Tag: the silver chair

Back to Narnia

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

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It’s only a few minutes past 1 p.m., and I want my Narnia! Patty gave me the BBC Chronicles of Narnia on disc, the whole series, and rather than just sit here and watch my work-load pile up before my very eyes, I’m going to light out for Narnia.

The still, above, is from The Silver Chair. The cast is interesting. The girl playing Jill Pole, Camilla Power, is still a busy actor on British TV, and in spite of all her other work, is still best known for her visit to Narnia–which she doesn’t mind a bit. We have Tom Baker (center) as Puddleglum: he’s best known for playing Doctor Who. And the boy playing Eustace, David Thwaite, I believe has gone on to be a lawyer. They don’t seem to have any lawyers in Narnia, so he wouldn’t have a lot of competition.

The big splashy new Narnia movies, replete with hi-tech special effects–well, sorry, but there’s just no comparison. They never have gotten around to making their version of The Silver Chair. The kid they had for Eustace, who was perfect in the role in their otherwise not-so-hot Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is now way too old to pass for Eustace. I wanted those movies to succeed, but they tinkered with the stories, plugged in a lot of “improvements” that were not improvements at all, and the whole project seems to be floating belly-up.

Oh, well. We still have these, from the 1980s, and they’re still just wonderful. Now that you can get them on easy-to-store discs… what are you waiting for?

Note: I’m pretty sure there’s a made-in-Hong Kong version of The Silver Chair. I’d love to see it, but so far it has eluded me.

P.S.–I have just discovered a trailer for a new movie of The Silver Chair–which is the first I’ve heard of it. I’m not convinced this movie will eventually be released, and not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

I’m sorry, but if that’s Jill and Eustace, I’m the Smith Brothers.

By Request, ‘Sitting at the Feet of Jesus’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

This for Erlene: Sitting at the Feet of Jesus, by the Gaither Vocal Band.

I don’t know why, but this hymn–if it were in a hymnal, it would be a hymn and not just “Christian music”–reminds me of Puddleglum in The Silver Chair, telling the Witch that even if everything she’s saying is true (which it isn’t), it’s funny how a couple of children playing a game can dream up a world “that licks your world hollow.”

Only thing is, we didn’t make up Jesus. God the Father, through Him, made us up.

The Next Narnia Movie (Maybe): ‘The Magician’s Nephew’

Posted By: leeduigonPosted On:

First it was going to be The Silver Chair, but everything got shuffled around and now the next Narnia movie’s going to be The Magician’s Nephew–or so it seems ( http://teaser-trailer.com/the-magicians-nephew-movie/ ). Really, I just can’t keep track of it anymore. But they’ve got a movie poster ready for it, even though they can’t give us a release date. Not this year, and probably not next year, either.

Whoever is actually working on the movie now–guys, could you please get this one right?

(While you’re waiting for them to get it right, sit back and enjoy this rendition of the theme music from the BBC-TV Narnia productions of the 1980s–still the gold standard for bringing Narnia to the screen.)

The first three Chronicles of Narnia movies of the 21st century didn’t do all that well at the box office, and no one in Hollywood seems to know why. Allow me to enlighten them.

Yo, the movies underachieved because:

a) You guys kept messing around with the stories, and the changes you made were never for the better. Never.

b) You’re afraid of C.S. Lewis’ forthrightly Christian message, so you kept soft-pedaling Aslan, which was to miss the whole point of the stories.

c) You don’t seem to think your audience is capable of appreciating the stories as C.S. Lewis wrote them, so you keep trying to shape them to what you think is the taste of a dumbed-down, text-messaging, doofus audience.

Like many, many others, I want these movies to succeed; but so far the movie-makers have been their own worst enemy.

But we should be thankful they haven’t taken the books down with them.