Narnia

Yeah, it was really interesting. It talked about all the different jobs there were, all the different types of special effects…pretty cool.

Over the next week we should each write a less-than-1000 word story about what happened to Susan and post it on here when we're done! (Anyone else who happens to be reading this, feel free to do it as well!)

My favorite book is PC.

Whoops, I have to go. :-( I'll be back in an hour, hopefully, for a few minutes.

Oh, I'm so sorry I never wrote back to this! I kept refreshing the other page ans was wondering what was taking you so long :P I didn't see that there was a new page (I hate it when I do that!:D).

Wow, that does sound pretty cool! Did you watch any of the commentaries? I watched part of the one for VTD, but my brother wanted to watch something else. :P

ooooh! That's a great idea! It would be really fun! I'll try to do that! =D

@Emily - I have watched the LWW and PC commentaries several times each! :)

@Abi - have you read Just Believe? It is so good http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7335946/1/Just_Believe?CFID=21776027&CFTOKEN=99818807 It is about Susan after the train crash.

Have you read the official movie books for LWW and PC? I have both and they are really good!

Just LWW. I really want to watch the PC one.

I haven't worked much on my story yet; sorry!

Okay, I just read "Just Believe". And now I'm dying to find out what happened! Did she get killed and go to Aslan's country? Did she just get knocked out and survive getting hit? If so, what happened next?
That was an extremely well-written story. I liked it.
But that was incredibly like what I was planning on my story being. Susan is missing her family, a bit dazed, and unsure about Narnia being real or not. Then she goes to church and it makes her think about it more. But there's more to my story that I need to write yet. ;-)

I don't think I've read either of the movie-making books. They sound cool, though!

I have to go. I hope to be on again in a couple days! See you guys then!

My story is called "Remember". I wrote all except the first two paragraphs at 6 this morning. Heh heh.

