@Courtenay It was actually a living thing that grew from the soil — the version of it in the Walden film of LWW even has roots at its base, so somebody on the design team must have read MN as well! — and so it must have had its own capacity to produce light. Maybe, just as ordinary plants take in and store energy from the sun through photosynthesis (which is how they make their own "food"), the living Narnian lamppost took in and stored up solar energy to power its own light! Makes sense to me.

But would a Greta Gerwig version be able to use Walden's designs for the Lamp Post? I'll have to watch the film again to see that bit. Meanwhile I'd be wary of Uncle Andrew's likely reactions to the planting of the Iron Bar. You wouldn't want people like Uncle Andrew getting ideas about that sort of thing. It's bad enough that we have a whole airport being built to be run with solar power.

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

But would a Greta Gerwig version be able to use Walden's designs for the Lamp Post?

Most likely not, unless she made some special arrangement with the past director and artistic designers and so on, and I don't see why an all-new director of an all-new adaptation would really want to do that, especially when there's no need for it. I just thought that was a clever little twist in that particular film.

Meanwhile I'd be wary of Uncle Andrew's likely reactions to the planting of the Iron Bar. You wouldn't want people like Uncle Andrew getting ideas about that sort of thing. It's bad enough that we have a whole airport being built to be run with solar power.

I'm slightly baffled as to why a whole airport being run with solar power should be a "bad" thing compared to running it with other power sources, but this isn't the place for political debates, as we've been reminded recently. Regardless, Uncle Andrew of course DOES get ideas about the planting of the iron bar, when he sees it's grown into a lamppost...

"The commercial possibilities of this country are unbounded. Bring a few old bits of scrap iron here, bury 'em, and up they come as brand new railway engines, battleships, anything you please. They'll cost nothing, and I can sell 'em at full prices in England. I shall be a millionaire...." (p. 103 in my edition (Puffin))

But Aslan later confirms, when Polly mentions Andrew's ambitions, that this won't actually work:

"He thinks great folly, child," said Aslan. "This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice...." (p. 158)

@ Courtenay  Regardless, Uncle Andrew of course DOES get ideas about the planting of the iron bar, when he sees it's grown into a lamppost...

Uncle Andrew wasn't the only one who ever went gaga over machines etc & who dreamed of becoming a millionaire, or who has attempted any get-rich-quick schemes. The real-life ones are infinitely worse, when, like Susan, I'm none too keen on gambling.

I'm slightly baffled as to why a whole airport being run with solar power should be a "bad" thing compared to running it with other power sources.

That depends on how well it runs when it is finished. And that we have yet to see, next year.  

I'd be opposed to Netflix using Walden Media's design for the lamppost even though I love the roots idea. I feel like trying to make the new version of Narnia feel like the same one as in the 2000s would be (a) a burden on the filmmakers and (b) unlikely to succeed anyway. Maybe it'd be different if The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) were a really old classic that the new filmmakers grew up watching and loving. Then it might be fun for them to try to recreate its world.

I don’t know why they would use an exact replica of the Walden movie’s lamppost for the Netflix film unless it would be because they couldn’t think of a design of their own. Since it is a new series of films they should probably create a new design of their own. I am not overly fussy about something like that. It is only a prop which should be much like the one in the original story.  I just think it should fit in the Victorian time period and with the creation of Narnia. The same lamppost could probably be used again for Greta Gerwig’s movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The best lamppost would work well for both our world and Narnia.

@Col Klink

I'd be opposed to Netflix using Walden Media's design for the lamppost even though I love the roots idea. I feel like trying to make the new version of Narnia feel like the same one as in the 2000s would be (a) a burden on the filmmakers and (b) unlikely to succeed anyway.

Except that to adhere to Pauline Baynes' illustrations, we still need a Victorian-style Iron lamp post, no matter what, brittle enough to tear off the protruding iron bar. That suggests wrought Iron, by the way. Regardless of whether the one in Narnia turns out to have roots or not, as in Walden's LWW, according to Courtenay's post. And it was a lovely idea, to have the iron lamppost working out of its own natural carbonated resources.  

 @Courtenay It was actually a living thing that grew from the soil — the version of it in the Walden film of LWW even has roots at its base, so somebody on the design team must have read MN as well! — and so it must have had its own capacity to produce light. Maybe, just as ordinary plants take in and store energy from the sun through photosynthesis (which is how they make their own "food"), the living Narnian lamppost took in and stored up solar energy to power its own light! Makes sense to me.

I did think of the Narnia lamppost actually coming up with built-in solar panels of some sort, but that, too, might be definitely anachronistic, these days. And I don't think people would like that, either, when it would be far too obvious plus altering the design. If even a fluorescent light bulb or even the sort they use for today's streetlighting, wouldn't last 40 years of constant use, why would it last a 100 years' Narnia winter without Christmas? And so far, I'm not convinced that current solar panels would do the trick, either. As for the iron frames, the difference between iron and steel is in the smelting, usually using coal, & therefore carbon, so a steel or galvanised iron lamppost, all new and shiny, might make a slight difference, wouldn't it?

