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. 

Right. I guess we'll wait and see how our world being set in 1955 for the new MN film turns out. Then with the setting of 1955 in our world, what about the other Narnia books? What time will our world be set in for them? Will LWW be set in 1995 or even in 2020? And if they were the case, would our world in PC be set in 2021, VDT and SC in 2022, and LB in 2029? I'm not sure how I feel about the time shift in MN, but I'm trying to stay positive. 

Posted by: @courtenay

But there is no indication (so far) that Greta Gerwig will be giving Narnia itself a modern-style setting with technology and gadgets and so on, or anything other than the medieval atmosphere that it has in the books. 

A future rendition of Prince Caspian closing with the iconic line, "Blow! I left my iPhone in Narnia!"

Posted by: @aileth

A future rendition of Prince Caspian closing with the iconic line, "Blow! I left my iPhone in Narnia!"

... Seriously, though — I think I've said before, I can certainly imagine a fantasy adventure in which 21st-century children / young adults from our world find themselves in another world where their smartphones and other modern gadgets don't work, and they have to adjust to a much lower-tech way of life, though possibly one where magic, rather than technology, is the main way of getting things done. It'd be even more interesting if the magic-users of this fantasy world were totally unimpressed by the newcomers' tales of being able to access all kinds of information from different places, and being able to communicate instantly with people (including talking face-to-face) all around the world, and so on, if in this other world they've been able to do all those things and much much more, through that world's magic, for centuries!!   I haven't seen a fantasy series with that premise, but I wouldn't be surprised if some like that have been written already, or soon will be.

But I really can't imagine Narnia being played like that, which to some extent it would have to be if the this-world scenes are set in the 21st century. Even if that aspect didn't overwhelm the story, we'd be all too aware that these kids come from the world of instant communication and social media and AI and information overload and all the effects those are having on society and on people's mental health. That's a completely different atmosphere from where the child characters are coming from in the original books, and it would inevitably have an effect on what kinds of people they are and how they respond to being in a medieval-style fantasy world like Narnia. And I'm really not sure how that could be done without making the Narnia stories feel so different that they might as well not be the same stories that C.S. Lewis wrote (which is already what I'm concerned will happen with The Magician's Nephew). 

Plus, again, I really don't see any point in updating the this-world settings of the Chronicles — nothing that would really enhance the stories and make them more worth exploring than they already are. The usual argument is "so that they're more relevant and relatable for modern-day young people", but that to me is lame. It's not showing much regard for young people's ability to understand and appreciate periods of history other than their own current era, which is an important thing for them (and for everyone) to develop. I'm sure Lewis himself, with his vast knowledge of medieval Europe and his wariness of modern people's tendency to assume we're far wiser and cleverer than people in the past, would have some things to say about that attitude. And there's the fact that any film that's set in the present day will very soon look and feel dated by the standards of the next generation to come.

Clearly, if this Netflix series progresses beyond MN-set-in-1955 at all, we ARE going to see LWW and (potentially) all the subsequent books set in the present day or the recent past, so we'd basically better brace ourselves for that. I can't help thinking of the notorious "modernised" version of LWW that was proposed in the mid-1990s, which, we're told, would have transplanted the Pevensie children to (then) present-day Los Angeles and would have the White Witch luring Edmund with "enchanted cheeseburgers" rather than Turkish Delight. Hopefully nobody will attempt to go THAT far in these new adaptations. But, well, we don't yet know, do we...  

@jasmine_tarkheena And if they were the case, would our world in PC be set in 2021, VDT and SC in 2022, and LB in 2029?

You forgot HHB, which to some degree is a stand-alone story, but involves Susan, Edmund & Lucy as young adults reigning in Narnia, before returning in PC, in their proper ages. But if you were to do LB in 2029, that wind-down, finishing story does get a bit futuristic, anyway, that is to say, from a 2025 perspective. 

And looking through this year's tally of events, especially on 13th June & subsequently for a few weeks, I'm just a bit worried that the end of the Narnian world might be just a little too realistic to be comfortable with doing. Some time ago, there was a disaster movie about a plane going into a building (Towering Inferno) then 9/11 happened....  

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

You forgot HHB, which to some degree is a stand-alone story, but involves Susan, Edmund & Lucy as young adults reigning in Narnia, before returning in PC, in their proper ages.

I'm guessing Jasmine left it out because it doesn't include any scenes in our world, which will be where the different time period actually matters. 

