I never felt it was a ripoff. It was obvious that they were trying to cash in on the LOTRs success. I have been a fan of the books since I was old enough to read, and I am a fan of a lot of Lewis' other works as well as Tolkien's. I felt narnia was too bright colored and that the fact that the kids just walked into another world didn't seem to be that impressive to the kids and thus not to the audience either. I know the books are very light childrens books, but I was just thinking the other day how interesting would it have been had Narnia been portrayed as a more surreal wonderland kind of place. More kin to something Tim Burtin would direct (odd I say that, because I really don't like Burtins films much). I think it could have worked. Instead you have exactly good and exactly bad, I think it all should have been more dark. Who do we trust? In the book Edmund felt the queen was good and that the beavers were really the bad ones, in the film Edmund is just stupid. We should be wondering, is the queen really evil? And we should be more skeptical about the beavers. Then the film could have carried itself on the wonder of the odd, cold world around them, rather than adding in breaking ice and constant wolf attacks. As the ice melts the world could grow brighter, more pleasant and less Tim Burtinesque.