Posted by: @louloudi-the-centaur

Though I wonder how that would impact LWW and its setting over fifty years later in the 2000's or so.

40 years later, if they're following Lewis's timeline. Canonically, MN is set in 1900 and LWW in 1940. So if these adaptations follow the same pattern, LWW should be set in 1995.

Interestingly — and this is harking back to some points that came up in the discussion here a while ago on whether any Narnia adaptations could or should be set in the present day or at least closer to it — 1995 is JUST about the furthest limit for the time period in which you can set a classic-style children's story (or any story, really) without ultra-modern technology having to be factored in and potentially ruining the story. Internet access was I think just available then for the public, but it didn't become common in people's homes until a few years later. Mobile phones were available but not common, not very technically advanced just yet (definitely no internet access with them!), and they weren't something that kids generally had or were expected to have (and making calls on them was hideously expensive compared to a landline). And even for people who could get online, websites were mostly really basic, took ages to download each page (ah, I can hear the now-nostalgic sounds of a dial-up modem ringing in my ears ), and the information you could get there was usually pretty limited. The term "social media" hadn't even been invented yet! 

My point is — if LWW and its sequels are going to be set in 1995-97 (corresponding to the canonical 1940-42 settings for the original books of LWW, PC, VDT and SC), the atmosphere will be different for sure, but at least there won't be the issue of the kids being addicted to their smartphones and social media and having to learn to cope without them in Narnia!! 

What would the children be fleeing from in the countryside if not war in England? Unless perhaps one of the Pevensie parents was deployed in a modern war and the children needed to be sent away to process their trauma or something alike. 

It's worth remembering that, despite the emphasis some LWW adaptations place on the wartime setting, Lewis in the book refers to it once, in the second sentence of the opening chapter, and never brings it up again. The now-almost-lost 1967 TV adaptation of LWW had the children staying with the Professor while their parents were away on an archaeological expedition. The 1979 animation just refers to them as "staying with the Professor" and we're never given a reason. I'm sure a good director or screenplay writer could cook up some excuse for why the children happen to be separated from their parents and staying in this old house for at least part of the summer. 

Back on topic. As for why it is set in the 1950's, could this be to help differentiate between adaptations? Walden's LWW was clearly set in the time period as the book. And if this movie is intended to be as global as it, there would need to be something to make it stand out.

Hmmm, thing is, though, MN would stand out even if it was done by the book, as none of the other Chronicles are set in the late Victorian era. And that's the story that's got to make a big and positive impact, since they've decided to do it first. I'm still baffled as to why they're making such a dramatic change (and taking such a drastic risk) as apparently setting the whole story in a totally different era, especially when it's a book that hasn't had a "straight" adaptation for the screen previously.

I'm not at all confident this adaptation will be one I'll want to watch more than once. But meanwhile, it is exciting to have so much to talk about and speculate about at last.  

My current hunch FWIW, is that they're now more likely to age down the Professor in LWW, and set it around the late 70's or early 80's.

My reasoning is not very well thought through, except that if they are to stick to the canonical names for the Pevensies, I just can't imagine a kid 'Susan' in the 90's. 

Since Greta is clearly ditching the evacuee premise of WWII, perhaps she'll make Professor Kirke a younger teacher or relative in his 30's.

Posted by: @icarus

Here's the big question then... if everyone had to chose between the following....

• 1950s setting, but Aslan has a glorious mane
• 1900s setting, but Aslan is a Lioness

Definitely 1950s, male Aslan for me. The 1950s change may shake up some of the details in the book (though not as much as the impact it'll likely have on LWW), but for me, it doesn't go to the heart of the story the way a female Aslan does.

I'm enjoying the set pictures and cast and costumes so far, though since I'm not on the socials, I think I'm missing out on a lot!

Posted by: @whitestag

My current hunch FWIW, is that they're now more likely to age down the Professor in LWW, and set it around the late 70's or early 80's.

My reasoning is not very well thought through, except that if they are to stick to the canonical names for the Pevensies, I just can't imagine a kid 'Susan' in the 90's. 

I actually thought that the best theory as to why Gerwig would want to set the MN in the 50s is that she'd like to set LWW in the 90s since that she was when she first read the book as a child. Didn't she say something about the movie being a collaboration between C. S. Lewis, herself and herself as a child? Maybe when she was that age, she wanted a Narnia story with a protagonist who was her contemporary. 

