I hope the time and place of the adaptations will be the same as the original books. I am certain that C. S. Lewis would have wanted it that way.

@gp What important event in 2014 could stories be set around? 
There's been nothing international, affecting people's lives right into their very homes, since the War.

Posted by: @gp

Food for thought: CS Lewis did not write a period story. LWW was published just 10 years after the story takes place. Most of the first readers of Narnia had very recent memories of how the war affected them. It would be like writing a story today that was set in 2014.

I'm guessing the point here is simply that Lewis published a story in 1950 that was set in 1940, so that the equivalent would be someone in 2024 publishing a story that was set in 2014. As @coracle says, there wasn't any event of international significance in 2014 that would have led to children in British cities being evacuated from their homes and sent to live in the countryside, which is the set-up for LWW and the only significance that Lewis gives to "the war" in the story that he wrote.

This has come up in a couple of other discussions here, including a recent one — I can't quite remember which one — but the idea that the WW2 setting needs to play a major role in the story of LWW is actually something cooked up by modern-day commentators and producers of adaptations. In the actual book that Lewis wrote, "the war" gets mentioned once in the second sentence of the first chapter, as the reason why the children are away from their home and their parents, and never comes up again. There isn't the slightest hint of the impact the war is having on them psychologically or in their relationships with each other, or any attempt to draw parallels between the Allies fighting back against Hitler and the Narnians fighting back against the White Witch.

So in that sense, the 1940s setting ISN'T particularly important to Narnia, and any adaptations that make a big deal of it are departing to some extent from what Lewis intended. For a contrast to that, there's the 1979 animation of LWW, which doesn't mention the war* and simply has the children "staying with the Professor" for no reason that's ever explained. As with the original book, the point is simply that the four siblings happen to be staying for a time in this old, mysterious house where something secret and magical might just happen, and it's owned by an old, mysterious gentleman who seems to have some knowledge of "other worlds" and is unsurprised to hear that his house contains a passage to one. (Now I think of it, I can't remember how big a role the Professor plays in the 1979 version — I don't recall it having anything about him at all, it's so long since I last watched it. I'll have to watch it again!)

That said, though, in the poll above I've voted "Noooooo! It has to be set in the 1940s!" for a couple of reasons. One is that in general, I prefer movie adaptations of books to stick as closely to the book as possible, unless there's a really good reason for changing something, and I can't think of any good reason to change the era LWW is set in. (Certainly nothing that would enhance the plot or get around anything problematic in it.) 

The other reason, though, is that setting the Narnia stories in the present day — whether that's in 2024 or even just 10 years ago, in 2014 — means having to factor in the huge social and especially technological changes that have happened since the 1940s. Aside from the fact that it's far less likely in today's world that four children, aged between 8 and 13, would be sent entirely away from their parents to stay in the home of an elderly single bloke who's a complete stranger to them... well, there might be some other plot device to separate them from their parents, but there's also the need to separate them from their iPhones. Of course, logically, modern technological devices either wouldn't work at all in Narnia, or there'd be no wi-fi and nowhere to charge them even if they did, so they'd soon be useless. And there may be some modern fantasy stories (though I'm not currently aware of any) in which 21st-century "digital native" children are thrown into a medieval-style setting where they have to learn to cope without instant global communication and social media and the ability to just Google anything they want to know more about. That could make for an interesting story in itself. But it would be a complete distraction from everything the Narnia stories are supposed to be about, and I can't think of any ways in which it would enhance them!!

* Famous British in-joke not initially intended, but there it is.  

@courtenay the Professor wasn't actually looking after them, as there were at least four servants including the housekeeper. It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a reason for them staying in a country house during the summer holidays. Several other children's books of the period have similar scenarios, and usually there are 2 boys and 2 girls in the family, plus a previously unknown aunt or other older relation.

The UK Language curriculum calls for children to study, read or see a story set in a different time period. Wartime is quite popular. There is quite a charming aspect about the 1930s/40s, and I think it's valuable to keep it as the specific period it was written in. We hope that the films/TV series will prompt children to read the book and its sequels. It will help if they have met it onstage/screen in its right time  

Posted by: @coracle

@courtenay the Professor wasn't actually looking after them, as there were at least four servants including the housekeeper. It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a reason for them staying in a country house during the summer holidays. Several other children's books of the period have similar scenarios, and usually there are 2 boys and 2 girls in the family, plus a previously unknown aunt or other older relation.

