And what's in store for the future? Yes, Narnia should be unique.

As for a change, a lot of things would have to require changes. That is, as we've discussed so many times before, there things in the books that even though well written, it wouldn't work quite as well on screen.

Probably one say for HHB, they could cut back and forth between Shasta with the Narnians then at the Tombs of the Ancient Kings and Aravis in Tashbaan, where she overhears Rabadash talk with his father of his evil plan. It would have been tedious for CS Lewis to go back and forth of what is going on in the book. Though I reckon that a movie or series could cut the camera back and forth.

It is an idea that comes to mind for an addition or change when it becomes acceptable. Though I'm sure we could share some other ideas.

Posted by: @fantasia

Ironically, in my mind, when PC first came out, most people agreed with you and liked the change.

I was on the forum back then and I don't really remember that.  

Posted by: @fantasia

I suppose it's one of those "life imitates art" kind of things. If you want teens to be better teens, give them some real role models

Yeah, I know a lot of people, like Joe Rigney, see the point of the Narnia books as providing good role models for kids but I never wanted to be like Peter when I read the book. I understand that some kids do and I'm happy if that inspires to be better people/leaders. I just can't get that. The parts of Prince Caspian that focused on the personalities of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy were the parts I found least interesting as a kid. (Now I can appreciate them for their technical skill.) If there's a character in the series that I wanted to emulate growing up, it was Polly because she's so great at telling others what is wrong with them. Now that I'm an adult, I don't have that aspiration because there are so many people denouncing each other on social media that it's just exhausting. I think we can agree though that if Polly were denouncing people on social media these days, she'd be one of the best at it.  

Posted by: @fantasia

They actually filmed a big dance scene at the end of LWW after the Pevensies coronation that was cut.

I remember hearing about that and while I believe the ending of LWW should be joyful, I think they were right to cut it. Apparently, Susan was going to be dancing with a talking fox. I can't picture that not being awkward with their height difference. To me, the coronation itself feels really joyful on its own. (And if you look closely, you can see Narnians celebrating in the background as Lucy watches Aslan leave from the balcony.) I would criticize the movie more, along those lines, for trimming down the statues coming back to life so drastically. For me, that scene was a descriptive highlight of the book. I still feel the movie is magical without it though.

Posted by: @fantasia

The much bigger one was the ENTIRE rescue of the Telmarine people by Aslan, Lucy, Susan, and the greek gods in PC. I just read that chapter to my kids two days ago and it's such fun. I remember one of the screenwriters specifically saying that they left it out because when they read it, their reaction was "Why are they having a dance?" during Peter's battle with Miraz. Never mind all of the townspeople being freed from oppression!!! It was just a dance to them. 

That's one of my least favorite cuts too.  

Posted by: @fantasia

I can't really talk about VDT. The book is a blast. And the movie? All I remember is the green mist. 

I've watched it recently and while it's least favorite of the Walden Media adaptations, I don't think the problem is that it wasn't trying to be fun or joyful. The problem is more that it wasn't particularly great at those things. (I wouldn't describe it as great at dark or dramatic stuff either.) 

Posted by: @courtenay

Narnia, for the most part, shouldn't be dark and gritty — it should be a place that makes us think "I wish I could live in a world like that!!" 

Posted by: @fantasia

Exactly!!

That's the thing. When I watched the Walden Media movies that you guys disparage (first two anyway), I did wish I could live in a world like that. When I watched the BBC miniseries of which you're fond, I didn't. (Don't tell me I was too old and cynical. I was five! ) I guess it's just one of those things that's always going to be subjective. But, hey, that means a lot of different viewpoints and more interesting discussions on forums like this.  

Right. Even though the Walden have done things I didn't agree with or necessarily liked, there were still stuff I appreciated, like the expanding a bit on Eustace in his dragon form or seeing Mr. Tumnus one last time before he is turned into stone until Aslan restores him or even having Glozelle and Prunaprismia along with her son being the first to volunteer to go through the doorway.

Posted by: @col-klink

That's the thing. When I watched the Walden Media movies that you guys disparage (first two anyway), I did wish I could live in a world like that. When I watched the BBC miniseries of which you're fond, I didn't. (Don't tell me I was too old and cynical. I was five! ) I guess it's just one of those things that's always going to be subjective.

In the interests of clarification, I should note the the BBC version of Narnia has never made me think "I wish I could live in a world like that" either — not even when I first watched it myself at the age of seven. I was far too busy cracking up laughing at the bottle-shaped Beavers, and Edmund talking to a double of himself, and Aslan's inability to lip-sync his mouth with his words, and the bizarre digitally animated creatures, and the cheesy "flying" effects (like when Susan and Lucy are supposed to be riding on Aslan and instead of running as he does in the book, he floats unconvincingly through the air), and Barbara Kellerman overacting as the Witch, and Maugrim doing "Long live the Queen! RRRRRAAAAAHHHHH!!!", and so on and so forth...   (And those are just some of the silliest aspects of the BBC's LWW alone, without getting into any of their other adaptations. ) 

I was actually referring to the books giving one the "I wish I could live in that world!" feeling, which is what they do for me. Now I'll shush up and stop dragging this conversation off topic!  

