D. Polanco

Am I the only one who is thinking.... Why can’t fantasy just be fantasy anymore? The first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s NARNIA: THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW came out yesterday, and instead of feeling timeless, it feels like another classic fantasy story being filtered through a very modern filmmaker’s need to put their own stamp on it. And that’s where I start getting annoyed. I’m not religious. C.S. Lewis absolutely was. I don’t need Narnia stripped of that just because I don’t personally believe it. Aslan being a Christ figure is part of the DNA of the story. Hell, I’ll even roll with Meryl Streep voicing him, weird as that still sounds to me. But why does everything need to be “reimagined” now? Why can’t you just adapt the damn thing as it is? Fantasy used to feel lived-in, strange and tactile. Now everything has to be louder, slicker, more self-aware, more “modern,” more obviously authored. The source material is what became timeless. You don’t need to fix it. You need to trust it. And based on this first trailer, I’m not convinced Narnia is being trusted nearly enough.