It had been one of the greatest shocks of my life when I had received the news of the train wreck. I couldn’t believe it. I was the only member of my family left. The only one. Even one of my cousins, who had been there with them, was gone. Of course, it wasn’t like I was completely alone in the world. I was living in America, married, with one daughter. But it still took me a long time to get used to the idea. My parents, my brothers, my sister…all lost in one single train wreck. Unbelievable.
“Mommy?” I felt a tug on my skirt. I looked down to see Rose, my two-year-old, and realized my mind had been wandering. And here I’d thought I was over it. It had been over a year since the wreck. There had been plenty of time for me to get used to it. And yet, strangely, I hadn’t.
“What is it, Rose?” I asked.
“Can we go to the park, Mommy?”
“No, Sweetie, it’s time for your nap.”
After I had tucked Rose in, I went to my room. I figured I’d read a book or something else that would occupy my mind. A picture on my shelf caught my eye. I took it down and looked at it. It was a picture of my younger sister Lucy, taken a couple of months before the wreck. She had been only 17. As I put the picture back on the shelf, my hand bumped something else up there, and I took it down. It was a notebook: Lucy’s diary. They’d sent it to me afterwards. I’d never read any of it before now. I opened it some-where in the middle. I would have known the entry I was looking at had been written a number of years ago, even if the date hadn’t been written at the top, because of the round, childish handwriting. It had been written in 1942; Lucy would have been ten. “Dear Di-ary,” the entry read, “Eustace is really starting to get annoying now. Ed comes up to my room to get away from him, but sometimes Eustace follows him even here. I’m just hop-ing Ed doesn’t do anything extreme.”
I smiled as I read it. Lucy had always wanted everyone to get along, and sometimes Edmund’s temper wore her down to a frazzle. This entry must have been written when I’d gone to America and the two of them had to stay with our cousin Eustace at his house in Cambridge. I read the next entry.
“Dear Diary, you won’t believe it! I’ve gotten back today! Ed and Eustace came, too. The painting on the wall in my room, the one that looked like it was of a Narnian ship—”
I stopped reading for a minute. Narnia. That was the imaginary world we’d come up with when we were staying at Professor Kirke’s house, when I was twelve. Lucy had stuck true to it to the end. So had Peter and Edmund, in fact. Even Eustace, who had un-dergone a major character improvement since Lucy had written the diary entry, had started to believe in it. It seemed I was the only person with sense enough to know when to stop pretending. I read on.
“—a Narnian ship, came to life when Eustace was there, and we all got in through it.”
Here I stopped again. “Yeah, I’m sure you did,” I thought. I put the diary back up on the shelf to read later. Martin would be home in a couple hours. I should probably get supper ready.
I looked in the pantry and realized I needed to go grocery shopping. Once Rose woke up, we walked down the block to the store. Suddenly I heard someone behind me calling my name. I turned around.
One of my friends was walking quickly towards me. I groaned silently. I knew what she would be asking.
“Susan,” she said once she got close enough, “are you coming to church this Sunday?”
I opened my mouth to reply as I had every other time, “No, not this time I guess,” but something in me made me say, “I suppose so.”
You should have seen her face. Her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open. Then she gave a little squeal and hugged me. “Thank you, Susan!” she exclaimed.
As I purchased my groceries, I wondered what I’d gotten myself into. I hadn’t gone to church since I was sixteen. All those Christians had seemed to be a lot of blooming hypocrites, and I had no wish to be a hypocrite. But I had said I’d come! …
Sunday morning I was sitting next to my friend, listening to the preacher talking on and on. I couldn’t believe I was wasting a whole hour and a half, just sitting. Suddenly something the preacher said snapped me to attention. I hadn’t heard all he’d said, but he repeated it.
“He died so we could be kept from the death we’d earned. So we could be saved. He gave Himself, for He was and is the only solution and the only answer to the problem. And then he rose again, having fought the battle we could not win alone—”
I didn’t hear another word for the rest of the service. When I went home Martin no-ticed something was bothering me.
“What’s wrong, Su? Something the preacher said hit you right between the eyes?” he asked teasingly. I tried to give a little laugh, but everything the preacher had said (or all that I had heard, anyway) had sounded strangely familiar.
The next day a package arrived in the mail. It was addressed to me from somewhere in London. I opened it and on top there lay a little note. I read it.
