It was really disappointing that they didn’t make a big screen movie of The Silver Chair, but on the whole I liked the BBC version.  I think it was mainly because of Tom Baker’s acting in playing Puddleglum. It was some of the best character acting that I have ever seen. On the whole the story adaptation worked surprisingly well, and I have to say it was mostly what I expected from the book. I kind of wish that the underground kingdom would have looked more real, but that may not have been possible because of the limited resources. I think the bleakness of creatures living under the Lady of the Green Kirtle’s rule was shown well and in that way the simplicity of the production worked. It was like having Dr. Who’s Underworld in Narnia (Tom Baker’s story of that series), but nothing elaborate or fancy was required for a kingdom that Aslan could completely beat with a better world, as Puddleglum said.  🙂

@narnian78 Such a disappointment that we never got to see The Silver Chair on the big screen. I wonder if they would have added the dragon scene like BBC did, when Puddleglum say, "If we keep quiet, he'll go away" or "Keep quiet! The dragon will see us if we move!"

Anyhow, we also never got The Horse and His Boy, The Magician's Nephew, and The Last Battle on screen at all. So we're like in anticipation we'll get those from Netflix.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

I wonder if they would have added the dragon scene like BBC did, when Puddleglum say, "If we keep quiet, he'll go away" or "Keep quiet! The dragon will see us if we move!"

I've always suspected they threw that scene in just to have another use of the dragon puppet / prop, which was quite well made (unlike some aspects of the series) and probably cost them a lot, so they were trying to get their money's worth out of it!! It also gives Eustace a chance to hark back to his earlier adventure by saying "I know a thing or two about dragons..." But as it's not a scene that is relevant to the rest of the story, I very much doubt that Walden would have imitated it or that Netflix will, especially since their dragons are CGI, which was not an option back in the early 1990s! (You can see some very early CGI animation in the BBC version of LWW. It was obviously an earnest effort, but it looks so clumsy — and as a young viewer when this was first shown on TV, I can assure you it looked bad even then!! — that it stuck out like a sore thumb and they never tried it again.)

I did always think The Silver Chair was probably the overall best effort of all the BBC adaptations. They managed to make Aslan's mouth move a LITTLE more often when he's talking — still nowhere near lip-synching with the words, but certainly better than opening it an average of once or twice per sentence as in the three previous stories they did. (His face was animatronic and worked remotely by someone standing off-camera with a radio controller — that WAS actually pretty sophisticated technology for the time, especially for the BBC, which was notorious for not spending very much money on kids' programming in those days.)

And Tom Baker absolutely NAILED the role of Puddleglum. I have my own images of all the characters and scenes in my head when I read the books, which are usually based on Pauline Baynes' illustrations plus my own imagination, but Puddleglum for me is always exactly how Tom Baker portrayed him — he got the voice as well as the facial expressions spot on. (I love the last scene where we see him, when Jill spontaneously kisses him goodbye. In the book, Puddleglum makes a dry remark to himself in response, but in the TV version, we just see him lifting his hand to his cheek with a look of dumbfounded astonishment, which says it all! )

@courtenay CGI has come along way. I do admit that CGI effect does come to a point of being too distracting. When I saw the scene with the Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park, my eyes got big, I almost got distracted from enjoying a really good movie.

BBC of The Silver Chair that we're talking about, visual effects are pretty dated by today's standards. In the 90's, CGI was a fairly new thing. It's like no one knew about it at the time.

@jasmine_tarkheena 

Yes I think that sometimes the CGI might be a distraction from the original story.  For example, the Lord of the Rings movies may have expensive special effects, but were they something that Tolkien never intended for the books?  The drawn out battles and pricey sets may have been something that Tolkien never wanted in the first place. If Tolkien or C. S. Lewis were alive today can you picture them sitting in the theater watching films based on their books? They would probably say, “Why did you change so much of my story?”   I wonder if either of them would even be willing to buy a theater ticket since both of them disliked modern inventions. I can’t picture either of them owning a television set, although they probably did have radios.  🙂

@narnian78 I can see that. I wonder the same about Walden's adaptation of Narnia, if CS Lewis would have attended CGI and a big battle scene being used. It must have been for the purpose of marketing. I mean, if you're going to try to have somethings to impress everybody- big battle scenes, action, romance, etc- it doesn't always turned out. I wonder is that is that how fans get into things.

Having recently seen a trailer for Jurassic World: Dominion, I've seen that they're bringing back some of the old characters from the original Jurassic Park movie that was released almost 30 years ago. So I wonder that is attracting fans of the original movie who would like to see the original characters come back.

Anyhow, in the BBC Narnia, they didn't have the technology of CGI at the time. It was still in development. And I don't see a big battle scene in The Silver Chair at all. There is a lot of walking and talking going on. Maybe it wouldn't translate into screen nowadays, but sometimes it works. 

@jasmine_tarkheena CGI as we know it was unknown in 1988. It was first seen in the late 90s. The cleverest technique used was Blue Screen, and early computer work to combine a simple melding of a horse and running man to produce the centaur in Prince Caspian. In a behind the scenes programme shown in UK, they were clearly proud of this. 

As for Lewis and media - he didn't even read newspapers,  but he seems to have known what was going on in the world. 

Posted by: @courtenay

I did always think The Silver Chair was probably the overall best effort of all the BBC adaptations. They managed to make Aslan's mouth move a LITTLE more often when he's talking — still nowhere near lip-synching with the words, but certainly better than opening it an average of once or twice per sentence as in the three previous stories they did.

