Is anyone else annoyed at comparisons?

[Purpleotter]

The Narnia/The Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter comparisons? I'm referring to the debates that some people make online (Like on youtube) as to which movie series is better. Honestly I don't see how they can even be "compared" in the first place. They're all different, and different people will like whichever one of the series that they want to depending on what they're into. It just bugs me how some people say things like "Oh, this series will never have the same acting or visual effects as that other series."

Out of the three, I love Narnia and The Lord of the Rings but I don't care for Harry Potter. I don't really waste time "comparing" the three popular series though.

Thoughts?

[Ithilwen]

I think comparisons are pretty much inevitable. In some cases, it can be required, since you need comparisons to make an analogy.

And although they are very different in some ways (and though you can like all three equally) Narnia, LOTR, and HP all deal with similar themes. Fantasy magic, friendship, good vs. evil, etc. And since they both portray similar themes, it can be both helpful and fun to discuss which portrayed those themes better and why.

Of course, if instead of discussion, all the person posts is, "nArniA is stpuid i LIKe harrry Pooter better!!!11!!", (as Youtube comments often go) then yes. That is annoying. Not so much because it's a comparison, but more because it's a statement that that does no one any good.


~Riella

[waterkid72]

Well, regarding the movies is pretty much inevitable considering that the three series are fantasies, even if their stories are not really related at all. Its important to know, that such comparisons will always exists, especially among popular series with large fanbases. HP and LoTR fanbases are larger than Narnia, so certainly they will usually "win" in terms of popularity. And there will be always someone saying how one franchise is bad compared to th eother or even worse, that is copying the other one. Many fans have not even read the actual source material.

But there is a bright side, such debates can be turned into healthy discussions, were fans of the books can put some attention to them, leading to other people to gain interest in them. Of course this is a good thing, so having this conversations can be fun. But of course it has to be more than just "X sucks and Y is so much better" type of conversation.

[DamselJillPole]

I agree that it is inevitable for people to compare different franchises to another. A friend and I were comparing The Hunger Games with Divergent not too long ago. (My personal opinion, the author of Divergent is obviously a huge fan of THG because there is so much to compare it to.)

It also depends on if these different franchises run at the same time in theaters against one another as well. I'll also admit that it is actually Hollywood who starts the controversial comparisons to begin with. Like with Twilight for example. At first Hollywood insiders were comparing it with Harry Potter (Personally I cannot see it) and thus the comparing and arguments of which is better begun.

people will always have something to compare with another.

[Ryadian]

Like everyone else, on the one hand, I can totally understand why there are so many comparisons. Other than Twilight (and Eragon a few years ago), those three are pretty much the "big name" fantasy franchises out there, so naturally people--especially people who may not necessarily be familiar with all three--are going to draw comparisons.

Regardless, I totally understand getting annoyed with the constant comparisons. Yes, there are parallels, but the reason why they're all beloved is because they all have completely different feels. They all immerse you in their worlds, and even though both Harry Potter and Narnia use our world quite a bit of the time (Harry Potter all the time, to my knowledge), the two are completely different. I hate simplifying them so much, but this is the best way I can think to describe it without going on and on: to me, Narnia is soothing and majestic, Lord of the Rings is epic and profound, and Harry Potter is... for lack of a better word, it's quirky while maintaining a sense of intrigue. (Note, I'm far more familiar with the first two than the last. ) Even Twilight has its own themes and aesthetics (IMHO), though I've never read/seen any of it and can't describe it in detail. In my mind, they all succeed because they're distinct from the rest of the fantasy genre, especially the ones who have been copying them since they came out.

Plus, I don't like the undertone of "we have to compare them in order to determine which one is better". Just like with Star Wars vs. Star Trek, I really don't see why we can't all just get along. Like I said, I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, but I enjoyed what I did read/watch, and I can certainly see how people could fall in love with it. Just because I love Narnia more, does that mean I think it's inherently superior? No; HP and Narnia were written with two different ideas in mind, other than the basic concept of "telling stories for others to enjoy, especially children". Harry Potter didn't appeal as much to me (though I did read the first five books), but it is certainly not without merit!

