@courtenay I'd definitely be willing to accept "deliberate misdirection" as a potential poll choice, however I'd have to put it fairly low on the probability-metre, if only because I think it would be a disastrously bad thing for a Producer to do (even more so than joking around)

I feel like Greta Gerwig has done an amazing job over the last year to win over large sections of the fanbase, even with just the few things she has said. She has talked about her reverence for the books. She has demonstrated her knowledge of CS Lewis' other works and writing. She has talked about her Catholic upbringing. Overall, everything she's said has been highly respectful, and insightful.

And yet this one comment perhaps risks undoing that. As @coracle noted, there are some truly ridiculous online headlines, YouTube videos, and even online petitions cropping up, which have very little basis in reality. Sure they probably come from a certain section of the populace that was willing to pounce on Greta Gerwig at the slightest opportunity for all the things they perceive her to be (regardless of whether it's supported by her words or filmography) but Amy Pascal has kind of opened the door for them to do it.

That's why I'm kind of hoping it was either unintentional, or she had a very specific thematic reason for saying it - one that will hopefully become apparent soon.

@icarus It reminds me of the last atttempt to totally rewrite a Narnia story (turning SC into an action-girl movie with Jill as a kick-*** heroine) which resulted in Douglas Gresham walking out of the negotiations (possibly physically from a meeting), and lost the production company the rights.

The C.S.Lewis Company would certainly not approve anything of the sort - rock and roll would be anachronistic for a 1940 film, and most of us have agreed on another thread that it needs to be kept in the book's historical context.

I'm not gonna lie, I hate musicals with a passion.  However I do like rock.  This is awkward for me.

In all seriousness, it might be the denial talking but I'm going with sarcasm/slip of the tongue.  I just can't see Greta making this adaptation as a musical (rock or otherwise).  People do point to the presence of musical numbers in the Barbie movie as evidence towards this also being her plan for Narnia.  But she's also been able to nail the authentic period drama angle as well (see: Little Women).

It would really bum me out if it was a musical. And if it was, why rock of all genres? It just doesn't add up.

A musical would not work at all for Narnia. The stories of the books do not adapt well for singing parts. Although I think there should be a good soundtrack for background music there is no real need for singing parts, and the plots of the stories would be better without them. Narnia is not The Sound of Music nor should it be changed into something like it. If it were made into a rock opera that would totally ruin it.

@glenwit can you imagine the look on Matthew Aldrich's face - who said he had been fired for trying to "update [the books] in some fun ways" and for being "not precious" with them - if Greta Gerwig suddenly busted out a full blown Rock 'N' Roll Opera version of Narnia?.... 🤣 ...The "unimpressed man" meme springs to mind!

In all seriousness though, I will give a slight defence to the idea of a musical (and not just because there's been loads of Narnia musicals done over the years)...

There's a quote I have in my head, and I absolutely can't find the source of it anymore, but I think it was from a famous director or from an academic text book where they said something to the following effect:

"Musicals are all about that moment where the character experiences such an overwhelming amount of emotion, that there is just no way you could possibly convey the intensity of that emotion to the audience, other than to have them sing it"

Although I'm sure they put it more succinctly and pithy than that.

But I guess I don't feel that quote is entirely out of place for something like Narnia... Particularly when (and I think this might have been Greta Gerwig who described it as such) Narnia should be a place of "overwhelming joy" but also one of deep sadness at times.

Don't get me wrong, it still wouldn't be my top vote, but I definitely don't think Narnia is unsuitable for the format.

Posted by: @icarus

@glenwit can you imagine the look on Matthew Aldrich's face - who said he had been fired for trying to "update [the books] in some fun ways" and for being "not precious" with them - if Greta Gerwig suddenly busted out a full blown Rock 'N' Roll Opera version of Narnia?.... 🤣 ...The "unimpressed man" meme springs to mind!

There's a quote I have in my head, and I absolutely can't find the source of it anymore, but I think it was from a famous director or from an academic text book where they said something to the following effect:

"Musicals are all about that moment where the character experiences such an overwhelming amount of emotion, that there is just no way you could possibly convey the intensity of that emotion to the audience, other than to have them sing it"

Although I'm sure they put it more succinctly and pithy than that.

Reminds me of a quote I read somewhere years and years ago, and I don't remember who said it either: "Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of dying, he sings."  

But I guess I don't feel that quote is entirely out of place for something like Narnia... Particularly when (and I think this might have been Greta Gerwig who described it as such) Narnia should be a place of "overwhelming joy" but also one of deep sadness at times.

Don't get me wrong, it still wouldn't be my top vote, but I definitely don't think Narnia is unsuitable for the format.

Seriously, I do agree — a musical of some sort wouldn't be my top choice for Narnia either, but it's something that could work, in the right hands.

I wish I'd seen that stage musical version of it that you saw and reviewed, Icarus. I remember seeing the posters for it — it was not that long after I moved to the UK and I was living very near London at the time. Unfortunately I was strapped for cash and didn't manage to get to it! I saw a different stage version some years later (late December 2019 — I remember it was the last major outing I had before the lockdown), but that wasn't a musical and it was disappointing overall. (It's the one I keep mentioning as having a huge emphasis on the wartime setting, and also portraying Aslan through a bloke in a furry suit with a flying lion puppet hovering over him, which was, er, extremely unconvincing. I think the previous stage adaptation, as per your review, sounds a lot closer to the book. ) 

@courtenay 'That Production' is back on in Leeds this Christmas. I'm not sorry to have missed it. But the 2017-18 original was quite nice. It had my favourite Father Christmas ever.