I always wondered if the attics in Victorian houses were finished.  I did not like to play in places like that as a child because of the fear of falling through the ceiling into the room below. But of course those were attics in houses here in America, and they may have built them differently in the houses of Britain and Europe. Polly and Digory were not so afraid of them in The Magician’s Nephew.  But I think the attics were larger because the houses were bigger in Victorian times and had fewer confined spaces.  Most houses here in my part of the U. S. were built to be small and compact so the attics often did not have space enough to stand up in. They gave me a feeling of claustrophobia even as a child.  And I don’t think there are any houses in the town where I live in that have attics that are joined. It is the more modern style of architecture that has made people avoid going into attics unless it was necessary. They are not meant to be lived in.  Attics can be hot and uncomfortable in the summer here in the U. S. It is best to avoid them during that time of the year.

@narnian78

A distinction needs to be made here between the terms loft and attic, although they're used fairly interchangeably among Brits. I believe you are describing a loft which is a storage space above a few rooms of the house whereas an attic is an entire floor in the roof, often with windows and definitely enough space to stand up. I grew up in a Victorian house in Southern England and (while I called it the loft) the attic was one huge room covering the entire plan of the house that you could walk about in very easily. I expect it was connected to our neighbours but any door between them had long since been blocked up and being end of terrace it would've only been connected on one side. My parents weren't keen on us children playing up there but I'm not at all surprised that Digory and Polly chose it for their adventures and I'm intrigued to see how Gerwig portrays that part of the story 

@moonlit_centaur 

It may be called a loft in the UK and other countries, but I don’t remember that it was called by that name at least not here in Michigan.  Here in the USA attics are not usually lived in, although some people have made them habitable by adding air conditioning and other things to keep them cool in summer and warm in winter. But most people don’t use them or like them that much.  I think where Digory and Polly went exploring was more like an extended room which connected several houses. That would be more inviting for a child to play in, but I don’t think they would stay there for long periods.  I suppose they could create a place like that with sets or CGI for Greta Gerwig’s movie.  Uncle Andrew’s study could be created like that too, but it was a kind of a foreboding place according to the book. I hope the movie will also give us that feeling.  🙂

@Narnian78

I always wondered if the attics in Victorian houses were finished.  I did not like to play in places like that as a child because of the fear of falling through the ceiling into the room below. But of course those were attics in houses here in America, and they may have built them differently in the houses of Britain and Europe.

I think housebuilding, regardless of which part of Britain & Europe migrants originally hailed from, was usually done with their home countries in mind, & how they could adapt its styles to the weather of the new surroundings, & available local resources. Pitched roofs, for example, which protect best against snow & rain, also providing some drainage, as well, would be a common European/British feature of homes, which transferred, not only throughout Australia, but also in neighbouring Indonesia, where the Dutch had been settled since they first arrived there, in 1596 AD. It might have been similar in USA as well, originally, before even the Pilgrim Fathers arrived in Massachusetts in 1620.

Down in Hobart town as it was first called, where my own ancestors first settled, it was very much Do-It-Yourself accommodation, (DIY), and the houses they began with, were only marginally more permanent than the original tent accommodation they brought with them, & the lean-to humpies that the natives made for themselves, when they found such shelter necessary. (Frank Bolt, 2004, The founding of Hobart 1803-1804). Even seven years later, NSW Governor Macquarie visited the area and found to his dismay, there were no civic buildings yet, unlike Sydney, & even Government House in Hobart was no more than a hastily built cottage in March 1804. It was Governor Macquarie, himself, whose pet architect, ex-convict Francis Greenway, who gave Sydney its first real start as a city, being more forward thinking than some of his predecessors. 

Whereas in both Europe & Britain they had centuries to find out what suited best, and the mere fact that ceilings were introduced at all, was partly to make houses snugger and more comfortable, on the ground floor, as well as to allow air space for the floor-space for higher storeys to be built on top of rafters, forming the framework of the next storey or roof of the house or houses. The difference between many of Sydney's remaining terraces, & those of Britain, I noticed, was that Sydney's terraces are mostly only two floors high. Only in the wealthier areas, such as near Centennial Park, do you find three or more storeys, including what you might call basements. That is more like what I noticed in the Bayswater Inn where I stayed in London in 2009. The top floor there was extra accommodation, but was originally meant for live-in maids etc, in days gone by, in Britain. Whereas after transportation ceased in NSW after 22nd May, 1840, such servant labour was becoming less frequent, when that source of cheap labour dried up somewhat.

The empty space under the terrace roof in common, thus became a possible loft for each house in the terrace, & a good place for storage, when it is still necessary to this day to check inside a roof for damage & leaks, & which both Polly & Uncle Andrew took advantage of. Polly & Digory knew they had to make their way by using the original house beams & rafters for maximum support as they made their way from house to house, over the dividing walls, which separated each house of a terrace. 

Honestly, I am praying that everyone gets over the need for flashbacks in movies. They are so overused and sometimes, people have the whole movie be a flashback and I definitely hate that. I wish people would just tell the story straight out.

