There are lots of little additional scenes in that script which I quite like and it's a bit of a shame they got cut.

I do much prefer that little opening scene with the Lamppost in the street, regardless of historical accuracy, since it feels like a much more deliberate and iconic way to start the film..  instead we are thrust straight into the cockpit of a nazi bomber, which just feels off.

However, other than cutting all these little moments for runtime, I can imagine that the danger of front loading the movie with too much foreshadowing (the Lamppost, the stone lion, etc.) is that you perhaps set-up the idea of Narnia being an imaginary land crafted from things the children had seen in the real world, which it very much is not.

Posted by: @icarus

However, other than cutting all these little moments for runtime, I can imagine that the danger of front loading the movie with too much foreshadowing (the Lamppost, the stone lion, etc.) is that you perhaps set-up the idea of Narnia being an imaginary land crafted from things the children had seen in the real world, which it very much is not.

Yes, I agree — those would have been very interesting little additions to the film, but it sounds like they were almost trying to do something like the classic 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy's visit to Oz is portrayed as a dream she has after being knocked unconscious during the cyclone, and most of the people she meets there are doubles of people she knows in the real world. I wouldn't want any movie version of Narnia to give the impression that Narnia is somehow created out of the children's subconscious thinking and imagination.

The same with trying to draw parallels between the war that the children are escaping and the struggle against the White Witch in Narnia (I saw a stage version once that made a big deal of that, as I know I've mentioned in other discussions). Lewis doesn't do that at all in the book, and reframing the story in that way just increases the risk of Narnia being seen as some kind of reflection of this world, or of the Pevensies' personal experiences, rather than it being a totally separate world from ours and very real in its own right. (We need to have that correct understanding of Narnia at the end of the series, when Susan rejects Narnia, so that we can grasp the fact that she's managed to convince herself that Narnia really was just a product of childish imagination, whereas we're clear that it IS a real place.

Posted by: @coracle

I've not got far, but I liked a scene  (deleted) in Trafalgar Square, where Lucy looks up at a huge statue of a lion (there are two in real life).

I know and love Trafalgar Square and the bronze lions too — there are actually four of them, all around the base of Nelson's Column. I used to go to that part of London sometimes when I lived nearer there and would always wish I could climb well enough to get up and sit on one of the lions, as daredevil people sometimes do! (There's a picture book I read once where a little girl does just that, and the lion comes to life and takes her away on an adventure. I can't remember what it's called or who it's by, but I'm guessing the author may have been a Narnia fan!)

Lewis actually references the same real-life place in The Silver Chair when Jill sees Aslan lying by the stream with his head raised and his forepaws out in front of him, "like the lions in Trafalgar Square."

I was surprised that the writers didn't know about the Blackout during the war - the street lamp would not be 'winking out' as it would not be on!

I'm surprised about that too, but it goes to show they hadn't done their homework, so to speak... perhaps it's for the better that that scene wasn't included in the final script! 

I actually started a topic about this script a long time ago and I wrote a long post going through it scene by scene. You can probably find it if you're interested. (Just search General Movie Discussion for "script.") But since you're probably not interested, here are my overall thoughts. 

In general, this older script is much slower paced than the final one-with the important exception of Lucy's first visit to Narnia. I'm really grateful the screenwriters decided to slow that scene down because it's an important one. It establishes that Narnia is a delightful place with the White Witch being its one big problem and it gets us invested in the character of Tumnus. 

I also think the screenwriters were right to make the movie as a whole faster paced. It costs me some pain to say that since I much prefer this older script's version of Susan and Lucy riding on Aslan's back and seeing him free the statues. That scene has some of my favorite descriptive writing in the book and its brevity in the final movie disappointed me. (The older script's version also would have shown us the beavers' dam during spring which would have been cool.) But in general, the old draft's slow pace just feels inefficient compared to the final one. For example, we were going to get a scene showing the White Witch upset about Spring, a scene showing the wolves survived the river and a scene of the Witch summoning her army. The movie we did get accomplished all that with just one scene. 

I also know that some fans felt that the movie was trying to be too much like the Lord of the Rings movie and the older script's slower pace would have made that worse IMO. I know we think of the book as being slow paced compared to the movie because for many of us, the first time we experienced it was having our parents read it to us one chapter a day and because so much of it is the characters walking and eating. (I don't mean that as a criticism BTW. That's how C. S. Lewis described his own books.) But compared to lengthy adult books (like The Lord of the Rings?), it's a light, breezy read. Having the movie be slower paced would have lessened the simple fairy tale-esque feel of it. 

I'd also say the characterizations in the final script were superior to those in the old one except for maybe Mrs. Beaver. Edmund really wasn't enough of a jerk in the old draft. When he met the White Witch, it was like he changed into a totally different character. And you could argue the movie ultimately tried too hard to make him sympathetic compared to the book, so imagine that being worse! I also don't like how the older version did the scene of the Pevensies deciding to stay and fight for Narnia rather than going back to England. They were going to have Susan be the only one to argue for returning, making it seem like she just got outvoted rather than changed her mind because of Edmund's words. Not very heroic.

There's this really dumb scene between Peter and a dryad in the script starting on page 66. If I were the C. S. Lewis estate I would have refused to approve the screenplay with that scene in it and if I were Walden Media, I would have fired the screenwriters for writing it.  

I really wish the Talking Beasts podcast would do an episode about this old script. (Maybe for the movie's 25th anniversary?) I wouldn't expect them to go through it scene by scene like I did in my topic, but it'd be fun and interesting for them to talk about the most noteworthy differences between it and the version we got. 

@col-klink thank you - I'm sorry not to have remembered that. Was it on the previous version of Narniaweb? I'll look. This script wasn't at all familiar to me.

@coracle The moderators have told me to stop including links to my old threads but I'll try it this once since you've expressed an interest. 

The Old Script for the LWW Movie – General Movie Discussion – NarniaWeb Forum

BTW, I'm so sorry I included all those spoilers for the old script in my last post. For some reason, it didn't occur to me that you might read it before you finished the screenplay itself. Sorry if I spoiled your first time reading it.  

As someone who is really interested in writing and the whole editing process, I find it fascinating to compare older drafts to later ones. Sometimes I prefer the stuff that was scrapped and sometimes I agree with the editing decisions. So I'm really glad we're discussing this script on Narniaweb. I just wish we could read scripts for the Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader movies. (It wouldn't hurt to get to read scripts for episodes of the old BBC Narnia miniseries either.)

@col-klink thank you. Yes, I'd like to read through it at my leisure - the script and your notes! Your thread was in the pre-covid second incarnation of Narniaweb, still mostly accessible. 

I'm kind of sorry my previous post made it sound like I absolutely despise this older script. The record will show I did mention a few things I thought were better about it than the final version. And there are a number of scenes and lines I think are equal to those in the final version. (Equally bad is some cases and equally good in others. ) I guess it seemed like there were more people talking about things they preferred about the older script (though the record will show previous posters had plenty of criticisms too) and, as a naturally argumentative person, my instinct was to react against that.

The script definitely makes for an interesting read. Something that intrigues me in retrospect is that Lucy was going to question why Father Christmas didn't have a gift for Edmund and the script explicitly states that while Peter, Susan and Lucy had images of their gifts on their thrones at Cair Paravel, Edmund's throne had an image of the White Witch's wand smashed. (This idea of the thrones, which were presumably made centuries before the unpredictable events of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, having these specific symbols does lend a nice air of destiny to the story.) Considering how the screenwriters later made Edmund's torch function as his Christmas gift, I can't help but wonder if him not having one was something that really, really bugged them.