@coracle: @waggawerewolf27So do you think a narrator in MN should be a woman?  Or not to have a narrator at all?

There are bits of MN where Polly is absent, such as when she is sent away in Uncle Andrew's study at the beginning. It would have to be Digory, explaining his encounter with his uncle, and also when they return with Jadis, and then he is left alone with Aunt Letty and the housemaid. Similarly, there are bits to let us know what Polly is doing when on detention at home. In Narnia, they are seldom parted, and it was Polly's sweets which caused the toffee tree to grow. 

When we are told at the end of the book how they ended up as lifelong friends, perhaps if any narrator is needed it could be a joint effort - one of those "remember when" moments, they could have had at any time in their lives, even before the Pevensey children appear in LWW. Until LB, right at the end, we don't see Polly at all. As a matter of interest, we don't know much about Polly or her life, and it is only as a young girl, in MN, when she meets Digory, that she plays any major part in the Narnia saga. And, of course, as friends, the bits she can't have known about at the time, she would have been told about, later. 

So, yes, perhaps the narrator could be the eventual Polly in LB, but it doesn't have to be so specific.  

Posted by: @col-klink

@icarus Do you think they should just not adapt The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at all but just do the other books? I feel like that'd be weird. 

Not at all... I just don't think it matters all that much which order they do things in (other than practical considerations regarding logistics and actors ages).

Another example that particularly springs to mind here, other than those mentioned previously, is the movie 'Batman Begins' (2005). There is a very specific moment in that film that references the character of The Joker (although he's not in the actual movie itself), and I remember when seeing the film in theatres, a lot of people seemed to think it was a reference to the Jack Nicholson version of the Joker from the 1989 film (the idea of a 'reboot' compared to a 'prequel' was somewhat new at the time, so I'll let them off).

And yes, Christopher Nolan did then go on to do a version of The Joker himself in the next film, but I think for that brief moment in time between 2005 and 2008, it really didn't matter whether people saw the Joker Reference in Batman Begins as being a nod back towards Jack Nicholson, or a hint forwards to Heath Ledger.

The moment works either way, because the director can be absolutely certain that the majority of the audience is going to be aware of the cultural significance of The Joker in relation to Batman.

That's how I feel about LWW at this stage. It's cultural footprint is so large, and it's visual imagery so iconic, that you can rely on the audience knowing most of the key points ahead of time, regardless of whether the medium they experienced it though was specifically a Greta Gerwig version of LWW or not.

Side note, for those who are discussing and wish to continue discussing the idea of a narrator, I started a new thread just for you all over in the CCD forum! 🙂 

https://community.narniaweb.com/index.php/community/cast-and-character-discussion/should-netflixs-narnia-have-a-narrator/

Guys, did you see this news? It's 99.999% certain now that they're beginning with The Magician's Nephew...

Netflix's 'Narnia' Begins Casting Search for Two Child Actors

... I say "99.999%" because there's an ultra-slim chance that Gerwig is making the diehard Walden fans' dreams come true and is starting with The Silver Chair. And a possibly even slimmer chance that she's doing something COMPLETELY different and starting with The Horse and His Boy.   

I feel like if they were doing The Horse and his Boy, they'd cast the leads as a bit older than 10 to 11. Not much older, I hope, just a little bit. 

On the very slim chance it is for HHB, then they must have changed the story setting somewhat.

Partly because the casting call didn't suggest any requirements for a specific ethnic background, and partly because it didn't indicate any filming locations other than the UK... Even with all the latest technology, I can't see you doing HHB without going to somewhere like Morocco or Tunisia for at least part of the filming.

@col-klink and @icarus — just to make clear, I was joking about HHB. Hence "possibly even slimmer chance". British understatement and all that. (Naturalised British, in my case. )

Posted by: @courtenay

Guys, did you see this news? It's 99.999% certain now that they're beginning with The Magician's Nephew...

