One solution is to emphasize Digory's relationship with his mother. That way people would be more unsure how Digory would respond to the witch in the garden.

This is how I've thought about it for a while now. I think the best way to make MN into a film is to make it about Digory searching for a cure for his mother. This way the climax of the film is Digory's confrontation with Jadis in the garden, and the recovery of his mother is the resolution of the story.

This way the climax of the film is Digory's confrontation with Jadis in the garden, and the recovery of his mother is the resolution of the story.

But that would be extremely anticlimactic compared to the huge climax's in the previous films. The crowd would be expecting something more compelling.

First, The Magician's Nephew does not have a huge climax to begin with. To give it one would drastically change the story, and I don't want to see that happen. Also, an adaptation should never pander to the crowd at the expense of the source material. The PC and VDT films did this enough, and I would like to see MN handled better than that.

Which is why it is unlikely that even MN will ever be made. The standard film has an introduction, a build up, a climax and a resolution which must be shown.

I'm still hoping for SC. But even it will need changing around slightly to eliminate unnecessary flashbacks. What you don't need in a film, unlike a book, is people standing around giving out lots of information. And MN has that in heaps. Let us see what happens in the book:

Digoy is playing with Polly and they accidentally get into Uncle Andrew's study. Uncle Andrew gives Polly a ring and she vanishes. Digory is sent after her, and both of them, now in the Wood between the Worlds, decide to explore. After having ascertained they can get back home again, they try one of the puddles which leads to Charn, a desolate place where Digory wakes Jadis. Most of the action then is about Polly and Digory escaping Jadis, though they are able to leave Charn.

Apart from Jadis in London, and getting her back to Charn, what action is there? Oh yes, we see the Creation of Narnia, and then Digory is sent on a mission, which he does successfully. Jadis turning up is necessary, to show the effect of wrong choices and how that will affect her. But there is still not really much action otherwise.

So far I have been able to tell the plot of MN without even mentioning Digory's dying mother. Even though even in the book she is the reason for Digory's state of mind and for many of his choices.

I think the Magician's Nephew should be played more like a mystical period drama rather than a fantasy action film. So I'm okay if they don't open the movie with a bang.

So far I have been able to tell the plot of MN without even mentioning Digory's dying mother. Even though even in the book she is the reason for Digory's state of mind and for many of his choices.

So what is your point? That you can make the Magician's Nephew without Digory's mother? That's true. But you still have to have a driving force behind the decisions Digory makes. All of the choices Digory makes are either out of selfishness or out of love for someone else. Perhaps they could emphasize each of these choices and turn it into a sort of theme for the story.

Because whilst I agree that Digory's dying mother provides one of the themes as well as supplying much of the motivation for his actions, and a reason for Polly being sympathetic to him, I doubt that an audience and a fan group who took Umbridge (hehe ) at the Narnian Green Mist temptation-reaction meter (NGMTRM for short) would take any more kindly to Digory's dying mother being pushed much more than in the book. Especially as the way she mostly figures is mainly as a reason for one character or another to be able to get their own way.

Besides, through much of the book, Digory plain forgets about his pooor dying mother, doesn't he? Especially as Uncle Andrew is so devoid of any consideration for any of his family, except to use his sister's predicament to get his own way. Yes, Digory is grieving over his dying mother, and so he is so afraid to disturb her that he lets himself be emotionally blackmailed into rescuing Polly.

What do the two of them do in the Wood between the Worlds? They play around figuring it all out. Was Digory thinking of his poor dying mother when he sounded the bell? Or was it his own Uncle Andrew-like arrogance? And it is only because of the emotional blackmail of not upsetting Digory's dying mother that Polly agrees to go on helping Digory, despite the violence done to her in the Hall of Sovereigns in Charn. And it is only because of a chance visit that Digory hears about the apple from the Land of Youth.

It is because of the possible effect of Jadis on Digory's dying mother that the children remove her from London and take her to Narnia, where Jadis will be a menace for a good while to come to Narnians. It isn't until Uncle Andrew sees the Lamp post growing that he even remembers that Narnia could be seen as the Land of Youth, and it is not until he gets to the garden does Jadis remind him once again of his 'poor dying mother'. Emotional blackmail again.

