Apparently it is more acceptable to take whatever liberties one likes with an old tale with several versions, than it is to make changes in VDT.

Yes, it is, if an equally good story is produced as a result. If the changes in VDT had resulted in an equally good or better story I would have been 100% for them. But they weren't. The story is mediocre at best. Tangled on the other hand, though much brighter in tone than most of its predecessors, is still a good story. Yes, it follows the typical Disney princess formula, but what's wrong with that?

The fact that PC and VDT did poorly is proof that the fanbase alone is not big enough to support huge-budget Narnia films.

True, but is it big enough to support smaller budget films? Part of me doesn't even want to consider the possibility that the budget for each Narnia film is going to decrease for each one but I think it just might happen.

Furthermore, I wouldn't be so comfortable with bowdlerising old tales from yore if I were you. Grimm's fairy tales are still in print as far as I know, and so is Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book.

So? They didn't create the stories. As for bowdlerization, how is Tangled bowdlerized? About the only thing they cut was Rapunzel getting pregnant out of wedlock. There's still plenty of death and mayhem. As for Narnia connections, Lewis didn't create that particular story plot. It's been around awhile and used many times. I rather doubt maniacal Disney executives are harvesting story ideas from the CoN.

And consider this: We Down Under have been entertained by tales of the Aboriginal Dreamtime for decades. These tales explain quite a bit about Australia before 1788. Should anyone fool around with these tales dating back millenia, the way Disney has with Rapunzel, then there would be all sorts of legal action taken, right up to the High Court.

Last time I checked Rapunzel wasn't an integral part of anyone's religious beliefs.

Why make Rapunzel an abducted royal princess when she was supposed to be the child of poor people paying for the rampion or radishes the father stole in all the Rapunzel stories? It is the unfair bargain that the father makes with the witch which allows her to lock up Rapunzel as her own property, not because she stole the baby.

That is the bit that annoys me. In Beauty and the Beast, Disney kept the bargain in, Beauty taking the place of her father who had taken the rose. Why didn't they treat the Rapunzel bargain similarly?

Now you may say that HHB and SC, themselves are only following traditional stories about abducted royal children, and that C.S.Lewis used that device twice to show these abductees kept in ignorance of who they are, whether deliberately as in SC or not, as in HHB. But I don't see why it was necessary in Tangled to have Rapunzel a stolen princess kept deliberately ignorant of her heritage. The witch would have been just as self-interested, selfish and over-protective an owner of her ward, even without Rapunzel being a stolen princess.

Especially when royalty and so-called 'English toffs' were cited by critical reviewers as the reason for VDT's lack of appeal, as well as Aslan and its religious themes, and especially as this possibly was one of the initial reasons for VDT's poor openings.

I think the greatest problem of this franchise is not the marketing or even the small size of its fan base, but rather the quality of the movies themselves. Good, well-scripted movies increase their fan base over time, which is the real reason why HP is such a force these days.

Consider this: PC, the allegedly least marketed of the three, had Superbowl ads, Disney Movie Surfer specials on the Disney Channel, TV spots, billboards that covered entire buildings over major U.S. cities and the largest movie premiere ever held at the O2 in London. Besides the terrible release date, why wasn't the movie a success and why hasn't the die-hard Narnia fan base grown since?

Ask any fan who felt betrayed by having the scriptwriters change their characters' book personalities according to their own personal tastes, who rolled their eyes at watching them exchange unfunny comic one-liners for no good reason, who shrieked at the sight of a poorly done green-screen effect or matte painting, who gasped at plot twists coming out of the blue. Spectators who had to endure romantic subplots that made no sense both in series continuity and within their own story. Who had to rush through their favorite parts of a story so that a brand new scriptwriter-created epic battle could be inserted at some point of the films to drive up the dramatic stakes. Who had to behold deceased villains conjured out of the mist, so that poster tie-ins were possible.

