The Chronicles Of Narnia (2005 Collector's Edition) (DVD)

I loved both the Narnia books and the BBC adaptation when I was little, so when I saw these DVD's on sale, I couldn't resist. They serve both as a nostalgic trip down memory lane and as some wonderful entertainment. With the new film, I suppose it was inevitable that someone would try to make some more money out of the earlier series, but it's still good fun.

This series was an adaptation of some of the books in CS Lewis's Chronicle's ...
...Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and his Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle.

The BBC only adapted four of these, The Lion etc., Prince Caspian, Voyage of etc, and The Silver Chair. They were made as three, six-episode series, with Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader run together as one series.

~~~ ... more

I loved both the Narnia books and the BBC adaptation when I was little, so when I saw these DVD's on sale, I couldn't resist. They serve both as a nostalgic trip down memory lane and as some wonderful entertainment. With the new film, I suppose it was inevitable that someone would try to make some more money out of the earlier series, but it's still good fun.

This series was an adaptation of some of the books in CS Lewis's Chronicle's of Narnia. There were seven books:
The Magician's Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and his Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle.

The BBC only adapted four of these, The Lion etc., Prince Caspian, Voyage of etc, and The Silver Chair. They were made as three, six-episode series, with Prince Caspian and Voyage of the Dawn Treader run together as one series.

~~~ The Stories ~~~
~The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe~
Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy are evacuated from London during World War Two and go to stay with Professor Kirk in his country house. While exploring the house, Lucy hides in an old wardrobe. Suddenly, she finds herself in the magical land of Narnia and meets a fawn called Mr Tumnus.

It turns out that Narnia is ruled by an evil witch who makes it always winter, but never Christmas. Mr Tumnus chooses to betray the White Witch and send Lucy back home, even though it might cost him his own life.

Though the others don't believe Lucy about the wardrobe, they eventually find their way through to Narnia as well to learn that Mr Tumnus has been captured by the witch's secret police. They are helped by Mr and Mrs Beaver, talking beavers who unfortunately look like people wrapped in brown carpet, and told that Aslan, the true king of Narnia, has returned.

They go to join forces with Aslan and help him to overthrow the White Witch. However, before they can go to him, they are betrayed by someone very close to them...

~Prince Caspian~
Never my favourite of the books. I think the reason may be something to do with the fact that it was shortened in the adaptation to less than two episodes, but they didn't cut out anything important to the plot. In the book, rather too much time was spent doing not very much.

Prince Caspian is the nephew to the wicked King Miras who rules Narnia. Almost all of Narnia has forgotten the golden age that followed the defeat of the White Witch. Talking beasts, dwarves, fawns and all magic creatures are in hiding and few believe in their existance. But Caspian is told the stories by his nurse and believes in them.

When his nurse is sent away for telling him about Aslan and about the heroes of the previous book, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, Caspian is given a new tutor, Dr Cornelius. He reveals to Caspian that he is part dwarf and that all the stories about old Narnia are true.

When Miras's wife gives birth to a son, Miras decides to kill Caspian, since he is the rightful heir to the throne. Dr Cornelius helps Caspian to escape and he encounters the people who live in hiding, most particularly a talking badger and two dwarves. They meet together with the people of old Narnia to plot a war against Miras so that Narnia can be ruled as it should be.

To aid them in the war, when it seems that defeat by Miras's forces is certain, Caspian blows on a magic horn that belonged to Susan. This calls the children out of their own world and back to Narnia, to help fight and once more rid Narnia of evil. They won't have to fight alone, because Aslan too returns.

~The Voyage of the Dawn Treader~
Edmund and Lucy go to stay with their horrible cousin Eustace Scrub. They try to get some peace from him in Lucy's room, and end up looking at a picture of a ship that looks Narnian. When Eustace comes in to tease them about believing in Narnia, the picture comes to life and they are sucked inside it and end up aboard the Dawn Treader.

Seven lords of Narnia had been banished by Miras because they had been friends to Miras's brother, the true king he had murdered so that he could have the throne. Caspian vowed to Aslan that he would sale east after these friends of his father, to discover what had happened to them.

They sale into waters no one from Narnia has ever seen, apart from the lords who came before them. They must face magic, slavers, enchantments, dragons, invisible people, sea serpents and their very worst nightmares. But, beyond all dangers, beyond the eastern end of the world, lies Aslan's own country.

