When I was eight years old, my parents gave me the Collier Books paperback box set of The Chronicles of Narnia. It is the first collection of non-picture books I remember reading that were my own and not hand-me-downs or borrowed from the library. I still have them on my bookshelf, in spite of their worn and battered spines. Every so often over the past twenty-odd years, I have read them again. Sometimes I will read them all in order — mine are numbered in publication order — and other times I will read one or two of my favorites, depending on which is my favorite at the moment.
On the surface, The Chronicles of Narnia are children's books. However, they have enjoyed a broader appeal that spans all ages. Whether C. S. Lewis intended for the books to have a deeper meaning than simply providing entertainment is a topic of considerable debate. Regardless, my personal experience has been that each reading of the books brings some new aspect or meaning to light that I had not thought of before, which is generally not the case in most children's literature.
The first published book in the series is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and in my opinion, it really should be the book that introduces readers to Narnia. Chronologically, The Magician's Nephew comes first, and it does provide a good back-story for the characters and events that take place in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but it was written as a prequel, and therefore often assumes that the reader already has a familiarity with the events that were to come later. For that reason, it is no surprise that Disney chose The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first production and plan to follow it with Prince Caspian in 2008.
I remember being very excited to watch the BBC television adaptations of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Silver Chair in the early 1990s, but ultimately was disappointed with the relatively cheap production and fake-ness of the Narnian creatures. I was equally nervous about the production of Disney's The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe last year, and I was pleasantly surprised by the visual effects that seamlessly blended the live-action and animated characters.
Article comments
1 - RacelRacel
Personally i haven't seen the extended edition but i think that the one disc version could have been more faithful to the story. Disney did an okay job and i was happy to see one of the most cherished stories being told on the screen. But i do hope they do a better job with Prince Caspian and not skip major details.
2 - RacelRacel
One thing i will say though is that Aslan should have been taller. In the Horse and his Boy Shaster sees Aslan walking beside him and his horse. In his thoughts Shaster sees that Aslan is a bit taller than the horse. overall though i think the voice for Aslan was a perfect choice and he was done quite well. I was happy to see that the actors for Peter Susan Edmund and Lucy were actual limeys. It was quite delightful to see real English people on screen rather than Americans trying to imitate our accent.