“Dear Madam,” it said, “we’re sorry it’s taken us so long to get this to you; it was hard to find who it even belonged to, and once we had, the item had been mislaid, but finally we found it again and sent it to you.”
I looked at the shipping date on the package and realized it had been delayed greatly in the mail, too. I lifted the item out of the box.
It was a small sketchbook. I saw at once that it was Peter’s. He’d always loved to draw, and was good at it, although he only did it as a pastime. I opened it to the first page. A winged horse seemed to gallop out of the page at me. I looked closer. The horse had an intelligent look in its eyes and I wondered how Peter had captured the alive-ness of it in his drawing. I turned the page. A wolf, with the hair along its back bristling, glared at me from the paper. His teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl. My heart jumped. It had been a bit of a shock, seeing the wolf right after the horse. The next few pages were just small sketches and studies of birds. But after that there was a picture of two beavers. They were standing upright and had such human-like expressions on their faces that at first I laughed. Then I looked again. The picture vaguely reminded me of some-thing, I couldn’t say what.
Most of the rest of the pictures were of animals and mythical creatures: fauns, centaurs, gryphons, and the like. Near the end of the book was a picture of a train station. I guessed that he had drawn it while waiting for the train Eustace and his friend were on. I smiled sadly. This was probably the last picture he had ever drawn. I started to close the book, but then something on the next page caught my notice. It was a picture of a sword. There was a dark, reddish-brown stain near the bottom of the page. I closed my eyes and stroked the book. Then I looked again at the picture. The sword looked very familiar. I tried to remember where I could have seen a sword like that. It could have been at the Professor’s house; he’d had several suits of armor that had fascinated my brothers greatly. That lion’s head on the end of the hilt, though…where had I seen it before?
There were at least a dozen empty pages, all with that same brown stain at the bottom. I closed the book and took it to my room. I put it on the shelf with Lucy’s diary. Then I took the diary down and sat down on the bed. I’d decided to finish reading that one en-try, at least.
“It turns out the ship IS Narnian. It’s called the ‘Dawn Treader’, and it’s Caspian’s.” I choked up. That name…Caspian! I knew it well, but I wasn’t sure why. I read on. “He’s king of Narnia now, of course. It’s only three years later here than it was last time. I’m going to help Eustace fill in the bits of his diary that he missed, because he had it along on the ship. He didn’t want to keep all of it, but I made him. He and Ed and I are going to stay up late tonight writing in everything that happened, so you can read it if you want to have all the details. But one more thing I think I’ll mention here: Aslan says he’s in our world, too.” I looked up from the book and stared absently at the wall. Aslan! He was the lion in Narnia that Lucy had been special friends with. She’d imagined him so vividly that he’d seemed totally real to her. “He says we’ll know him by a different name. I’m guessing it’s Jesus. Lucy Pevensie” I smiled weakly and got up to put the diary back on the shelf, then changed my mind. I opened it to the last page and started flipping backwards until I reached an entry. It was from the night before I’d gotten the news.
“Dear Diary, Peter and Edmund are back. They found the rings, and no one suspected anything. We’re going to meet Eustace and Jill at the train station and give the rings to them. I’m so excited! Not only because Eustace and Jill are going back to Narnia, but for some other reason I couldn’t tell you, and I can’t even tell myself. The Professor and Aunt Polly are coming with us to the train station to give them the rings. I feel so happy! I’m not sure what’s going to happen tomorrow, but whatever it is, I can be sure it’s going to be good! Lucy Pevensie”
I got up and put the diary on top of Peter’s sketchbook. Well, Lucy had been wrong. The thing that had happened the next day had not been in the least bit good. And yet, something about that entry had captured the excitement Lucy had been feeling when she’d written it; something unexplainably thrilling and awe-inspiring.
Suddenly things began to fall together. Caspian. The sword. Aslan. The beavers. Even the wolf and the winged horse fit in. The sermon, though…the sermon fit in some-how. Somehow. I should call Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold and ask if I could borrow Eustace’s diary. I felt I simply HAD to read the full adventure. I doubted they would let me, but it was worth a try!
Then I realized what I needed to do first. I slid to my knees and knelt beside the bed.
“Jesus. I—I’m sorry. Please…PLEASE…forgive me. I want to be a Christian again. I want to be a Narnian again. I want to believe again. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Amen.”
Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen

