The Slow Death of The Chronicles of Narnia Franchise
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- čas přidán 4. 02. 2021
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Disney placed a huge bet on CS Lewis with 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and it really paid off...until it didn't. In this video, I go over the franchise, including Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, to get to the heart of what went wrong with these movies.
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Do you miss the Narnia movies?
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Love ur vids man
Yes
Not really but make more avatar videos
I do 😔
Uh... not really. I enjoyed the first one, loved the soundtrack and the actors but no.
The people aren’t the main characters of Narnia,
Narnia is the main Character
Yup but that wouldn't translate well onto screen. Casuals would obviously get attached at the Pevensie children, knew a lot of people that didn't watch the 3rd since Peter and Susan were out of it
@@nassifguiling4922 It could have worked on screen if they had approached it from that direction from the start with a visionary director/franchise runner who knew he was telling the story of Narnia. Had they done it right, and emphasized the "Anthology" style nature of Chronicles of Narnia, then it could have worked IMO.
@@nassifguiling4922 Actually, this is wrong. They could make it like Black Mirror, no episodes are connected to one another, yet it gives you the feeling that it is black mirror. This is how it is supposed to be about Narnia, I think.
@@mat5473 I think your right there, plus had they kept the focus on the real main characters instead of trying to keep the same set from last time as the main characters it would of worked a lot better.
According to Lewis, children are the heroes of Narnia. Which was why Caspian was so horrendously miscast.
The irony is that the books are the perfect length for film adaptations, unlike Harry Potter and LoTR
Exactly
There aren't enough books that are the perfect length for film adaptations.
Yea. Ther a kot enough time for a HP movie. Thats why a series isn't a bad idea. You cans queen all the details and have it long lasting
It really sucks that The Black Cauldron failed with Disney, because the Prydain series are all literally PERFECT movie-length
Most of the key points make it into the Lord of The Rings films. Stuff that gets left out is good but not super important. Like the sacking of the shire doesn't really add anything to the story but it's an interesting event that happened. So it can be cut and the story doesn't change at all.
The first Narnia movie was too “complete” for me personally. An amazing stand-alone film, great story and actors and cinematography. I never read the books- don’t stone me- so as a child, I could only ever see the film as one whole tale. Had you told me there are more novels, I wouldn’t have expected it.
Well that’s what the guy in the video says and part of the reason the series failed. The books all feel like complete stories rather than a continuous series.
It tried, I really did... but I'll have to stone you, sorry.
@@sackthebastard i actually disagree slightly- the FIRST book felt like an absolutely perfect genius standalone story about not letting suave adults bamboozle you with flattery before fucking you up with sexist narcissistic egotistical bullshit that they'll use to trespass your boundaries.
the entire rest of the series felt like some very conflated linked story about kids being really euphoric about killing nonhumans and being "wholesome" kings and queens and honor and war, interwoven with stories that felt like some kind of historical metaphor that was too boring for me to sit through.
I feel like they really should have made a movie about the FIRST book and not the second. It gave such an odd air of nonclosure- a story that you dont get to see the beginning of, and dont get to see the ending of, with this unconscious understanding that the full story is locked behind a huge library of tedium. You dont want to start at the first book because then youll be doing it out of order, but you dont want to just continue off from the middle because it feels wrong.
I was kind of surprised when I decided to read the books in school. Because it had so much more when i thought the story ended with the movie lol
*ignores request. picks up stone
I think it worth mentioning that Disney also messed up badly with the Percy Jackson series. Which to me had the ability to be Harry Potter-esque as the source material did center around the same characters, was a more modern fantasy story, etc . Live-action fantasy just doesn’t seem to be what Disney is good at.
What does Disney have to do with the Percy Jackson movies? 20th Century Fox was the studio that made those movies
@@joeyjerry1586 They own the company that published the books.
to be fair percy jackson wasnt that great a book series anyway, but it definitely had far more heart and character than the movies portrayed
@@MontySlython Percy Jackson was charming and funny. Though it was clearly inspired by Harry Potter, it had a very unique sense of humor and taught kids mythology in a cool, easy-to-access way. In terms of story and character, yeah, it wasn't anything special. A lot of repetitive hashes of the same conflicts. As the books progressed (and as entirely new series were published), you could tell Riordan didn't know how to write much beyond cut-and-dry adolescent melodrama
@@diegoxavier9107 yup, the writing still had far more personality and uniqueness than the movies tri3d to show
but no one can take away the fact that Aslan and the white witch were so perfectly played in the movies. they're just so iconic.
Never known Tilda Swinton to give a less-than-perfect performance!
@@MegaMesozoic damn straight. She’s a legend.
They were both watered down. The best performances as those characters was Stephen Thorne as Aslan in the animated LWW and the BBC Radio series of the Chronicles, and Rosemary Martin as Jadis in the latter.
the first movie is fun to watch overall mostly because of their performances imo.
The classic of our era
When you look at the original Narnia movie it seems like a fairly recent movie, but when you see the graphics for the game you realise just how long ago it was...
Na, the prince Caspian game was very well done.
@@nefwaenre Not at today´s standars. Gaming has change a lot.
Is the King of Narnia game worth playing?
@@Trylena Man the standards between 23 and 22 hours changed so much.
@@Trylena this coming from someone who most likely praises undertale
How many Edmunds read Edmund's story, and came away from it never wanting to be an Edmund? One of the best character arcs in children's fiction.
Much agreed!
There days, vanishing numbers. Nobody reads, nor spells correctly anymore.
The number of books I read as a teen is probably 10x what my children have.
@@AJC508 I wouldn’t be that discouraged. Books aren’t going anywhere, even if kids digest more media through the internet nowadays
@@AJC508 "Nobody reads, nor spells correctly anymore."
Might wanna check the first word in your comment, buddy.
Imagine how the Karens feel.
If Narnia ever wants to be a full fledged series... They have to start with 'The Magician's Nephew' and tell the creation story of Narnia... But they never will because The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is too iconic compared to a boy and girl with magic rings who jump into puddles and travel to other worlds.
All the Narnia stories are iconic, and the Wood Between the Worlds is full of ponds, not "puddles."
@@MaskedMan66 context nazi
youre fun@@MaskedMan66
Yes he is fun 😊
I would film LWW and Nephew at the same time... Release LWW first (Xmas) and Nephew in the summer. Then the rest of the books in order. LWW kids would probably age up quick enough to play themselves in Horse&Boy as young adults. Not sure I'd even bother with Last Battle, but it should probably be an Easter release
Tilda Swinton was such a great piece of casting as the Witch. She is genuinely intimidating.
unfortunately, Tilda Swinton's awesome performance was the only good thing in this movie.
as a devoted fan of the Narnia books, i was so disappointed by the first movie (didn't even see the rest):
the writing was awful, most of the text and dialogues from the original book were dropped, replaced by dramatic music and bad acting, so the rationale behind the behavior of the characters is totally flattened.
the invented stuff, like the opening scene, was completely redundant. unlike the Lord Of The Ring books, and the harry Potter books, the Narnia books were actually short enough to make a medium-length movie for each one without having to lose anything from the original story. but they chose to do it anyway, adding stuff that contributed nothing to the story, while removing stuff that could have.
and why did they replace Jaddis's black hair with blonde rasta? that was also annoying. lucky Tilda saved the character. and lucky they kept the "despair and die" speech from the original book (i cried when i first read this scene as a child). but it was no surprise that the series was so weak. they wrote it neither-here-nor-there.
I like to imagine Tilda Swinton's "Witch" being similar to what Cate Blanchett's "Galadriel", had she taken the ring from Frodo.
The other movies were lacking without her as such a great villain.
Exactly. Tilda Swinton isn't the type of woman I would particularly call pretty, but she's so beautiful as the White Witch, in a intimidating and inhuman way.
@@Zero8880 That's an interesting thought. I can totally imagine it.