Ha! I think all of us can recall Aslan like that. Let's not start with the Beavers in LWW though  

Throughout the making of the BBC series, SC was probably my favorite one out of the four. I always liked how Jill was portrayed, she was just how I imagined in the book. Also as people mentioned, Puddleglum personality was on the dot. I think that the actors really made it come alive and despite the CGI, it was enjoyable. 

I liked the Aslan puppet used in the BBC series except for its mouth. Whenever Aslan spoke it sounded like his voice was coming from somewhere else, which it was. The CGI would have made it look more real, but of course that technology was not available to them.  The movement of the mouth was kind of artificial, but there may have not been a way within the BBC’s budget to make the speaking look more realistic.  The lion’s walking was quite good and the general appearance of him was quite close to the book.

I think Aslan is the hardest character to get right. I enjoy the one in the BBC fine, though when he talks, I agree that his mouth opens slowly. He almost looks like a giant stuffed animal. I even enjoyed Liam Neeson as Aslan in the Walden movies, though he sounds almost like the lion version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. So it will be interesting to see who Netflix will get to portray Aslan. 

One of the best scenes in the BBC Narnia’s The Silver Chair is Aslan’s bringing the dead King Caspian back to life. It is true that it was done very simply but effectively with the thorn in Aslan’s paw spilling his blood to revive the king and make him young again. It was actually quite moving and I remember crying whenever I watched it again and again.  I wonder if Netflix would actually include the scene since it is also one of the best parts of the book. I hope they do it because the scene is a very essential part of the story.

@narnian78 I couldn't agree more. I think Caspian's resurrection is one of those scenes that Netflix could easily cut out. As fans of the story, we want it to be included. It's a crucial point that death is not the end of the story. There is something beyond it. Having an great uncle who died a year ago, the despair is there. Yet, knowing he's in a better place, I have the hope that I will see him again. So Caspian's death and resurrection is a crucial part of the plot.

@jasmine_tarkheena I agree that it's essential. 

However I don't think of it as a resurrection. It must not be thought of as anything like Jesus's resurrection, or Aslan's. Not even like Lazarus's.

After all, he was still dead in Narnia, and would be a ghost if seen there. Where Jill and Eustace saw him was part of Aslan's Country, where there is no more dying.

What happened to Caspian was similar to what happened to the Seven Friends of Narnia in The Last Battle. They were renewed.

@coracle I think it's that there is something beyond death. Yes, everybody dies, but it's not the end of the story. Like what you've said about Caspian explaining if he appeared in Narnia after he died, he'd be a ghost. It was because he didn't belong there anymore. The idea of life after death, after we die, we don't belong on Earth anymore. From a Christian aspect, Heaven is our real home.

Posted by: @narnian78

One of the best scenes in the BBC Narnia’s The Silver Chair is Aslan’s bringing the dead King Caspian back to life. It is true that it was done very simply but effectively with the thorn in Aslan’s paw spilling his blood to revive the king and make him young again. It was actually quite moving and I remember crying whenever I watched it again and again.  I wonder if Netflix would actually include the scene since it is also one of the best parts of the book. I hope they do it because the scene is a very essential part of the story.

Yes, I always thought that was beautifully done too, except I seem to recall being slightly annoyed that they brought him back as "younger" Caspian (from PC) rather than "a bit more grown up" Caspian (from VDT), who I thought was better looking!!

That aside, it is an absolutely essential part of the story and Netflix had better include it if they're actually interested in filming The Chronicles of Narnia at all, rather than doing something loosely "based on" C.S. Lewis and making most of it up as they go along. I do wonder how they're going to handle the Christian elements of the stories. I can understand not pushing the "religious message" too obviously; Lewis himself is deliberately subtle about it, almost all the time. It's meant to be something that is a constant underlying theme that's there if you're looking for it, but not "in your face". It needs to be a production that all viewers can enjoy and get something meaningful out of, whether or not they're Christians themselves — and if they aren't, maybe it'll gently encourage them to think about the life and mission of Christ and start learning a bit more? (That's the effect Narnia had on me as a child, which is why I like to describe C.S. Lewis as "the man who first introduced me to God, through Aslan".)

Bringing this back on topic, I think the BBC did a good job overall of getting that message across without either overplaying it or underplaying it, although it's a long time since I last watched those shows and I can't remember all the details. I can't quite recall how much they included of the conversation with Aslan at the end of VDT, for example — one of the few places where Lewis gets explicit with the Christian theme, having Aslan declare to the children that he is in our world under another name and that the very reason they were brought to Narnia was "that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there." (That, in the book, was my unforgettable light-bulb moment as a 7-year-old reader — "Oh, THAT's who he is!!" — though I think, deep down, I'd sort of guessed already, but this made it crystal clear.)

The BBC, however, managed to dodge what is arguably the "heaviest" religious material in the Chronicles by not filming The Magician's Nephew (Aslan as creator of a world, evil entering into it, a temptation scene with an apple...) and The Last Battle (end of the world, final judgment, life after death, and "as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion..."). I think I've written elsewhere that even as a young viewer, I wasn't surprised they never got around to doing those two books, as they would have been virtually impossible to do justice to with the limited special effects technology of the time. (Especially the way the Beeb back then tended to handle special (???) effects. ) But it also conveniently meant they didn't have to bring all-too-blatant Christian themes into a series that had to appeal to the broadest possible audience, in a country and culture where the vast majority, whether or not they're people of faith, don't enjoy being preached at. (That goes for Australia, where I grew up, as well as Britain.)

And yet Netflix has bought the rights to all seven books, which means presumably they ARE intending to film both those stories along with all the rest. What will they do with the Christian themes? Maybe this is a topic for another discussion, if we don't have one on it already??