@aslanthelion

Yes, I read your comment, and I agree with it. 

I think some people would have been surprised by Aslan walking out of a tent if they had never read the books. There should have been more to describe what Aslan was really like before his actual physical appearance. But I guess the script writers of the Walden film didn’t realize that. How much did the first description of Aslan in the book mean to them?  That is why the first mention of Aslan’s name and the children’s reaction to it is so important.

Posted by: @narnian78

@aslanthelion

Yes, I read your comment, and I agree with it. 

But my point is, in the book the kids know ahead of time that he’s a lion. In the movie, they don’t, from what I remember. Am I really the only one who’s noticed this detail? No one else seems to have brought it up.

@aslanthelion 

I guess the BBC series did it get it right because in it the Beavers had mentioned that Aslan is a lion long before the Pevensies actually meet him. That is also the way it is in the book. The Walden film waits with Aslan’s introduction, which may not have been the proper way for the children to meet the Lion.

Posted by: @narnian78

@aslanthelion 

I guess the BBC series did it get it right because in it the Beavers had mentioned that Aslan is a lion long before the Pevensies actually meet him. That is also the way it is in the book. The Walden film waits with Aslan’s introduction, which may not have been the proper way for the children to meet the Lion.

But that’s basically what I had just said! In the book, the beavers tell the kids that Aslan is a lion. The Walden film doesn’t reveal he’s one until his introduction. Why has no one else mentioned this? Am I the only one who’s actually noticed this detail? I mean, I think it’s kind of a big change that affects his introduction!

@aslanthelion 

I am glad that you mentioned it. It just shows that movies don’t always accurately follow books.  Although I liked the Walden films I think they could have followed the example of the book and the BBC series. They did get Aslan’s voice right with Liam Neeson playing the part (he has a wonderful voice). They were able to make him look like a real lion, although I also liked the BBC’s puppet of Aslan with Ronald Pickup’s voice. The mouth looked a bit artificial, but it was a good looking lion.  🙂

Posted by: @aslanthelion

But that’s basically what I had just said! In the book, the beavers tell the kids that Aslan is a lion. The Walden film doesn’t reveal he’s one until his introduction. Why has no one else mentioned this? Am I the only one who’s actually noticed this detail? I mean, I think it’s kind of a big change that affects his introduction!

I must admit I hadn't noticed that detail, but then I've only watched the Walden film in full once, and found I detested it so thoroughly that I've never been able to bring myself to sit through it again (and even short clips from it have me cringing).

Possibly for a lot of us who are very familiar with the book (and perhaps with the BBC TV version too), we automatically "fill in" that detail of him being a lion from our own prior knowledge, and therefore not everyone in that position notices that the film doesn't mention it?

I and others have mentioned already how his introduction in the Walden film — stepping out of a tent — makes him look like a circus lion, so I really hope the next screen version won't do something like that. 

Posted by: @narnian78

@aslanthelion 

I am glad that you mentioned it. It just shows that movies don’t always accurately follow books.  Although I liked the Walden films I think they could have followed the example of the book and the BBC series. They did get Aslan’s voice right with Liam Neeson playing the part (he has a wonderful voice). They were able to make him look like a real lion, although I also liked the BBC’s puppet of Aslan with Ronald Pickup’s voice. The mouth looked a bit artificial, but it was a good looking lion.  🙂

Thank you, I’m still shocked that no one else brought it up. I admit the main reason I remember this is because someone who saw the movie before I did mentioned it. But I still think it’s a pretty big change that more fans would notice.

And yeah, they were able to make Aslan look pretty realistic, although he didn’t quite look the way I’d like him to. Still, it was more believable than the BBC puppet.

Posted by: @courtenay

Posted by: @aslanthelion

But that’s basically what I had just said! In the book, the beavers tell the kids that Aslan is a lion. The Walden film doesn’t reveal he’s one until his introduction. Why has no one else mentioned this? Am I the only one who’s actually noticed this detail? I mean, I think it’s kind of a big change that affects his introduction!

I must admit I hadn't noticed that detail, but then I've only watched the Walden film in full once, and found I detested it so thoroughly that I've never been able to bring myself to sit through it again (and even short clips from it have me cringing).

Possibly for a lot of us who are very familiar with the book (and perhaps with the BBC TV version too), we automatically "fill in" that detail of him being a lion from our own prior knowledge, and therefore not everyone in that position notices that the film doesn't mention it?

I and others have mentioned already how his introduction in the Walden film — stepping out of a tent — makes him look like a circus lion, so I really hope the next screen version won't do something like that. 

