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.)

I was thinking specifically of Mr Tumnus luring Lucy back to his home with the offer of a variety of foods that would mostly have been difficult or impossible to get in WWII Britain.

Posted by: @icarus

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.

Fair point — we did have a bit of warning and there were people who managed to escape to the country, or at least send their kids there, before the restrictions came into force.

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.

Well, yes, but the "sense of everything being uprooted" and "sheer desperation to get yourself and your loved ones out of London" don't come into the actual book at all. The Pevensies, when we first meet them, are discussing what a splendid time they're going to have exploring the countryside — "We've fallen on our feet and no mistake," etc. Well, Edmund does a bit of complaining, to establish his character from early on, but Peter in particular — the one we would expect to be the most level-headed and the most conscious and conscientious about their situation, as the oldest — can't stop gushing about it. However unrealistic that might be for the real-life circumstances that they're in, it's how the story goes, so...

Posted by: @narnian-in-the-north

I was thinking specifically of Mr Tumnus luring Lucy back to his home with the offer of a variety of foods that would mostly have been difficult or impossible to get in WWII Britain.

Thanks! That definitely does provide an interesting backdrop to the story and I'm open to an adaptation emphasizing it to put the viewer into the mindset of someone in the 1940s. That being said, I don't think it's strictly necessary for the story to work. When I first heard the story as a kid, I never questioned why Lucy was tempted by Tumnus's offer of hospitality. You hear about a bunch of tasty food, and you want to eat it. Simple as that. Granted that the story is meant to be enjoyable for people older than I was when I first heard it. But I don't think I've heard of anyone who was confused by the characters being attracted to tasty treats and then understood once they remembered the wartime setting. 

P.S.

Posted by: @courtenay

Well, yes, but the "sense of everything being uprooted" and "sheer desperation to get yourself and your loved ones out of London" don't come into the actual book at all. The Pevensies, when we first meet them, are discussing what a splendid time they're going to have exploring the countryside — "We've fallen on our feet and no mistake," etc.

I agree that the beginning of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was not intended by C. S. Lewis to be angsty but to be pedantic, "falling on our feet" implies that Peter was worried that they were going to fall on their heads instead. Not that he was at all worried once he met the professor and saw his house and grounds, but you could argue it implies he was nervous before the story proper began. 

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. 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. 

This brings up something that I was also thinking of but didn't quite know how to put it, thanks. 

If the stories are transposed into modern times, then the children need to be credible 21st-century children. Even aside from the smartphones and social media and so on that they would naturally be connected to (and be separated from once they're in Narnia), their whole background and upbringing and cultural references and their general mentality are all going to be completely different from those of children in 1940s Britain. I can't imagine how those factors could be woven into the plot without completely changing the feel of the entire story. And if you're not going to make those factors part of the plot, why set it in the present day at all??? 

The only way I can think of that a "modern" adaptation of LWW and/or the other Chronicles miiiiight work is if it was a very loose adaptation — in the same way (I said something like this elsewhere recently) that West Side Story and Clueless, for example, are loosely adapted from Romeo and Juliet and Jane Austen's Emma. In those cases, the very basic elements of the plot are still there, but the time and place and culture are changed completely, along with the characters' names, and some of the details of the story are changed too (for example, only one of the lovers dies in WSS, not both of them, and neither of them deliberately commits suicide). So both those modern adaptations are presented as stories in their own right and don't claim to be the same thing — and it's not essential for the viewer to know the original works that they were based on, although of course it makes it more interesting if one does have that knowledge.

So, yes, maybe it would be possible to have a modern fantasy film that's loosely based on or "inspired by" Narnia, if enough factors were changed so that it doesn't look like it's claiming to be exactly the same story, and if it made for a compelling and enjoyable story in and of itself, whether or not the viewer is aware of where the basic ideas came from. (That's one way the COVID pandemic could credibly be factored in.) But I still can't really imagine that working. There's the fact, for a start, that one of THE most crucial plot elements is a non-human character who represents Jesus Christ as he might appear in another world that needs a divine saviour. How would they translate Aslan — and especially his death and resurrection — into a different setting without looking totally gimmicky?

Which is why, all in all, I would really rather just have a new adaptation of Narnia set in the 1940s, as the books are, and be done with it.

