But in the books, the house is a scary place, and the professor is a forbidding mystery. It’s not until the end, after the children return from Narnia, that they really connect with the Professor. Which is another lesson to the books: Sometimes the best of people do seem a bit scary, until you get to know them.
dangermom – the picture book seemd to present the house as being big and dull, especially on rainy days when the children sre stuck inside. The Professor didn’t seem to be a scary figure, though (he speaks foreshadowingly to Lucy at the end) – although the housekeeper was, a bit. Again, these details are sketchy.
I don’t agree. Some quotations:
“…on the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was so odd-looking that Lucy…was a little afraid of him, and Edmund…wanted to laugh…
‘We’ve fallen on our feet and no mistake,’ said Peter. ‘This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old chap will let us do anything we like.’
‘I think he’s an old dear,’ said Susan…
'Hadn’t we all better go to bed? said Lucy. ‘There’s sure to be a row if we’re heard talking here.’
‘No, there won’t,’ said Peter. ‘I tell you this is the sort of house where no one’s going to mind what we do.’…
I was a far larger house than she [Lucy] had ever been in before and the thought of all those long passages and rows of doors leading into empty room was beginning to make her feel a little creepy.
…[Peter]‘I say, let’s go and explore tomorrow…’
It was the sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was full of unexpected places…soon they came to a very long room full of picture and there they found a suit of armor…”
Lucy is the only one who gets a little nervous at first, and the house is interesting, not scary. When Peter and Susan talk with the Professor about whether Lucy is mad, he’s not scary–just different from any other adult in the way he takes everything seriously. On the whole, he’s kind but distant, letting them work things out for themselves.
Here’s the new, full trailer.
Can’t wait! 
All kidding aside, from the trailer, it would appear that that moment has been dumbed down. What I saw was Lucy pulling a dropcloth off the wardrobe and opening the door, and then her eyes widening with awe and wonder while she’s still in the room. The impression is that she sees Narnia the moment she opens the door, instead of pushing her way through the wardrobe and realizing, during that process, that there’s something more in here besides old winter coats.
This could just be a matter of editing for the trailer, but if it really does play out that way in the film, I don’t think I’m being overly picky in saying that that would cheapen the moment of discovery. The transition from “oh, there’s nothing in here” to “WHOA” is important, partly because it builds suspense, and partly because it establishes Lucy as someone who’s eager to explore and find stuff out for herself, not merely take what’s handed to her.
And when you think about it, there’s very little blatant magic in TCoN. What there is is mainly the province of Aslan and the White Witch, and later on other adult characters like Jadis and the Green Witch, or whatever her name is. But the children are generally called upon to use their intelligence, bravery and strength to do what they must do. The closest thing to physical magic is Lucy’s healing cordial, and as far as that goes, in the era Lewis was writing about, someone her age would probably have had some rudimentary first aid training, so it’s not like she’d be unfamiliar with the concept of healing. (And there’s also Susan’s horn, but again, distress signals aren’t unheard of in our world, even if they’re not as powerful as that.)
TCoN are primarily adventure stories. When the characters are in a bind, they think or fight their way out of it instead of using spells. And if the wardrobe is clearly established in the first significant scene as a portal and no bones about it, that undercuts the adventure aspect quite a bit. I could be wrong, though; I hope I am.
The trailer clearly shows feet walking through coats and then trees so I have great hope.
I am so damn excited about this that I feel like I’m eight years old. I watch the trailer and my breath comes short and my eyes tear up.
I’ve spent that last month reading one chapter per night of the Narnia books per night to my five-year-old. And I’ve promised her we can go see this as many times as she wants.
Someone refresh my memory - isn’t Lucy supposed to be blonde? 
It’s been so long since I’ve read the book… but I thought she was called Lucy the Golden Haired or something like that after she became Queen. My friend insists she was “mousy-haired and plain,” because she remembers Lucy being jealous of Susan’s beauty in a scene in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I remember that scene as well, but I don’t remember anything about her hair being brown.
The illustrations showed both girls as having dark hair, but apparenly Lewis wasn’t all that happy about how they looked. The text itself reads:
Susan was supposed to be the beauty, yes, but that doesn’t mean Lucy is a dog! I estimate about five years between them, which is just the right gap for Susan to be exhibiting teenage physical qualities (along with those “grown-up” attitudes that get under Lucy’s nerves), so that in itself is enough to inspire jealousy. There’s no indication that there’s anything wrong with Lucy’s looks; just that it sucks to be stuck in little-girl mode while your sister is being praised for edging into womanhood.
I never pictured her as looking quite so babyish, but if that’s what the filmmakers want, in order to play up the childlike-wonder aspect, then whatever. I’m reticent, though, about the casting of Edmund. Peter can look like anything, because he’s supposed to be so noble, but the stills I’ve seen of Edmund make him look downright homely. And I don’t see a reason for that. The kid who played him in the BBC version, I thought was perfect for the role. Totally Anglo, the Ideal British Schoolboy: just the right disguise for a traitor. At one point, Lewis pointed out that Edmund’s corruption didn’t start with Jadis; the seeds were sown when he started going to a snobby, toffee-nosed school. I resent the implication that people who don’t look good aren’t good.
[sub]I’m also not crazy about the casting of Cho and Fleur in the new HP movie. Neither of them seems to have the across-a-crowded-room effect that they do as described in the books…but that’s a matter for another thread.[/sub]