 

What didn’t you like about the first Walden film, if you don’t mind me asking?

I see what you’re saying about how we might fill it in with our prior knowledge. Still, I’m sure there are a lot of people who have been introduced to the story through the Walden film and would notice this, so I’m still surprised that no one else had brought it up. Especially since, like you said, multiple people have mentioned how much they hate his introduction in the movie—-which imo, would be much worse if they’d actually told us he was as a lion ahead of time.

Whether the movie explicitly contains dialogue referencing the fact that Aslan is a lion or not prior to his reveal, I don't believe they were intending for it to be a surprise reveal to either the characters or the audience in the Walden Media version.

For one, the characters and the audience have already heard the prophecy (which Peter also had carved on his sword) which mentions Aslan shaking his mane - which would be a weird thing to say of something other than a Lion.

And it hardly feels worth trying to pull a surprise reveal on the audience given that the Lion is the title character of the story.

Posted by: @icarus

Whether the movie explicitly contains dialogue referencing the fact that Aslan is a lion or not prior to his reveal, I don't believe they were intending for it to be a surprise reveal to either the characters or the audience in the Walden Media version.

For one, the characters in the audience have already heard the prophecy (which Peter also had carved on his sword) which mentions Aslan shaking his mane - which would be a weird thing to say of something other than a Lion.

And it hardly feels worth trying to pull a surprise reveal on the audience given that the Lion is the title character of the story.

Maybe, but the book makes it clear, so I think the movie was going for the element of surprise.

Posted by: @aslanthelion

What didn’t you like about the first Walden film, if you don’t mind me asking?

Quite a lot! I'll try not to drag the thread too far off topic, but — while it was a very good film in its own right (fantastic visuals, mostly good acting, didn't make any major changes to the plot of the original book), I just felt it totally missed the atmosphere that I love in the books. I felt like they were trying to turn Narnia, and the adventures therein, into a huge epic fantasy saga on the scale of The Lord of the Rings, throwing in unnecessary hyped-up scenes just to make it more exciting, like the frantic chase across the ice with the Witch in pursuit (doesn't happen that way in the book at all) and the sheer massive scale of Peter and Edmund's army, and so on. It just completely lacked the gentle, warm, rather understated (I'd say rather British, but Lewis was actually Irish ) nature of the original story. That was such a disappointment — I'd been hoping to enjoy it, as I absolutely LOVED the Lord of the Rings films a few years earlier, as a huge fan of those books too! — that I was totally put off and had no desire to see the later two Walden movies, especially once I'd found out that they did depart a lot more significantly from the plots of the original books.

Possibly my biggest winces were at certain lines of dialogue — Aslan, on seeing the girls following him, instead of asking "Oh, children, children, why are you following me?", comes out with "Shouldn't you be in bed??" At one of the most poignant moments in all the books (for me at least), to have him sound exactly like an annoyed and crotchety parent telling off his naughty kids... that was the moment that killed off any hopes I had that this film might get better. It's just so patronising and so totally out of character for Aslan — and if an adaptation doesn't make Aslan credible, of all characters, it's going to fall completely flat for me. (I also thought the CGI rendition of him was terribly ugly with a totally silly-looking face, but that's probably just down to my personal tastes.)

Another major gaffe, one that would have totally messed up any attempt to do The Horse and His Boy if the series had got that far, was the incredibly silly moment when Edmund, riding into battle, says to his mount "whoa, horsey" (or something like that) and the horse replies tersely: "My name is Phillip." Anyone who's read all the Narnia books knows that a Talking Horse in Narnia would never let a human ride him without the human knowing very well from the start that this horse can talk and is to be treated as an equal — so what's supposed to be a ha-ha-ha funny moment falls completely flat, again, for anyone who really understands Narnia. It didn't bode well for the rest of the series and I wasn't surprised to hear that the later two movies (especially VDT) went further and further off the rails! (Plus it's even more un-Narnia-like for a Talking Horse to have a very Earthly human name — and "Phillip" happens to come from the Greek meaning "lover of horses", so that just makes it even stupider.)

I will now drag this thread back on topic, or attempt to...  

Posted by: @icarus

For one, the characters and the audience have already heard the prophecy (which Peter also had carved on his sword) which mentions Aslan shaking his mane - which would be a weird thing to say of something other than a Lion.

