Posted by: @courtenay

And it's that lack of genuine connectedness with WW2 in the original story that means it can be set in other eras without necessarily ruining it — even possibly in 2025, if Gerwig wants to increase the canonical time gap between MN and LWW. That brings other issues, of course, to do with how modern-day children might handle being pulled into a medieval-style fantasy world with no modern technology and internet connectivity.

I subscribe to the newsletter from Oxford Centre For Fantasy (info@projectnorthmoor.org). They focus a lot on Tolkien and Lewis. Their newsletter from 24 October was titled "Greta Gerwig's Narnia". They have an interesting suggestion related to the changing of the timeline.

Posted by: Oxford Centre For Fantasy

We are wondering if what Gerwig wants to say is actually about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. As The Magician's Nephew is a prequel in the professor's youth, that makes LWW a contemporary story.

Here's the prediction - no evacuation. Gerwig might instead choose to make it a pandemic story of children shut up in a big country house in isolation during Covid.

We'll be interested to see if we are right. It is what we would do if we gave ourselves the starting point of 1955 and it would give Gerwig's LWW something new to tackle.

It could make sense. Isolation during Covid would be a valid reason for the children to stay in the countryside. And if Digory was 11 in 1955, he would be in his late seventies during Covid (and could be more of a "very old " professor).

That would indeed be something new for LWW. The contrast to a medieval-style fantasy world might well be even greater from our time than from the middle of last century.

Posted by: @varna

Posted by: Oxford Centre For Fantasy

We are wondering if what Gerwig wants to say is actually about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. As The Magician's Nephew is a prequel in the professor's youth, that makes LWW a contemporary story.

Here's the prediction - no evacuation. Gerwig might instead choose to make it a pandemic story of children shut up in a big country house in isolation during Covid.

I remember somebody here on NarniaWeb making a similar suggestion some time ago in an earlier discussion about the idea of LWW being set in the present day, well before we knew anything about the 1955 setting for the upcoming adaptation of MN.

The Covid idea could work, if it's made clear that the children were already staying at the Professor's house without their parents, for whatever reasons, at the time when the lockdown was declared. We had this debate in the other discussion, because it was suggested that they could be sent to the Professor's house because of the pandemic and the isolation rules and all that. That absolutely would not work. I was living here in the UK at that time and I can say categorically, if they were not at the Professor's house already, they would not have been allowed to travel there. The implementation of the first lockdown was really swift and no excuses were allowed (except for certain figures in the government who somehow managed to have the rules bent for themselves, but that's another matter entirely ).

Whether or not that particular scenario happens in the next Narnia film (and whether or not it's done convincingly if it is), I'm inclined to agree overall — I'm also suspecting that the main reason for setting MN in 1955 is that Gerwig is planning to set LWW in the present day or the recent past. After all, that is the inevitable result of the period change for MN.

I don't know exactly what LWW would gain from being set in modern times, and I don't think it's necessary and I can't see that it would do anything to enhance the plot. But I'll certainly watch it (and MN) out of curiosity, even if I'm not hopeful that I'll like the results.