Netflix's 'Narnia' Begins Casting Search for Two Child Actors

... I say "99.999%" because there's an ultra-slim chance that Gerwig is making the diehard Walden fans' dreams come true and is starting with The Silver Chair. And a possibly even slimmer chance that she's doing something COMPLETELY different and starting with The Horse and His Boy.   

There were really only two likely possibilities for Gerwig to go with, and given that Jason Isaacs already indicated it was MN, it seems clear at this point that this is the case.

As much as that upsets some people, I think it makes the most sense at this point, anyway. I'm a diehard, publication order first guy, but the fact is that this approaches the stories from a new angle, rather than simply retreading where Walden already went. Instead of a trilogy centered around the Pevensies, now we get a duology using Jadis as the central antagonist. 

And I'll just point out that one of my biggest complaints about the books being reordered is not the concept of reordering as such. I don't think there's anything wrong with a chronological read, even as a first time reader. My beef has always been that Lewis did not write LWW as a sequel, he wrote it as an introduction to Narnia, and it doesn't read the same way if you already know the story of MN. Likewise, MN is written as a post-LWW sequel and presupposes that you've read LWW. I said years ago that if Lewis had edited the books before he died to make them work better with the reordering, I wouldn't fight it as strongly. Well, in essence, that's what Gerwig has the opportunity to do, and, tbh, I'm curious to see how she approaches it. I know not everyone agrees, but that's my take on it. 

Posted by: @justin

I said years ago that if Lewis had edited the books before he died to make them work better with the reordering, I wouldn't fight it as strongly.

Slightly off topic for a moment, but just to clarify, the reordering was never proposed during Lewis's lifetime. My box set of the Puffin paperback editions, published after Lewis's death (mine are all late 1960s / early '70s printings), has the titles in publication order on the outside of the box and in the list inside each book. (The individual books aren't numbered on the spines.)

I'm not sure exactly when the chronological order became "official" in newer editions, but it seems to have happened in the early 1980s or possibly very late '70s.

Lewis's own suggestion of editing the books was made in an interview with Kaye Webb (editor of Puffin Books) in November 1963, I believe only two days before Lewis died. I don't remember which book(s) of mine it's quoted in, so I can't find the exact wording just now, but as far as I recall, he said something to the effect of wanting to go over all the books and fix things that didn't quite match up. I don't think there was any indication that he wanted to rewrite them specifically so that they worked better in chronological order.

The excuse constantly given by the publishers for the chronological reordering is that it was "in accordance with Lewis's wishes". In fact, the only place where he ever showed approval for that order of reading was in reply to a young reader who was debating with his mother over what order the books should be read in. His mother favoured the order in which they were published, but this young boy suggested beginning with MN, then LWW, HHB, PC and so on chronologically. Lewis's reply — again, I don't have the exact quote on hand and I don't have time right now to look for it — was something like "I think I agree more with your suggestion than with your mother's." But he added in the same letter that "Perhaps it does not really matter in what order one reads them."

That's the sole instance we have of Lewis giving rather tentative approval to the idea of reading the books in chronological order. But he clearly hadn't stopped to think about what effect this might have on, well, the effectiveness of the books themselves. It is possible that if he'd lived longer, he would have made thorough enough revisions to the books that they would work better when read in chronological order, but we don't know if he ever really gave any serious thought to that at all.

Posted by: @col-klink

I feel like if they were doing The Horse and his Boy, they'd cast the leads as a bit older than 10 to 11. Not much older, I hope, just a little bit. 

Yes, would need to be 13-14; these ages are indicated in the Lewis Timeline.
And if looking for red hair, that wouldn't be Aravis, I shouldn't think!

It's great that they are casting young, to have real children's responses and faces. I've grown weary of mid teenagers playing roles of child book characters.  I assume they will therefore have doubles and stand-ins of the same age and look.

@courtenay I love that you give the same opinions and comments I would be giving; thanks for doing it for me!!  

