Stories and movie clips can be a great way to get a point across. Both of them appeal to our visual senses as we either see the story in a movie clip or picture it in our mind as we hear the story.
Subject: shyness, insecurity, great challenges, impossible tasks
Intro: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is a much loved classic novel by C.S. Lewis. In the 2005 movie version, we meet the four Pevensie children have been sent to the English countryside to escape the bombing of London during WW2. They stay with a professor and his housekeeper. As they play in the manor house, the children discover an entrance to a magical land through an upstairs wardrobe. The land is called Narnia and it is inhabited by a collection of magical creatures. The children soon learn that Narnia is under the control of an evil witch who has kept it in perpetual winter for 100 years. The children meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver (beavers, you know the furry animal with a flat tail?) who tell them about the true King, Aslan who is prophesied to return to depose the witch and bring peace to Narnia. They find out they have a vital role in this war and they are not prepared for that. They are just normal kids from an uninteresting place where nothing ever happens!
Scene:
Peter: Isn’t there anything we can do to help Tumnus?
Mr. Beaver: They’ll have taken him to the witch’s castle and you know what they say, ‘ there’s few that go through them gates that come out again.’
Mrs. Beaver: Fish & Chips! (actual fish and wood chips, because they’re beavers right?) There is hope dear, lots of hope.
Mr. Beaver: Oh yeah! There’s a right bit more than hope. Aslan is on the move.
Edmond: Who’s Aslan?
Mr. Beaver: (laughs) Who’s Aslan?! You cheeky little blighter!
[Mrs. Beaver nudges him]
Mr. Beaver: What?
[he sees from the children’s blank expressions that they don’t know who Aslan is]
Mr. Beaver: You don’t know do you?
Peter: Well, we haven’t exactly been here very long.
Mr.Beaver: Well, he’s only the King of the whole wood, the top geezer, the real King of Narnia.
Mrs. Beaver: He’s been away for a long while.
Mr. Beaver: But he’s just got back and he’s waiting for you near the stone table.
Lucy: He’s waiting for us?
Mr Beaver: You’re bloomin’ joking! They don’t even know about the prophecy!!
Mrs Beaver: Well, then?
Mr Beaver: Look, Aslan’s return, Tumnus’ arrest, the secret police – it’s all happening because of you!
Susan: You’re blaming us?
Mrs Beaver: No, not blaming, thanking you.
Mr Beaver: There’s a prophecy, “when Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone sits at Cair Paravel enthroned, the evil time will be over and done”.
Susan: You know that doesn’t really rhyme.
Mr Beaver: No, I know it don’t, you’re kind of missing the point!
Mrs Beaver: It has long been foretold that two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve will defeat the white witch and restore peace to Narnia.
Peter: And you think we’re the ones?
Mr. Beaver: Well, you better be cause Aslan’s already figured out your army!!
Lucy: Our army?
Susan: Mom sent us away so we wouldn’t get caught up in a war.
Peter: I think you’ve made a mistake. We’re not heroes!
Susan: We’re from Finchley!!
[beavers look confused]
Attribution: Clip is in chapter 9 of the DVD, running from 47:40 to 49:50, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE is rated PG and is based on the book by C.S. Lewis, screenplay by Ann Peacock, Andrew Adamson and Christoher Markus and Stephen McFeely, directed by Andrew Adamson, a Walk Disney Pictures and Walden Media Production released in 2005.
Peter – William Moseley
Susan- Anna Popplewell
Edmund- Skandar Keynes
Lucy-Georgie Henley
