When magicians are omnipotent there is no magic. Heroes need a flaw and the chance to fall or there is no story. Complete plenty eliminates desire, and when everything is visible imagination dies.
So I mused on exiting the cinema with my children after watching The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. On the release of the first film I was excited to see Narnia come to life. I was delighted to step through the wardrobe with Lucy. I was thrilled with how the sorcerers of modern technological had summoned up naiads and dryads, centaurs and minotaurs, dwarves, unicorns and every other marvelous and magical beast from Narnia. I was sure C.S.Lewis would have been amazed and delighted and enchanted to see his world come to life.
However, on the third cinematic outing to Narnia I began to feel jaded. Perhaps I simply had had a glut of the impressive artificiality of computer animation. Maybe I had witnessed too many explosions, endured drama with predictable plot lines and flat dialogue that was bloated with whizz bang camera angles and a swooping orchestral scores. It could be that I had gasped at too many mythical monsters and handsome heroes. Maybe I was suffering from fantasy film overload. The spell was broken. I was disenchanted.
So I asked my thirteen year old son what he thought of the movie. “It was okay I guess, but they’re all the same.” Yes. Here be dragons. Too many dragons. Here be heroes. Too many heroes. Here be witches. Too many witches. Here be wizards. Too many wizards. Here be marvelous, magical, mythical, mysterious, movies. Here be fabulous, fun and frightening fantastical films. Too many of them. Harry Potter. Seven. Narnia. Three so far. Lord of the Rings. Three big ones. Two to come. King Arthur and Camelot. They keep coming. The Titans. Trash. Stardust. More dust than star. Train Your Dragon. Trite. Labyrinth. Labyrinthine. Never Ending Story. Never Ending Stories...
The death of imagination occurs when too much of a story refuses to be left to the imagination and our eyes and minds become overly enthralled with and dependent upon the imagination of another. . . Movies often spoil a good book.
3 comments:
Movies also leave out many important details from the original books. For example, in the movie "Heaven is For Real," the part about grandpa joining others in heaven in the fight against the devil and the demons is never mentioned. Why do movies based on books deliberately leave out important details?
Books are better than movies by far. They are cheaper, too.
Pastor Peters wrote:
"I had witnessed too many explosions, endured drama with predictable plot lines and flat dialogue that was bloated with whizz bang camera angles and a swooping orchestral scores."
Says it all about most TV shows and movies. Even the strong sexual overtones in such modern films are forced, fake, and predictable. Boring.
Says something about our "inner eye." The ones we see movies with only make the inner one repeat what they've already seen. Reading words cause that inner eye to compose, create, paint what they "see."
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