After seeing their favorite franchise being mishandled like that time and time again, what die-hard Narnia fan will be able to not only watch that repeatedly during its theatrical run but also be able to drag their their friends and family along to the theater?

Show business is just what it implies - a business, but the audience can always tell when business side of things starts to take over the show. But they can also tell otherwise. Huge audiences didn't feel dragged to 'The Lord of the Rings' sequels by its fanbase. Nor were they coerced to watch 'The Matrix' sequels, 'The Dark Knight' or the HP sequels, however outlandish their premises might be. Nonfans followed the fanbase on their own will, because they were curious and then surprised by very well-scripted stories. The fanbase grew organically after that. Marketing is always a plus, but nothing can help a franchise grow its fanbase like the filmmaker's respect for the source material, a well-written script and consistently well-executed scenes.

But then again, what do I know? I'm just a fan.

I loved both LWW and PC. The weren't perfect, but I enjoyed them immensley. However I did not like VDT. I would want them to have another go at it. If the next film (be it SC or MN or whatever) ends up like VDT, I wouldn't see the point in carrying on. So right now I think they should make at least one more film.

I think the greatest problem of this franchise is not the marketing or even the small size of its fan base, but rather the quality of the movies themselves. Good, well-scripted movies increase their fan base over time, which is the real reason why HP is such a force these days.
........Nonfans followed the fanbase on their own will, because they were curious and then surprised by very well-scripted stories. The fanbase grew organically after that. Marketing is always a plus, but nothing can help a franchise grow its fanbase like the filmmaker's respect for the source material, a well-written script and consistently well-executed scenes.

I strongly agree with your comments....I just don't know how and whether this franchise will finally hit upon the right combination of all those important elements to bring it back on track again.

I still think there's a vast difference between changing the storyline of a published work of literature that exists in only one form, exactly as the author intended it and changing the storyline of a story that existed in oral form for centuries and was altered constantly as it passed from person to person. Obviously you don't, so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Yes you and I will have to agree to disagree. Because some changes were made in Harry Potter as well to film it right, with the author there to discuss it with Steve Kloves and Warner Brothers directors. I suspect it was because of JKR's input, and because she was still writing her books even as they were being filmed, that the Harry Potter films were so successful, and I am not surprised in a way that VDT was considerably overshadowed by the latest and still-running movie episode.

VDT hasn't had the luxury of having C.S.Lewis there to help turn his books into film. C.S.Lewis disliked movies and never wrote the Narnia books with films in mind. The best Walden could do was have Douglas Gresham alongside to avoid worse changes than the ones that the fans are so ballistic about. The seven swords aren't so alarming when we know that even in the book there was at least one sword found, on Deathwater Island at any rate, and apart from the green mist which was merely there when it was seen, most of the other changes did not disturb me anywhere near as much as did 'Tangled' 's juxtaposition of royalty and thievery in a Prince Rilian/LOTGK rip-off they probably thought nobody would notice.

Intellectual property works both ways, you know. It might be okay to bowdlerise Rapunzel, because, as you say, it has been in several versions beforehand, but when one is doing so, one should not help oneself to other authors' ideas. Especially C.S.Lewis' ideas. At least the 7 swords and the green mist were not infringing on some other author's imagination, but only those of the scriptwriters with Douglas Gresham's permission.

By the way, I have to eat my words in the introduction to this thread. VDT did get an award, a top one at that, even if it doesn't make the Narnia Movie News. This news link is another one to proclaim that VDT won the top Movieguide award for the most Christian movie of the year, one I feel it most definitely deserves.

This is still off topic, maybe there should be a spinoff thread--"Recycled and Reinvented Fairytale Tropes".... Part of me wonders whether C.S. Lewis watched (probably not) or was slightly familiar with The Wizard of Oz because the whole scene in the Underland when they're proclaiming LOTG's death reminds me of the beginning of TWoO after Dorothy's landed her house on the witch. It's just a really minute resemblance between tales but I couldn't help thinking of that movie when reading that bit in Silver Chair.