There's a point I've thought about in the book itself — that we have "when he shakes his mane" in the prophecy, as well as "At the sound of his roar" and "When he bares his teeth..." And yet moments after hearing these words, Lucy asks "Is he a man?" and Susan admits she was assuming the same. If they'd been paying any attention to the prophecy they've just heard, the clear mentions of "roar", "teeth" and "mane" can surely only add up to one possible creature...  

And it hardly feels worth trying to pull a surprise reveal on the audience given that the Lion is the title character of the story.

Yes, I was just thinking of that too — he's the first thing mentioned in the title, and as by this stage in the story, the Witch and the Wardrobe have already been accounted for, there are no great surprises there. That and the fact that all the movie posters had a huge Lion's face at the top, in case anyone had missed the point!

For me, I just hope that however he's introduced in the next film version, Aslan has the right aura of awe and majesty about him, so that we as the audience can really feel that we're in the presence of someone far, far greater than we would ever normally expect to meet. That's hard to do and I don't think any of the adaptations so far have really captured that, but it's surely not impossible.

Here's a new thought now on the same subject! We've all mainly been thinking here of the way Aslan is introduced in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which has been the first (and sometimes only) film or serial in every attempt at a screen adaptation of Narnia so far. But there's a good chance that the new version will actually start with The Magician's Nephew. Aslan's introduction in that story is very different — first hearing just his song in the darkness, and then his appearance is revealed as the newly created sun rises — and it hasn't been done on screen before. If that scene is the first time we meet Aslan in this new series, how would we like (or not like) to see it done?

Come to think of it, they did get Aslan’s introduction right on the Focus on the Family audio dramas and on the LP records of the actors reading parts of the Narnia books.  The first reactions of the Pevensies to Aslan’s name during their visit to the Beavers’ lodge were included as they should be in these audio versions. It is so much better if every adaptation including all movies and television series would include this important part of the book.  

Posted by: @aslanthelion

multiple people have mentioned how much they hate his introduction in the movie—-

It's actually one of my favorite scenes in the film. 

Posted by: @narnian78

Come to think of it, they did get Aslan’s introduction right on the Focus on the Family audio dramas and on the LP records of the actors reading parts of the Narnia books.  The first reactions of the Pevensies to Aslan’s name during their visit to the Beavers’ lodge were included as they should be in these audio versions. It is so much better if every adaptation including all movies and television series would include this important part of the book.  

Hmmm, it's a bit hard to do that in a visual medium, though. In an audio drama, there's a narrator who can read out the passage where Lewis tells us very specifically what each of the children feel when they hear Aslan's name (I'm sure we all know this part well): "At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realise that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."

(In fact, that's only the last part of a very long paragraph in which Lewis elaborates on the "very curious" thing that happens to each of the children when the Beaver says those words, "Aslan is on the move" — how it's like a dream where someone says something that you don't understand, but you feel it has "some enormous meaning", which either turns the dream into a nightmare or into something so lovely that you're left always wishing you could get back into it.)

A book or an audiobook or an audio drama (if it includes a narrator) can do that, of course — tell us exactly what characters are thinking and feeling from inside their own heads and hearts, so to speak, and elaborate on what it means. Films simply can't do that, unless there's a narrator doing a voice-over, which in most movies would just be completely hokey.

A film or TV show has to rely almost totally on what can be shown visually, or implied by what the characters say to each other. I can only imagine it would sound silly, at that moment in a film of LWW, for any (let alone all) of the Pevensies to voice what they're feeling on hearing the name of Aslan. The visuals could show Edmund visibly flinching and moving back a little while the other three lean forward and look intrigued, but there's really no sensible way of explaining exactly what their inward reactions are in a screen adaptation. Not that I can think of, anyway. I'd also love it if they could do it, though, so if anyone has any ideas for how it could work...?

(The BBC TV serial made an attempt at it by cutting between close-ups of each of the children as they have vague expressions of wonder or discomfiture on their faces, while the theme music plays. But unless you've read the book and can mentally fill in what the adaptation is trying hard to show, it really doesn't make much sense and doesn't tell us anything, so it just falls flat. Not as flat as the bottle-shaped Beavers reportedly kept falling — literally — in their ridiculous costumes (I've heard they had to have members of the crew constantly pulling them up, earning those helpers the nickname of "Beaver Retrievers"), but flat enough. )

Posted by: @col-klink

Posted by: @aslanthelion

multiple people have mentioned how much they hate his introduction in the movie—-

It's actually one of my favorite scenes in the film. 

Oh, that’s great to hear. While I don’t really care for Aslan’s look in the films, I thought it was actually a pretty good introduction myself. I just know that there are some people who don’t care for it.