~The Silver Chair~
Eustace is at school when he encounters Jill Pole hiding from bullies. She warns him that because he changed so much over the summer holidays, a result of his journey to Narnia, he is next on the bullies' hit list. They try to hide, and end up stumbling through a doorway and back into Narnia.

Jill meets Aslan, who gives them a quest. They were summoned to Narnia to find Prince Rillian, the son of Caspian, who went missing after the death of his mother. Aslan also gives her four signs that they must follow if they are to possibly find the lost prince.

The first sign is that Eustace must go to an old friend as soon as he sees him. However, Narnian time is different and seventy years have passed. Eustace doesn't recognise Caspian until its too late for them to speak to him.

But they won't be alone in their search. With the help of the owl Glimfeather, they join up with the marshwiggle Puddleglum. A very depressing creature, Puddleglum agrees to help them on their search as they journey north to find a ruined city of giants.

But what happens when Jill forgets the signs?

~~~ The Effects ~~~
The computer effects are appalling. The flying creatures used in the first series are terribly badly done. There is one shot where Eustace is aboard a flying horse and the wings actually go through his legs. It's only to be expected given when the show was made, but having seen some of the recent films, including the new version of Narnia, they are obviously bad. But some credit should be given to the creators, since the first episodes were filmed in 1988.

Most of the talking animals are also fairly bad. The beavers look like someone just rolled them in a brown carpet and stuck a bit of a face on, and I think that's pretty much what the costume was. They did well enough with Reepicheep the mouse and the owls in the later ones. Warwick Davis has enough experience of acting in these bulky costumes that Reepicheep and Glimfeather (he played both, I think there was a shortage of short actors) managed to convey great personality.

For the time, Aslan was amazingly realistic, so long as he was standing still. While moving, he was bulky and synchronising the speach with his mouth is almost non-exsitant. He opens his mouth, a load of lines come out, he closes his mouth. But, as long as he is still, he is a very good lion and has all the aura of power that the king of beasts should have. Having seen the film of Narnia, I was disappointed in the way Aslan failed to look any more special than the other talking animals. This adaptation creates an Aslan who is believable and powerful, insomuch as was possible with the technology of the day.

The later series, I think, learned from their mistakes. There was still some CGI, but there was also a lot of models. The dragons and the sea serpent were physical things, which made them a lot more convincing than the flying animals in the first one.

The series did very well for effects given what was around at the time and they don't do anything to detract from the magic of the story.

~~~ The Characters~~~
Lucy Pevensie (Sophie Wilcox) is perhaps slightly too good. She never lies, which makes her terrible upset when no one believes her about finding Narnia. Even so, she is extremely likeable as a character. It seems to me that she was made a little older for this series than she was in the book, but she manages to act young and innocent. Her determination to help Mr Tumnus and her loyalty to her family make her someone the audience is rooting for.

Peter Pevensie (Richard Dempsey) is the oldest of the siblings. He puts himself into the position of their leader which Edmund resents. He is very protective of his family, especially Susan and Lucy, and that stength comes into his character when he is asked to lead in the war against the Witch.

Susan Pevensie (Sophie Cook) tries to act a bit like a mother for the others. She sees herself as more grown up than she is. This isn't emphasised as much in the series as it was in the books, but since The Last Battle was never adapted, I don't think this matters a great deal.

Edmund Pevensie (Jonathan Scott) resents Peter for always telling him what to do. When he meets the White Witch, she promises to make him a prince, meaning he can finally tell Peter what to do. The series tries to show the conflict of Edmunds characters by showing him arguing with a ghostly form of himself that represents his conscience. I think it was very unusual and very courageous for CS Lewis to include a character like Edmund when he wrote the books. Not many children's stories have as a major character, someone who commits acts as terrible as Edmund's betrayal of his family. But, I think it works extremely well. It helps to deliver a message about redemption that is part of the underlying theme of the first book.

The White Witch (Barbara Kellerman) is truly terrifying. Kellerman manages to show the witch's kindness to Edmund, while leaving all the time a trace of the evil that is so apparent through the rest of the story. When I was little, she really did scare me.

Aslan (voice by Ronald Pickup) is extremely impressive. As a voice actor, Pickup gives emotion and character to what is, essentially, a very large puppet.