Well, filmmakers, if you are reading this forum here, even if you have to make some changes or additions, we ask you to make Narnia unique as CS Lewis wrote them.

Will people forget the Walden films when a new version is made?   I think the Walden movies will always be remembered as an attempt at bringing Narnia to the theater that was successful in some ways. Of course they could have been better films, but they brought us some good entertainment, which isn’t all bad. So it is best not to consider them the ultimate adaptations, but they have attracted more interest in the books even if they weren’t always perfectly accurate to them. I think that they did achieve something positive. 🙂

I've just been listening to the new Talking Beasts episode, where they're starting a chapter-by-chapter read-through of The Last Battle (shout-out to @gp, @gymfan15 and @rilian — excellent job!!). Much of it is about the fact that Lewis gives a HUGE plot spoiler away in Chapter 1, which is more like a prologue: we meet Shift and Puzzle and are immediately "in" on Shift's plot to dress Puzzle in the lion skin and pretend he's Aslan. So when it comes to Chapter 2, which opens with Tirian and Jewel discussing these reports that Aslan has returned to Narnia, but then they discover that all these terrible things are happening — the Dryads being killed, Talking Beasts being enslaved — and it's all under "Aslan's orders"... would it make for a better story if we didn't have the big reveal at the start that it's a fake Aslan, and so, without that knowledge, we'd be feeling Tirian's and Jewel's confusion and horror right along with them? The podcasters discuss this in a lot of detail and come up with some very good and interesting points, so I'll leave the details to anyone who wants to listen to the episode and find out.

After hearing both sides of the debate, I come down on the side that says yes, Lewis did the right thing overall by revealing Shift's plot at the start. But one question raised in the podcast is, should a future movie of LB (assuming we ever get that far!) do the opening differently?

My thought is that it would work to open with the Shift and Puzzle scene as a prologue before the opening credits, but shorten it a good deal from how it's done in the book (I've just re-read the two opening chapters myself). Maybe start with an "establishing shot" of Lantern Waste, with that familiar lamppost glowing among the trees (now very overgrown, as it's been there for so long), so that we can see we're in Narnia, and then pan through the woods to the cliffs and the waterfall and Caldron Pool (as we'll definitely have had a film of MN by this stage — whether it was done first or not — observant viewers will know we've seen this location before as Fledge flew over it). Shift sitting by the pool looking pensive; Puzzle trots up to him; they exchange a few words, then Shift sees something coming down the waterfall and tells Puzzle he'd better jump in and get it. I'd cut down the conversation between them, but give enough to show that Puzzle is good-hearted but easily manipulated, and Shift is VERY manipulative and unabashedly guilt-trips Puzzle into doing everything Shift wants. ("Oh, really, Puzzle, how could you do this to me, I'm your oldest friend..." — that sort of thing. As the Talking Beasts presenters remarked, Lewis does give us a spot-on picture here of an emotionally abusive relationship. )

Anyway, once Puzzle has dived in and struggled in the water and pulled "the Thing" to land, I wouldn't drag this scene out with the whole exchange where Shift persuades Puzzle to trot off to the market and so on. I'd just have them laying this skin out on the grass, and Puzzle, gasping and panting, asks "What is it?", and Shift looks it up and down very carefully and remarks pointedly, "It's a lion's skin." Puzzle at that moment could look a little perturbed, at which Shift assures him: "Oh, don't you worry — there are only ordinary, dumb, wild lions up in the Western Wastes. Doubtless this one was killed by a hunter."

Puzzle relaxes slightly, but then shivers and sneezes from his recent struggle in the cold water. Shift looks at him, then down at the skin, then back up at Puzzle, then remarks meaningfully: "Hmmm... I have an idea."

At this point the theme music starts, the opening credits roll, with The Chronicles of Narnia: THE LAST BATTLE and so on, and behind the credits (no sound effects, as the music is playing), we can see a few close-ups of Shift's paws cutting and sewing the lion skin.

And then once the opening music is finished, I would fade to black and cut to Tirian outside his hunting lodge talking with Jewel, and take the story from there.

My point is, to me, that's just enough of a giveaway for what's going to happen without spelling it out exactly — the audience (if they don't know the book) will need to think for themselves and put two and two together as we hear about "Aslan" giving these terrible orders and Roonwit warning that it is all a lie. So we do have something of the background knowledge that this is a fake Aslan and something deeply, shockingly bad is going on in Narnia — and we also have enough of an introduction as to what kind of characters Shift and Puzzle are — but the prologue (hopefully) isn't dragged out to the point where it feels laborious, which I think it would if the opening of a film version followed the book to the letter.