I realize that Peter/Susan cameos are kinda a big deal, but I cant really imagine how they would put them in MN (although they have managed to astound me by putting Tilda Swinton in every movie so far). I think that if they did HHB at a specific point in the future, they could use the original Pevensie cast to play their older selves, as opposed to the future Pevensie cast used in LWW.

I had a similar idea about both The Magicians Nephew and The Horse and his Boy. The Friends of Narnia, as introduced in The Last Battle, could be incorporated as early as the Silver Chair. This could keep the movies in chronological order, for example, the Pevensies tell the story of THB and professor Kirk could tell the story of TMN. This would make the films seem more chronological, incorporate the Pevensies, and possibly allow the filmmakers to show Susan's disbelief grow, as talked about in TLB.

I know something that might work pretty well, they could have Prof. Kirke going through papers and he comes over a picture of a lion or notes about Narnia or something like that. And then he leans back and It changes scenes and say 60 years earlier or something of the sort.

I know this is going way back in the thread, but I just had an idea.
I really like this, because when it goes back 60 years, the paper (maybe the writing changes) and the desk stays the same, and then the shot goes up and out of the window, and maybe a voice in the background saying
"Digory Kirke, will you hurry up? We'll never get to London at this rate!"
And then the boy playing Digory answers "Coming Aunt Letty." (because of course, his mother's ill, so logically maybe Aunt Letty would come and get them?)
And then we see him getting into a car/carriage thing outside the house and looking back at the house sadly, because he didn't want to leave the country in the first place. Then the scene can cut to Polly watching them move in and asking who they are, and then the scene can cut again to her playing in the garden, and then the book story line can start.

Would that be any good do you think?

aragorn2 wrote:I know something that might work pretty well, they could have Prof. Kirke going through papers and he comes over a picture of a lion or notes about Narnia or something like that. And then he leans back and It changes scenes and say 60 years earlier or something of the sort.

I know this is going way back in the thread, but I just had an idea.
I really like this, because when it goes back 60 years, the paper (maybe the writing changes) and the desk stays the same, and then the shot goes up and out of the window, and maybe a voice in the background saying
"Digory Kirke, will you hurry up? We'll never get to London at this rate!"
And then the boy playing Digory answers "Coming Aunt Letty." (because of course, his mother's ill, so logically maybe Aunt Letty would come and get them?)
And then we see him getting into a car/carriage thing outside the house and looking back at the house sadly, because he didn't want to leave the country in the first place. Then the scene can cut to Polly watching them move in and asking who they are, and then the scene can cut again to her playing in the garden, and then the book story line can start.

Would that be any good do you think?

I really like that idea, it would show those who have seen LWW who this "new kid" is.

I had a similar idea about both The Magicians Nephew and The Horse and his Boy. The Friends of Narnia, as introduced in The Last Battle, could be incorporated as early as the Silver Chair. This could keep the movies in chronological order, for example, the Pevensies tell the story of THB and professor Kirk could tell the story of TMN. This would make the films seem more chronological, incorporate the Pevensies, and possibly allow the filmmakers to show Susan's disbelief grow, as talked about in TLB.

Judging by the end of VDT and that Jill Pole name drop that is probably what will happen, especially as Eustace goes on to tell us that Lucy and Edmund stayed at his place until the end of WW2. That would give ample opportunities for Lucy, Edmund, Eustace and subsequently Jill Pole to talk to each other about Narnia.

At the end of SC Jill wears her Narnian clothes to a fancy-dress ball (p.191), where the Professor could also be introduced by the Pevensies. And there are at least two references to HHB in SC. One is on page 154 of SC:

The Prince led them.....Unlike the other three, he seemed to be almost enjoying himself. He whistled as he rode, and sang snatches of an old song of Corin Thunder-fist of Archenland....

The other reference is on pages 41 to 42, at the end of the third chapter:

...Even Eustace cheered up and admitted that it was 'something like'. And when all the serious eating and drinking was over, a blind poet came forward and struck up the grand old tale of Prince Cor and Aravis and the horse Bree, which is called The Horse and his Boy and tells of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands in between....

So depending on which lead the film makers take at the end of SC, there is a way of linking SC to the other three books.

I kinda wish they had made MN first instead of LWW but that is just my opinion.

Why? CS Lewis didn't write them that way, and LWW is way more popular, it was the logical and right thing to do...

I am Quoting C.S Lewis

"The Books Should be read chronologically not in the order they were published"