Posted by: @coracle

It's great that they are casting young, to have real children's responses and faces. I've grown weary of mid teenagers playing roles of child book characters.

I completely agree. And by going a bit younger, it gives the children time to age about before and during filming to be about the right age described in the book. 

Very exciting news! I cannot wait to meet the new "Friends of Narnia."  

@courtenay 

It is entirely possible that this is just a theory that gained a life of its own, but I thought I remembered hearing it said some years ago that Lewis allegedly had intended to edit the books prior to his death and was planning on reordering them himself. I don't remember if that was supposedly something Gresham said once upon a time, or if was just speculation, but at this point it doesn't really matter since it obviously never happened.

@icarus: That's how I feel about LWW at this stage. It's cultural footprint is so large, and it's visual imagery so iconic, that you can rely on the audience knowing most of the key points ahead of time, regardless of whether the medium they experienced it though was specifically a Greta Gerwig version of LWW or not.

I understand what you mean. There are so many published versions based on LWW, and each one is different, even as a stand-alone in the series. In the book, itself, at the end of that story, conscience-stricken Susan and Peter go back to explain to the Professor, why the fur coats that they took into Narnia are missing, but this sort of minor detail is usually missing. We are also not told in these reproductions that the Professor knew that Lucy was telling the truth all along, because he, himself, had been to Narnia as a young boy.

Throughout the story until the end, the Professor, would have to argue "in loco parentis" & as an educator, otherwise Susan & Peter would consider him as "dotty" as they suspected Lucy was becoming.  Apologising for the missing fur coats surely is a logical time for the Professor to "fess up" about his own experiences, to tell how the wardrobe was made after the apple tree was felled in a storm, & to warn them that though they might return again, unexpectedly, that they shouldn't to try to do so again through the Wardrobe. 

But that is only what I, myself, might think of doing if I was in Greta Gerwig's shoes, and I would be ecstatic if my argument is vindicated. That could well be the very twist that might make a new version of LWW special in its own right. 

Posted by: @justin

As much as that upsets some people, I think it makes the most sense at this point, anyway. I'm a diehard, publication order first guy, but the fact is that this approaches the stories from a new angle, rather than simply retreading where Walden already went. Instead of a trilogy centered around the Pevensies, now we get a duology using Jadis as the central antagonist.

Agreed and well written @justin.  As I was reading your post, another bonus of doing MN first came to my mind, which I didn't mention in my previous post on this thread.  That being commencing with MN could and hopefully will lead to wider discovery and reading of the lesser-known books in the Chronicles of Narnia.  I often find when discussing the movies - and I begin explaining how there are 7 books in the series and how some of them have never been adapted to film or television series, I often get surprised responses.  To see this changed and to see people discovering there's more to Narnia than just the most well-known stories is something I am keen to see, and for that reason, MN would be the obvious alternative introduction to Narnia than LWW, and of course with the details of the casting call coming out, it would appear that we most likely are going to get that.

As an extension of my earlier musings on this, I thought it would be interesting to ponder a further hypothetical situation as something of a thought experiment:

• If Greta Gerwig were making Magician's Nephew right now for Walden Media (rather than Netflix), would that necessarily dictate that the movie she produces be any different?  (and I mean logically necessary from a storytelling perspective)

• If the Magician's Nephew film that Greta Gerwig produces in either scenario could theoretically be exactly the same, then does it actually matter whether or not the audience perceives it to be a prequel to a previous version of LWW or a future version of LWW?

I guess for me I can think of reasons why Walden Media might want to steer Greta Gerwig in different directions, and I can think of several reasons why Greta Gerwig might want to take some visual design cues from Walden LWW in the first instance, but I can also equally imagine she'd just make the exact same film in either scenario and it wouldn't be an issue for the audience either way.

So I guess then that's my question: does logic dictate that a Greta/Walden MN be any different from a Greta/Netflix MN, and if not, does it still matter to the audience (or her financial backers) one way or the other?