True! But as you say, "Several other children's books of the period have similar scenarios" — I'm just struggling to think of a context in today's world where four children would be sent off to live in a country house for an extended period, without their parents or any other close relatives. It probably could be done, but I suspect it would feel a bit forced. Whereas Lewis was drawing on real-life events that did put a lot of children in that situation — including a number of schoolgirls who stayed with him and his household at The Kilns during the war — and so he could easily set up that scenario without needing to elaborate on it very much, and without it sounding artificial.

But the bottom line for me is still that I can't think of any aspects of LWW that would be enhanced by setting it in the present day, so I really hope future adaptations will leave it as it is. We've already heard about that "modern day" movie version that was proposed in the mid-1990s — the one that was supposed to feature the Witch tempting Edmund with cheeseburgers rather than Turkish Delight — and I think most Narnia fans are relieved that it never got off the ground!!  

I think this could be done well. 🙂

Why do it? Because I think it might be more true to C.S. Lewis's intentions. He set the story in a specific time and place that his readers could instantly relate to. I don't think WII specifically is essential. What's important is that the reader has a proximity to the characters in the story. It gives a very short simple story a sense of realism.

I don't think it's absolutely essential that the story take place during a global crisis. Just a specific time.

They could easily come up with another reason the kids are in an old spooky house. In VDT, Edmund and Lucy are sent away to Eustace's house because the rest of the family is busy with a number of things and I think that worked fine.

I don't think Turkish delight is an unsurmountable problem. They could probably just keep it. Just need to include a throwaway moment early on establishing that Edmund likes turkish delight. Voila.

I get what everyone saying for LWW, but, I would like to add that The Last Battle would probably not work at all very well without the trains. I guess they could have buses but, I just find it not as cool. As for Silver Chair and Prince Caspian, I think the school stuff is definitely set in 1940s to a certain degree that would be hard in modern day to do. Although, I may be wrong about this type of stuff since I do not live in England. I also, voted no for set in present day.

Posted by: @eustace

I get what everyone saying for LWW, but, I would like to add that The Last Battle would probably not work at all very well without the trains. I guess they could have buses but, I just find it not as cool.

Just to clarify, we DO have trains in present-day England. I use them quite regularly.  

Posted by: @coracle There's been nothing international, affecting people's lives right into their very homes, since the War.

ORIGINAL:

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This is a story about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air raids"

to:

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This is a story about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the pandemic because of social distancing"

"This is a story about something that happened to them when they were sent away from Belfast during the troubles"

WWII may not feature heavily in the Chronicles of Narnia (I think it's only mentioned twice in the entire series, once at the beginning of LWW and again at the beginning of VDT) but it does form the cultural basis of the stories (Operation Pied Piper, food rationing, etc.) and the way the children react to events as they unfold. The Victorian era isn't mentioned in Jane Eyre but if you don't take the culture and societal norms of the Victorian era into account you miss (in my opinion) a lot of what Charlotte Brontë intended. The same applies to the Chronicles of Narnia, the children simply are not modern children. 

Spinoffs are all very well and I am not opposed to them but since we don't get Narnia adaptations all that often, as opposed to say a Jane Austen adaptation, I would much prefer any adaption that is made to be as close to the books as possible. Would a Narnia adaptation really be Narnia to any of us without Turkish Delight?

Posted by: @narnian-in-the-north

WWII may not feature heavily in the Chronicles of Narnia (I think it's only mentioned twice in the entire series, once at the beginning of LWW and again at the beginning of VDT) but it does form the cultural basis of the stories (Operation Pied Piper, food rationing, etc.) and the way the children react to events as they unfold.

Can you please give a specific example? (The only way I can think of that rationing effects the characters would be that the White Witch's offer of whatever sweets he wants would sound particularly tantalizing to Edmund. An interesting idea and one I'd be happy to see an adaptation use but not something vital to the plot.)

For the record, I don't want to see the time period updated mostly because of The Magician's Nephew. That's the Narnia book that spends the most time in our world and the whole feel of it would really be changed if it took place in modern times. (I suppose you could update the others and still keep MN's time period the same by making Digory the professor's ancestor but that would still bug me as a fan of the material.)