This cgi lion (Aslan) is better than any single shot in the live-action "Lion King" could ever be.
not quite as realistic, but still Way better for it
At least you know what the lion is feeling. There was literally NO EXPRESSION on the Lion King Remake lions
yeah everyone said that when Lion King came out
Aslan is better than any live action animals in Lion King
@@justifiable i think that's quite the point. Aslam not being a realistic lion ended up being a advantage because we can see his emotions due to his human like expressions and characteristics. Meanwhile, "the lion king"'s lions look like animals who are just opening and closing their mouths.
Pirates of the Caribbean was already Disney's most successful live action fantasy franchise of the 2000s. They just thought that they could pull off two of them side-by-side.
its fantasy???
@@theojjuiceisloose Think of the villains' abilities.
@@theojjuiceisloose No, an under crew of a magical ship with magical properties, a magical compass, and mermaids are in fact not fantasy at all.
@@99Plastics mmmmm i love when its hard to tell whats sarcasm over text :(
@@theojjuiceisloose
They are. It's just that the magic is usually used by the villains (Barbossa, Davy Jones, Salazar), who have less screentime than the heroes, but there is plenty of magic in PotC
I wish they'd do The Horse and His Boy. It's the 5th book of Narnia (and second chronologically) and has completely different characters so no need to keep the same cast. But it was always my favorite Narnia book. I loved the setting, I loved the characters, I loved how it was a self-contained adventure. It wouldn't be problematic at all to make that movie.
It baffles me that they did The Silver Chair as the reboot instead. The Horse and His Boy would have been THE book to use as a reboot.
@@Sad-Lesbian Apparently, publishing order takes precedence over chronology.
That was my favorite book too
I would have loved that too.
Horse and His Boy and Magician's Nephew were the ones that would be absolutely wild on screen.
The chronicles of Narnia isn't a franchise, they're, well, chronicles.
Someone understands
A man of culture
YES
Thank u
Wizdum
It feels like Disney should've actually finished reading the books before making this commitment lol
YES
Yeah, I wanna see A Horse and his Boy. That would be interesting.
the film is a pretty faithful adaptation imo
Wish they did the Magician's Nephew because they had an opportunity to bring back Jadis, but just for the scene in the Garden and the imagery of the silver apple.
"We had no source material" - Kathleen Kennedy.
That kid from Dawntreader is the child actor I'm probably most impressed with. I really liked him as the more-or-less antagonist of Maze Runner. He makes me hate him as a villain and I love him as a hero. Good range from someone so young.
If you're talking about Eustace, he was not a villain, just, in Edmund's words, "an ass."
And to be fair he is an A list actor now compared to the rest of the cast, his acting truly has ranges despite being side characters for so long. He glows up, so I hope he receives more lead character:)
@@mersault509 Actors from the UK generally don't care what list they're on; they just like to work. Where in the USA, T.V. actors who make it big in movies seldom return to television, in the UK, they go back all the time, because it's their job.
@@MaskedMan66also you'd find big British actors would even do stints on acting in the theatre even during their peaks of fame
@@lmads8023 Exactly; that's where their roots are.
I fully recognize that it's not actually that great but Prince Caspian is still one of my favorite movies of all time. It's so nostalgic for me to watch and I had a devastating crush on Ben Barnes and still do 🤣
I used to have a crush on Ben Barnes when i saw him as Prince Caspian, also i agree the sequel ain’t great & doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor but it’s nostalgia more than anything because it’s the 2nd movie i ever saw in the theatre as a child.
THIS! he was the first movie character i remember PROPERLY crushing on and i’ve never forgotten him since. both the first and second narnia films are extremely nostalgic for me; the third, not so much. i loved eustace, but i remember desperately wanting to watch dawn treader in cinemas and never getting the chance to see it until it came out on dvd- it just didn’t live up to my expectations.
Hmm
Oh you should see Dorian gray lol
Would rather shit out a razor blade and wipe with hot sauce than ever watch that movie again.
Not to nitpick too much, but Edmund isn't an allegory for Judas. He's meant to represent all of humanity needing to be redeemed.
Maybe it's just because his betrayal/sin involves eating food, I always saw him as an Adam+Eve type of parallel.
I was thinking the same thing. The basic requirements for a Judas parallel is being close to the Jesus of the story before betraying him. Obviously Edmund didn't even hear about him until he met the Beavers. He is the reason Aslan goes to the Stone Table but not for the same reasons as with Judas. Judas sold Jesus out and had him arrested. Edmund did no such thing. Instead, Aslan chooses to go in order to "buy" Edmund from the White Witch as the "Deep Magic," or whatever, required. So yeah, that's a lot more like Jesus dying to redeem humanity. In fact, it's basically the Ransom theory of atonement found in Christian Theology, where Jesus's death paid the price for our lives, usually to the devil. It's just an error on @captainmidnight 's part. It doesn't affect his main points so I guess it is nitpicking in this case.
I agree I don’t think Edmund is supposed to be Judas allegory, he’s just another person who needs saving.
Also Lewis himself said Narnia is supposal not allegory, which is another argument to Edmund not being Judas
Thank you!!!
Exactly, Edmund represented humanity and our sin and Aslan represented Jesus. The scene of Aslan taking Edmund’s place as a sacrifice on the Stone Table was literally Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross so that we can be saved. I always loved the fact that Lewis took parts of Bible and made a completely compelling story from the beginning of the world (The Magician’s Nephew) to the end of our world and the beginning of the new (The Last Battle).
My favorite line of Dawn Treader is "“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
It was a good line.
I remember this, thank you for putting into recall what otherwise would've been lost forever into obscurity. :^)
"There once was a boy called Eustace, who read books full of facts that were useless" aka one of the best lines from that movie
@That Ninja Where do you think he got the inspiration from?
Dawn Treader was my favourite Narnia book because of dragon. The thing I never could figure out is why it was called a 'curse'.
I think Narnia can really only be adapted successfully as animated movies. That way you can use the same voice actors for child characters without the constraint of age and the rapid aging of some characters from one story to the next is easier to work with in animation.
There's no "rapid" aging, and that was handled in the T.V. series by simple recasting.
Everything about the Narnia movies looked fake. They're just not well done. With the sleekness of Sin City, it was proven animation can thrill adults and children alike - and look damned good!
@@KathrynsWorldWildfireTrackingi wouldnt change narnia. Its seems so good (in this first movie)
@@Matheus-vf9sj Not when you've read the book.
Yep, just like the Hobbits worked much better in the animated series than in the film.
I'm so sad that The Silver Chair never got a chance to take off. It was defs one of my favourites from the series, the Lady of the Green Kirtle was such an interesting villain with a lot of potential, and there was some amazing worldbuilding throughout the book. We got to see the rougher, more dangerous parts of Narnia, with the human-eating giants in the North, and the giant underground city. Plus it wrapped up Caspian's story in a great (albeit sad) way.
If they were thinking of rebooting the franchise, another great place to start would be the Magician's Nephew. It's another great story with a lot of potential, not to mention bringing back the iconic Jadis as the villain
Did you see the T.V. version of SC? It was very well done and featured Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, as Puddleglum.
There's a theory that the lady of the green kirtle is also jades
In the bbc versions they are played by the same actress thought that dosnt necessarily mean much
@@Valihir Jadis was killed by Aslan. He doesn't leave jobs unfinished. ;-)
And yes, Barbara Kellerman played the White Witch, the Hag, and the Queen of Underland in the BBC TV miniseries. An economical move, no doubt (the same actor, Martin Stone, played both Maugrim and the Werewolf, and Big Mick played both the White Witch's driver and Trumpkin), but I think she was miscast as the latter. The Lady of the Green Kirtle seemed to me when reading the book to be a young, sweet-faced girl who barely seemed out of her teens and with a soft, melodious voice.