And looking through this year's tally of events, especially on 13th June & subsequently for a few weeks, I'm just a bit worried that the end of the Narnian world might be just a little too realistic to be comfortable with doing.

I'm just wondering what you're referring to here, out of curiosity — I can't remember June 13th specifically or anything around that time that resembled events in The Last Battle. 

Some time ago, there was a disaster movie about a plane going into a building (Towering Inferno) then 9/11 happened....  

Hmmm, that film was definitely before my time and I had to look it up (never having seen it) — 1974, whereas 9/11 was in 2001, so finding any kind of prophetic connection between them might be a long bow to draw, so to speak. (Also, I just checked a plot synopsis and the aircraft in the film is a rescue helicopter that crashes into the skyscraper when the building in question is already on fire, so as far as I can tell, there's very little resemblance between the movie and real-life events of some 27 years later.) 

@courtenay   I'm guessing Jasmine left it out because it doesn't include any scenes in our world, which will be where the different time period actually matters. {Quote 1}

Maybe you are right, when all that is needed for both LWW & HHB, is to reuse the adult actors at the end of LWW for their scenes in HHB as well. That is from a casting POV. That is, if the producers are actually planning to do the whole series, in chronological order. In your opinion, how would transposing the whole series to a new time frame, starting with 1955, affect LWW, HHB and PC as well? And how would it affect PC if they do HHB first? 

I'm just wondering what you're referring to here, out of curiosity — I can't remember June 13th specifically or anything around that time that resembled events in The Last Battle. {Quote 2}

To answer your question, properly, I should really go to the Christianity, religion & philosophy thread where I had been discussing some events following the 1922 collapse of the old Ottoman Empire which replaced the former Byzantine Empire on 29th May 1453 -that long ago. In particular, I'd need to refer to how an antisemitic Pan-Arab movement, led by the then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in World War II, Amin Al-Husseini, so friendly with Adolf Hitler in 1941, contributed to the Holocaust, & his subsequent Pan-Palestinian role from 1948 to 1974, when he finally passed away, only to pass on the torch of angry disruption to others. Or otherwise, tell you privately on the pm system, if you prefer.

There was plenty that was apocalyptic, in my opinion, about Friday, June 13th, this year, when a month earlier, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) found out that Iran was enriching uranium successfully up to more than 60%, and when since the 1979 Ayatollah takeover of Iran, that country had vowed to destroy Israel, in particular. Even when Iran chose a relatively moderate president, to replace a hardliner who died in May, 2024, by taking a flight in an overloaded plane in mountainous fogginess, in Iran's East Azerbaijan province, the new president said he recognised all the nations of the world "Except Israel, of course". I was glad that events turned out somewhat differently to the Armageddon I feared might happen, but it isn't finished yet, either.

Hmmm, that film was definitely before my time and I had to look it up (never having seen it) — 1974, whereas 9/11 was in 2001, so finding any kind of prophetic connection between them might be a long bow to draw, so to speak {Quote 3}

Yes, Towering Inferno was indeed produced in 1974, the year my second daughter was born. But I didn't see it until years later, not necessarily by choice. You know the drill in Australian TV offerings, where some movies stick around like bad pennies, repeats after repeats, year after year, especially as an alternative to election commentaries, Christmas movies, coronations, royal funerals, football finals or Olympic games etc to cater for minority disinterest .  Operation Crossbow, an even older movie from 1965, also comes to mind, when that, too, was about experimental rocket-bombs in WW2. 

At 12:30 AM on 12th September, 2001, (AEST) our eldest daughter (born 1972) had been working a night shift at the Sydney Airport Mercure Hotel. She woke us up, telephoning us urgently to put on the TV where we saw what at first sleepy glance looked uncommonly like yet another late-night repeat of Towering Inferno until we were finally jolted awake with the horrified realisation that 9/11 was actually, horribly, real. . The following year, in 2002, on 12 October, the Bali Bombing happened, in which 88 Australians were killed. 

And to get back to the subject of this thread, that is why I don't think it would do to make The Last Battle, too apocalyptic in tone, especially as close as 2029, when 2026 is already looming. 

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

Maybe you are right, when all that is needed for both LWW & HHB, is to reuse the adult actors at the end of LWW for their scenes in HHB as well. That is from a casting POV. That is, if the producers are actually planning to do the whole series, in chronological order. In your opinion, how would transposing the whole series to a new time frame, starting with 1955, affect LWW, HHB and PC as well? And how would it affect PC if they do HHB first? 

