There was an article in USA Today this past week which mentioned that plans are underway for the Narnia movies to be brought to the silver screen. I am personally happy to hear this, as I think the technology has gotten to the point that it could be handled well, though of course, I hope whoever is picked as a Director is a strong one.
I was most happy to hear that the plan is to release “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” first, as it was the first published, and should really be experienced first. I am quite fond of “The Magician’s Nephew” by the way, but found it incredibly cool to read the novel after all of the others. I was sad to see that the current publishers have chosen to number it first, but then kids aren’t considered to be as smart as they were several decades ago, I suppose.
Anyway, I’m happy that LWW will be the first movie.
This is so great to hear! I loved the books and the extremely dated british movies when I was younger. Later when I found out a lot of the books were based off of Christian lore, my love of them declined some but I would love to see true movies made. With the current popularity of fantasy movies (L.o.t.R and Harry Potter), they should do well.
They can’t- it’s woven into the essence of the story. Heck, no one involved in the LOTR films seems to have a C’tian axe to grind & the C’tian subtext is so freaking there! (Tolkien of course avoided the allegorical genre which Lewis so embraced in the Chronicles.) A few years ago, it was reported that the Lewis Estate would allow for new authorized authors to write books set in the world of Narnia & that such authors & books would not necessarily be C’tian. That led to silly rumors that the original Narnia books were going to be de-C’tianized.
I never really liked the Narnia books all that much, but I actually think what does work in them works better in books than it would onscreen.
When you come down to it, Lewis’ desire for allegory overwhelms the narratives, and they play out a lot more like predictable public service announcements acted out by moppets that are charmingly dull in ways only English characters can be. Compared to something like the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, Harry Potter, the Earthsea books, or other greats series for that age, and there’s just no comparison.
I’m not sure there’s enough in the book to stretch into a two hour movie without doing a lot of padding. It’s a pretty fluffy book as far as story goes. And Lewis fans probably wouldn’t be too keen on adding a lot of stuff to the movie that isn’t in the book.
The BBC TV version that was made in the late '80’s (and is now available on DVD) runs about 2 hours and 40 minutes. There is some padding at the beginning with the children arriving at the Professor’s house before they all get into the wardrobe, but it overall stays fairly close to the story. I imagine a feature film would probably stretch out the battle sequences.
I loved the books and the animated LWW, but I hated the live action version. Mainly due to the casting of Lucy and Edmund. Hopefully they’ll get that right this time.
This sort of news fills me with fear and anticipation. It could be so wonderful, but it could also turn out just god-awful. Bad casting decisions, cheesey FX, and/or getting overly preachy could all lead to ruin. I felt just this way when i first heard about the Lord of the Rings movies, I can only hope the Narnia ones turn out so well.
Though I fully agree that very little from the BBC miniseries has much merit (except of course the delight I felt upon discovering that Warwick Davies was Reepicheep), I have always loved that theme song. I wish that could be in the movies,
Douglas Gresham, CSL’s stepson, is supposed to be overseeing the project & is VERY concerned with both quality & faithfulness. He scuttled a proposed LWW that would have set the kids in modern day California where they are sent from L.A. because of an earthquake into the countryside & the White Queen gives Edmund his fill of hamburgers & fries (I can see the McD’s tie-in! gasp)
Quite the contrary. To make a short novel into a movie, you don’t need to add anything. All you need to do is to not cut anything. Once you realize how much is cut from a full-length novel made into a movie, it becomes clear that shorter books are much better suited to the conversion.
I am, of course, excited about the prospect of new Narnia movies (I was raised on those books, with occasional breaks for eating and sleeping), and I’m glad that they’re putting them in proper order. But I’ll keep my exaltations under control until I find out more about it.
Agreed. That far little girl did not look like Lucy!
I have high hopes for this movie. I loved, loved, LOVED the books and am delighted to hear that they’ve chosen to go with my preferred order instead of this new-fangled “chronological” crap. Chronological my Aunt Fanny. When I worked at a bookstore, I always pointed out the reordering to customers and recommended that they take the books out of the slipcase and put them back in the proper order before reading the books (or giving them as a gift).
I recall reading that Peter Jackson has something to do with the new film - producer maybe - and that the New Zealand government will be funding the film to some extent. I don’t remember where I read this - either off Yahoo!, superherohype.com or CHUD.com. Has anybody else heard this? And if it’s true, what do y’all think?