The children might seem “ stiff and bland “ to Americans but to me as a Brit , they were perfect tbh , Bare in mind they were playing Middle-class children from England in the 1940’s ......of course they were more reserved and “ stiff” than modern day children
i agree
Agreed...and I'm American.
yeah
Fair
I remember as a child I watched this in play form. And those kids weren't stiff as the movie actors.
I think The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe would have been a good stand-alone movie.
Here's how I think they could have done it:
1. Make the Magicians Nephew, and use the Professor to tie in and lead into the next movie in the series.
2. Make the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe as before.
3. Make the Horse and His Boy, but advertise it as a spinoff from when the Kids were in Narnia.
4. Prince Caspian, but have the kids serve as mentor characters to Caspian when they meet him, and let the more human conflict focus on Caspian dealing with the tyranny his people were committing, the bloodshed in the war, and how this makes him grow from a naive kid to someone who intends to be a good king to all Narnians.
5. Make the Voyage of the Dawn Treader...But as a mini-series, not a standalone movie. This would accommodate the more episodic nature and allow the characters to grow more.
6. Silver Chair: Again, mini-series, since this one is also kind of episodic.
7. Last Battle: make it a movie.
Throughout it all, leave hints that lead into the finale, with bits in the THAHB hinting that Tash is real, or that there's some power beyond just the White Witch with all the evil in the world. Make Calorman feel like a real empire that poses a constant threat to the people of Narnia throughout all the parts of this series, and to how everything will come to an end with the falling stars, father time, and all the rest.
@@morgant.dulaman8733 Hmm, I never thought of that before.
@@RachelASmith697 Being somewhat insane helps me think outside the box.
On a more serious note, I wonder how many movies would have been better received if they were presented via a different medium, and the process that goes into deciding what medium should be used to tell a story.
@@morgant.dulaman8733 disney shouldve hired you 21 years ago
@@safi135 Considering I was a toddler around that time, I don't know if I could have been the best advisor.
I think Narnia would really lend itself well to a high budget animated series like arcane! There could be less emphasis on action and it could be way more atmospheric.
Honestly I think the series would’ve worked really well if it tried to follow Harry Potter even more literally. Small and British.
I could Narnia having been a cute CBBC series in the early 2000s.
@@hollyro4665 Not really much cuteness in Narnia, especially when you get to LB.
A show doesn’t need to be animated to be atmospheric or have less emphasis on action
@@sackthebastardbut animation makes everything better especially if it looks like Arcane.
I feel like antnia actually works better as live action
I honestly think that if fox wanted to do a reboot, going back and telling the story of the magicians nephew would've been a really good idea. It's not a very long book, so it mightve only been a 90 minute movie, but people love prequels. Also a movie adaptation of the horse and his boy would've been very interesting as well. It was always my favorite of the seven novels and I never felt like it got the attention it deserved.
Have you ever heard either of the radio adaptations of the Chronicles? There was one by the BBC and one by Focus on the Family, the latter hosted by Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham.
@@MaskedMan66 I don't believe I have, but I'll definitely look into them
@@jonraquet6629 A number of actors have been in both; Bernard Cribbins for one, and Martin Jarvis was in both versions of "The Horse and His Boy"; he was Bree for the BBC and King Lune for Focus.
These books are kind of hard to adapt as "traditional" movies. But I agree!
@@FantasticExplorers yeah, they'd definitely have to make some changes to make it work as a movie for sure.
Anyone thats watched Prince Caspian as a kid can vividly remember the badass minotaur holding up the gate at the castle
Edit: Clearly everyone did remember this scene
I imitated him when I lifted up my garage yesterday 😂
Minotaur*
I hate being that guy, but it's such a badass word. Might as well get it right. ;)
@@evbbjones7 I spent at least 5 straight minutes trying to figure it out before just misspelling it
That Minotaur was the Real Hero of the movie.
@@Inframan-6767 literally holding up the whole film
I was about Lucy’s age when I watched the first Narnia movie. The idea that a wardrobe could lead you to a magical world where you could befriend fantasy creatures, fight battles and become a queen was so amazing and magical to me. There is no other movie that makes me feel the same kind of ~longing~. Also, I think the film’s music score is really underrated. It invokes a perfect mixture of wonder, nostalgia and otherworld-ness
I was around her age as well, that was my favorite movie of all time tied with Robocop. My favorite scene especially being the start of the final battle, I loved the powerful, epic music that played as the camera panned over the army of brave men, women, and beast men ready to fight with bravery before we get a shot of the White Witch and her army rising over the horizon with shadows cast over their faces as the music quickly changes to something dark.
"If I have a longing that nothing in this world can satisfy, then it stands to reason that I was made for another world."
- Clive Staples Lewis
i saw the first movie on the day it came to theaters it also came out on my bday that was a good day
same i was 1 year older than lucy, i would check the back of closets, just in case 😂
@@KennethSee He wasn't talking about fantasy realms. ;-)
I’d love to see a super-artsy adaptation of Magician’s Nephew! one of my favorite books of the series because of the incredible imagery: the endless forest with the pools, the ancient, crumbling citadel, and the temptation of the bell and hammer
I think Magicain’s Nephew was my favorite in the series! I would LOVE to see Charn adapted on the screen!
there's a manga adaptation if your interested
@@GrunesGemuse Did you see the T.V. version of SC? It was very well done and featured Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, as Puddleglum.
Yes exactly! The magicians nephew is definitely my favorite book of the series. I love that it explains everything about how the first book came to be. It's so deep and I think if it could be properly done, would make for an amazingly stunning movie!
I'm curious; what do you mean "super-artsy?"
As a kid, the magic the movie instilled in me was fucking insane. Had to have watched that final battle a thousand times, but as a younger reader those books were such an amazing discovery as well, really enjoy the story with this one
The books are so much better.
The first movie, in my opinion, is one of the best disney movies ever
That doesn't say much for Disney movies.
Aladdin (original) is
Oh same!
There's something about the first Narnia movie that we can't help but love it because we enjoy it as a kid
@@soseikiharagatatsu7859 I was an adult when I first saw it, and I couldn't stand it. I also think a child who had read the book would be watching the movie and thinking, "What the heck is this crud here?"
Man the first movie was so good that the sequels couldn’t overcome
The books were really good too.
@@CrestToothpaste I agree but might be a good idea to bring it back as a Disney+ series
I disagree. All of them were really good
@@sebastianotero Well obviously (edit: Correcting autocorrect)
@Brian I loosely agree but I don’t think any of them are necessarily bad but they just aren’t as good as the others.
"The Silver Chair" and "The Last Battle," are my two favorite Narnia books. I'm so glad they didn't get around to making them into terrible movies. Also the story isn't about the kids that discover Narnia, the story is about Narnia itself.
"The Last Battle" was my least favorite book. The ending and the "true and false Narnia" stuff ruined it completely for me.
@@misslady2639 The physical Narnia was never false, it was just less real, the same as this world of ours being less real than Heaven. How could you not like the idea of the Seven Friends of Narnia being reunited with Aslan forever?
Did you see the T.V. version of SC? It was very well done and featured Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, as Puddleglum.
@@MaskedMan66 Because it was too much "Paradise". Narnia is a magical place, sure but HEAVEN?! They were dead all of the sudden, and that bothered me. Their train accident was actually never shown, only told by Aslan in one scentence. Also Susan the only survivor of the gang, I would like to read about her reaction of all your siblings and cousin died, but no. She doesn't matter anymore, because she is not in the Garden Eden with them. Its okay if you like the ending though, this is just my opinion
@@misslady2639 Yes, Heaven. Don't you know about the author of the Chronicles? Didn't you pick up on the clues in the other books? Aslan is Jesus. Nobody said that Susan didn't matter, nor that she was lost forever. Having known Aslan personally, she can't fully fall out of belief in Him, so it's more than likely that when her time came to pass from the Shadowlands, she too would travel to where the True England and the True Narnia exist side by side.
