Narnia film stirs controversy over Christianity

WELLINGTON - One of New Zealand's Christmas movie blockbusters due for a high-profile premiere in London - The Chronicles of Narnia - has triggered a row in Britain over its Christian message.

To millions of readers of the original C. S. Lewis books, the story is a childhood tale of wonder and triumph, but a celebrated fantasy author, Philip Pullman, has warned they are stories of racism and thinly veiled religious propaganda that will corrupt children rather than inspire them.

The Observer reported that the Narnia film was also attracting attention for huge use of special effects, and that trailers for the first Narnia film have already drawn comparisons to the style and presentation of The Lord of the Rings.

"It has the same powerful themes of a new world, complete with fantastic creatures and sweeping battle scenes against a beautiful landscape," the newspaper reported.

It said Disney planned to turn the Narnia films into a money-spinning franchise like the Harry Potter series - which could mean a new Narnia film being released at Christmas, complete with spin-off merchandising and toys, every year until 2012.

"But while Disney has bet big on Narnia and now waits with bated breath, there is already one winner in the saga," it reported.

"The film, just like The Lord of the Rings, was shot in New Zealand, which then reaped a tourism windfall. Now local tour companies are already planning to show visitors around the spot where the Narnia film's climactic battle scene was shot."

Pullman, an avowed atheist is the noted author of a trilogy, His Dark Materials, which has itself drawn strong criticism from some religious groups.

His trilogy, The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, - which are also being filmed - canvass themes of childhood, innocence and sin, through magic, theology, science and morality.

His stories centre on two children who live in parallel worlds surrounded by a huge cast of shape-shifting creatures.

He complained at the weekend that Lewis's books portrayed a version of Christianity that relied on martial combat, outdated fears of sexuality and women, and also portrayed a religion that looked a lot like Islam in unashamedly racist terms.

"It's not the presence of Christian doctrine I object to so much as the absence of Christian virtue," Pullman told the Observer. "The highest virtue, we have on the authority of the New Testament itself, is love, and yet you find not a trace of that in the books," he said.

But the newspaper reported that the criticism was unlikely to derail the giant Disney-Walden production, reportedly made on a budget of between $161 million and $251 million.

The world premiere of New Zealand film - based on the first of the seven Narnia books, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will be staged at London's Royal Albert Hall on December 7.

Shot by local director Andrew Adamson, it will be attended by Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, and is expected to be the first of a set of half a dozen movies.

The film's main production base was in Auckland, but the battle scenes were shot on the open plains and glaciers near Flock Hill, Christchurch, and scenes featuring Aslan the lion's camp and training grounds were shot near Oamaru.

Production was moved to the Czech Republic and Poland to film snow scenes because the snow in New Zealand was not deep enough.

In the world-famous story, four children are sent from war torn London to a professor's country home during World War 2.

There they find a magic wardrobe which leads to the mystical land of Narnia, which is under the rule of Jadas the White Witch, and the children join forces with Aslan for a great battle between good and evil.

Robert Mitchell, an analyst for Screen International has estimated that the marketing budget for the movie is equivalent to about a fifth of the actual production budget.

And the Observer reported Disney was already in the middle of one of its biggest marketing campaigns in recent cinematic history, and had hired Christian marketing groups to promote the film.

"It is trying to lure both mainstream filmgoers and evangelical Christians, who will respond to CS Lewis's parallels between his characters and the Bible," it said. Book publisher HarperCollins was set to release 170 Lewis-related books in more than 60 countries, many of them Christian-themed works.

But Pullman said that if Disney wanted to market the film as a great Christian story, it would have to overlook the original book's "peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice".

"Of love, of Christian charity, [there is] not a trace", he said.

But Disney film executives say they expect Narnia to repeat the success last year of Mel Gibson's Jesus biopic The Passion of The Christ, which raked in hundreds of millions of dollars after being shunned by mainstream studios and then promoted up by the evangelical churches.

American evangelicals are planning to use the Narnia film as a preaching tool - Catholic Outreach has advertised for 150 co-ordinators across the country to help promote the film, and is organising previews of trailers for church audiences.

- NZPA