As a few people have already said, transposing MN to 1955 means that LWW's this-world setting will most likely be 1995 (if they stick with the 40-year gap between the events of those two books, according to the not-always-consistent timeline later written by Lewis), or possibly any time period from there on in, up to the present day. That could have any number of effects on what kind of cultural setting the Pevensies are coming from. It may not affect the way Narnia itself is portrayed, but it will definitely give the story a different "feel", at the very least.

The effect on PC will presumably be similar, as it's set a year (in our world) after the four Pevensies' return from their first time in Narnia.

The time period change probably will not affect HHB at all, because no scenes in that entire book are set in our world. The adult Pevensies are present in relatively minor roles, but this is them as adults who have spent their entire adolescence in Narnia, not on 21st-century Earth.

To answer your question, properly, I should really go to the Christianity, religion & philosophy thread where I had been discussing some events following the 1922 collapse of the old Ottoman Empire which replaced the former Byzantine Empire on 29th May 1453 -that long ago. In particular, I'd need to refer to how an antisemitic Pan-Arab movement, led by the then Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in World War II, Amin Al-Husseini, so friendly with Adolf Hitler in 1941, contributed to the Holocaust, & his subsequent Pan-Palestinian role from 1948 to 1974, when he finally passed away, only to pass on the torch of angry disruption to others. Or otherwise, tell you privately on the pm system, if you prefer.

There was plenty that was apocalyptic, in my opinion, about Friday, June 13th, this year, when a month earlier, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) found out that Iran was enriching uranium successfully up to more than 60%, and when since the 1979 Ayatollah takeover of Iran, that country had vowed to destroy Israel, in particular. Even when Iran chose a relatively moderate president, to replace a hardliner who died in May, 2024, by taking a flight in an overloaded plane in mountainous fogginess, in Iran's East Azerbaijan province, the new president said he recognised all the nations of the world "Except Israel, of course". I was glad that events turned out somewhat differently to the Armageddon I feared might happen, but it isn't finished yet, either.

Thanks. I also care deeply about Israel — I've been there myself, on a tour / Christian pilgrimage that was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life so far. And I'm familiar with a lot of the history of the region and how this is still shaping current events. But I think these issues are a little too political for a forum where one of the rules is that we don't discuss politics, and I'm not altogether comfortable discussing them from a religious / philosophical standpoint either.

At 12:30 AM on 12th September, 2001, (AEST) our eldest daughter (born 1972) had been working a night shift at the Sydney Airport Mercure Hotel. She woke us up, telephoning us urgently to put on the TV where we saw what at first sleepy glance looked uncommonly like yet another late-night repeat of Towering Inferno until we were finally jolted awake with the horrified realisation that 9/11 was actually, horribly, real. . The following year, in 2002, on 12 October, the Bali Bombing happened, in which 88 Australians were killed. 

And to get back to the subject of this thread, that is why I don't think it would do to make The Last Battle, too apocalyptic in tone, especially as close as 2029, when 2026 is already looming. 

I'm 10 years younger than your eldest daughter and I remember those terrible events well. But when it comes to the movie industry, there have been many, many films over the years, some of them quite graphic, portraying the end of our world in some horrible fashion — whether it's through nuclear warfare, a deadly disease, ecological crisis, the fulfilment of prophecy, aliens, zombies, superintelligent apes, or, well, whatever else. And absolutely none of those movies — no matter how gripping and frightening — have had any power to make those world-destroying events happen in real life.

But if The Last Battle is to be adapted in a way that resembles the book Lewis wrote at all, it HAS to be "apocalyptic" in tone, considering that it's Narnia's version of the Book of Revelation (although the story doesn't follow the Biblical text closely, any more than any of the Chronicles do). The entire book is about the "last days of Narnia", the destruction of the mortal "shadow" version of that world and the discovery of the real, original Narnia within Aslan's country (heaven).

There are going to be difficult and sensitive issues for any film-maker to navigate in adapting that particular book, mainly to do with how the Calormenes are portrayed (and the same of course goes for HHB). That's already come up in a few other discussion threads here in the past. But that will be true whether the this-world time period in the film is 1949 (as it is in Lewis's timeline), or the late 1990s or the 2000s or indeed 2029 (wherever that exact figure comes from). And in fact, none of the action portrayed directly in the book happens in our world; the entire story is set in Narnia, and we only hear what's been happening in England second-hand from Jill and Eustace when they arrive. Of course a movie will almost certainly do that differently and allow us to see more of their side of the story as it happens, rather than having them tell it in flashbacks, but it does underscore the fact that the this-world setting is even less important in this final book than it is in most of the rest of the series.