I remember seeing the first one in theaters with my family when it was released around Christmas. The pure magic and excitement in that movie made for one of my favorite childhood memories! It’s a real shame the franchise took a nosedive and never got the chance to reach its conclusion.
Due to the recent "live action" version of Lion King, I'm surprised Disney made such "lifeless" lions. Aslan felt so real and alive, even by today's CG standard! I absolutely love Narnia and I always waited for the sequels. I think now I can only hope that a studio will pick it up and do it properly, even if it means waiting for many years (then I also hope I'll still be alive hahah).
Now that you mention it, Aslan really was a way better lion then the ones in Lion King.
Aslan was a stylized lion, he wasn't supposed to act or move like a real life lion whereas the lion's in the Lion King do.
@@TheAkwarium while real lions can't be as 'expressive' as the animation, Lion King is still a movie created by animators. It's a fiction movie, not a real life documentary. I'm not saying The Lion King was bad. However, for a studio with 'unlimited' talented animators, I believe it's more than possible to create lively and expressive lions like Aslan.
@@limitlessbianca they obviously weren't going for that kind of lion and more for actual realistic lions. If they did they would have made ones more like Aslan, that wasn't their goal apparently. Also idk why people say the lions in the Lion King movie aren't expressive, because they are. Anyone who's watched enough nature documentaries will tell you that
Netflix is making a series.
They didn’t need a “reboot.” They needed commitment! They needed vision! They needed passion for the source material - instead of trying to rework it to fit their own foolish suppositions (like bringing Peter and Susan into the third story that didn’t even involve them!!!) . . . But they didn’t have any of that. *They* failed the audience. It was a foreshadowing of the demise of virtually every franchise out there!
Totally agreed!
If you slap a franchise name onto a project, that project better stick to the franchise.
If you are going to write a new story or make major changes to the existing story, then just give it a new name.
My family and I didn't go to the Narnia movies to see a PG LOTR, or a Harry Potter alternative. We went to see NARNIA on the big screen!
For example, our passion kind of faltered with the Susan-Prince Caspian thing...especially when considering Susan's perspective on romance that is mentioned in "The Horse and his Boy."
The problem is these books as a series don't really translate that well onto movie. Especially the more meditative, narrative ones which are way less conflict and character driven. I know that everyone loves to talk about the christian allegories but apart from that Narnia's main hero... is Narnia itself. The land is the main hero. And that's something that is extremely tough to show on film, especially spanning over at least 7 movies
Still makes me sad we never saw a magicians nephew movie
@@dinorocks4887 LOTR started out incredible but it seemed like Jackson got a little more drunk on success with each movie. Each one strayed a little further from the source material and indulged more and more in over-the-top glamor shots and action scenes, corny humor and scenes or entire side plots that had no basis in the books. The Hobbit was my favorite Tolkien book, but I couldn't help but feel disappointed in the latter trilogy.
@@dinorocks4887 LOTR was good. The Hobbit films (first one, anyway) were not, if only for the fact that they split a book thinner than every LOTR book into 3 parts. Super greedy, super sketchy. I saw the first Hobbit movie and none of the rest. Fool me once, shame on you. The Hobbit Part 1 doesn't resolve the plot and uses a ton of filler. You can get away with that kind of stuff in a book, not in a movie. Even the LOTR movies, while being part of a larger narrative, had better self-containment.
Edmund!!! He was my favorite character in book and movie, and the actor who played him did a fantastic job in the first movie.
I’ve always wanted to see an adaptation of “The Magician’s Nephew,” the first book chronologically. It’s so whimsical and fun, and we get to see the origins of Narnia. Part of me wishes the series would get a treatment like “His Dark Materials,” but I know no modern studio will respect it.
Maybe, maybe not, but it has been done twice on radio, first by the BBC, then by Focus on the Family.
C.S. Lewis didn't like Disney. He would be perfectly fine with his books remaining books.
Some books should be left alone with beloved memories and not for profit
Peter Pan and Winnie the Poo were two other beloved children's stories that that got Disnified that probably should have stayed books.
@@Sundown_Clown474 why?
That’s probably a major reason why the books couldn’t be adapted back when they were first published. I can imagine C.S. Lewis wouldn’t want Walt Disney adapting his books back then because of loosely adapted the Disney animated films were compared to their original source material. He’d think Walt would downplay the Christian aspect of the books and emphasize more on the fantasy elements. So you’re right about how Lewis would have felt regarding adapting his books back when they were new.
@@Sundown_Clown474 Peter Pan story has been improved so much in once upon a time and in the old movie, you’re a fool for saying otherwise.
The movie I want is Tolkien and Lewis arguing over this.
That would be incredible.
IIRC, they were friends in real life.
@@Rolf97 I know. And I did read that Tolkien was annoyed by all the mythological creatures in the same setting. And all thier literature buddies were tired of listening to his readings about the elves.
@@Rolf97 yeah, for the majority of their lives. I think they stopped being good friends a little while before their deaths, but while they were friends, they had a pretty legendary friendship/rivalry going on. I believe the reason why CS Lewis included the street lamp in Narnia was because Tolkien said that fantasy shouldn’t have street lamps.
I was disappointed by the film,"Tolkien" as it was a very safe depiction of the author's life.
Both versions of Shadowlands ( Joss Ackland & Anthony Hopkins) depicting CS Lewis's relationship with his wife were both excellent.
Now we need to combine the two into one epic narrative about how fantasy tropes were changed (& ironically set in stone) for future generations.
These books were so damn good it hurt to see Disney absolutely fail with a world full of lore so deep it could fill a black hole.
"So blessed good" would be my assessment! 🙂
If anyone does want to redo a Narnia adaptation I would LOVE to see an episodic retelling of the voyage of the Dawn Treador. Completley faithful, each episode is a new island, it would be SO GOOD!! The movie made me so mad cause it was so unfaithful to the book
I was furious at the amount of changes in the movie.
Both BBC Radio and Focus on the Family have done excellent audio adaptations of the Chronicles; they're well worth hunting up and listening to. The Focus series is hosted by C.S. Lewis's stepson Douglas Gresham.
Lewis himself said that his books would never adapt well into visual media. Go figure it didn’t work out 🤷♂️
I’m curious what his explanation for that statement was. Naturally they aren’t great traditional films, but as a series? I wonder if he would change his statement if he could have seen the last couple decades of tv shows, miniseries, and Netflix original series.
I kind of see what he meant since you have two books about the four Pevensies, a book with only two of them and Eustace, a story with Eustace and Jill as well as a sort of standalone story and a prequel with only the last book to tie them all together. It's kind of hard to make a cohesive film series with the cast constantly changing with each film which is why it's understandable that they decided to just skip The Horse and his Boy. Still, I think they did a very good job with the first two at least and though Dawn Treader wasn't great it would have been nice if they at least had a shot at The Silver Chair.
You can translate anything into visual media. The only boundaries are what your creativity allows.
Yeah but in his day they had cardboard and paint smudges or whatever for special effects so it makes sense he’d think that
@@falcore91 He believed that the only two interpretations of his books that would translate well to the stage or screen would be to go either too campy, overdramatized, or kid-friendly and miss the gravity of the symbolism or to be too dark and therefore not appropriate for his intended audience.
I’m gonna be that guy and point out that Narnia actually is not an allegory. It’s really just a fantasy series from a Christian worldview. Aslan doesn’t symbolize Jesus, he literally is Jesus incarnated as a lion in a fantasy world.
So It'd be more accurate to call it a "retelling" of sorts?
Kinda, more of an 'Elseworlds' situation. It was a 'What if there was this other world with talking Animals, how would Jesus have manifested there?' sort of thing :)
This is why we get the line by Aslan at the end of Narmia 3
"In your world I have another name"
Lol I was gonna write this too😂 basically think of the Aslan-Jesus dynamic being like Abe Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer. Abe Lincoln is literally just the real Abe Lincoln but he also deals with vampires.
