Episode Details

Want to feel old at Christmas? The first Narnia film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, released in 2005 and is now fifteen years old. Five years later, the third Narnia film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, released in 2010, so it’s now ten years old. Let’s explore these films’ successes and failures, as we’re joined by a special guest and “prince” of Narnia here on Fantastical Truth.

Introducing ‘Rilian’ of NarniaWeb

• Rilian started a podcast called “Narnia News and Notes”
• This became the NarniaWeb.com podcast, and it’s now called Talking Beasts.
• The twice-monthly podcast explores Narnia books and films. It’s even featured actors from the film series.

“Of course he isn’t safe. But he is good.”

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

• Walden Media produced, Disney distributed
• Released in the U. S. on Dec. 9, 2005
• Budget: about $180 million
• Earned: about $745 million
• We share our memories of the film’s anticipation
• We share our initial and current response to the film
• Briefly we also mention Prince Caspian (2008)

C. S. Lewis himself expressed his feelings about adapting Narnia for a visual medium.

• From Lewis’s letter to Lance Sieveking in 1959:

But I am absolutely opposed—adamant isn’t in it!—to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography. Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) wd. be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan wd. be to me blasphemy.

• From Lewis’s letter to Jane Douglass in 1954:

Aslan is a divine figure, and anything remotely approaching the comic (above all anything in the Disney line) would be to me simple blasphemy.

2. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

• Walden Media produced, 20th Century Fox distributed
• (Now that Disney has bought Fox, this film is also owned by Disney.)
• Released in the U. S. on Dec. 10, 2010
• Budget: about $140–$155 million
• Earned: about $415 million
• We share our memories of the film’s anticipation
• We share our initial and current response to the film
• Caution: we’re a bit negative, especially about the humanistic hints in earlier films that flourish into non-book themes here.

3. What’s next for Narnia?

• We lament the current limbo of further (and faithful) Narnia film adaptations.
• Yes, Netflix technically has the rights to remake the series, and we express cautious pessimism.
• Briefly we explore the pros and cons of making Narnia movies versus making Narnia miniseries, for certain books.

Stranger Than Fantastical Fiction

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