Description: 10-Minute Narnia Montage

‘Nennare’ sent us a description of a 10-mintue montage of never-before seen footage from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” film (this is not a description of the next trailer):

LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!

Ok, so last week I went to a conference for next-gen church leaders, and at the end of the first day they had a special 30 minute segment devoted to Narnia. They showed the trailer, chapters 4 and 5 of the behind the scenes featurettes, had an interview with someone from Disney, and a 10 minute montage of never-before-seen footage.

Since everyone can see the trailer and featurettes themselves, I won’t comment on them, but I should point out that after each a round of thunderous applause broke out. (There were 9,000 people in attendance!)

I didn’t write down exactly what was said in the interview, but they were talking about the impact on church and culture- he quoted someone saying, “Movie theaters are the church’s of today’s culture and movies are their sermons”. Basically he was saying that young people are drifting away from church and tend to spend a lot of time in movie theaters and other places of entertainment, and they are learning a lot of lessons there, including quite a few bad ones. He quoted Michael Flaherty by saying that this movie, “celebrates the true, the good, and the beautiful.”

Now, the guy doing the interview flew in on the red eye that morning to bring the clips to us, and in fact, the organizers of the conference had only finally talked Disney into letting them share it a week before. They made a big deal about no one taking any pictures including camera phones, so clearly I don’t have any pictures to share (I wish I did!) But I did take a few notes, but quite a bit of it was extended scenes of bits we have seen (ie- more battle shots, which were awesome by the way!) Anyways, here’s my synopsis:

It started inside a german bomber approaching London quietly in the clouds (possibly the opening scene of the movie?) Then you start seeing the planes getting shot at and them dropping their loads on the city. Next you see Edmund at a window being pulled away by his mother and the kids being pushed into a bomb shelter outside while the bombing is going on. That goes into the scene where they are being put onto the train. It seems that everyone there is putting their children on the train to get them out of London. The mom whispers in Peter’s ear, “promise me you’ll look after the others.” He says he will. While at the professors it appears there is three different entrances to Narnia-one with just Lucy during hide and seek, the second showing just Edmund walking in (presumably after Lucy went in), and then the final time with everyone.

Next we see Mr. Beaver near the children. Peter is up in front holding his hand out to him. Mr. Beaver approaches slowly but stops. Peter calls to him as you would a stray animal, but Mr. Beaver looks at his hand and says, “well, I’m not going to kiss it!” I don’t remember exactly what they said next, but Mr. Beaver wanted them to follow and Peter seemed to trust him, but Susan said something about how beavers shouldn’t be talking.

The rest of the montage were quicker shots of scenes. There were a lot of scenes of the battle, the White Witch with Edmund, the wolves, etc. There was one shot of Lucy looking into the fireplace and seeing what looked like little fire creatures dancing in the fire while Tumnus played his flute for her.

We see the army bowing to Aslan, but at a different angle than the one from the trailer.
One of my favorites was seeing the look on the WW’s face as she sees Aslan come up at the battle. She says, “Impossible” under her breath.

Oh! and I heard Aslan speak! Peter say to him, “We need your help” and Aslan replies, “I know, but it may be harder than you think.”

After the sacrifice the WW calls to her horde, “Tomorrow we will take Narnia, forever!”
And then back on the battle field, just before they charge Peter cries out, “For Narnia, and for Aslan!”

There are a lot of shots from the coronation ceremony from Cair Paravel.
Another favorite, seeing a dryad! It was beautiful. It was in the shape of a woman, but completely covered with pink flowers that were in constant motion as if you were looking at a field of wildflowers during a windstorm.

And the last thing I remember is the four children falling out of the wardrobe onto the floor with the Professor standing over them, and them looking back up to him.

Overall it was fantastic! And of course, the audience erupted in applause once again at the conclusion. I can’t wait another two months!!! I wish I could have taken pictures. There was a booth and a tent set up from Narnia Resources handing out all sorts of materials (including my very own huge movie poster! yeah!) I highly recommend checking it out.

Thanks to Nennare for the report!