This is why I’m always annoyed when people are like “Lewis went too far with allegory etc etc.” It’s totally okay if people don’t like the books, but Lewis literally said it wasn’t allegory, it was a supposal (what if) so complaining about allegory overload is a moot point.
@@beccag2758 so you listen to the Narniaweb podcast as well?
It’s my understanding that the main issue in making these series is that the Lewis estate only gives licenses to movie-fy it for a few years at a time, which generally isn’t actually enough time to adapt all seven. This is why any time people have tried to adapt these, only 2-3 get made. I grew up watching the BBC versions which also only had 3 adapted.
The T.V. version did four of the books.
The biggest issue to me is that, as you sort of mentioned, is that other than Caspian and Aslan, no single character appears in more than 2 stories back to back. It's kind of hard to get invested in a movie franchise if you aren't seeing the same characters each time. As much as I like the books, I think just dropping Magician's Nephew, even though I'd really like to see it adapted, and A Horse and His Boy, from being made and just concentrating on the Pevensie children and their extended family stories is the way to go. That way, while you lose the 4 main children, at least you have connective tissue throughout the franchise.
"It's kind of hard to get invested in a movie franchise if you aren't seeing the same characters each time."
Disagree. It's not hard to get into a book franchise where that happens, or a T.V. show, so no reason that shouldn't apply to movies, especially if you know the blooming source material in the first place.
@@MaskedMan66
Ok man, now you are sounding kinda pathetic, a fanboy who goes all over the comment section defending his favorite thing like this is a loser. You are a loser.
Disney was unhappy that two of the biggest franchises at the time didn't belong to them, and when they failed to make a sucessful movie to follow the ongoing trend they learned their lesson, and proceeded to buy every single pop culture company, franchise, copyrights and studios known to man. You can't be left out of a trend if you own all the trends.
Disney is the colonial British Empire of movie studio's.
They buy and take every property they find, milk it for money and leave it in the gutter to waste, when the profits start to dwindle.
@@DS-mi9ru
You are right about Disney, but wrong about the British Empire.
They did invest in their colonies
Disney has become the East India company of our dreams. Like the East India Company, they pollute it all with avarice and will fail.
what were the biggest franchises that did not belong to them?
Harry Potter and LOTR?
@@Teemo6544 Yes
As mentioned in the video
For a split second I thought you said the movie was “directed by Shrek.”
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SET?!"-Shrek in an alternate universe when directing this movie.
I low-key want to see Donkey play Aslan, ngl.
@@adrianortega1431 *Flashbacks to the Last Book*
So that's why the franchise is all Ogre now...
*SOME BODY* once told me the wardrobe is gonna roll me.
i was about 4 years old when i watched the first Narnia movie. this movie brings me the old good time memories, every ending part of this movies always touched my heart specially the caspian one. being grown up is sucks, i miss my childhood memories a lot, i'm hoping narnia can make another movie series :(
Read the books. Much better.
I think there was also talk of doing Magician’s Nephew, but that didn’t work out either. Unlike Harry Potter, Star Wars or LOTR, the Narnia books don’t follow a long character arc using the same characters that make their actors icons on the screen. Aslan is the only character to appear all through the series, but he’s not the type of character who’s following the adventures, growth and character development of a protagonist.
"The horse and his boy" as well as "The magician's nephew" would have been great as stand alone movies
I agree. However The Horse and his Boy... which I absolutely adore by the way, might be kind of controversial today. Calaumen is basically a mirror of the Ottaman Empire... or at least it's all very turkish. So you've got black baddies and white goodies, with the single exception of Aravis. I can see that raising a lot of hackles. You could change the imagery I suppose, but you'd end up by upsetting somebody because the Calaumens are just people and would have to look racially different from the Narnians, otherwise it wouldn't be obvious that Shasta was "one of those beautiful barbarians".
@@dan4lau Turks aren't usually of black ethnicity, as it happens (they're believed to originate in central Asia). However the Calormenes were black, to my recall. It does come across as a bit racist from a modern perspective, not to mention Islamophobic (Tash=Devil worshippers!) I guess though a modern film could have made the most of the positives, such as Aravis being 'good' and a main character. Also I recall some of the other Calormenes had a concept of honour. At any rate, there's a 'good' Calormene in the Last Battle, who gets into 'heaven'.
I do wish that they would start with the Magician's Nephew just because it doesn't get much love and is the first chronologically.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade yup, If Fox want to make a reboot Magician Nephew will be the perfect start
@@ftheweebs6799 I've never liked the weird order of when they went chronologically - the series works better in its original order
Re: Narnia being shot in NZ, it's worth noting it wasn't just to copy Peter Jackson, Andrew Adamson is also a kiwi, so he was shooting in his home country too.
@@bullymaguire9987 give him rent
This is free country not rent free county
Filming in New Zealand also meant that Weta Workshop was available to the production for all their set building, costuming, amour and weaponry which they had become proficient in creating after Lord of the Rings.
I'm a banana, I filmed in New Guinea.
But Peter Jackson was born there first.
Loved the soundtrack of the first Narnia film, very relaxing to listen to
Great video! I appreciate you acknowledging that all of the films are actually very watchable and enjoyable- I think a lot of people just say they weren't good and that's why the series fell apart, but it all comes back to the source material
Being a kid named Edmund, Narnia gave me so much clout on the playground🥶
Did they call you Edmund the Just?
did you betray your family?
@@danielcasallas4267 I think he's talking about the reformed Edmund.
Dude where tf are you from that your just named that
@@unhhgcrxexhjvuvujchcrzwzwz7956 Uhhh the United States lmfao. I was named after a relative who was given the name because it sounded regal lol.
The one thing that dawn tredder got right was the casting of Eustace. He's exactly what I pictured when reading the book
Saaaaame
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
For real! First time I ever saw an actor and was like, “He’s perfection.”
Calvin's Beard Lol. Eustace was the earliest Scrappy before Scrappy-Doo even existed. Although, Eustace did change when he turned into a dragon and became more tolerable and likable in his debut book and the next 2 books after. So he wasn’t entirely a Scrappy.
YES
I still wish that if they were to ever do a reboot, they would do The Magician’s Nephew. Besides The Final Battle (which would make a great scary movie imo), The Magician’s Nephew would be a great book to turn into a movie/tv series! The characters were interesting, the worlds they stumbled upon, how Narnia and the White Witch came to existence, everything about that book was magical to me
This is so well done!
They should reboot with “The Magician’s Nephew” or “The Horse and his boy” would work fine. Have “the silver chair” be the weird 3rd one and then get the original kids back for the finale
Would glad to but some of the cast like skandar keynes stopped after like 2010. So might as well find a bigger shot casts that has personality somehow
Horse and his boy would be Amazing
The Horse and his Boy was my favorite book I think, just because it is so vastly different from the other books. But I think The Magician’s Nephew would translate pretty decently to screen.
I love A Horse and His Boy... But let's be honest: that's one movie that no studio is going to touch with a two-hundred-foot pole in this current woke climate. Seriously, any depiction of Calormen and/or the Calormenes that's true to the book will have the accusations of both Islamophobia and cultural appropriation (and most likely racism too because it's the current year) flying at the studio's executives and creatives.
It's such a bummer because it's such a good story. The Last Battle also would be epic, but also not made due to wokeness wrong-think.
The Silver Chair really is kind of a head-scratcher though. Tough book to adapt. Why didn't they do The Magician's Nephew instead?
The silver chair is the best book by far
I’m sorry but no one can take away the power I felt when I saw Aslan as a kid. He strengthened my love for lions and that’s when I knew they would be my favorite animal for life.