Heh, it just occurred to me....

Rock and Roll!  

Hi, I'm new here! 

I do believe they are doing this to move LWW to more modern times.

This change would impact the whole world of Narnia, not just the modern parts. If Frank and Helen come from the 50s, that means the first king and queen of Narnia are from the 50s, and that makes narnian culture look very different. Traditionally we've had an exotic mixture of medieval and victorian elements, but now it would be medieval/50s. A lamppost from the 50s, Mr Tumnus' living room decorated in the 50s' style etc. 

When you think about it, Mr Tumnus is clearly a victorian gentleman. What would he be like now?

I'm both scared and curious at the same time. I hope they make this very well and it works.

I'm a bit worried about moving LWW to the 90s. I think the war is an important element in the story and not just a random detail. The children are helpless in our world but in Narnia they are able to do something. 

Hi @narnialainen and welcome!  

That's a good point, that Narnia inheriting a 1950s aesthetic from Frank and Helen would feel a bit strange. That said, as far as there are "Victorian" aspects in Narnia, they may come more from C.S. Lewis's own childhood (born in the very late Victorian era, grew up in the Edwardian era) than from a conscious plan by him to have Narnia's first King and Queen come from Victorian London. Don't forget, he wrote most of the other books well before The Magician's Nephew (apparently MN was the last one he completed, though it was the second last to be published), and as he didn't keep most of his drafts and notes, we don't know at what stage Frank and Helen came into his thoughts of Narnia's history. There's no hint of them in the earlier books — in fact, in LWW, the first Narnia story he wrote, we're told that there have never been any humans in Narnia before Lucy and her siblings.

Posted by: @narnialainen

When you think about it, Mr Tumnus is clearly a victorian gentleman. What would he be like now?

I'd be interested to know what aspects of him are specifically "Victorian" — certainly he behaves like a cultured and courteous gentleman, but the little we hear about his furnishings doesn't seem to point to any era, and the meal he serves Lucy would have been a typical "nursery tea" for well-off English children at any time from the Victorian era till well into the 20th century, possibly including the 1950s.

Posted by: @narnialainen

I think the war is an important element in the story and not just a random detail. The children are helpless in our world but in Narnia they are able to do something. 

That's an interpretation that possibly draws from the 2005 movie of LLW (and maybe from some stage productions too — there was one I saw in London a few years ago that made an even bigger deal of the wartime setting than the film did). In the book, "the war" is referred to once, in the second line of the opening chapter, as the reason why the children are staying at the Professor's house, and then it never comes up again. If you read the book carefully, it's not even "in the background" of the story. There are no references at all to the children's feelings about the war and how being in Narnia affects their perspective.

The idea that there are parallels between the wartime situation in 1940s Britain and the Witch's occupation of Narnia, and that the children go from feeling helpless in the midst of a war in their own world to being active participants in a war to free Narnia, is an interpretation that's become popular in modern times, but it's not something that Lewis himself seems to have had any interest in exploring, and it doesn't seem to have occurred to many commentators until fairly recently. The two earliest screen adaptations of LWW, in 1967 and 1979, in fact dropped the WW2 setting entirely and set the story implicitly in the then current era, so it's not a new idea to do that.

I'm also a mixture of curious and apprehensive about this (I wouldn't quite say "scared" myself, but definitely wary), and it's fascinating to be finding out more bit by bit! I also hope it works, even if it's not the Narnia we know from the books.

Actually, I've been thinking this for a couple of days now — the thing I most hope is that they get Aslan right. That is, that he (definitely "he", PLEASE!) feels the same way he does in the books, that he has just that right mixture of awesomeness and wonder that makes him "good and terrifying at the same time" — "'Course he isn't safe. But he's good" — and makes you want to know him, even if you're scared when it comes to the point. I don't think any of the previous screen versions of him have really done him justice. This one might, much though we've had a lot of reason to be concerned about that too. That wonderful golden maned Lion in the shots of the London set could be a taste of things to come, and it certainly looks right. And even if nothing else about the production is like the books, if Aslan IS like he is in the books, I think I'll be able to forgive most of the rest.  

Here's a thought. At the end of the movie, there's a scene with a 1950 boys' swimming competition. Things are getting heated when... all of a sudden a guinea pig appears in the water! With a ring on a ribbon tied to it!

