Talk:Green Mist

This is the main reason I dislike the movie so much. One of the most meaningful aspects of VDT was that there was neither a villian nor any "need" for the Pevensies and Eustace in Narnia at all. Aslan brought them there for their own character betterment and so that they could get to know him better (though really, the two are almost the same thing). As the Lion himself said, "This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." This corresponds very directly to the Christian idea of an omnipotent God who doesn't need humans at all, but chooses to use them and work through them for purposes we don't fully understand. The movie's "need" for a villain ruins Lewis' point entirely and sets the children up as heros when, really, all of what they accomplished in Narnia was Aslan's doing. Even besides that, if you're going to base a movie on a book, don't make up your own main plot. I literally laughed out loud after I saw the movie when the credits claimed that it was "based on the book by C.S. Lewis." Lasaraleen Tarkheena (talk) 00:50, August 11, 2012 (UTC)Lasaraleen Tarkheena


 * The problem with films based in adventure, is that they usually require a villain to make it more exciting, hence the reason why they altered VDT so much. I have to admit, out of all the movies so far, VDT is the one that's been changed so much, I almost didn't recognise it. I still enjoyed it, though. Frankly, I thought they did a lot of good changes in the films from the books. The Chronicles of Narnia are and will always be classical children's literature, but Lewis's style of writing is a bit outdated in my opinion. For example, in the books, the girls don't ever do any fighting, and basically act as they did in the 50s and dark ages, letting the men do all the fighting...etc. Whereas in the films, they are more independant, strong willed, and equal to men. (Most of the girls I know would have stormed out of the cinema, if the studios had done the films exactly like the books, claiming they were sexist) Storyseeker1 (talk) 01:40, August 11, 2012 (UTC)


 * There seem to be two separate discussions here. One is about the plot changes the movie made, and the other is about sexism in the Chronicles. Regarding the former, I was pretty excited by the book each of the twenty plus times I've read it. I think books and movies shouldn't need a world-saving hero to be exciting, and so many have it that that particular plotline is almost getting old. There are only so many ways the world can almost end, after all. Still, I would leave major plot decisions like that up to the movie making committee... except that they claimed to be basing their plot off of Lewis' book, which intentionally excluded such a high-stakes adventure. Regarding your comment about sexism, I have a couple of points. The first is that women are different from men. Not inferior, but definitely different. Therefore, it is not true that any differentiation Lewis makes between the two sexes should be immediately regarded as sexism. Secondly, glook at all the girls who do fight in the Chronicles: Susan is given a bow and arrow and is an excellent archer; Lucy goes with the army to fight Rabadash at Anvard in HB; Jill carries a knife in SC and is as good an archer as Eustace in LB; the White Witch fought with both her wand and her stone knife; Aravis dressed up in her brother's armour and was quite the tomboy. Although there are certainly times when the girls and boys have seperate roles, or when the girls don't participate in fighting, Lewis certainly does not categorically leave girls out of the action, and his point that boys and girls are different is well-warranted.

Yeah, but those scenes with the girls as fighters and such are few and rare. Plus, I can barely remember Susan using her bow in the books. She seemed to use it a lot more in the films.

They only make short scenes of the girls as fighters in the books, or minor notes. In the end, they always end up going back to being plain girls who basically leave all the really hard stuff to the men. My sister makes a point of this regularly. She's forever going on about books like Narnia, which were written in the 50s, and so portray women more or less as they were in that time period. She even made a debate about it in school once, nearly got the whole class riled (she has a gift for that).

I'm not saying Lewis was sexist. It's just that you have to remember that he was born in a different age, and the Narnia books were written and published in the 50s. Women were a lot different back then, and he's just writing them as they were expected to be. They hadn't had the right to vote for no more than a few decades, and after the end of WWII, despite all the men's work they had to do in their absence, they were expected to go right back to being housewives when the men returned. I'm willing to bet that if he had written the girls as they are portrayed in the films, in the books instead, they never would have been published. Storyseeker1 (talk) 12:35, August 11, 2012 (UTC)