Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
Sits at Cair Paravel in throne,
The evil time will be over and done

~ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

December 9th

Each and every one of you need to make it a point to make it to the El Capitan Theatre at least once in your life. I had high expectations for this place, and it blew those expectations away. The lines were wrapped around the building, and most of the line was made up of at least 2 schools on a field trip, yet every one of the theatre staff was kind and friendly. There were two people walking around dressed as the White Witch and Peter, and one guy on stilts. And we got free pins with our ticket.

This theatre is amazing simply to look at, the front of it alone is very impressive, but go inside and wow. We sat in the balcony and instead of commercials playing while we waited for the movie to start there was a guy playing Christmas music on an organ. On both sides of the theatre there were displays made of stone statues of centaurs with snow and trees and above the screen (which had a "screen saver" of the lamppost and a snowy wood) was a lion head made to look like it was made out of ice. And then the organ was lowered into the group and the room goes dim and there was a magnificent light show revolving around the statues and everything else that was set up and the big finale was puffs of "snow" were shot into the air and released into the theatre. There were a few trailers (including PotC, which looks awesome) and then straight into the movie, not a single commercial!

This is the only theatre I have ever been to in my life that I wanted them to turn it up louder, everything sounded so rich and wonderful, when Aslan roared you felt it. The audience was a bit too noisy, but it was bearable. This alone would have made for a Most Excellent outing, but there were also all the sideshow toys displayed in the lobby and The Wardrobe! I don't know if it is truly the one from the movie, but if it wasn't, then they made one to look exactly like it. And more stone statues (including one of poor Mr Tumnus) scattered throughout the lobby. Wait, there's more! After the movie we went downstairs to where there was a whole room stuffed with stuff from the movie! Susan's coronation dress, the White Witch's dress (which was jaw-dropping), flags, armor, and creature heads.

January 27th

This was the second to last day that LWW would be playing at the El Capitan, and because it wasn't nearly as crowded as opening day we were able to get more pictures and actually get near The Wardrobe.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe Movie Review

First showing left me unsure of what I thought. Lucy made her way into my heart, she was precious, perfect, dare I say it even more endearing than book Lucy? Mr. and Mrs. Beaver could not have been better. There's just no way possible. In this first viewing I cried at least four times, mostly at the beginning with the bombing. But other than that I had no real solid thoughts I was still stuck on "I've actually seen Narnia" and wasn't even going to try to figure out what I thought until today.

Today I decided that I loved it. All four of the children are wonderful, Peter's journey as protector and big brother is just amazing, you could see how much he wanted to protect his family and take care of them and that he would do anything. The only fault I found in Peter was his yellow tights at the Coronation, please no more yellow tights. Susan was so...real. When she expresses how Mr. Beaver "is a Beaver and shouldn't be saying anything!" She just seems so frustrated at what has become with her world and is trying to make it all make sense, logically, which is just won't. Edmund, Edmund, he just doesn't seem to know what to do, now does he? I loved how the growth of the character was apparent (and not unrealistic) on screen. Lucy portrayed perfectly unfailing love for her family, no matter how they fell short, she was smart, witty, brave, kind, and adorable.

Well...the Professor doesn't look as much as like a leprechaun as I originally thought, but I thought he was a bit too eccentric. And distant, he's growing on me, but not my favorite. Mr. Tumnus, there were 2 times that his performance really wowed me. 1) When he's in prison and he's asking Edmund if Lucy is safe, it's in his eyes and voice that it doesn't matter about him, as long as Lucy's safe. and 2) when the Witch tells him that Edmund is the one who turned him in and he's being dragged off, the sadness in his eyes is heartbreaking. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, beyond looking amazingly real, were so adorable and funny! They bickered, yet you knew they loved each other.

Aslan and the White Witch. I was pleasantly surprised, Aslan sounded like Aslan, not "oh look, that's Liam Neeson". His eyes spoke magnititudes, and looked like a real lion. I think that's what threw me off at first, I expected a lion that looked...different, like he wouldn't fit in among real life lions, yet Aslan looked completely real and like a completely real lion. When he roared definitely gave me shivers. The White Witch, I'm still working on what I think of her, she got the pure evil thing down, but when she was trying to be nice to Edmund it still sounded suspicious, and never trustworthy enough even for Edmund to fall for. Her voice is the same level of emotion the whole time, even when she's yelling it's almost monotone. I'm sure eventually I'll get used to her, but she still doesn't really fit the White Witch from my imagination (or even close).

The attention to detail was mindboggling. From Professor Kirke getting his candy/mint/whatever from a little apple, to Lucy not shutting herself in the wardrobe (because it would be very foolish to shut oneself in a wardrobe) to Edmund showing his foolishness by shutting himself in. Mr. Tumnus's library is there, to Mr. Tumnus' picture of his father. Everything felt so *real*. It took me a while but I figured something out, the special affects don't look like special affects, and that's why it doesn't look like an "eye candy" movie (with the exception of the phoenix which I wanted to rewind that little part and watch it over and over and over), the beavers look like beavers, the fawns and centaurs and gryphons (*thud* so...cool...) all look and almost feel like you could look out your window and see them and not that they live in the computer.

The music. A bit overpowering, the first time I saw it it was so overpowering it surprised me, and found it distracting. Later in the movie it is toned down, but yes it is pretty, but it's suppose to be background music, not *BOOM*. Upon second viewing I was able to start to enjoy the songs at the beginning, and I may grow to really like it, but at that first glance it was a little much.

I guess I should comment on Aslan's death/resurrection...I saved it to last because I'm still working this one out in my head. The Stone Table scene was absolutely perfect, heartbreaking, the pain in Aslan's eyes was almost unbearable. And when he sees Lucy right before the killing stroke, I cried. Bravo to the makers for nailing this! The resurrection. Could have been better...could have been worse. I don't see how it would have hurt to have the "deeper magic" in there, but what they ended up with wasn't bad either. There was enough original text in there to make it good, and this had to made for everything, not just those who have read the book, and I think it achieved making it understandable enough for a general audience.

All in all I give it 9/10. Was it worth? Yes. Do I trust these guys to make the next six? Most definitely.

Copyright © Joelle Wright 2003-Present