Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

I kind of wonder if the BBC had kept going, if they would have done the same with Tirian in LB (where he thinks out loud about what has happened in Narnia's past as he is being tied up to a tree). Then on second thought, having Tirian step out from himself and talk to himself would've been too cheesy.

Well, in that scene Rilian isn't actually debating with himself the same way Edmund is in that sequence from LWW. The "two Edmunds" scenes are obviously meant to portray his conscience telling him that this isn't a good idea, sneaking away to find the Witch's house and betray his siblings to her, and his nastier side (driven by pride and greed and Turkish Delight) arguing back and winning each time.

On the other hand, Tirian, when he's tied to the tree in LB, makes a few remarks to himself as that scene goes on (in the book), but there's no back-and-forth between conflicting feelings or opposite sides of his nature. When Netflix or some other future company comes to adapt that one (if ever!), I should think it would work to have it done in flashbacks. Perhaps Tirian remembers back to his childhood and his father, King Erlian, telling him stories of Narnia's past — good way of introducing Erlian earlier, so that we know who he is when Tirian is reunited with him in Aslan's country. In fact, the film or series of LB could open with a prologue of Tirian as a boy and his father telling him those stories, as an introduction to this final instalment of the Chronicles. Then (all these years later), while tied to the tree and after witnessing the fake Aslan (Puzzle) in the distance, Tirian could be struggling against his bonds and then his father's voice comes back to him — we hear him speaking of the old days as he did in the prologue, and there could now be a few visual flashbacks from Narnia's history, the lives of Rilian and Caspian and the four Pevensies. (Which of course could be footage taken straight from the adaptations of the previous six books!)

If that's done well, it should be pretty self-explanatory that Tirian is thinking of these times when Narnia was rescued before by Aslan and children from another world — and then, as in the book, he starts to pray out loud that it might happen again. The dream / vision sequence, where he sees the Seven Friends of Narnia and they see him, naturally follows! But I'm getting way too carried away here with what I'd love to see in an ideal Narnia adaptation, so I'll shush up now...  

Posted by: @courtenay

On the other hand, Tirian, when he's tied to the tree in LB, makes a few remarks to himself as that scene goes on (in the book), but there's no back-and-forth between conflicting feelings or opposite sides of his nature. When Netflix or some other future company comes to adapt that one (if ever!), I should think it would work to have it done in flashbacks. Perhaps Tirian remembers back to his childhood and his father, King Erlian, telling him stories of Narnia's past — good way of introducing Erlian earlier, so that we know who he is when Tirian is reunited with him in Aslan's country. In fact, the film or series of LB could open with a prologue of Tirian as a boy and his father telling him those stories, as an introduction to this final instalment of the Chronicles. Then (all these years later), while tied to the tree and after witnessing the fake Aslan (Puzzle) in the distance, Tirian could be struggling against his bonds and then his father's voice comes back to him — we hear him speaking of the old days as he did in the prologue, and there could now be a few visual flashbacks from Narnia's history, the lives of Rilian and Caspian and the four Pevensies. (Which of course could be footage taken straight from the adaptations of the previous six books!)

There is that option! An LB movie or series could even start with Tirian as a boy with his father Erlian (it could even be a tutor or a mentor, one similar to Doctor Cornelius in PC) telling him the stories of Narnia's past. In the book, we're hardly in our world anyway, so I don't really see why they wouldn't start a movie with that. But this is kind of getting off-topic.

It's sure something to wonder about what if the BBC decided to continue on with the other books. Walden obviously couldn't continued on after VDT, so it would seemed like the BBC couldn't continued on either. Hopefully Netflix or whichever studio company decides to do it will make it through all seven books,

The last three books were adapted well for audio by Focus on the Family. But that was more easily possible since audio has a smaller budget than television productions. The BBC may not have had the resources for video representation of the stories. So they had to stop making them. If they would have tried the plots of the stories would have been reasonably close to the book, but the visual effects may have been impossible to achieve.with what they had to create them. It would have looked cheesy to some people if they had attempted to make more dramas, but I think I still would have enjoyed the programs. I am more tolerant of those things than some people who demand modern technology for everything. But I’m not sure if they would even have had the budget to continue as they had with the previous series.

Posted by: @narnian78

But I’m not sure if they would even have had the budget to continue as they had with the previous series.

They probably didn't. I don't know what the BBC's finances were like in the early 1990s, but considering they axed Doctor Who at about the same time — one of their most popular shows for young and not-so-young viewers — I'm guessing they didn't have a lot of money to throw around, particularly for children's programming.

I would still say, though, that even without the huge technical / special effects considerations that they almost certainly couldn't have managed adequately in those days (even if they'd had a big budget), there are still other concerns about the three last Narnia books (in publication order) that would probably have influenced the BBC "top brass's" decisions about whether or not to try adapting them.

For The Horse and His Boy, apart from the technical difficulties of having two convincingly talking AND rideable Talking Horses as main characters (this was a few years before the pioneering special effects of Babe), there's the issue of racial stereotyping. Even in the early 1990s, it really would not have gone down well for Britain's public-owned broadcasting service to make a show in which almost all the good guys are white-skinned and all the bad guys are dark-skinned. I remember thinking about that even at the time (I was still in primary school then).