But, since this is supposed to be about the MOVIES, I should probably end my tangent about the stories themselves and get to the point. Aside from the obvious reasons, I think the reasons the comparisons come out is that... well, the movies did kind of try to copy each other. Not Lord of the Rings copying the others so much (since they came first), but the Narnia movies as I see them certainly tried to be LOTR, and even Harry Potter to some degree. (In my mind, that's in large part why the movies, especially PC and VDT, failed to please a lot of us. ) I only saw the first Harry Potter movie, but the trailers for the later ones did remind me of LOTR to some degree, and I can't imagine that was unintentional. In that regard, since it seems that at least some people in Hollywood are making these connections for us, there's basis for the comparisons. Which just makes it frustrating for the fans who have to say, "No, Narnia is not a LOTR rip-off, the movies just forgot about that fact."

[Pardine]

Well.. not really.

I do remember when the Narnia movies came out, and I remember the ad campaigns behind them. One of the big points of the ad campaigns was that this was the "christian Harry Potter", and that it'd be BETTER than Harry Potter simply because it was christian. From day one, here in TN where I live, Walden and crew were going to churches with promotional material talking about how evil Harry Potter was and how this was going to be so much better because it was Christian. They gave churches curriculum, preaching notes, tickets, "service order" advertisements to place in the order of service, flags, banners, posters, etc. And almost everyone of them had some veiled reference to you being evil if you didn't go to see this movie but did like Harry Potter.

So, if you're sick of the comparisons, well, I'd blame the movie itself. It didn't have to compare itself to Harry Potter, and it certainly didn't have to initially court churches and tell them that Harry Potter was evil and it was the light.

But now, I suppose, we're here.

[King_Erlian]

Oh dear. I've come across Christians (or people claiming to be Christians - the way they live their lives makes me uncertain) who claim that Harry Potter is evil. They all have one thing in common: they haven't read the books. All they know is that the Harry Potter stories have got witches and wizards in them, so they must be occult, and therefore Satanic. But do they know what's in the Narnia books? It's not just the baddies who use magic:

1. The children from our world travel to Narnia by magic.
2. Aslan is raised from the dead by "deeper Magic from before the dawn of time" (admittedly this is "softened" in the Walden film).
3. Prince Caspian summons the Pevensies to Narnia using Susan's Magic Horn.
4. Doctor Cornelius uses magic.
5. Coriakin uses magic.

...and so on. In both Narnia and the Harry Potter universe, "magic" is a device to allow otherwise impossible things to happen. It's just like Geordi in Star Trek The Next Generation "re-routing the phase couplings through the deflector array" or the Doctor in Dr. Who "reversing the polarity of the neutron flow" (neutrons don't actually have any polarity). The real thrust of the Harry Potter books, as with Narnia, is the battle between good and evil; in fact, at the end of "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone" Dumbledore makes the point that it was love (Lily Potter's love for Harry) which saved him, and so love is stronger than magic.

What makes me angry about all of this is the view in some churches that you shouldn't think for yourself, you should just believe what some spiritually superior person tells you.

[waggawerewolf27]

I do remember when the Narnia movies came out, and I remember the ad campaigns behind them. One of the big points of the ad campaigns was that this was the "christian Harry Potter", and that it'd be BETTER than Harry Potter simply because it was christian. From day one, here in TN where I live, Walden and crew were going to churches with promotional material talking about how evil Harry Potter was and how this was going to be so much better because it was Christian. They gave churches curriculum, preaching notes, tickets, "service order" advertisements to place in the order of service, flags, banners, posters, etc. And almost everyone of them had some veiled reference to you being evil if you didn't go to see this movie but did like Harry Potter.

So, if you're sick of the comparisons, well, I'd blame the movie itself. It didn't have to compare itself to Harry Potter, and it certainly didn't have to initially court churches and tell them that Harry Potter was evil and it was the light.

