Guest Author - Bettyann Schmidt

I’m excited about the new Narnia movie due to hit the theaters on May 16th. That's only 49 days away.

I'm reading the book to my 19-year-old special needs son, Jeff, and my husband. We do that with certain books. Real Alouds they're called. I read "Where the Red Fern Grows" aloud chapter by chapter some years back. It's fun and a great family activity. I read aloud to the grandkids too, and my 10-year-old grandson loves it, even though he can read quite well on his own.

So every night we're catching up with the Pevenskie children and the excitement just builds as we go. When we saw "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," we made it an event. Took some of Jeff's friends along, my husband's cousin who is also totally into Narnia, had a big meal, and just celebrated the movie.

When I first heard about the movie coming out, I was really worried that the Pevenskie children would be played by different actors, but they're back!

Anna Popplewell plays Susan, Georgie Henley as Lucy (don't you just love her name? It so fits her, Little Georgie.) Skandar Keynes plays Edmund, William Moseley as Peter, and new to the list, Ben Barnes has the role of Prince Caspian, and is captivating. A friend of mine, who saw Narnia last year before me, said, "The children are beautiful." Was she ever right. You can look at a great photo by going to http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809244324/photo/970464365.

Trailers can be seen at http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/ and http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809244324/trailer.

The character of Prince Caspian isn't the only new player. My son was enamored with the White Witch, but in Prince Caspian, the jealous Queen Prunaprismia is a ferocious enemy. The queen's character is played by Alicia Borrachero, a 40-year-old, dark-haired beauty, born in Madrid, Spain, who looks a whole lot younger.

The story takes place one year later, after the children's return from Narnia through the wardrobe. They're waiting to board the train taking them back to school. As in Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe, they're whisked away to a most unusual place. What they don't realize is that Narnia time and their time are not the same. Just like God's time and our time are different. In fact, more than 1,300 years have passed in Narnia and things have changed quite a bit. We'll meet lots of new characters, like the Telmarines and King Miraz, the new wicked ruler that just might make the White Queen look like an innocent kitten. Other characters who appear on screen will be Reepicheep the mouse, Trufflehunter the badger, and Nikabrik the Black Dwarf. Once again they have to find Aslan, and the journey unfolds to restore good back to Narnia.

An interesting tidbit is that this film was originally scheduled for release last December, 2007, but that date coincided too close with "The Golden Compass," which of course we did not see. Disney also released "The Water Horse" last year, so they moved the date for Prince Caspian forward.

We buy our tickets to the big-event movies ahead of time at Fandango.com, if you're interested in seeing it the first day of release. You do have to pay a fee for getting the tickets online, so an alternative is to go to your theater and purchase them ahead of time.

You can join a discussion on the Narnia Fans Forum at http://www.narniafans.com/forum/. You have to enter the "wardrobe" to sign up, which I thought was so cute. Of course, be sure to go to our own Christian Lit Forum here on BellaOnline to join our own discussion on Prince Caspian and lots of other interesting topics.


Genres: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy and Adaptation