Sameeeee
Oh my god I was crawling on the floor pretending to be Aslan all the time
I too ended up worshiping Lions religiously... Thanks, CS Lewis!
@@lynxvex He would not be glad to know that.
@A Dead Channel What?
in 5th Grade my teacher loaded us all into a schoolbus and took us to see The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe in theatres. It was a moment I'll never forget
later the following year, epic movie came out and ripped on Narnia
Its actually crazy knowing that this entire franchise ended well over a decade ago. I remember watching the first movie when it came out on cable (kinda fell asleep during parts of it, but that was my headache being a problem not necessarily the movie this time)
The White Witch was the first villain to genuinely scare me when I was a child. Tilda Swinton was perfect for the role
As someone who's read the books multiple times, Swinton was lifeless and dull as Jadis. The underlying pettiness and cowardice, so essential to the character, were just not there.
@@MaskedMan66 She was still the best actress for Jadis tho
@@unamusedcaveman9235 No, there are dozens of others who would have served much better. Helena Bonham Carter, for only one suggestion.
@@MaskedMan66 In the books Jadis is described as a beautiful and terrifying woman, and Tilda Swinton fits the description
@@MaskedMan66 Let Liam have his opinion without throwing the amount of times you've read the source material in his face. Reading a book doesn't make you more or less entitled to a position.
Ever audience member whose "read the books multiple times" won't, by default, agree with your opinion, as you've designated. As someone who's poured over the series from the time she was a child, I disagree; Tilda exhibited every ounce of brutality, command, steel, and noble sentiment that Jadis displayed in The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I won't bar another's opinion based upon whether they have or haven't read the manuscript the movie sprouted from. Different strokes, man.
The only thing they really screwed up was her hair color. Bellatrix, on the other hand, wouldn't have been a good fit; she's too close to another fantasy franchise.
They really should just make a stand alone Horse and His Boy. That story lends itself to a movie adaptation easily.
While I love the book, I think the movie released today would have a lot more criticism directed towards it for its religious depictions if you know what I mean 😅
@@dracul6259 what was that book about again? God I read CoN like fifteen years ago and it all bleeds together in my head.
@@CrazyLikeUhFox yeah same, I know I loved it but I can’t remember what it was about
It’s been a while since I read it but I believe it is about a kidnapped Prince Who meets a talking horse and helps prevent war between Narnia and one of their neighboring countries, The book I Believe Takes it takes place during the lion the witch and the wardrobe in the main cast is grown-up but before they leave
@bemotivated more like a lost prince who finds a narnian horse and sets out for narnia
You really got the nail on the head with this. I remember being such a big fan of the first movie as a kid, it felt whimsical it had its strong villain it had its relatable main characters all with strong motives and kind supporting characters and then when the second movie came out I felt so removed from the story. I don’t even remember what it was about thinking about it now. I missed the side support characters we were introduced to in the first, I missed the dynamics and the exploration of the magic world. Kid me felt alienated from the franchise and it killed my interest.
The magician’s nephew was always my favorite of the books, it’s probably for the best no movie has come from it.
I swear the entire cast was perfect... kind of a bummer having to see Narnia end this way.
As a child, (5) I thought Lucy was going to marry Mr. Tumnus, come to find the second movie he dead. Now that I'm older I have NO idea why I thought this.
They were! It’s not over yet...just their time in Narnia.
The Last Battle was my all-time favorite book, now I’ll never get to see it come to life 😭
@@ambergathings7160 to be fair, if it was an adult human instead of a faun, that whole dynamic would seem extremely predatory
This is the second time an attempt to adapt the Narnia series kinda sputtered out. (The earlier one was a made-for-TV series made by the BBC in the 1980s.) Part of the problem, I think, is that when you think of Narnia, you think of the Pevensie children, and all four of them are only in the first two books, two are in the third, and then they're pretty much gone until three of them show up towards the end of the last one.. Movie executives don't seem to know what to do once the cast of kids they built the marketing around are all gone.
On a very tangent note, the "Edmund as Judas" analysis of the tLWatW's allegory always has irritated me. Edmund isn't Judas, he gets redeemed. Edmund is CS Lewis and every sinning human who needs their betrayal covered over by another.
so he's more Simon Peter, then Judas.
@@axezero1753 No, he's representative of humanity as a whole, not someone who was a close friend of Jesus and then denied him
Aslan sacrifices himself to save Edmunds. Jesus sacrifices himself for humanity.
I always assumed he repressented Judas. I think people have their own opinion.
Remember that betrayal is a type of sin in mid evil thinking. It is just one type of sin which is why Edmond being the representation of all of humanity is a much better representation. The candy consumption is a symbol of a type of passion, giving the white witch the location of Aslan is a symbol of a deeper sinful action which is giving up creation itself, redemption on the table is for not just humanity but the world becoming right again. A lot of folks not knowing these medieval distinctions will simply see the betrayal of Judas storyline. But that is why Edmond is the every man.
Really well done review. THANKS. and ... YES, I miss the Narnia movies and wish someone would finish the series.
This is a superb analysis which effectively focuses on the problem with adapting the source material without criticizing the (superb) source material itself. Well done!
A lot of what the movies did was an insult to the books and their author.
The Silver Chair would've been an EPIC movie. A stolen prince, an evil enchantress, man-eating giants, an entire hidden civilisation beneath the ruins of an ancient kingdom - what's not to love? If Disney had allowed it to be filmed while Eustace's actor was still young enough to fit the part, it would've been PERFECT, because he did a fantastic job in Dawn Treader.
I read the books way back in the late 1970s when I was in a British army primary school in Germany. My favorite aside from Prince Caspian was always The Silver Chair and The Horse and his Boy.
No to Disney. They suck at fantasy adaptations. If WB could've picked this up, we wouldn't have the much sanitised Narnia we got. Disney is all about their brand so they often sacrifice story or themes over whether it complies with their brand. Look at how they've butchered A Wrinkle in Time. The book was way darker than what was portrayed in the film adaptation...it felt even a bit sci fi fantasy dystopia in bits but sure it got "Disneyfied" for the sake that it should appeal to audiences younger than what the book even originally intended to target at.
@@ophanimangel3143 At the same time, the Narnia books are children's books, not young adult books. The main thing I didn't like with the film of Prince Caspian is that they tried to make it a YA film.
@@mikenash7049 I heard Ben Barnes say in an interview that he & Anna Popplewell weren't entirely in favor of injecting that "romance" into the movie ("Prince Caspian"). They felt like it distracted from the main story arc. Ben also said that much of the "romance" was only on the Extras on the DVD.
Totally agree, tho it’s Fox who gave up. Disney already did after Prince Caspian.
My favorite will always be The Horse and His Boy. This could have been the reboot they’ve been hoping for. It’s a completely different Story, much like The Magician’s Nephew.
I feel like Narnia 1-4 should have been shot in a row, then do the 2 spinoffs and finally, today they would be filming thé Last Battle with the original cast being older and coming back for the conclusion of this franchise
The duel between High King Peter and King Miraz is amazing. I love how it starts off energetic and flashy, and gets progressively dirtier and more desperate. They also used clever camera movement to increase the violence without actually showing it onscreen.
I agree, its probably my favorite sword fight in a movie. Slick but gritty fighting.
Also agree, that fight always stood out to me.
@@yellhaha8993 Yeah i was suprised upon rewatch how "realistic" and gritty it was.
No real dumb flashy moves. Kinda realistic sword motions. They stay at a distance and only move in to strike then quickly back out and dont really "clang" a lot. THey both clearly know getting hit by a sword hurts.
I’m surprised it didn’t get PG-13 I wish I was rated R it would’ve made it a lot better in my opinion
The only thing about that fight that didn’t seem right was that one slow motion shot. Like why did that need to happen.
I read every single narnia book as a kid and while I dont remember much anymore, I DO remember that everything after dawntreader was nuts.
