Glumpuddle wrote:In many ways, he seems exactly like the kind of director I have been begging them not to hire.
For years, I've been saying "please don't just hire someone for practical reasons. Don't just get a director you can easily control who has VFX and child-actors experience. Take a risk on a real auteur." I look at Johnston's resume and he seems a lot like what I was fearing... except that he has actually made some pretty good movies.
I've been thinking about this the past few days. If I were a billionaire and could fund all of the films myself, I'd definitely take a risk on an auteur. I had been hoping to see this kind of choice, but after further considering the current state of Narnian filmmaking, I can understand why they would want to go with someone safer. (And frankly, I'm not sure that isn't what I myself would recommend given the circumstances.) They're trying to revitalize a franchise that has been dormant for many years. Going with an auteur could produce a great film, but it could also produce a flop (and those two scenarios aren't mutually exclusive). What then would happen to the rest of the films yet to be made? Would it be the end of Narnia movies for a long time yet?
So at the least I am sympathetic to the decision they have made here, and I am certainly very heartened by the fact that Joe Johnston seems to be one of the best of the "safe" choices. But like you, I don't want "safe" to mean that we get a heartless blockbuster with unnecessary action scenes and one-liners defusing every bit of atmosphere that tries to take shape... and I would also counsel the filmmakers that such a film would be more dangerous for the health of the franchise as a whole than taking a risk on an auteur would have been.
All that said, I would definitely recommend that they go with an auteur for
The Last Battle. Ideally it will be the last film anyway, and frankly that book will need one.
Reepicheep775 wrote:On one hand, I definitely see what you're saying and atmosphere-killing humour is one of my major pet peeves in film. The example that immediately comes to mind is the dialogue at Aslan's Table in VDT (e.g. "You are most beautiful" "If it is a distraction for you, I can change form" "NO!!"). That was a scene that should have been filled with an atmosphere of awe like it is in the book, but any atmosphere that had been building up was instantly killed in that moment and was never recovered.
The profound failure of that scene was the primary reason why I vowed to never watch VDT again.
I'll probably have to break that in order to competently comment on the franchise, but just thinking about it makes my blood pressure go up.
One thing that I notice about Joe Johnston after watching a few of the videos on his YouTube channel is that he seems like a pretty serious man with a dry wit. He doesn't appear to be someone who feels the need to pepper everything he says with brevity, so hopefully that won't be the case for SC either. (I think it also bodes well for not misunderstanding the character and wit of Puddleglum.)
PuddleCheep wrote:I do wonder if he will have as much control as Andrew Adamson did over the movie? I hope that if David Magee's script is as good as we hope it is, I just hope that Joe respects it and that he'll work closely with Douglas Gresham.
My ideal scenario is that Magee's script is brilliant and that he and Johnston will be something of a Narnian dream-team, with Magee bringing the storytelling chops and Johnston delivering on the aesthetic. When I was reading about some of Johnston's past films on Wikipedia, a critic said of 1991's
The Rocketeer that the filmmakers seemed more interested in the Art Deco production design and visual effects instead of imbuing the storyline with "inspiration, which may be why it finally feels flat".
That's one of my main concerns with Johnston — that we'll get a movie that looks great, but the heart of the story itself will be somewhat lacking. And to be sure, I think that the aesthetic of the movie is really, really important. Narnia,
as a place, wasn't that memorable in the Walden trilogy. It felt like more of a backdrop most of the time, and it's really key for me that they capture the magic of Narnia going forward. (Corporeal dryads!! Ahem.
) Seriously, when most of the remaining stories left to be told only have Aslan and the world of Narnia in common, it's vital that Narnia is dazzling. So I'm hoping that Joe Johnston will do a great job creating a world feels organic and real and gets under your skin and makes you long to visit, but I'm also hoping that David Magee's talent will do a lot of the heavy-lifting for inspired storytelling, and together they will ultimately deliver a film that is balanced both in aesthetic and story.