Last week, I attended the Prince Caspian movie along with most of the families who are part of the Church I serve. A few observations.

1.) What’s with the collagen treatment on the lips of Anna Popplewell (The actress who played Susan)? When you compare Anna’s lips from the last Narnia movie with this one you can clearly see that Anna’s lips went through a growth spurt that Wilt Chamberlin could’ve only envied. When she laid a kiss on Prince Caspian at the end of the movie I was afraid that the guy was going to disappear in those lips, never to be found again.

2.) The writers of the script turned Lewis’s Susan character from being a soft spoken but wise Queen to a horny warrior princess. She went from being the Queen of Sheba in Lewis’s book to being an in heat Annie Oakley with a bow in the movie. On the transformation of Susan from being a Queen of Sheba type in Lewis’ book to being Annie Oakley with a bow in the movie the Director of Caspian, Andrew Adamson, made his views known.

“I know C.S. Lewis didn’t think women should fight, but I have a different view about how strong or assertive women should be. That was something I discussed and said there was no way I was making a film that says that.”

You know if Adamson wants to make a movie about his different views about ‘how strong and assertive women should be’ why doesn’t he first write a series of books called ‘The Chronicles Of Adamsonia,’ have them become treasured volumes and bestsellers to generations of Christians, and then make them into a Movie instead of defecating on the Chronicles of Narnia by injecting his modernistic Worldview onto a book that was decidedly not infected with modernity?”

3.) What gives with the kissing scene? This was another example of Adamson injecting his modernistic Worldview on to a book that was essentially medieval in its setting and flavor. I seriously doubt that most Christians thought about that scene as that kind of thing is the norm among our 15 year old girls today but it really isn’t a role model we should want most of our 15 year olds emulating.

4.) The character development was awful! You never got a sense of the refusal of ‘doubting Trumpkin’ to believe in Aslan. The film created no wonderment at Trumpkin’s loyalty in spite of his disbelief. The Nick-A-Brick character was completely flat and barely revealed the nature of his treachery. Peter comes across as a tyrant who will brook no counsel and who never repents of his boorish behavior. Reep-a-Cheep was the character that was perhaps most true to the novel. He was my favorite character in the movie.

5.) The character development could’ve been pursued somewhat if the script writers hadn’t decided to invent, whole cloth, a scene that is not in the book. The whole invasion of the Castle was yet another example of Hollywood try to improve a book instead of just telling the story of the book. This scene contributed nothing to the plot of the movie (though it had its due sense of daring and excitement) and it was used to despoil the Susan character by turning her into an assassin. You know, as I think about it, I think Susan had more kills in the movie then Caspian, Peter, and Edmund combined.

6.) Nick-a-Brick, who in Lewis’s book was the villainous ‘Black dwarf,’ was played by a White guy while the heroic Centaurs and Minotaurs were played by Black guys. Coincidence?

7.) The invented scene ended with the entrapment of a large Battalion of Old Narnians trapped behind the Castle Gate, who you knew were being slaughtered by Miraz’s army. It was a bit intense for children.

All in all if you could view it as a movie that had nothing to do with the book it was OK. The thing that gripes me is that these movies make their money by attaching themselves to the books. If they want to make stand alone movies that have nothing to do with the books then let them have at it. But if they are going to make Movies and suggest that they have anything to do with the books besides a few character names then it would be nice if they actually had something to do with the books.

Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

1.) Sex outside of marriage turns out well for all involved

There is such a commonness about this state of affairs that it is easy to miss. In the film Indy knocked up the leading lady 20 years prior to the time shown in the film and suddenly discovers 20 years later that he has a son. Everything went just perfect for the damsel who was pregnant out of wedlock in 1937 (appx.) and the son grew up to be a mostly well adjusted young man whom Indy looks on in pride.

That is not the way it usually works in real life folks.

2.) Mankind received its intelligence from Alien ‘god like’ beings

This is a common theme for Spielberg. If you recall, he explored this theme in his films E.T. and in Artificial Intelligence. Spielberg is a Cosmic Humanist of some sort (remember the force in his Star Wars films) and that comes out in this flick. What I find interesting at this point is the correspondence between the Worldview in this film as it touches origins and the Worldview of some of the ‘scientists’ that Ben Stein interviewed in ‘Expelled.’ In both the Indiana Jones IV movie and from interviews in ‘Expelled’ you have a Worldview on origins explicated that holds that intelligence on earth and perhaps mankind itself came from Space Aliens.

I think we need to be very aware of this Worldview on origins that we are seeing from both the intellectual community as displayed in ‘Expelled’ and from the pop-culture as displayed in the recent Indiana Jones movie.

The answer to the question ‘How do we know’ is ‘We know because of the revelation of Space Aliens.’

3.) Knowledge is the ultimate treasure

At the end of the flick Indy makes some kind of observation that the inhabitants of the long deceased culture that they are searching for found its value in treasure, which knowledge was the highest expression of. This wouldn’t be so bad except obviously knowledge is not related to the God of the Bible but rather it is knowledge as measured on a humanistic scale.

The answer to the question ‘What is our ultimate value’ is, ‘Our ultimate value is knowledge apart from God who made us.’

4.) Women are physically tough.

From the pony tailed cheerleader in the 50’s sock hop Malt Shop who slugs the guy who slugged her boyfriend (with a right cross that would make Joe Frazier proud) to the female Communist villain to the Mother of Indy’s son, all the women roles in this film are men’s physical equal. No need to protect the women here.

File this observation under anthropology.

5.) The Issue of Myth

Clearly the movie deals with the myths that govern a culture. What is interesting here is that while many today in our post-modern culture will tell you that it doesn’t matter if the myth is historically true or not (since there is no capital ‘T’ truth) the myth that is initially seen as just being another myth (Indy initially says, ‘it’s just a story kid.’) ends up being not only Myth but also historically true. This is interesting because increasingly I am finding Christians who are saying that it doesn’t matter if the creation account is true or not since it is our guiding myth or that it doesn’t matter if the miracle accounts are true or not since they serve as our guiding myth. What is important, according to these folks, is that we show non-Christians the superiority of the Christian myth over other myths. Yet, even in a mind candy film like Indiana Jones there seems to be some recognition that myth needs to correspond to historicalness in order to be anything more than a ‘story.’

Indiana Jones is a fun adventure movie in the Spielberg strain. It’s worldview is decidedly messed up but what epistemologically self conscious person watches movies in order to be informed in their Worldview?