Mr Tumnus (Jeffrey Perry) is a friendly fawn, who promised to turn over any human he met to the White Witch. But he never knew what humans were like until he met Lucy and he felt ashamed for joining the Witch. He is very likeable because of his weakness.

Caspian (Jean-Marc Perret) is a young boy thrown into a battle he never expected to fight. He is forced to join up with people he wasn't even sure existed in order to kill a member of his own family. With some very difficult times, Caspian must rely on his friends and his own courage.

Eustace Scrub (David Thwaites) begins his journey through Narnia as a selfish, obnoxious pig. Hugely dislikeable, it's nice that large portions of the early story are shown from his point of view. As Eustace is forced to realise he must change, the audience is beginning to have some sympathy for him because of the events unfolding around him.

Jill Pole (Camilla Power) first act in Narnia is to show off and cause what she believes to be the death of her friend. The rest of her visit is spent trying to make up for that act. It helps that she's terrified of Aslan and doesn't want him to be angry with her.

Puddleglum (Tom Baker) is brilliantly acted. He manages to be outrageously depressing when trying to look on the bright side: At least if we break our necks climbing down, we don't have to worry about breaking them when we climb up the other side.

There are many other characters who are also brilliantly acted, but it would take far too long to list them all. I was impressed by the quality of acting, especially when so much of it is done by people wrapped up in animal costumes.

~~~ Special Features ~~~
The forth disk of this box set is devoted to special features. These include an interview with the actors who played the Pevensie children done especially for the DVD release. They talk about their memories of the show and the way they feel about it now.

There is an interview with Sophie Wilcox and Barbara Kellerman done at the time of the release of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

There are various Blue Peter segments, including a piece on how Aslan was made. There is an interview with David Thwaites and Camilla Power about The Silver Chair and they demonstrate how the effects of flying were achieved. And there is a longer piece about Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which includes a segment read from the book, interviews with some of the cast and a short little piece where a Blue Peter presenter ends up sucked into Narnia and has to trade her badge for a trip home.

There are some shots showing how the special effects of the dragon and the centaurs were acheived.

And there are photo galleries of the costume and set designs for Lion, Witch etc.

~~~ Compared to the books ~~~
Not all of the books were adapted, which I consider a great shame. I can see why they didn't adapt Magician's Nephew and Horse and his Boy, since they don't follow the storyline of the same characters. The Last Battle I didn't particularly like as a book, so I don't mind that this one never got on the TV.

The TV series was very faithful to the books as a whole. There are inevitably some changes, but the characters were kept as in the books and the main plotlines are unchanged. A few things had to be trimmed, including a lot of wandering around at Cair Paravel in Prince Caspian.

Watching this series again after so long, I still think the stories are outstanding. The adaptation kept the magic of CS Lewis's work. I love it.

~~~ The Christian Metaphor ~~~
In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there are many parallels with the story of Easter. I didn't notice them when I first read the books or saw the shows. I just saw a wonderful story. I think the metaphor is there if you want to think deeply about the message, but you can also ignore it and just enjoy the adventure if you prefer.

In the books, Lewis doesn't stress the metaphor too much and the series is faithful to this. Aslan sacrifices his life for Edmund's sins and is resurrected. You can also see more into it if you look, such as the women waiting at the tomb and then wondering where the body is gone.

Perhaps you could also see a link between the three gifts, though a sword, a bow and a bottle of medicine aren't all that much like gold, francensence and myrh.

Those who aren't Christians can happily ignore this layer and enjoy the series for everything else it is: some brilliant and highly imaginative storytelling.

Perhaps there is another metaphor. Perhaps the 'deeper magic' means that we should look beyond the particulars of a doctrine or faith to the deeper message of love beneath it. Perhaps I might be reading something the isn't there. But isn't that also a tradition part of storytelling?

~~~ Overall ~~~
I loved this series when I was little and I still love it now. I can ignore the appalling special effects and enjoy everything else that it has to offer.

If you watched this series when it was on TV, watch it again. You'll find it hasn't lost any of its magic. Or, if you've never watched this before, why not give it a try? Failing that, you could just watch the film, which is also an extremely well-done adaptation. But I prefer the final line of this adaptation to the one used in the film.

One a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. 

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