poster for "The Sea Shall Not Have Them", featuring the two dashing leads, being viewed by Noel Coward with the quip "I don't see why not everyone else has".

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think slash Torchwood would feature at least one major character who turns out to have no sexual deviancies whatsoever. RTD writes good SF, but once he's written something, he really needs to read it through and ask himself "Hmmm, did I write this because it advances the plot, because it develops a character or because it reflects my own warped sexual fantasies?"

SJSA was really good. Wasted on CBBC. In fact, I thought it seemed more promising than Torchwood. Worst thing was the CGI monster. If you're going to use CGI rather than men in rubber suits and CSO, then at least try to make the CGI not look like men in rubber suits and CSO.

I thought the Narnia film seemed very faithful to the book, and so I hated it. The actor playing Peter was particularly good in that he managed to make me hate the character just as much as I did when reading the book.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I had liked the Narnia books as a child (they adequately filled the "but *why* is there no more Lord of the Rings?" slot, for a time), but haven't been able to reread them since (except for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, my favourite). I didn't like the film very much. It looked nice, but Bunn is spot on about the giant marshmallows etc.

You tempt me to try to catch SJSA from the start on one of the inevitable digital repeats. But how does it rate on the RTD Preachometer? I can overlook the warped sexual fantasies if they don't get in the way of the plot; I have a lifetime's practise at that, honed by Italian television. But I can't abide the sermons!