(I did think that maybe as the opening credits end, the last thing we could see is the silhouette — now that it's evening — of Shift finishing tying the lion skin onto Puzzle and rubbing his hands with satisfaction, but that might not be necessary. It's only a couple more chapters ahead — I'd forgotten how quickly the action unfolds — that we begin to see the fake "Aslan" being presented to the Narnian creatures. At that point, presumably we can be shown enough to make it obvious to us, as viewers, that this is Puzzle in the lion's skin, but he's at a great enough distance from the other animals and in such poor light that they can't make out for certain whether or not this is a real lion, and of course even Tirian is unsure for a short time.)

That's how I'd like to do it, anyway!  

@courtenay I really like your ideas for the opening scenes of a possible The Last Battle adaptation! They are a perfect blend of creativity and faithfulness to the book, in my opinion. 

@courtenay That's an interesting idea about a possible opening of The Last Battle movie (if it ever gets that far). Though I would also say possibly cut every now and then to the Seven Friends of Narnia in our world, because in the book we're hardly there. So we could have a glimpse of our world and a glimpse of Narnia, but focus mainly on Narnia. I think also in The Last Battle, they could play out a total contrast of friendship with Shift and Puzzle and Tirian and Jewel.

@jasmine_tarkheena Yes, I was only thinking of the opening scene, not the rest of the film. I would definitely want to cut to the Friends of Narnia more than once — in fact, as I said somewhere else, in a whole series of Narnia films I'd love to see bit by bit how the Friends start getting together, in between the main action of the later stories. That way we get to see that the main characters from this world do keep in touch and meet up to talk about Narnia, and we can see that Susan attends a few meetings at first — she obviously does come along to some, as Polly knows her well enough to comment on her in The Last Battle — but I would guess she says little or nothing at the meetings and starts looking more and more uncomfortable, and eventually refuses to attend any more. And of course, when the others try to encourage her, we can see her dismissing Narnia as "all those funny games we used to play when we were little".

That particular scene obviously needs to happen in the film of LB, but I'd like to see some build-up to it during the earlier movies, so that Susan's rejection of Narnia is not such a sudden revelation to viewers as it is in the book. (There are a few subtle hints as early as PC that Susan isn't as dedicated to Narnia as the others are, but it would be good, in a movie series, to have more than that.)

Maybe there could even be a bit more indication of why Susan chose to kid herself that Narnia was only ever make-believe? I wouldn't want to go into it too far, to the point where it's a distraction from the main plot, but I imagine her as trying to get "in" with the posh social set now that she's an adult — and most likely she either has a boyfriend or is keen to attract one — and she is so terrified of what all the "cool" grown-up people will think if they know she journeyed to a magical world as a child and became its Queen, that she convinces herself it must all have been a game that she and her siblings made up for fun.

There actually is a theme in a few of the Chronicles about convincing ourselves that something special and wonderful couldn't possibly be true — Uncle Andrew does that through his own vanity and nastiness in MN, when he persuades himself that Aslan and the Talking Beasts can't really be talking, and so then he genuinely can't hear anything from them but animal noises. The Green Witch in SC does something similar through evil magic in SC, when she almost convinces our heroes that the world above and Aslan himself are all a dream or a game that they've made up. So Susan's rejection of Narnia is part of a larger theme in the series, and I'd love to see that brought out as something for the audience to think about.

I should add — back to LB — that's a great point about the total contrast between Shift and Puzzle's friendship (if it can be called that!), and Tirian and Jewel's! I hadn't really thought of that. 

@courtenay Friendship is a major theme in LB. Tirian and Jewel are close friends who love each other like brothers (which I’m sure we could have a whole discussion about that), and Shift treats Puzzle more like a servant.

If there could be another change or addition in LB, perhaps seeing a glimpse of Cair Paravel being taken by the Calormene navy. Next, Farsight sees Roonwit who lays dying. We hear Roonwit say last words: “Noble death is a treasure that no one is too poor to buy.” It would be an emotional moment to see Roonwit for the last time until Aslan’s Country. 

@jasmine_tarkheena I agree, showing Roonwit's last moments would work well. We only hear his death reported by Farsight in the story, because Lewis usually sticks to the point of view of his main characters — and of course it provides a horrible twist just as things seem to be getting better — but it's more effective in a film than in a book to switch back and forth between different locations and perspectives so that we see and hear things rather than just being told them. (I'm not sure that even really counts as "changes" to the story, since it's portraying something that definitely happens in the book, just showing it firsthand rather than reported by another character.) 

Another I just mentioned in another is perhaps as Jadis is telling of the final battle of Charn, a flashback of a close up Jadis and her sister facing one another. Jadis’s sister says “Victory” and Jadis says “Yes, but not yours!” Seeing a close up of Jadis and her sister facing one another in a flashback could add a dramatic effect. 

@jasmine_tarkheena That's another thing I wouldn't say counts as a "change" or "addition", since it's a scene that is clearly described in the book, even though it doesn't actually take place in front of the main point-of-view characters. It's completely normal for a film to show scenes like that as flashbacks, or as part of the narrative somehow, rather than following the book ultra-literally in simply having a character describe that scene in words. We've probably all got a vivid picture of that scene playing out in our heads already as we read Jadis's account of the final battle! I know I always have.