@col-klink Another aspect of the story which I think is very much of its time is Edmund and Lucy's apparent lack of awareness in regards to stranger danger. Operation Pied Piper had conditioned thousands of British children to go home with complete strangers, a modern child is (hopefully) going to be taught not to go home with a stranger or get into a stranger's vehicle. A child in my family expressed alarm when first introduced to LWW when Lucy went home with Mr Tumnus (they were a lot younger than 8!), their parents explained, in an age appropriate manner, that when the book was written stranger danger was not understood as well as it is now and Lucy wasn't being naughty, the child was still disturbed but understood the concept of 'the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there' well enough to continue the story.

An important part of considering changing the time period of the story is that the children's culture and speech would have to be radically different, they would not have the background in classical stories and war strategies, their clothes and hair would be different, and their slang would be stuck in a different time period.

Imagine watching LWW in 20 years, seeing Ed call Pete "Bro",  and "dude", and cringing at the corny old fashioned slang.

The children's ability to accept that Narnia has traditional values makes sense when we know it's set at a time when children were taught about God, went to church or Sunday School, and had very traditional values themselves.
Also they understood about war, having been very much affected by one, which I think Adamson covered very well in LWW (Mum sent us to get away from a war!).

A lot of people love the charm of the 30s/40s clothing and speech. It is now sufficiently distanced from us that we can enjoy it as it is, whereas anything more modern would date quickly.

I think a lot of people's worst fears about modernization stem from the belief that a screenwriter couldn't write something set in the modern era without resorting to tired cliches, whereas in reality lots of things set in the modern era are written with a timeless quality - LWW itself included, where the children talk like they are from an idealised 1920s middle England, and definitely not a 1940s London.

Take something like Harry Potter for example..the entire series is set in the 1990s, and yet at no point do any of the kids use any 1990s slang (like "gnarly" or "tubular") or dress like they are from the 1990s (like wearing Shell Suits or Leopard Print) nor listen to any 1990s music (like MC Hammer or the Spice Girls) or even reference anything big with kids from the 1990s (like Power Rangers or The Simpsons). If they did, the whole series would come across extremely tacky, but that's not how the books or the movies are written.

Even the Walden LWw is pretty much written in a timeless dialogue. I can't really think of any lines that the Pevensies say in the Walden films which wouldn't work in a modern setting.,..  nor can I think of any lines which are quintessentially 1940s either - happy to be proved wrong in either point, just nothing springs to mind.

Posted by: @narnian-in-the-north

@col-klink Another aspect of the story which I think is very much of its time is Edmund and Lucy's apparent lack of awareness in regards to stranger danger. Operation Pied Piper had conditioned thousands of British children to go home with complete strangers, a modern child is (hopefully) going to be taught not to go home with a stranger or get into a stranger's vehicle. A child in my family expressed alarm when first introduced to LWW when Lucy went home with Mr Tumnus (they were a lot younger than 8!), their parents explained, in an age appropriate manner, that when the book was written stranger danger was not understood as well as it is now and Lucy wasn't being naughty, the child was still disturbed but understood the concept of 'the past is a different country, they do things differently there' well enough to continue the story.

Thanks! I like this example a lot better than your first one. I agree that part of the story makes much more sense in its historical context. That being said...while I wouldn't advise it, I think you could still theoretically do the story in modern day. It wouldn't make as much sense, but some viewers would be willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of the plot. (It would be an implied change to Lucy's character, making her more disobedient, which I don't like but if it was just a onetime thing I could live with it. Edmund is actually supposed to be disobedient so his getting into the White Witch's sledge isn't a huge issue and all four Pevensies going with Mr. Beaver can be justified by their desperation.) By contrast, I'm not sure if you could have Strawberry the cab horse in a modern day The Magician's Nephew at all. (There might be some horse-drawn cabs in London still, but I imagine there are more cars.) To me, that's the bigger issue with updating the time period.

Posted by: @coracle

An important part of considering changing the time period of the story is that the children's culture and speech would have to be radically different, they would not have the background in classical stories and war strategies, their clothes and hair would be different, and their slang would be stuck in a different time period.

Good point! I think by changing the setting in LWW, it would change so many elements for the rest of the books, especially language. By changing the setting for LWW, you would also have to change the setting for MN to keep the Professor's age accurate. I don't think this would work in the long run.