So true
I love the Narnia movies. Great sound design and cinematography too. I think they did a great job making the books into movies. The first two especially. Not cheesy or thrown together like a lot of current movies. I think Prince Caspian is an excellent addition to the first one. Had a bit darker and more serious tone than the first. Also the acting from the Telmarines are really good. Also in the first movie (not in the book) adding the crossing waterfall scene was really good, and helpful telling the story of the spring coming and introducing the wolves again to the children before peter actually kills one later. Also the score by Harry Gregson-Williams is still amazing. But ya i guess you are right about not being like TLOTR and Harry Potter in terms of being able to keeping making continuing movies off the story line since Narnia has characters going in and out of the books often.
The first movie is honestly extremely solid & the CGi is incredible especially for the day.
Honestly, I haven't seen CGI get noticebly better since that time. I mean, there are new possibilities, with more motion capture characters, but as far as the types of CGI shots they did back then, I don't see that those types of shots have gotten any better in the intervening decade and a half.
It's specially incredible considering it's uses.
Aslan is not a normal Lion. He is Narnian, therefore bigger, more... human-like, and, he is god-like, so him being unreal-ish gives him a quirk.
The same can be said for the animals. They are not normal animals, they talk, they use things, they walk on two legs when just sautering by, they don't have to look real, because we don't know what real is in Narnia.
I loved the first movie as a kid, but it is nearly unwatchable as an adult. Not even gonna attempt to revisit the rest.
@@mnorth1351 eh that’s not true, maybe it’s because a lot of movies that are heavy in CGI are usually just pumped out nonsense like marvel that just get lazy & subpar CGI especially in black panther, I think CGI has gotten so good that it’s in places that you don’t even notice and that’s the whole point, I think the reason it looks like CGI hasn’t come all that far is because they try to do insane over the top things that just end up looking crap, narnia and Lotr had a great blend of CGI and practical, lots of movies now just go full CGi and green screen and it loses the weight
So... A movie about not losing your faith, gets its own faith "lost" by Disney. Awesome.
That's not really what the stories are about-- more about gaining faith-- but given Hollywood's hatred and fear of Christianity, they tried to excise as much of it as they could. Part of why the movies ultimately fell flat.
Ironic....
Even heard of Disney's Treasure Planet? :D Same story, feller.
@@MaskedMan66 I think the author's idea was the the real faith in the world and in yourself that you won't be able to lose is the faith that you can and should obtain by gaining the Christian faith. Something along these lines.
@@user-mb3dx5fl9f Lewis was about faith in Christ.
I really liked that the films didn't shy away too much from the religious allegories, at least the firrst film- I feel like if they did these films now they'd try to remove all of that stuff but that was Lewis's heart and writings it wouldn't be the same without it
Lewis made it clear that the Narnia stories were not allegories, and in fact, the movies did rather butcher-- or worse yet, ignore-- many of the Christian themes Lewis put into his stories. Eustace's "undragoning" was criminally glossed over.
@@MaskedMan66
They were obvious allegories and anyone who claims otherwise is a liar.
I hate that we never got to "The Magician's Nephew" that book is glorious! It's the story of Narnia's creation and it's action packed and truly compelling. Until this day I still dream of the Wood Between the Worlds.
And Charn and the dying world with its red sun. I'd have loved to see that in a movie. They would need someone as good as Tilda Swinton to play Jadis, though.
It's sad they gave up just before Silver Chair. That book has such unique, gloomy and eerie feel and maybe perhaps that's why it just resonates with me.
Someone else should pick up this series. Specially after it becomes public domain
the sky is grey for the entire book
It was my least favorite as a kid. It's grown on me as an adult.
One can only imagine the CGI wonders they could create nowadays to make that book come to life. I hope to see it in my lifetime for sure.
I really wanted to see how they would do The Silver Chair.
"How can we make this just like all the others" is the death of every adaptation.
As an up-and-coming creator, I always worry whenever I notice unintentional similarities in my stories and characters to others that have been done before, and that I might be accused of intentionally stealing from those other stories. I'm always trying to work out how I can make my works different from those before.
@@ARCtheCartoonMaster There is a saying that "Good creators borrow. Great creators steal". Tolkien was heavily influenced by English Folklore. Martin by the War of the Roses. Remember your intentions are noble, so don't let yourself get bogged down in avoiding copying someone else. It's basically impossible to completely reinvent the wheel. Good luck to you. 😁
* cough * The Hobbit trilogy we're looking at you * cough *
@@ARCtheCartoonMaster everything has already been invented, the only thing left is your own spin, your own personal touch that no one can reproduce
@@LeonAvalos Do people still do that silly cough shtick? Just come right out and say what you mean to say.
As a Lewis fan for decades (I've read all his books), I thought the movies were superb overall, The faithful attention to tasteful costumes and sets would, I'm sure, have met with Lewis's approval. The cast did amazingly well. I'm sad that The Silver Chair fizzled out - hopefully someone will take it on. I'd love to see an adaptation of his sf trilogy! Thankyou - excellent video.
As a Lewis fan for decades (I've read most of his books, and all of his fiction), I thought the movies were absolute pants. While he was more relaxed about adaptations of his work than his mate Tollers was, I don't think he would have liked a lot of what the films did. His heroes were always children, and he would certainly not have liked a 24 year-old Caspian where there should have been a 12 year-old one. Nor would he have appreciated the forced romance between him and Susan.
@@MaskedMan66 I agree that CSL would probably have balked at the romance - they probably made Caspian older to allow for that unnecessary change to the story.
@@SanphireJaide7 And you have to wonder who exactly the filmmakers were aiming at; they knew going in that the primary audience would be children.
I play the PS2 video game every Christmas season, along with The Two Towers and Return of the King. Never gets old and super nostalgic ☺️ and I’m 35… 😅
I never knew alot of people didn't like these movies. I loved them as a kid and teenager.
Lion the witch and the wardrobe was well done, I think a lot of people like it. The latter ones were alright but for book readers didn't quite measure up due to many of the differences they chose to do
@@annaairahala9462 To be honest, they weren't that different from the books except for Caspian age
@@lancethefilmguy9392 Voyage of the Dawn Treader was pretty different, barely any of it overlaps with the book even. Prince Caspian wasn't as far off, but there were a lot more differences than just his age.
Me too.
They're flawed but I loved them honestly. They're quite charming!
I remember these movies, that one scene where the witch freezes the fox was terrifying to me as a child.
Same
Yea, it was a very cold move on her part. I remeber I had some of the toys from McDonald's.
Bro this was amazing!
The Chronicles of Narnia will always be near and dear to my heart. My brother and I shared a room together for about 18 years since I was born really lol. But we had a dvd and tape player, and with that we had the audio books on disk for the entire Chronicles of Narnia series and we would always play a disk when going to bed to sleep at night, and we did that for about 16 years I want to say. We had other things to listen to, but that was the main thing we listened too. My brother and eye still recite funny lines fro. The audio book to this day, some of our favorites come from “The Horse and His Boy”, the starting sequence with the line “TAAAKE THIS CHIIILD” and later the main villain ranting to his dad about not having Susan for a bride “I MUST HAVE HERRRR, I WOULD DIE IF I DO NOT HAVE HER”
As a huge Narnia fan, I don't think Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, both as a film and a book, could ever have been topped as it was just so well written and well adapted.
It's a great story, but I think some of the books are at least as good if not better. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has always been very memorable for me.
A Horse and His Boy is one of my favorite stories ever.
That's why they should have started with the Magician's Nephew instead. The should have used the chronological order.
@@colliric LWW is a more interesting story though than Magician's Nephew. It's more of an adventure story which is what kids like.
@@colliric Dude! It wouldn’t have worked. It would have flopped and put a premature end to the franchise due to less recognizability and familiarity with the mainstream public as much as LWW. Now quit talking foolishly.
