The Wizard Of Oz 1939, Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe 2005, Pans Labyrinth 2006, Avatar 2009, and Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey 2012
.
Our first venture into the second week of going on an adventure night is the 1939 Judy Garland classic, The Wizard of Oz. This film is the perfect introduction for the rest of the movies and establishes the concept of someone traveling into an alternate world that's beyond mindblowing. In this film. a young girl named Dorothy and her dog named Toto are swept away into a magical land at the hands of a tornado, and end up embarking on a quest to see the Wizard of Oz, who is the only person who can help then return back to Kansas. During their quest, they meet friends and enemies ranging from a Lion, a Tin Man, a Scarecrow, a good witch named Glenda, and an evil witch who wants her red slippers and attempts to sabotage their journey. The Wizard of Oz is not only an all time family classic but it starts everything off perfectly with a character going into a new world that's visually stunning. The film Chronicles of Narnia continues this trend with four kids traveling through a wardrobe to the land of Narnia and learning about their destiny to free it with the assistance of a mystical lion voiced by the always great Liam Neeson. This film is the first of a three film trilogy thus far on the classic Narnia books, and what remains the most successful entry in that franchise in terms of box office and critical acclaim. Regardless of how the trilogy ended up quality wise, the first film gives audiences and fans of the book a glimpse into the world it inspired through literature. It is visually stimulating like Wizard of Oz and leaves you in complete awe, while taking you on an emotional journey with the characters. The third film Pans Labyrinth makes the visual world even more incredible with Guillermo Del Toro's artistic vision. In this story, a bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world during 1944 in falangist Spain. James Cameron's Avatar takes the visuals to the highest point of this marathon with the background of Pandora in his film. Boosting some of the greatest special effects technology ever incorporated on film, Avatar deals with a marine named Jake in a wheelchair who is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission. During so, he becomes torn between following his orders and protecting the world he's learned to call home. One can say that this story is essentially the same as Dances With The Wolves, Ferngully, Pocahontas, and The Last Samurai, but it's the way each film is told by other filmmakers and their distinct styles of directing which make them great. The final film in the marathon for this lineup brings the adventure theme to a fitting closure for this week with it's own little story arc being set up that spills into next weeks. The film, Hobbit: An unexpected Journey is Peter Jackson's first installment in the Hobbit trilogy that's coming to it's end on Dec 17th with The Battle Of The Five Armies. The storyline feels much like the Wizard of Oz with a reluctant Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who is summoned by Gandalf the Grey in an offer for the adventure of a lifetime. The two set out to the Lonely Mountain with a group of dwarves in an effort to reclaim their mountain home, and the gold inside it from the evil dragon named Smaug.
With all of these films being combined together, one gets the sense that the adventures have evolved from the one's shown last week, and everything is much more broader and epic in scope.
No comments:
Post a Comment