@col-klink I agree in the hands of a talented and creative writer, which Greta Gerwig indubitably is, the stories could be moved to the present day. My personal preference is they retain the original WWII setting; I think a lot of changes would have to be made, both minor and major, to change it to a contemporary setting and when it comes to literary adaptations I am partial to those that are as faithful as possible to the book(s). I am not a film buff and actually have very little time to watch television and movies, I will be much less likely to watch a Narnia adaptation that has been shifted to the present day unless Narniaweb gives the project an extremely good rating. 

Posted by: @col-klink

By contrast, I'm not sure if you could have Strawberry the cab horse in a modern day The Magician's Nephew at all. (There might be some horse-drawn cabs in London still, but I imagine there are more cars.) To me, that's the bigger issue with updating the time period.

Er, yes, good point. We definitely don't have horse-drawn cabs in London these days. Occasional carriage rides for tourists, but they're nothing like a common sight. Ordinary cars and black London taxis everywhere. (And big red London buses. I must admit I was delighted on my first visit to London, as a newcomer to the UK, to discover that just like in all the pictures, London really is full of big red double-decker buses.   But no horse-drawn cabs, sorry.)

That is definitely another good argument against bringing the timeframe of the series forward into the present day. MN is set 40 years before LWW, according to Lewis's timeline, so if LWW is set in the 2020s, that puts MN in the 1980s. (No horse-drawn cabs then either.) Of course 40 years is not long enough for Digory as the Professor to be really old — that's one of the many oddities of the timeline — so they could always put MN back a little further. But even if you want the Professor to be in his 80s in a 2020s version of LWW, that then has MN taking place during World War 2. Which creates complications of its own!!

(Incidentally, though I can't think of any good reason to give a specific date within the film, there's no good reason why MN couldn't be set a couple of decades earlier than it ostensibly is. Setting it in the 1880s wouldn't make any noticeable differences to the plot — not that I can think of, anyway — and would mean that Digory is over 70 by the time 1940 comes around and the evacuees are placed with him. That actually makes more sense, given the way he's described in LWW, which doesn't quite square with him being about 52!)

Overall, I've still found no convincing arguments that setting the Narnia stories in the present day would do anything good for them, but a whole lot of reasons why it would cause more problems than it's worth, so I'm still very firmly in the naysayers' camp, sorry.  

Posted by: @gp

Is the 1940s setting absolutely essential to a Narnia adaptation? Or would you be open to setting the story in the present day?

Admittedly, I don't think LWW is affected much by a shift to the present day. But I do think a lot of the charm (especially in MN) is based on the time-period and the distinctly British atmosphere/characters.

The question, to me, becomes why do this at all? What storytelling benefit is gained? Are modern audiences not able to connect to the characters anymore? Is the background setting really that much of a barrier? 

It's like lending a friend my most cherished set of Narnia books, only to have them return it with different editions. The stories are the same, but now the collection stands out as unfamiliar on the bookshelf, taking away from the original aesthetic.

Posted by: @impending-doom

The question, to me, becomes why do this at all? What storytelling benefit is gained? Are modern audiences not able to connect to the characters anymore? Is the background setting really that much of a barrier? 

Yes, I definitely agree with @impending-doom. Besides having a more personal relationship with the characters and being able to sympathize with them, there really isn't any reason to change the way Lewis wrote.

Posted by: @impending-doom

The question, to me, becomes why do this at all? What storytelling benefit is gained? Are modern audiences not able to connect to the characters anymore? Is the background setting really that much of a barrier? 

Fair question. 🙂

Lewis chose to set the story in the same time period as his readers, and I like the idea of staying faithful to that.

Because over 70 years have now passed since the book was published, there is a certain "remove" that was not intended by the author. The people Lewis was writing for had an instant sense of proximity to the characters, which immediately gave the story a feeling of reality despite its simplicity. 

The first readers of LWW were able to easily insert themselves into the story right away because most of them had memories of how the war affected their lives. But today, when we read about the children being sent away during the war 80 years ago, it feels like "long ago, far away..." which I think somewhat dilutes the feeling of "this could happen to you."

Posted by: @gp

But today, when we read about the children being sent away during the war 80 years ago, it feels like "long ago, far away..." which I think somewhat dilutes the feeling of "this could happen to you."

Does it, though? The news is currently, and seems to always be, full of war refugees from all over the world and my family personally knows 4 different families that became refugees because of conflict in their home countries, one family lost their father to the violence.

I think keeping a Narnia adaptation with a WWII setting would avoid any potential political statement that could alienate viewers or, heaven forbid, trigger bad memories.