Edmund is not a stand-in for Judas; he's meant to represent all sinners. Lewis saw himself in Edmund.
I'm thinking Edmund is closer to Peter the disciple
Sorry, but he’s clearly Judas.
@@cooliodiablo4571 No, I don’t think Edmund is a representation of Judas because he never betrayed Aslan to the white witch. He DID betray his siblings. But that was before he even knew about Aslan or the prophesy! (He leaves before the beavers talk about that) Judas betrayed Christ after years of discipleship. And Judas did it knowing full well the consequences of his actions (aka the persecution of Christ). Edmund is, like she said, a representation of all sinners. Aslan willingly sacrificed himself in Edmund’s stead to atone for his wrongdoings- Just as Jesus did for all of mankind’s sin.
Lewis was kinda crazy then
@@cooliodiablo4571 Judas was never restored back as a disciple and Edmund was.
It boils my blood that they only made 3 movies of narnia considering there's a series of 7 books total and they only did 3 smh..
2:58 Really amazing Minotaur costume... until the wobbly horns. **facepalm**
The facepalm emoji exists 🤦
It’s a shame they didn’t do “The magicians nephew” it would have looked amazing. Ah maybe next time.
Hard agree. I always hoped that Disney would pick up these novel readaptations again. Been wishing for it since Narnia hit theaters.. A lot of childhood movies don't hold up, but this one definitely does.
As the video said, Netflix is making a new series. But we don't know how it's developing right now and if it is a total reboot. If it is, then chances are that we will never see The magicans nephew with Netflix' tendency to cancel shows. And besides that, I'd be dying to see an adaptation of The horse and his boy. I always felt that book was overlooked just because it's a side story.
If netflix does it, I really hope they don't take creative liberty and go and ruin the series....
@@backtoklondike I don't trust Netflix.
@@camiriofrio6995 They will, they will, and it'll be more time, talent and money wasted.
Fun fact: Diggory (the Professor) was based off of Tolkien and Treebeard was based off of Lewis.
Lucy was the name of Lewis's goddaughter
Oh... oh no... That line about Treebeard taking so long to say anything... Damn they were throwing shade lol.
Does that mean John Rhys-Davies will play C.S. Lewis in a film biopic? 😂 Well, you said Treebeard was based on Lewis and John Rhys-Davies voiced the character in the Peter Jackson films, so it’s fitting he’s got to play the actual man himself.
That is quite possibly the best fact i have heard and will ever hear in my life
I've never heard of Digory being based on Tolkien. Dr. Elwin Ransom, the hero of Lewis's "Space Trilogy," was.
@@hunterolaughlin Only if they animate a movie about Lewis; Rhys-Davies is older now than Lewis ever got to be.
What I really liked about Natnia was that you could see in the costume design that they employed people who knew what they were doing quite well.
Unlike RingOfPower or Eragon, in Narnia almost all the Armors and weapons are heavily inspired by real ones. This authenticity of clothing but still making it fantasy just feels right.
Glad and pleasantly surprised to see I'm not the only one who feels a special connection to these movies.
Can i just say that the prince Caspian film had the perfect conflict for the children to deal with, the fact that they have already lived a adult life and have been foreced back to children again having to adjust to that would have been really interesting to see, as they would probably act quite strangely considering that they've had decades to mature and probably gone through alot of different experiences, and how they probably feel like they don't belong in their world, but when they go back to Narnia what should be a happy return slowly turns into a realization that Narnia has changed and that even they have changed and this longing and want of something they feel they were robbed of is what is holding them back and although they feel like adults in children's bodies that they need to move on with their lives, which would have made the ending of the film more impactful with susan and Peter choosing to leave a place that they've wanted to be for ages, years probably. Just saying that could have been a cool concept, and a nice lesson to weave through about the importance of moving on and heading to the beginning of a fresh start.
This is the part of the story that always disturbs me: to live a whole life and then have to live as though it never really happened, and be a child again. That is some crazy thing to live through!
@@SteppingStonevlogs The Pevensies were only in their twenties when they left Narnia - based on the official Timeline, Peter would have been about 28, and Lucy 5 years younger (rounding errors introduce a little uncertainty).
While the 15 years in Narnia is more than half even Peter's age (and only Susan lived to be older in the real world than their peak ages in Narnia) it's a pretty short lifetime.
That said, if you want an exploration of what it would be like for the Pevensies returning home with adult experience and perspective (though it picks up after Caspian and shortly before Dawn Treader rather than immediately after LWW) I recommend The Stone Gryphon - archiveofourown.org/series/15017 - which incorporates considerable research into real world events during World War 2, and finds a solution to the notorious Problem of Susan (mostly that Lewis didn't know what to do with a character that was actually interested in sex and relationships and living in the real world as an adult - though he did get better about it in the Ransom trilogy)
honestly the horse and his boy should have been the sequal to the lion the witch and the wardrobe, then all of a sudden what you suggest would have made a lot of sense.
If I remember correctly they remembered their time in Narnia more like a vivid dream than life events, that is why Susan later decides that it was childish fantasy.
@@ciannacoleman5125 Edmund and Lucy have clear memories of Narnia at the start of Dawn Treader, and everyone except Susan still remembered Narnia 7 years after Dawn Treader in the Last Battle, all of which suggests that they remember it.
Besides, if, as Susan, you had clear memories of something plainly impossible having happened, would you believe that you really did take a trip down the rabbit hole as a child, or would you congratulate yourself on how vivid your childhood imagination was, and convince yourself it was all just make-believe? And congratulate yourself on how sophisticated and grown up you are to not believe such a ridiculous fantasy now that you know better...
Great analysis! I'd have thought "The Magician's Nephew" would be a great place to start - it's chronologically the first story AND is dark and magical, with plenty of character development :)
Parts are dark, others bright. Remember the Creation of Narnia?
But it has many points that contradict earlier published books,
@@Mark-ko6qg Like?
@@victordeluca7360 well Humans being local to Narnia for one.
@@Mark-ko6qg Well, they clearly knew about humans already, from the prophecy. It's not unreasonable to assume, even just from the Lion and the Witch, that humans lived in that land at some point. In fact, many neighboring nations to Narnia were human settlements - Narnia was almost an exception.
It's never explicitly stated how humans left Narnia (From what I recall), but I wouldn't really say it's a contradiction. Remember, there's a gigantic time gap between the first and the second book. Enough to reshape the land, create new continents, for several cultures to evolve and disappear.
The books live on. I have read each and every one of the chronicals of Narnia to my children. There is no adaptation that can outdue the books. Thank you God for C.S. Lewis
The radio adaptations are very good, both the one by the BBC and the one by Focus on the Family.
Actually Disney had a massive franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Pablo, at this time only the first two potc movies were out, both aimed at an adult audience. Those movies got more childish overtime.
Narnia is very different, mainly aimed at children.
@@LittleNicky558 you’re very on point. Didn’t remember the rating on potc.
@@LittleNicky558 Disney is about to hit his first PG: R with Deadpool 3
@@PabloStirling yes and disney plus where i live in canada is about to add over 500 new adult movies from fox etc and over 300 new tv series from various places, all aimed at Adults. In the early 2000s they experimented with adult stuff but pirates was the only thing that succeeded. With the absorption of fox in (2016-17?) they were finally able to get their hands onto the adult audience, just under the name of 20th century fox.
They are hell-bent on ruining that one too. 😅
Oh my gosh. I just realized the goat dude is James McAvoy.
yep
😱I didn't realize until I read your comment!
he is! And Peter Dinklage is in Prince Caspian :)
He’s a hell of an actor. Slips seamlessly into his roles.
When xmen 1st class came out, I was like "hey, I know this guy from somewhere... NARNIA!"
Dude the Eragon's game is FANTASTIC
I remember reading the books and watching the movie back when I was a kids. I still have my copy of the 3 volume Narnia book from about 20 years ago.