Bonhoeffer, a movie which I saw recently had the most recent flashbacks that I can think of, so, I am going to use the movie as an example. In the movie, the current story started near the end, and so, to tell the story, the film had the rest of the story told to the audience with interrupted flashbacks by the main character. All these flashbacks did not help me with the timeline of his life and were very abrupt. 

With all of that said, I think Greta might love flashbacks and not think that flashbacks harm the emotional feel of the movie although they do in my opinion considering what she did with Little Women. So, I would not be really shocked if she started the movie not at the begining of the story but somewhere in the middle. 

But, if I were writing the screenplay, I would work hard not to have any flashbacks, and that  take more than 1 or two minutes on screen. I might actually start with Mrs. Lefay giving the box to Uncle Andrew as a kid and then move into Polly and Digory years later. I would have Uncle Andrew mention Mrs. Lefay but, I would not want to show the scene as a flashback.

A quick comment on the growing lamppost.

The growing lamppost was Lewis's idea so conveying that in Netflix's version would not be stealing it from Walden imho. Having said that, if they just copy and paste a similar root structure, most people would be like "well, I know where you got that from," and it wouldn't be very original. (Of course, they could do it as an homage to the Walden version, I suppose.)

But what I did want to say is, there are other things that grow here on this planet that are not organic, and they don't grow by cellular reproduction (ie roots of a tree). In fact, metals come from minerals, which can occasionally grow crystals, so perhaps something along those lines instead?

Posted by: @eustace

I might actually start with Mrs. Lefay giving the box to Uncle Andrew as a kid and then move into Polly and Digory years later. I would have Uncle Andrew mention Mrs. Lefay but, I would not want to show the scene as a flashback.

Oddly enough, I think that example actually provides really great evidence as to why flashbacks are in fact a really vital cinematic tool, as the literal order in which things happened is much less important than the order in which the characters learn about them.

In other words, if Digory and Polly are the point-of-view characters for the story, then the ideal scenario is if the audience experiences and learns things in the same order they do, such that the audience doesn't know anything more than them at any given point of the story... Thus, we should learn about these extra little details just as they do - in retrospect, and as a flashback if necessary.

Sometimes it can be a good to give the audience information that the characters don't have in order to generate tension (such as in a Hitchcock thriller) and sometimes it can be good to withhold information from the audience that the characters know in order to generate surprise (such as in say Oceans 11), but on the whole, most of the time you want the audience to be experiencing the world through the perspectives of the main characters, in order to build relatability.

It can also make for a super boring and frustrating cinematic experience if the audience has already been given information chronologically as a prologue, and then has to wait ages for the characters to learn those same facts (see The Green Lantern movie).

Sure, like any cinematic storytelling device, flashbacks can be awkward if over used, or if they merely exist to serve up pointless backstory and exposition, but if done well they are a vital component of good storytelling.

I agree with Icarus that we shouldn't know about the rings and what they do before Digory and Polly do. If we did, the terrifying moment where Polly vanishes would be ruined. However, it could still be OK to open a movie adaptation with Mrs. Lefay giving the box to Andrew if it did so differently from what Eustace was suggesting. After all, in the book, Mrs. Lefay never tells Andrew what's in the box. If they did a prologue that showed that scene which stayed true to that and didn't immediately follow it with a montage of him learning about the box's contents and making the rings, that could work. 

@fantasia 

But what I did want to say is, there are other things that grow here on this planet that are not organic, and they don't grow by cellular reproduction (ie roots of a tree). In fact, metals come from minerals, which can occasionally grow crystals, so perhaps something along those lines instead?

Now you mention it, ferrous sulphate (iron sulphate = FeSO4) crystals do come to mind, useful, it would seem, as organic fertilizer, or even weed killer among other things, not only ink, dyes, medicine, jewellery etc. If heated up, according to internet, it turns to water, sulphur components & Ferric oxide, also known as rust. I found a picture of what ferrous sulphate actually looks like, when internet AI maybe thought I was going to Bunnings (hardware store) to buy some, if I could get it.  

@Eustace

But, if I were writing the screenplay, I would work hard not to have any flashbacks, and that take more than 1 or two minutes on screen. I might actually start with Mrs. Lefay giving the box to Uncle Andrew as a kid and then move into Polly and Digory years later. I would have Uncle Andrew mention Mrs. Lefay but, I would not want to show the scene as a flashback.

I have to agree with you, but only to a point. In Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows, part 2, there was such a flashback to relate the back story of the Deathly Hallows, which both the characters and the audience needed to see at exactly that right time. It was reenacted visually in silhouette form, which would be perfect for MN if done similarly, whilst Uncle Andrew explains in a voiceover to Digory his story of Madam LeFay, whom Brian Sibley's 1989 The Land of Narnia (pages 25-26) tells us came from the legendary Morgan Le Fay, & who is alleged elsewhere in this book, to be Uncle Andrew's "Bad Fairy God-mother". It is not until Polly & Digory get into Andrew Ketterley's study that we need to know who Madam le Fay (le fé, or La Fée in French) is supposed to be. The box, itself, which I believe Uncle Andrew retained, up to that point, was still sitting on the study table in the scene. 

We need to see the rings humming in that box before we see what they can do & learn about how Uncle Andrew came by those rings.