All of the Narnia books have a central boy character and a central girl. It's important to give people the sense that the magic of Narnia is for both genders.

I honestly am considering the possibility that SC will never be made. They could very likely just skip over it--make MN, then HHB, and end with LB. I think it a probable possibility, although I really hope it won't happen.
I'm a little disappointed that it looks like MN is going to be made before SC, but I like MN as a book too, so it's okay. At least they're making Narnia movies...for a time me and my brother thought they'd stop production completely!! That's something to be thanful for.

No, I disagree. The movie that is likely never to be made is HHB. The debate was between SC and MN, without HHB ever being mentioned, or LB either. There is a good reason for doing MN when it is basically stand-alone, and involves only a couple of characters from other films. All they have to do is start at the beginning and tie the movie in with some LWW footage at the end.

I think if the film companies do a fifth movie it definitely will be SC, not HHB, so as to tie up the Caspian angle. After that well, forget it. They get to avoid some controversy as well. I also wonder if Walden doesn't want to be caught like the BBC Narnia productions which were told after Silver Chair was made that the series would stop there.

My 100th Post!
I definetly think that the MN has the potential to gross as much as VDT.

So, it seems as if the MN next is inevitable.

Ideally I would love if MN was done December 2012, and SC December 2013. If Walden is smart about something, which I think they will be, they will, in some way, include Will Poulter.

Here is my two cents on how they should adapt....

The movie will start with a car winding through country and pull up to the Professor's mantion from LWW. Peter will be dropping off Lucy, Edmund and Eustace.
THey are greeted by the professor. Then it cuts to them all in front of the wardrobe and Lucy and Edmund are telling Eustace about how they got to Narnia the first time. Then he asks what some of the engravings on the wardobe means. The professors takes them to his study where they are having tea and he begins telling them the story. As he talking the camera drifts outside and then transitions back to when he was a little boy and is in the garden crying.

Then throughout the movie they cut back to the professor telling the story, and to story line.

This way it can keep Will in the spot light of the Narnia series (as he is in the SC and the LB).

Also, it is clear that Fox LOVES keeping familiar faces in the promotion of the film, even if their part is rather small (we all know what I am talking about).
This would give them the chance to advertise the crap out of the White Witch, Eustace, Edmund and Lucy.

Do you disagree or agree that Will Poulter should be in the MN?

I don't think Eustace (if he has a cameo in MN) should be a big part, but I always liked the idea if the movie makers decided to show Digory telling at least one of the friends of Narnia about the beginning of Narnia. If they do SC after MN, they need to keep us still intact with Eustace, because it would feel wrong to not show him in one film and yet return him in the next. It would be nice to see Will Poulter again as well!

But if they do MN like that (with Digory or maybe even Polly telling someone the story of MN), I think they also should at least have Lucy there too. It would make sense that Lucy, out of all of the Pevensies and Eustace, would be the one listening to the Professor about what happened before LWW. Edmund might also be interested in the tale (although I have no idea if Skandar would want to return for a cameo), and since Peter and Susan (as Eustace says at the end of VDT) stay where they are for another two years, I think the most likely amount of listeners would be Lucy, Eustace, and Edmund.

I don't really care if they do it like that or not, but it will be interesting to see if we ever get to see Digory years later...

My 100th Post!

Do you disagree or agree that Will Poulter should be in the MN?

I definitely think they should include Will Poulter (if they've decided to keep him for SC), but not the character of Edmund. He would add nothing to the proceedings, since Lucy's already there to introduce Will to the professor. Someone else suggested that Professor Kirk should be the new, good headmaster who comes in at the end of SC. While I'm worried that this might clutter the ending, if they include Will P in MN, this ending could have an interesting full circle effect, and create added continuity.

I think, since it will be obvious that Will P has a few more years on them, they should also include some reference to the fact that the war is now over.

I just think The Silver Chair specifically might need young leads for Experiment House and in avoidance of Jillstace. If they can find a way for it to work, I'd be all for having Will Poulter back because he's so great as Eustace.

No, sorry. No matter how old Will Poulter is if and when SC is made, there isn't any risk of jillstace if the films are faithful to the books, one of the things that PC wasn't. VDT was able to use that glitch as a reason for a teenaged Lucy to be jealous of her beautiful and desirable sister, which Lucy tended to be even in the book, and which even in WW2 might be considered normal for a UK younger sister with a glamorous older sibling in glamorous America.

In the past 50 years or so, values and ethics have changed enormously in UK as well as in USA and Australia. During WW2, although romances could and did happen, even at school level, they weren't approved of let alone considered normal. It was a rare school, like Experiment House, that was co-educational, and even then girls did not necessarily study the same subjects as boys, apart from core subjects like English and Maths.

In those days when even in UK the age of adulthood and voting was 21, I had the impression that romance was something strictly for adults, preferably those who had completed their education, and had a job or similar means of support, to fund any future marriage. I suspect it was more usual for boys and girls to be 'friends' for a long time, until they married at 21, when they no longer had to ask for parental permission first.

WW2 did disrupt society mores I agree, though not usually at school level. In wartime, people tended to rush into hasty romances and marriages because they thought only of the present. If girls 'got into trouble' they either married the fathers forthwith, gave up the baby for adoption or faced being thrown out of home, and certainly any school they attended. A generation earlier, they might also be shamed in the church congregation. No wonder VDT Lucy, finding the beauty spell, would see in the book death and devastation if she said the beauty spell.