On top of that, The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle both have storylines in which the "religious" element comes much more to the fore than it does most of the time in the other books. MN makes it undeniably obvious that Aslan is the actual Creator-God figure in Narnia — not just a sort of magical superhero figure who steps in to fix things up every now and again — as we see him literally creating a world from nothing. Then in The Last Battle, along with the racial stereotyping problem once again as the Calormenes return as the villains — and this is the book that most regularly draws accusations of Narnia being "Islamophobic", with the Narnia vs Calormen conflict supposedly being an allegory for the Crusades (it's not, but it's understandable why critics jump to that conclusion) — we have Aslan holding the Last Judgment as the world ends and everyone goes to either heaven or hell. (Or rather, in the latter case, into Aslan's shadow, of which Lewis wisely just tells us: "I don't know what became of them.") 

In both those books, I'd say the religious (specifically Christian) message would just be too hot to handle, so to speak, for the UK's public broadcaster. The modern BBC always deliberately steers away from promoting religion (any religion); they would not want to risk getting accusations of preaching Christianity to children, which they very likely would have if they'd adapted those last two books. Yes, back in the 1940s they aired C.S. Lewis's own talks on Christianity and Dorothy L. Sayers' The Man Born to Be King (her radio dramatisation of the Gospel story), but that was during wartime and in a very different era and culture from the 1990s.

I'm almost certain these issues have a fair bit to do with why the BBC decided it was safest to stop after The Silver Chair and not try making the rest of the Narnia series — even if they had had the money and the technology to do a great job of it.

@courtenay 

I can forgive the BBC for not attempting to continue the Narnia series because of the tight financial situation. That is more understandable than their terrible policy of junking of old Dr. Who episodes. As for Christian views of C.S. Lewis in the Narnia books some of them could have been left in without trying to convert people. One cannot dislike the BBC completely.  They broadcast so many great nature documentaries with David Attenborough so one can admire their high standards of excellence. Maybe their views are more similar to those of Oxford University, where Lewis taught as a don (tutor). My guess is that Cambridge was more tolerant of the Narnia books, and the BBC might have followed their policies. The Christian views of authors like Lewis and Tolkien could have been presented in a positive way without forcing them on people. After all, it is God and not a broadcasting network, who does the actual conversion in people. 🙂

I found this video about how the BBC Narnia television series was made:

I have seen it many times, but I think this was the first time the entire 30 minute video was posted on YouTube instead of only nine minutes of it. It looks quite dated now being copied from VHS. It’s interesting because it shows how little money and resources the creators had to make the series. I think the series was quite well made considering what they had to work with at the time (1988 - 1990). 🙂

@narnian78 great find!

I have the series on an old videotape from 1988, and had it copied onto a USB stick,  but the quality is poor. (Can't recall if the introduction got recorded!)

I watched this and the six episodes, with the family I was staying with in London, when it was first screened.  My hostess recorded the series, including a break in transmission in Episode 1, with the announcer's voice coming in to apologise and say it would be back shortly.

Although the series was issued on DVD, the introduction programme wasn't. 

Thank you very much.

@coracle 

You’re very welcome, Coracle.  🙂

I seem to remember (I was quite young at the time) that after The Silver Chair was broadcast there was a letter published in The Radio Times praising the Narnia adaptions and asking if they were going to adapt the three last books. They printed a reply from the BBC that the remaining books were unsuitable for adaption, although they did not explain why.

Posted by: @hermit

I seem to remember (I was quite young at the time) that after The Silver Chair was broadcast there was a letter published in The Radio Times praising the Narnia adaptions and asking if they were going to adapt the three last books. They printed a reply from the BBC that the remaining books were unsuitable for adaption, although they did not explain why.

Oh, that's interesting, thank you! (For those not in the UK, the Radio Times is the most popular TV guide magazine here — as you can tell from the title, it started out before television was invented and was originally a radio guide, and then they never bothered to change the title after it started including TV listings and reviews as well. ) One wonders what made them "unsuitable" — I'm still guessing the technical difficulties in dramatising the other three books would have been the biggest factor.

@courtenay I think that was certainly one factor but they were probably also thinking about the more explicit religious themes of the last two books as well as the supposed 'racial stereotyping' in both HBB and LB. Although now I think of it that didn't seem to bother them when it came to the radio dramas they produced only a few years later. But I suppose that's a much smaller audience than a TV slot intended for family teatime viewing. So perhaps it was the difficulty of a TV adaption that was the main consideration. 

@hermit

Plus, of course, audio has far less racial definition. 