And in any case, The Last Battle describes the end of the world of Narnia; it's not meant to suggest that the end of our own world is happening simultaneously and in a similar way. So I really can't see why setting the this-world scenes in the 2020s would make this particular story any more difficult to adapt than it already inherently is.

That is, I should add, IF Netflix's Narnia franchise ever gets as far as adapting LB, and we just don't know how likely that is...

Good morning, just a little modly note to thank the recent posters for staying on the right side of the line regarding the 'no politics' rule. (Some almost crossing, but not quite - reporting rather than commenting on historical events).

Coracle 👍

I’m guessing that some people will still want to see Greta Gerwig’s movie out of curiosity even though they may not approve of the altered timeline. I was hoping that the movie would not make any other changes, but that may be a lost hope. The time period which opens The Magician’s Nephew seems so important to the story.   I don’t know why anyone would want to change it. Somehow the movie seems less attractive with a 1950’s beginning.  It seems so out of place to introduce the story.  The Victorian period beginning that C. S. Lewis had created worked very well with its antique quality so why change it at all? 

Posted by: @narnian78

The time period which opens The Magician’s Nephew seems so important to the story.   I don’t know why anyone would want to change it. Somehow the movie seems less attractive with a 1950’s beginning.  It seems so out of place to introduce the story.  The Victorian period beginning that C. S. Lewis had created worked very well with its antique quality so why change it at all? 

As I said, thinking about it, I'm inclined to think what @Varna said earlier (in this post), quoting a suggestion from the Oxford Centre for Fantasy, is the most likely answer to "why change the time period of The Magician's Nephew?". It's quite possibly not so much to do with MN itself — a desire to get rid of the Victorian setting and/or to play up some particular attractiveness of 1955 — as it is a means of making sure The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and all the rest of the stories, will be set (in our world) in the present day or close to it. 

What the reasons behind that choice may be, we don't know, and I certainly can't say I'm happy with the idea. But it is what is going to happen, if this new franchise gets beyond the first movie at all, and that being the real point of the time change for MN is the most credible explanation I've heard so far.

I don’t think I would dislike a Narnia film if they modernized the soundtrack a little bit as they did with some of the music such as Wunderkind in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  The soundtrack is a bit too modern for Narnia, although the music is quite appealing. Some medieval sounding music would have been better, but the music that was included didn’t disturb the atmosphere of the film.  But one thing was done right in that they didn’t tamper with the timeline of the story.  The appearance of the film looks much the same as in the book. With the BBC Narnia there was also an attempt to stay true to C. S. Lewis’ original timeline, although the series creators were confined to a small budget. The soundtrack music was fine. I don’t know what kind of music will be in Greta Gerwig’s film, but I hope that she makes the right choice.  I am sure that Lewis would have objected to Greta Gerwig’s time change if he were living today.   It certainly would have been a disappointment to him. 

@courtenay There are going to be difficult and sensitive issues for any film-maker to navigate in adapting that particular book, mainly to do with how the Calormenes are portrayed (and the same of course goes for HHB). That's already come up in a few other discussion threads here in the past. {Quote 1}

Yes, indeed. But I also suspect that the same sort of "sensitive issues", especially currently, might also be a factor in why the Victorian setting of MN is being changed, now you mentioned it in the quote below.

It's quite possibly not so much to do with MN itself — a desire to get rid of the Victorian setting {Quote 2}

@narnian78   I am sure that Lewis would have objected to Greta Gerwig’s time change if he were living today.   It certainly would have been a disappointment to him. 

I am not sure that CS Lewis was ever writing Narnia with any particular nostalgia for either 1940s Britain or Victorian Britain.

Lewis's whole vibe (and I'd say that of Tolkien's too) seems to be a rejection of modernity, and a harkening back to a pre-industrial Britain. 

The format of all the Narnia books is pretty much that the modern day (1940s/50s) is kind of a dull and boring place, and that it would be much more exciting to live a life of fantastical adventure in a world from days long ago 

Therefore I think he would probably be puzzled at our nostalgic sentimentality for Victorian industrial Britain, and would probably find our modern day to be just as dull and boring (if not more so) and that this likely would serve as an equally valid contrast to the point he was trying to make.