I've just Searched online for information and photos of the post-war Victorian baths. 
It seems they were still well used, but probably not so bright and shiny as since the restoration.  
In the winter, pools were covered over (emptied?) and used for various events, sports and dancing. 
By 1993 it was too expensive to keep them running and maintained.
Their restoration was a huge delight to many people. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/6435691845/in/album-72157628231808123

I just looked up the actual location of Victoria Baths and discovered they're less than 10 miles away from my home, just this side of Central Manchester! I don't use swimming pools often (I very much prefer swimming in the sea), so I hadn't really taken much notice of the locations of swimming facilities in my local area, though I've lived just south of Manchester for four years now.

I could try to get there on one of the filming days, but I doubt they'll let the general public in to gawk, and it wouldn't be much use signing up as an extra... I don't think I could manage to pass as an 11-14-year-old boy (and particularly not in a swimsuit).  

@courtenay That's awesome! It'd be great if you could get in, but I suppose there would be security concerns. 

 I'm still uncomfortable with the time shift, but someone just brought up on the latest news comment thread that the line "Long ago, when your grandfathers were children," would keep its original meaning with this update, having the same impact for modern children watching Narnia for the first time as it would have for Lewis' original audience. And perhaps if the later books are set in the 90's as Coracle suggests, it won't be quite overly modernized. 

 That said, being positive about these changes would be much easier if we had more news on exactly what they're doing with Aslan...

Perhaps in Greta’s films, Digory and Polly are not just characters from MN, but also characters in an original 1950s story with a parallel subplot or two of its own. They meet a professor (Mr. Lewis) who tells them MN, using them as characters in the story he tells them. The next films may continue with Mr. Lewis telling the 1950s Digory and Polly more Narnia stories, or they may have Professor Kirke simply following the example of Mr Lewis and telling a story to more modern 1990s or 2000s Pevensie children.

@narniafancem I love this framing sort of story. Unfortunately it appears that all this film will be set in 1955. We'll see if this is true.

Posted by: @courtenay

Interestingly — and this is harking back to some points that came up in the discussion here a while ago on whether any Narnia adaptations could or should be set in the present day or at least closer to it — 1995 is JUST about the furthest limit for the time period in which you can set a classic-style children's story (or any story, really) without ultra-modern technology having to be factored in and potentially ruining the story. Internet access was I think just available then for the public, but it didn't become common in people's homes until a few years later. Mobile phones were available but not common, not very technically advanced just yet (definitely no internet access with them!), and they weren't something that kids generally had or were expected to have (and making calls on them was hideously expensive compared to a landline). And even for people who could get online, websites were mostly really basic, took ages to download each page (ah, I can hear the now-nostalgic sounds of a dial-up modem ringing in my ears ), and the information you could get there was usually pretty limited. The term "social media" hadn't even been invented yet! 

My point is — if LWW and its sequels are going to be set in 1995-97 (corresponding to the canonical 1940-42 settings for the original books of LWW, PC, VDT and SC), the atmosphere will be different for sure, but at least there won't be the issue of the kids being addicted to their smartphones and social media and having to learn to cope without them in Narnia!! 

If they do have kids in the 2000s go to Narnia, I suspect Gerwig would make it less "kids learning to cope without technology" and make it more "kids learning to appreciate what really matters in life while in Narnia, without all of the distractions/toxicity of modern technology."  

Anyway, I would prefer that the stories remain period pieces in the 1910s and 1940s as Lewis wrote them, but if the bulk of the series is set in the 1990s, I wouldn't be too upset.  It would make the kids slightly more relatable to younger generations and it wouldn't really detract from the parts of the story set in Narnia.  

I think C.S. Lewis would have wanted to keep cell phones out of the story because he was mostly against modern technology and he was a medievalist in some ways like Tolkien.  He probably wouldn’t even like the idea of making movies from his books.  I might disagree with him on that, but I think the movies or television series should have some resemblance to the books. The BBC series and Walden films were at least partially successful in doing this. They did not change the time setting or the gender of any of the characters, which is something that was very important to Lewis.  What Greta Gerwig is doing seems so far from the books that I wonder if it is actually worth watching.  So I probably won’t be spending the money to view this new movie since it doesn’t appear be faithful enough to the source material even for a loose adaptation.