The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1979)
This Emmy Award winner for Best Animated Special is based on the first book of C.S. Lewis' acclaimed series, "The Chronicles of Narnia." Four children pass through a mystic portal in a wardrobe and discover the magical kingdom of Narnia, a land of talking animals and mythical creatures. There, an evil witch's spell has cast the land into eternal winter. Fearing that an ancient prophecy is coming to fruition, and that the children are Narnia's rightful rulers, the White Witch tricks their youngest brother into betraying his family, enacting an ancient magic that she can use to halt the fulfillment of the prophecy. Now, only Aslan, noble lion and High King above all kings in Narnia, can help them defeat the witch, restore springtime to Narnia, and claim their rightful places on the throne.
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Dreadfully Boring
Best movie ever!
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
In the 1979 rendition of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," details normally overlooked by today's movie makers are masterfully transfered to film. C. S. Lewis's intricate dialog is flawlessly adapted with wonderful voice actors and added to greatly by Michael J. Lewis's gorgeous score. At a time before computer effects, The music played a key role in making the story come to life. Unfortunately, the new live action version greatly suffered an unmemorable score. Another advantage of the 1979 is that it, unlike the Disney version isn't another horrible attempt to copy Peter Jackson's rendition of "The Lord of the Rings." This one follows the book, doesn't concede to today's tasteless standards, and has perfectly appropriate music.
From the director of the Charlie Brown and Peanuts movies, comes this funny, delightful little cartoon adaptation of the classic C.S. Lewis novel. Although made for television, it still holds a bright candle to the book itself. With such clever narration by the lead voices, and the expressions given to the characters, this one delivers a gold trophy. Every line, and action is directly from the book, and portrayed well. Beth Porter certainly supplies the most fun as the voice of the desperate white witch. All other character voices are pleasant and appropriate. The running time is not three hours, so they managed to fit an entire story into the cartoon. You are actually watching the novel, and all things that C.S. Lewis may have written in the novel, that cannot be stated by the characters, is well implied. This TV special is probably the only version that could possibly work as well as it did. The voices fit the actions as dead on as perfection, and the dark moments are not taken too seriously. This make for a good animated adaptation!
This animated version of the first of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is unsuccessful in that its script does not follow the original book, its animation is crude and more reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons than of the artistic masterpiece it could (and should) have been, and its voice characterizations, which were done by American actors, sound very odd whenever they declaim British-flavored lines scripted directly from the book. These faults removed much of the magic that was the original selling point of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Also, the book's underlying religious theme was completely ignored, although I imagine this was more to protect the broadcaster from criticism than due to any actual neglect on the part of the producers.On the positive side, this show was useful in introducing the land of Narnia to viewers unfamiliar to the story. It is to be hoped that those viewers, enjoying the premise, sought out the written chronicles, and later watched the 1988 live-action version, which is far superior to this.
This is one of the best animated films I've ever seen. C.S. Lewis' classic book comes alive with vigor and fun. I recommend this to anyone who has read books by Lewis, and especially to fans of the Chronicles of Narnia. The illistrations are exceptional and the music is very good.