In MN C.S.Lewis did allude to the stricter mores of the early 20th century. This is why the airs and graces Uncle Andrew and Jadis grated so much. I hope the film does include the 'Ours is a high and lonely destiny' comment both characters insist on making, considering themselves above the rules that applied to everyone else.

Jill and Eustace were probably the only two I could see as a couple. Beginning as friends (shown in the books) and then eventually blossoming into romance when they reached adulthood (which never really happened because the world ended).

I don't want MN next!
I don't know about the rest of you but I prepare to watch each movie. I am all prepared and eager to watch another SC movie. I like MN, but I don't really like it as much as SC.

I don't want MN to use a story-telling device. All it does is add unnecessary length to the film.

I just think The Silver Chair specifically might need young leads for Experiment House and in avoidance of Jillstace. If they can find a way for it to work, I'd be all for having Will Poulter back because he's so great as Eustace.

No, sorry. No matter how old Will Poulter is if and when SC is made, there isn't any risk of jillstace if the films are faithful to the books, one of the things that PC wasn't. VDT was able to use that glitch as a reason for a teenaged Lucy to be jealous of her beautiful and desirable sister, which Lucy tended to be even in the book, and which even in WW2 might be considered normal for a UK younger sister with a glamorous older sibling in glamorous America.

In the past 50 years or so, values and ethics have changed enormously in UK as well as in USA and Australia. During WW2, although romances could and did happen, even at school level, they weren't approved of let alone considered normal. It was a rare school, like Experiment House, that was co-educational, and even then girls did not necessarily study the same subjects as boys, apart from core subjects like English and Maths.

In those days when even in UK the age of adulthood and voting was 21, I had the impression that romance was something strictly for adults, preferably those who had completed their education, and had a job or similar means of support, to fund any future marriage. I suspect it was more usual for boys and girls to be 'friends' for a long time, until they married at 21, when they no longer had to ask for parental permission first.

WW2 did disrupt society mores I agree, though not usually at school level. In wartime, people tended to rush into hasty romances and marriages because they thought only of the present. If girls 'got into trouble' they either married the fathers forthwith, gave up the baby for adoption or faced being thrown out of home, and certainly any school they attended. A generation earlier, they might also be shamed in the church congregation. No wonder VDT Lucy, finding the beauty spell, would see in the book death and devastation if she said the beauty spell.

In MN C.S.Lewis did allude to the stricter mores of the early 20th century. This is why the airs and graces Uncle Andrew and Jadis grated so much. I hope the film does include the 'Ours is a high and lonely destiny' comment both characters insist on making, considering themselves above the rules that applied to everyone else.

Do you honestly think the film-makers will think that hard on the subject though? I would still be worried about Jillstace if Scrubb and Pole were teenagers.

They had teen romances in 1930s American movies and late 19th century American books, but then, English culture might have been more strict.

For certain it was more strict in UK. More class conscious, too. My UK born sister-in-law showed me articles about how they lived in UK pre WW2, including the bit about people who misbehaved romantically being denounced from the pulpit. Enid Blyton was not the only post WW2 author who alluded to American girls as getting away with a lot more than would be acceptable in UK.

Jill and Eustace were probably the only two I could see as a couple. Beginning as friends (shown in the books) and then eventually blossoming into romance when they reached adulthood (which never really happened because the world ended).

Apart from Aravis and Shasta? Yes I agree, but certainly not in SC, where they were bickering all the time. Of course in LB it is a different story. By that time they really were friends and they stayed in Narnia, anyway. As for Digory and Polly, though they, too were friends by the end of the story, they certainly weren't all that friendly to each other during the course of it.

Do you honestly think the film-makers will think that hard on the subject though? I would still be worried about Jillstace if Scrubb and Pole were teenagers.

They would be stupid not to since such filmmakers are themselves part of the post-war Baby Boomers and are part of the reason why attitudes have changed to teenagers. In both UK and in Australia, they would also be the first teenagers to be affected by the change in voting age and what is now considered adult. They, therefore, should be well aware of the sweeping changes in social attitudes since 1945, let alone since the pre WW1 times of Digory and Polly.

Sorry Wagga, I should've mentioned the only characters from our world who I could see as eventually becoming a couple. And you're right, I didn't think it from the onset of SC but by LB I was convinced that it would've worked out nicely, if they hadn't died.

Wagga, all I'm saying is that I don't think the film-makers will strive for that level of historical accuracy. However we are getting off topic.

Oh I think they will, and they had better. Otherwise, if there really are ghosts, I'll haunt them. (where is that devil emoticon when I want it?) Historical inaccuracies spoil a film as much as changes to the book or even more so. VDT at least got its history right for WW2. The filmmakers should continue to do this for SC, and I expect it doubly and triply for pre WW1 MN.

And whilst I was at least trying to guide the discussion back on topic, to the MN film, I will give another reason why the filmmakers should think very carefully about historical accuracy. Whatever I say is historically true of the times of SC, and of Will Poulter's behaviour towards a not necessarily trustful schoolmate, if not classmate, will be doubly and triply true of Polly and Digory's generation, which was before women got the vote.

However Hollywood likes childhood romances, no matter how old they make the actor and actress that plays these two children, they ended up friends, no more and no less. And C.S.Lewis went out of his way to point out the absurdity of Uncle Andrew fancying Jadis, didn't he?

I love Polly, her compassion for Digory's grief for his mother, her and Aunt Letty's cool disdain for Jadis, and their sound common sense and practicality. I'd hate for a film to butcher their characters to make them more 'modern'.