Sorry; it was closer to 2000 words rather then 1000. It wouldn't all fit.
There's also an extra bit that I wanted to put in it, but it didn't really fit anywhere, so it can sort of go as a "deleted scene".

I caught a glimpse of something on the back of the last page (of the sketchbook). I opened the page wider so I could see what it was. What I saw took my breath away.
It was the head of a lion, with its mouth slightly open, looking straight out of the page at me. I could feel the massive size and power of the Lion just by looking at it. The rest of the sketches and drawings had been done in blacks and greys, but this one was tinted with color, although it seemed as if the whole page were lit up. The gold of the Lion’s mane seemed to scatter light, and the eyes shone as if they were alive. The Lion seemed to radiate the same sense of joy as I had sensed in the last entry of Lucy’s diary. I found that I couldn’t look at it for long and eventually had to shut the sketchbook.
Later, when I came back to the book, the picture was still there, although the colors had dimmed. When I looked at the signature in the bottom corner of the picture, I saw a second name beside Peter’s that I didn’t recognize. I also noticed that the bloodstains were a brighter red on that page than they were on the others, and that they seemed to come from the lion and flowed in a different pattern. But then again, that could just have been my imagination.

That's a good story! I always wondered what happened to Susan afterwards.

Yeah, me too. That's why I wrote the story. :-D

Random question for everyone: If you could make one change to each of the main actors/actresses for the Narnia movies, what would you have changed in each of them? It can be their looks, their voices, or even their personality off camera.
Some main characters:
Aslan
Peter
Susan
Edmund
Lucy
Jadis
Caspian
Trumpkin
Reepicheep
Eustace

Aslan: he would be magical-looking again in the second two movies
Peter: he'd have a little bit darker hair
Susan: she'd have longer hair
Edmund: either he'd be younger or a Christian (probably the second more than the first)
Lucy: she'd have blonde hair like in the books
Jadis: her face would be paler and her hair and lips darker
Caspian: he'd comb his hair
Trumpkin: he'd be a lot younger-looking
Reepicheep: he wouldn't change color between PC and VODT
Eustace: he's almost perfect as an annoing younger cousin; hmm…maybe he would have fewer freckles, not too many fewer, though

Eustace was NOT as annoying as he should have been! At all! He was…..tolerable. He should have been the guy you think "Can they PLEASE just toss him OVERBOARD?!?!"

At the beginning of the movie, and even when they first get into Narnia, he was exceedingly annoying. At least Reepicheep (and Edmund) thought so.
Reepicheep: Perhaps we can throw him back?
Edmund: (smiles)
Lucy: Edmund!

But I think they were trying to make sure everyone watching the movie is willing for him to be a good guy later.

Who do you think is the worst bad guy, books and movies?
From the books, I think Shift is the worst, because he's supposed to be a Narnian and isn't, and because he bullies around anybody weaker than himself, and yet allows those stronger to boss him around. He's also just plain evil.
The White Witch is the worst in the movies because she won't go away. Edmund has to keep killing her. I also greatly dislike her hair.
Other bad guys (or gals):
The Emerald Witch
Rabadash
Miraz
Glozelle and Sopespian
Ridsha Tarkaan
Those are all I can think of right now.

Oh Abi! I SO love it!!! Hopefully I'll do mine and post it pretty soon, I've just been a little busy with Bible Bee… :)

Aslan: I agree, in the other two movies he should have been more like his was in the first movie.
Susan: WAY less make-up
Jadis: more normalish hair…
Caspian: cut his hair!!!

Everyone else I liked pretty well, I guess. I probably would have changed more things if I had made the movies, but I can't think of anything else at the moment…

And I agree about your worst bad guys too…

Oh, what did you all think of the sea serpent!? :) (in the movie)

About the sea serpent: it was awesome! The tentacle-things were very creepy. It was funny how Edmund was afraid of it, and was pretending he wasn't during the first half of the movie.

BTW, congratulations on memorizing your 1800th verse!

Oh, I have to go now. I hope to be on again in a few days. Bye!

I thought it was awesome too! =D Although when it split open like that it was kinda gross. It was so funny when Edmund was just like "Oh no…." The first time we watched it, I was almost afraid they'd left the sea serpent part out entirely, but someone was telling me about it, so I figured I'd just have to be patient… :P It was way more interesting than in the book, when it was more of a side note… :)

EDIT: good night! I can't wait to "see" you on here again! :)

Awwww, thank you! =D

Great story, Abi! I really liked it. :) Good job!

@Abi - that's not the whole thing - did you read all 12 (or so) chapters or just the first page? There is an entire story…enough for a small book! :) Down at the bottom right of the page you should be able to go from one chapter to another.

I'm working on mine:) btw, I REALLY like your picture!!!

Oh wow, I haven't been on for a month, and this forum is FILLED!

There's more to the story????? gasps Be right back!!!!!!!!!!!
@ GraceThruFaith - Yeah, that's probably my fault. :-)

Oooooh! I just read chapter 2! I will definitely continue to read it over the next while!

You can tell the author was writing from the movie, with the quotes and all that. I liked the fact that there was an Anna and a William!
I am probably going to be done reading it by this evening!

Chapter 3 – check. "I won't wait forever." I bet that sounded familiar to Peter!