In Australia I didn't notice any such campaign pitting Narnia against Harry Potter, though we were aware of the Anti HP publicity in USA, in particular. I've met people who thought that Narnia was just as evil as Harry Potter, and would have shunned both of them because they disapproved of fantasy, in particular. And though many were blown away by LOTR in 2001, 2002 & 2003, I've also known of people who had reservations about Tolkien. Much of the comparisons is because LOTR, HP and Narnia were all being filmed within the same time period from 2001 onwards, with the writing of the HP series only being completed in 2007.

What makes me angry about all of this is the view in some churches that you shouldn't think for yourself, you should just believe what some spiritually superior person tells you.

Fair point. When Pope John Paul II said he liked HP then it was okay to read them, as far as I was concerned. And when some cleric in Iran said his piece to criticize HP it was even more okay to read them. I was well aware of the anti -HP sentiment put about by the likes of Laura Mallory, but I had also read John Granger's books in defense of the spirituality in HP.

When Dan Brown's Da Vinci code was filmed I did hear of the Catholics and Anglican churches not wanting their congregations to have anything to do with it, and the same happened for The Golden Compass in 2006. Of course, I made a point of reading both books to make up my own mind. The kefuffle over the Da Vinci Code didn't stop Dan Brown's Angels and Demons from being filmed later on.

Philip Pullman, the atheist author of Golden Compass, disliked both these churches and any sort of organised religion. In particular, he disliked C.S.Lewis, whose LWW was produced the previous December, and it seems that he mounted his own anti-Narnia campaign, possibly to promote Golden Compass. I don't know if his opposition to Narnia was very effective.

[Louloudi the Centaur]

Yes, I've been getting very annoyed! Even though Narnia/Harry Potter/ Lord of the Rings/ The Hobbit have some similar elements, such as fantastical creatures, the plots are completely different. There are young protagonists in some of the series, but a lot of children's/ young adult fiction have youthful protagonists.

I think it's really the films that get the series compared.

[starkat]

The comparisons never really bothered me. People were talking about it. If you met someone who was making a comparison, it meant they knew they were putting a Narnia movie out. That tapered way off after Prince Caspian. For VDT, word of mouth was not as prevalent as it was for the other two movies.

[Varnafinde]

I haven't followed those debates very much, so I voted 'don't know' - but if comparisons and debates get people to think more about the books, and perhaps read them more, then this is a good thing.

[waggawerewolf27]

The comparisons never really bothered me. People were talking about it. If you met someone who was making a comparison, it meant they knew they were putting a Narnia movie out. That tapered way off after Prince Caspian. For VDT, word of mouth was not as prevalent as it was for the other two movies.

Yes, you are right. Even the staff at the theatre where I saw VDT seemed barely to know it was about to be screened, and the publicity one would expect was almost zilch.

[Glumpuddle]

I don't think I get tired of the comparisons. Probably because I think they're perfectly valid. Whenever a movie is a huge hit, all the marketing execs start scrambling to fill the market with something similar. After LotR and HP, they all said "Quick! Get something that has magic and creatures and swords!" The Narnia films are footnotes in the story of the influence LotR and HP had on Hollywood.

In light of that, I think you have to give Andrew Adamson a lot of credit. It would have been very easy for the first two films to feel like functional fast-tracked Hollywood bores (like VDT). He brought some emotional sincerity and passion to the table.

[checkers]

It's not comparisons themselves that annoy me...it's when people try to say that one author copied another and such. That reeeeeally ticks me off.

[TheGeneral]

I get annoyed with the comparisons. Each one is awesome in it's own way /shrug

[shastastwin]

I didn't vote in the poll because my answer is a bit more complicated than the options given. Like a few others here, I enjoy the discussion of the different series and their individual merits. Even a discussion of which books do a better job at one or two things is great, because it gets us digging into the books and the ideas behind them. That said, I don't think any discussion of which series is better is going to get anywhere because it's asking the wrong question. I happen to enjoy all three series (films and books) pretty much equally, but I go to them for different things. I usually read Narnia when I want something that is lighter and spiritually enriching; Middle-earth when I want epics and vast storylines with mythic backgrounds; and Harry Potter when I want something that is somewhere in between, both lighthearted and vast. I can't say that even a discussion of which books are better written would get anywhere, though a discussion about which films were made better might be a decent discussion if one had a clear, universal rubric by which to judge them all.