Posted by: @icarus

Posted by: @courtenay

I'm just struggling to think of a context in today's world where four children would be sent off to live in a country house for an extended period, without their parents or any other close relatives. It probably could be done, but I suspect it would feel a bit forced.

 

Perhaps the Pandemic?

 

You could easily re-write the opening lines of LWW to any of the following, and I don't believe it would really change the story in any substantive sense (only in the aesthetic sense).

 

ORIGINAL:

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This is a story about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air raids"

to:

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This is a story about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the pandemic because of social distancing"

 

Hmmm, no, not realistic at all. I don't know how it happened anywhere else, but here in the UK, as soon as the lockdowns started in March 2020, we were NOT allowed to travel more than 10 miles from our homes or to mix with any people who weren't part of our household — with only a handful of exceptions, none of which the Pevensies would credibly have come under. There was a lot of scandal over a certain senior political adviser who, when the lockdown was announced, very conveniently drove with his wife and children from London to Durham (about 280 miles) in order to stay with his parents (even though some in the family were showing COVID symptoms)... you know, exactly the sort of thing that the rest of us were under the clear impression we were forbidden to do.  

I'd rather not go into all the politics any further, but having lived through the pandemic in Britain, I can't think of any way in which it would produce the kind of set-up needed for LWW. Quite the opposite. If the children were living at home with their parents at that time, they would have had to stay home with their parents. Unless the four of them just happened to be somewhere else in the countryside, away from their family, when the lockdown was announced and so they had to stay where they were and couldn't go home. But given the Pevensies' age range (8 to 13), and the fact that it happened during the school term... that really does stretch credibility a bit too much.

And there's the issue. Lewis chooses not to focus on the circumstances that have led to the children being separated from their parents and living at the Professor's house, because that's not the point of his story (unlike some other children's classics such as Goodnight Mister Tom). He sets up a scenario that was a common situation in the era he's writing about — recent history at the time — and then moves on.

For a version of LWW with a present-day setting to be anything like the original story, the situation that puts the four children in the Professor's house would need to be something equally unremarkable for the time, so that the believability (or lack thereof) of that scenario doesn't overwhelm our attention and detract from the actual story. COVID lockdowns don't work for that (though maybe they could be the basis of a quite different fantasy novel that someone hasn't written yet!), and I can't think offhand of anything else that does.

Posted by: @courtenay

 but having lived through the pandemic in Britain, I can't think of any way in which it would produce the kind of set-up needed for LWW. Quite the opposite. 

For what it's worth, I I know.several people here in the Uk, who during the first week.of the pandemic, before the formal lockdown was introduced, sent the children off to the countryside... Admittedly to Grandma & Grandads house, rather than a kindly old professor, but I think the sentiment is the same... getting the kids out of the virus hotspot of London was the priority.

Then of course as you say, the PM's aide famously sent his wife and kids off to Durham during the first Lockdown, and then we had that period of regional lockdowns where people also sent their kids to family in different zones to avoid localised lockdowns.

It was a crazy time, particularly those early days, and therefore if you wanted to capture that relatable sense of everything being uprooted, it would definitely fit the bill in that sense.

You also have scenarios such as, on the eve of one of the lockdowns, the absolute carnage at the train stations as everyone scrambled to get the last train out of London... If you wanted to capture that sense of sheer desperation to get yourself and your loved ones out of London, that would be it.

Posted by: @courtenay

Lewis chooses not to focus on the circumstances that have led to the children being separated from their parents and living at the Professor's house, because that's not the point of his story. He sets up a scenario that was a common situation in the era he's writing about — recent history at the time — and then moves on.

Well said. These are reasons why I think it might make sense for a new adaptation to set the story closer to present day or "recent history" as you said.

One of the big departures in the Walden LWW is how much time they spent on the WWII setting and explaining why the kids were at the house. But maybe they kind of had to since the movie was released 65 years after the story takes place. Setting a new adaptation closer to present day would probably alleviate this.

Like you said, Lewis picked a scenario was a common situation and instantly recognizable to his readers. Maybe a new adaptation should try to do that too.