I wonder if the BBC thought of the technical problems of the last three books when they started making the first adaptation in 1988. It would seem that making a completely animated series of all seven books would have been easier, although it probably would have been much more expensive. I remember that I liked it that real people were shown in the first series.  In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the production had people in animal costumes which could not be avoided. It was like an elementary school play except that the people in the artificial costumes were in more real looking locations, which was an advantage over the 1967 production and the 1979 cartoon. I guess they could have made filmed plays of all seven books, but even at that time people wanted outdoor locations on the television screen instead of paying to watch a performance on a stage. So they were able to complete the adaptations of four books, and at least many of the locations were real, but the actors in the costumes looked rather artificial. But I think their attempt was quite successful for the most part in pleasing those who can be satisfied with something simple and without much technology. The DVD’s of the BBC production are still in print, and people still like them enough to buy and watch them today. 🙂

Posted by: @hermit

@courtenay I think that was certainly one factor but they were probably also thinking about the more explicit religious themes of the last two books as well as the supposed 'racial stereotyping' in both HBB and LB. Although now I think of it that didn't seem to bother them when it came to the radio dramas they produced only a few years later. But I suppose that's a much smaller audience than a TV slot intended for family teatime viewing. So perhaps it was the difficulty of a TV adaption that was the main consideration. 

To balance what I said earlier about the BBC probably wanting to avoid explicitly religious themes, I should add (and I didn't know this as a child in Australia) that the BBC does have a popular Sunday afternoon programme, Songs of Praise, which shows performances from church choirs around the country and regularly interviews churchgoers about what their faith means to them. But that's a "does what it says on the tin" kind of programme. From what I've seen, a lot of critics of the Narnia books see them as attempting to subtly smuggle "religion" into children's lives and minds, in the guise of a fantasy story, and that's what supposedly makes them so insidious. A show about Christianity that wears its heart on its sleeve and doesn't ever get into anything controversial — and Songs of Praise is the only such show I know of in mainstream British TV these days — isn't too much of a problem. Whereas a children's series that pretends to be innocuous and for everyone, but that includes things like Digory's temptation in the garden when Jadis tries to persuade him to take the apple to heal his mother, or (probably worst of all) everyone in Narnia dying in an apocalyptic battle and facing the Last Judgment... well... I just get the feeling the BBC wouldn't have been comfortable taking that on in the early 1990s and they definitely wouldn't now. It's magnificent literature, but it's not the sort of thing that's considered "proper" by most people in today's society, you know.  

Posted by: @narnian78

I wonder if the BBC thought of the technical problems of the last three books when they started making the first adaptation in 1988. It would seem that making a completely animated series of all seven books would have been easier, although it probably would have been much more expensive. I remember that I liked it that real people were shown in the first series.  In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the production had people in animal costumes which could not be avoided. It was like an elementary school play except that the people in the artificial costumes were in more real looking locations, which was an advantage over the 1967 production and the 1979 cartoon.

Considering The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is far and away the best known of the series, I would guess they decided to make that one first, with an eye to adapting the next two or three books (The Silver Chair was done a bit later than the others) if the first one turned out to be popular, but they probably knew all along that the last three books in the series (in publication order) would all present huge difficulties for filming and I doubt there were ever any serious plans to make them.

I don't think making an animated series of all seven would have been more expensive than filming them in live action, mind you. Hand-drawn animation was a very well established and not ultra-costly way of producing films by the late 20th century — computer animation was the new and hideously expensive thing then! In many ways, animation would probably have cost less than live action, as there's no need to scout out locations, build elaborate sets and props, make costumes for talking animals and other fantastical beings, find actors who can look and act convincingly like the characters they're portraying, and so on. The main things needed for an animated film (beyond the script-writing) are good animation artists and good voice actors. The cartoon version of LWW in 1979 was a bit basic in the way it was animated, but if an animated series of Narnia had been done with the level of artistry you see in some of the hand-drawn Disney films (back before they went totally CGI), it could have been breathtakingly beautiful.

As for the animal costumes in the BBC version, trust me, as I've said before, we kids were shrieking with laughter at the legendary bottle-shaped Beavers even right then and there in the late 1980s!! Even before CGI, good (read: expensive) animatronics could produce much more realistic fantasy creatures than that (there was a host of fantasy films in the 1980s, including well before the BBC did Narnia, that proved that point — The Neverending Story is a great example). But I'll give kudos to the Beeb for doing a reasonable, if not perfect, job of Aslan. He was played by two people in a lion suit, pantomime horse style, but at least that gave him a realistic shape; if he'd been one person standing upright in a furry suit with a lion mask (as was done in the mostly lost 1967 TV production), that would have been dire. As it was, he couldn't move about very fast, but at least he looked convincingly like a lion — unlike most of the other animal characters, who, as you say, looked like something out of a kiddies' school play — and they did use animatronics for his facial movements, which worked pretty well, apart from him not being able to lip-sync with the voice track!  

@courtenay 

Some things they did get right like the Beavers’ lodge and the Professor’s house looked quite nice and old fashioned as I had pictured it. They also used a real castle for the court of the people and animals turned into statues. The Beavers were very ridiculous looking although their voices weren’t too bad. I guess they would have had to continue using people in animal costumes in the last three books. I don’t know what they would have done for talking horses in The Horse and His Boy.  The puppet for Aslan was okay except for the mouth, which was too mechanical. I thought some of the other animal costumes were okay like the badger in Prince Caspian, which at least resembled a real badger. Reepicheep definitely looked like a man in a suit, although Warwick Davis was very convincing with his voice. It was certainly difficult to make it all seem real, although you have to give them credit for trying. 🙂