Posted by: @courtenay

 

I saw a different stage version some years later (late December 2019 — I remember it was the last major outing I had before the lockdown), but that wasn't a musical and it was disappointing overall.

@icarus it did have a lot of music, but wasn't an actual musical!

Posted by: @icarus

To be fair, I thought that one was a musical? Or at least, from the clips I've seen online it has several songs in it?

As @coracle has just said — and I'm relieved to be assured I'm not misremembering! — no, it wasn't a musical, although it did have a fair bit of music and a few dance sequences in it. But no actual songs. I don't think those would have made it any more appealing to me than it was, if it did have them. Probably more like the opposite!!

Musicals to me are one of those things that, if they're done well, can make a good story absolutely sublime on stage, but if they're done badly, they can make a good story absolutely atrocious. I have been known to walk out of musicals that I really wasn't enjoying. Two of them in fairly quick succession, actually, as I remember, within the year or two before the Narnia (non-musical) play in 2019. Both of them were adaptations of my two favourite Jane Austen books, oddly enough. For the musical of Pride and Prejudice, I don't think I lasted through even two of the songs... Lizzy Bennet belting out at the top of her voice, to her sisters, that she will never marry for anything less than love (and this was even before she'd met Darcy, or indeed Wickham, or Collins for that matter) was just so un-Austen-esque that I gave up and went home.  

Persuasion the musical was looking more promising (that's my absolute favourite Austen novel), starting with the interesting twist that Jane herself, in the last year of her life, is telling this story (which she's just finished writing) to her teenage niece and nephew, who are visiting her — then as the story gets under way, she steps into it and becomes Anne Elliot. It was all going well except for my increasing realisation that this actress who was playing Jane / Anne just could not sing. No, it wasn't just the way the music was written — all the other characters sounded good enough, except this one woman who was so off-key you couldn't tell what the tune was actually meant to be, and of course, being the central character, she was doing the most singing. While fidgeting and wincing (I have sensitive ears for bad singing! ), I looked through my programme for the show and suddenly realised that the director of the acting company that was performing this, the writer and composer of this particular musical, and the actress playing this double lead role, were all one and the same person. In other words... it was her own theatre group, she'd written the lead role for herself, and — whether out of politeness or fear of her — nobody had the guts to tell her she really didn't have the voice for it.   I left during the interval.

All of that is a bit off topic, I know — and is probably reminding those here who don't like musicals, exactly why they don't like musicals — but I'm just reflecting on how the songs in a musical can absolutely make or break the show. I can imagine a musical of any or all of the Narnia stories could work well, if the songs are good and well-performed and they come across as a natural expression of the characters' feelings at crucial points in the story. But I don't think actual "rock and roll" would be a good fit for Narnia at all (as I'm sure someone has already pointed out, it's a style that doesn't fit the era of the stories, for a start), so I'm pretty sure that whatever Amy Pascal meant by that comment, it wasn't that this new adapatation is literally going to be a rock musical. Which also makes it highly unlikely that she meant to hint it's going to be some other style of musical.

It's fun to speculate, though — and if the new adaptation does turn out to be a musical (or a series of musicals), I'll still give it a go and find out just how awesome or how awful it really is. But we're still stuck with too few facts and too many what-ifs to have any real idea at this point.

Posted by: @icarus

@glenwit can you imagine the look on Matthew Aldrich's face - who said he had been fired for trying to "update [the books] in some fun ways" and for being "not precious" with them - if Greta Gerwig suddenly busted out a full blown Rock 'N' Roll Opera version of Narnia?.... 🤣 ...The "unimpressed man" meme springs to mind! 

I think I would pay actual money to see that  

@courtenay actually the Father Christmas did an energetic dance and then sang his lines giving the gifts to the children! The band (including him) did background music which might have included voices. But the main cast didn't sing.

As I think more about this, I recall a stage production of LWW I saw, sometime around 1998 or 1999 if I recall correctly which I think could fairly accurately be labeled a musical, not quite a rock opera though.  Most of the cast had sung at different times throughout the play.  Unfortunately I don't recall many details apart from where I saw it, but from memory it was tastefully done and I quite enjoyed the production.

@coracle Oh yes, I'd forgotten that. Given that Lewis himself makes a point of using the word "solemn" about three times within two pages in the Father Christmas scene, I think by that point in the play, I may have been so incensed that I simply blocked some parts of it from memory.  

(On the other hand, I do remember all too much of what they did with Aslan — apart from what I've already mentioned, I think the worst clanger was when the girls tell the guy-in-the-furry-suit how upset they were over his death, and he laughs and says "I'll try not to do it again!"   That, and the bit where while they're "riding" on him to the Witch's house — except they don't, because neither manifestation of him is rideable — the guy and the two girls just dance about on the stage, while the lion puppet hovering overhead inexplicably sprouts butterfly wings. Seriously. Whatever Greta and co. may do with Narnia, I doubt it'll be quite as bizarre as that... well, I hope not.) 

It seems most people online read such a vague statement and jumped to their preconceived ideas about Netflix, Greta Gerwig, and the project as a whole.

In my opinion, her comment signifies nothing. The only takeaway is that Amy Pascal needs to learn that many people online (on both sides) want to add Narnia as a weapon in their culture wars. There are already good reasons why audiences are skeptical of a Netflix/Gerwig adaptation of Narnia, you don't need to fan that flame with vague, misleading statements.

I hope we hear more of Greta Gerwig in the future and less of Amy Pascal.