Chapter 4 – check. Andrew? LOL! This is an awesome story!

Chapter 5 – check. I always wondered if any of them died later. You'd think they might have mentioned it when they were in Aslan's country, but maybe not. Also, I was thinking about (in my story) having Lucy have the sketchbook and Edmund having the journal, but I changed my mind. I'm glad I did, too. I don't want to plagarize on anything, even if I didn't even know it existed!

Chapter 6 - check. You can tell the author did a lot of Narnia research, what with the deleted scene and the words on Rhindon. Even knowing the name Rhindon. This must have been written by a true Narnia fan!

Chapter 7 – check. The characters are almost exactly how I imagine them! Except for Edmund. He's mostly correct, but he seems a little bit too serious. He may appear that way to people who don't know him, though.

Chapter 8 – check. Everything lines up correctly, with the years and everything. They must have used the timeline, too. I know I did. I had it up on the internet the whole time I was writing my story.

Chapter 9 – check. But now I'm confused.

Chapter 10 – check. I'm still confused. But it's funny, because that Cinderella song was the same one my cousin had at her wedding reception last year! But her dad was dancing with her, not her brother.

Chapter 11 – check. Edmund is hilarious!

Chapter 12 – check. I've just read the whole thing! And I'm not confused any more! Yay!!!

That was an awesome story. Thanks so much for telling me about it, BBJ13!

Who else looks for bloopers in the movies? Here are 3 that I noticed.

In the PC castle raid, when Edmund picked up his flashlight instead of his sword to fight the Telmarine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=BKlTFNmKsEY&feature=endscreen - 1:09), he’s holding the flashlight in his right hand. Then, when it shows a close-up of him, he’s holding it in his left hand, then exchanges it back to his right.

Also in the castle raid, when Caspian, Susan, and Peter raise the portcullis, they don’t get it the whole way to the top. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnhH9jCT8VI - 0:37) Yet, when a Telmarine breaks the chain that holds the weight, you can see that it’s almost the whole way to the top. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi7Wzum6ILc - 0:46)

In LWW, wfter Aslan leaves after the coronation, Lucy looks out over the Eastern Ocean and sees the sun setting… (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyBcuvpwOUQ - 3:44)

That is a very good read. I'm not done with it yet, but it is really good.

:-)

The last few chapters of Just Believe were so-o-o-o-o confusing for me. I was reading it going, "What? Huh? Um…I think I must have missed something!"

Random thing about me you all probably already know: I love changing my avatars! I just found the castle raid scene on Youtube this morning, and have been taking pictures from it and turning them into avatars.

If you could pick any creature in Narnia to ride, ignoring Narnian "political correctness" (ege. you don't ride centaurs; tsk tsk, Susan), what would it be?
You can probably guess mine. I have a gryphon friend named Eucalypse. He's not imaginary, either. Sort of. To me he's not, anyway. Most people don't believe me. "Some little children don't know when to stop pretending."

Who's everyone's favorite minotaur? Mine is Asterius, the one who holds up the portcullis in PC. Others are Otmin (the black one Orieus defeats in LWW), Tavros (the minotaur who scared Eustace in VODT), and Jemain (Tavros' buddy).

He's my favorite too. :) I wanted to cry when I saw the end of that screen when Peter turns around and they're all stuck. It's not anywhere near as bad as how sad I'll b when Kili, Fili, and Thorin die……..

I felt really bad for Glenstorm when Rainstone got trapped in the castle. Windmane looked really sad, too, when they came back without him.

Have you seen the outtake/blooper where Shane Rangi (in the Asterius minotaur suit) runs into the gate–no, I mean really runs INTO the gate and flies head over heels? :-D

The saddest shot in the movie is when Edmund flies over the courtyard on the gryphon and it's dead silent. There's no music either, which emphasizes the emptiness of it. All you can hear is the gryphon's wings.

