My hope is that being the third major fantasy children's book series to hit theaters in recent years won't create unfair prejudices based solely on the fact that the Narnia series is coming out in 2005 instead of 2000. The Narnia movies, in that sense, have a chance of becoming the Candlebox to LOTR and Harry Potter's Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I look forward to it, though, and the movie will probably send me back to the books (which I haven't read since 5th grade).

Candlebox. Wow, that takes me back.

This is interesting. I had no idea Lewis and Tolkien were friends. I've never been a big fan of the Tolkien series, but I loved the Narnia series as a kid. I must have read them each a dozen times. Are the movie versions animated, or a combination of live and animation?

By the way, I thought Candlebox was a great band and was disappointed that they disappeared so fast.

The Narnia movies, in that sense, have a chance of becoming the Candlebox to LOTR and Harry Potter's Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

In babyboomerese, please. But no musical metaphors - no way in heck that someone who likes Pearl Jam and Nirvana will pick the appropriately corresponding classic rock parallels.

I'm guessing that the translation is that Narnia is a B+ compared to the other films' A+ rating.

Translation: regardless of the merits of the film, because it is the latecomer to the scene of fantasy adolescent book turned major movie, it will be dismissed as a wannabe and not taken as seriously as it might have been, if given a 2001 release date.

Classic rock may serve a better platform for my analogy than 90s alternative rock... as I would translate into classic rock language: thanks to its status as the latecomer to the adolescent fantasy book turned movie, Narnia risks being the "Waiting for Columbus" to LOTR and Potter's "Fillmore East" and "Live at Leeds." No less grand or interesting, but as a latecomer to the double live LP concept, susceptible to the label of wannabe or unfashionable.

I was never a concert goer, so I couldn't even name the bands that performed at those three gigs. Message understood, though.

LOTR is adolescent fantasy?

It's easy to worry when the director is the same who headed up the satirical animated Shreks 1 & 2. Early reports are coming in that he is taking unnecessary license with Lewis' work and placing Lucy and Susan in the large battle at the end of the movie, after Lewis wrote Father Christmas saying that women should not go in battle because "women in battle make wars messy" (messier than they already are anyway).

However, the trailer does look like a lot of loving care is being placed into the aesthetics and detail of the movie... maybe at the risk of looking too real?

More than a few classics came from the friendship unless you are already counting the Christian Works of C.S. Lewis as stories. C.S. Lewis was led back to Christianity by his Oxford friends and we have all much profited for that.