My favorite shot in LWW is when Peter's hand comes out of the water holding the handle of his sword and "Here Comes the King" starts up all triumphant.
My favorite song from LWW is probably "Just the Beginning of the Adventure" or maybe "Here Comes the King".
When I listened to the soundtrack for the first time I realized that there are vocals in the "Stone Table" song. You can't hear them very well over the other noises in the scene, and when I was listeneing to the song there were chills going up and down my spine like I'd felt when I'd watched that scene for the first time.

For those of you who (like me) don't own PC, but love it and want to see the battle scenes again (like me), I found the following links on Youtube:

The castle raid

Defeating the White Witch…again!

The duel

The second battle of Beruna

The castle raid is my favorite scene from PC. The fauns are so athletic in that scene; they're a lot of fun to watch. And you have to love Edmund's face when he's confronted by those two Telmarines on the tower and he looks backwards and sees the gryphon waiting for him. He looks at the two guys like, "Sorry. Been nice talking to you. Gotta go," and he drops off the edge. Then the gryphon launches up in front of them and it's like, "I gotcha that time!"
A lot of people say they'd like to be in Edmund's place in that scene. Oh, yeah, sure, especially when all the Telmarines are shooting at him.

Yeah that's the sadest part when he like nods at his son it's like UHH!!

Susan looked so sympathetic!

'"Sorry. Been nice talking to you. Gotta go," and he drops off the edge. Then the gryphon launches up in front of them and it's like, "I gotcha that time!"'
lol, I LOVE that part! =D

And yeah, that battle in PC, soooooo sad! I wanted to sob the first time I saw that. It was SO awful.

Lol yeah. :)

The castle raid is my favorite scene in PC now, though. I don't know why. The flashlight stuff is funny, but it's not just that. There's something more. Maybe it's all the cool gryphon-riding, or maybe it's the desperate retreat. I feel like Reepicheep, though. "For his mind was full of forlorn hopes, death-or-glory charges, and last stands." VODT, chapter 5.
I'm afraid my personality is most like Reepicheep's, not discluding all the drawbacks. "'I have sometimes wondered, friend, whether you do not think too much about your honour.'" Aslan to Reepicheep, PC, chapter 15. (I'm petrified of being humiliated or made to look like I'm dumb.)
But my mom says I look like Susan. And my dad says my eyes look like Aslan's, except a different color. Not a bad combination, if you think about it. Reepicheep's personality, Susan's face, and Aslan's eyes. Awesome.

Lol :) I think that's a compliment. :) lol

What, acting like Reepicheep? Or looking like Aslan? Or Susan? Or all 3?

Well all three but the Susan part especially. Lol although I look nothing like her :) lol

I don't personally think I look much like her. But I sometimes will make a face like her when I'm looking in the mirror as I'm brushing my teeth or whatever, so I guess I must do it pretty often and just don't realize it.

Lol :) yeah. I don't think I really have a 'celebrity look-alike' :) lol

I didn't either, until now.
But it was funny because one day I was brushing my hair in front of a mirror and made a face like Peter! I was really surprised (and fascinated at the same time) and stood there for about five minutes more seeing if I could do it again until someone called and asked what I was doing. I don't remember exactly how I replied, but it was probably something really idiotic like, "Um…I'm seeing if I can make a face like a Narnia character again!" I don't remember their response, either, but it was probably something like, "…what??"

Lol :) looks like u been watching to much Narnia. Lol JK if I go look in the mirror after I watch a movie sometimes I think I make faces (and sometimes I do lol) like the actors or characters. :) lol

gasps Danielle, no one can ever watch too much Narnia!!!
It really was uncanny, though. I was like, "Cool! … How did I do that?"

Yeah IKR? That's the way it always is ur not trying ur just like "Hey! That looked like 'so-and-so'" lol :)

And of course you can't do it a second time.
I finally figured out a simple baseline accompaniment for "Here Comes the King" on the piano, so now I can play it! My brother Mike had to help me, because he's been playing for what, 8 years, and I haven't even been playing for 1!