u/Celestina-Betwixt

Some stills of Petra Yared/Jared (Jo), Michala Banas (Louisa), and Nicholas Hooper (Nicholas) on the police show Blue Heelers.

Petra was on the show multiple times as different characters in different seasons, Michala was on the show twice, playing both a teenage character and a disabled adult in different seasons, and Nicholas was in one episode with no return appearances (as far as I know this was his only acting credit outside of Mirror Mirror).

Dunno who the artist is. If anyone does know, please share in the comments so I can edit the post and give the due credit.

Hardback set is from 2001, with b&w illustrations.

I know I'm going to get backlash for this, but I don't care.

I highly doubt, as the fans aww-ing at Greta's "touching" tribute to Lewis's mother by changing his character's name to Flora are insisting, that it doesn't "matter" because her name is "only mentioned at the end".

Lewis was not as obsessed with himself as people in modern Hollywood are with reflecting their own experiences. Of course he took inspiration from his own life for the character of Digory, particularly where the loss of his mother was concerned, but it was not his only inspiration nor even can we assume his primary one. He knew JRR Tolkien had also lost his mother young. I will never be convinced that naming Digory's mother Mabel wasn't on purpose because that was the name of Tolkien's mum. Why would he want a tribute he made to somebody else to be turned around as half hearted tribute to him?

Flora is also NOT a more modern name than Mabel. They're both old fashioned.

This, to me, is not the same as Andrew Adamson naming Mrs. Pevensie Helen in his adaptation. It was simply to make Georgie's delivery of the line more natural (since it was her mother's name IRL) and because Mrs. Pevensie had no first name mentioned in the book. At WORST you could make the argument there was already a Helen character in the Narnia books (MN) so it was a little confusing. Otherwise it worked.

This Flora thing is a throwaway tribute which the original author probably wouldn't even want, dear as his mother was to him.

...they (Walden Media/Disney) had taken this older cast (plus James McAvoy) and made a Horse and His Boy movie after LWW.

I think that would have been our best bet of ever getting a relatively faithful HHB adaptation without everyone complaining it was "problematic" or needed everything about it changed to be brought to the big screen.

The following is speculation. If you cannot deal with speculation or are adamant on waiting for the trailer and/or full film release before venturing any sort of guess (whether right or wrong) about how new characterization/changes might effect the franchise going forward, this post is not for you. Consider moving onto something else rather than leaving me nasty comments.

So looking at this picture out of context I've noticed a couple of things.

1. a number of people have pointed out "Flora" does not appear ill in this picture, leading to the speculation this scene may well be after she eats the apple.

2. She's holding what appears to be a gold (movie verse stand in for yellow?) ring (and not disappearing), while Digory cuddles close.

This leads me to think he may be telling his mother all about his adventures.

As sweet in theory as that is, it seems potentially out of character for Digory.

I think a lot of fans/readers remember Digory as being foolish and impulsive when he fought Polly to ring the bell that woke Jadis in Charn. As well as the one who got overexcited and almost didn't mark the pool leading back to our world in the woods. But that wasn't a common thing for him which is what makes it more shocking in context. Despite being adventurous person, when he wasn't caught up in a moment, whenever something required planning, he could actually be more cautious than Polly.

Like when his first reaction to Polly suggesting they sneak into the house next door was he didn't want to be mistaken for a burglar. She had to reassure him it was empty and would be alright before he agreed.

This is also the same boy who grew up to be the man who suggested the Pevensies tell no one who hadn't had magical adventures of their own (even to the exclusion of their parents who were ignorant of Narnia straight through LB) about being in Narnia.

It seems a little odd to me, even out of joy she's going to live, he would tell the whole story to his mother, including the magical components. Beyond giving her the apple, he wouldn't have had reason or motive to bombard her with everything that just happened to him, imo.

It wouldn't be a massive change. But it would/could feel slightly out of character.

With increased discussions of the upcoming The Magician's Nephew movie, which has unfortunately become very divisive amongst certain subsets of fans, I keep seeing more comments insisting if people "don't like Greta" they should just go watch the bbc versions of Narnia.

At first I didn't think anything of it. After all, it's common for book fans to be partial to the BBC TV versions (not all of us, but a large enough proportion), and I figured this was just the opposite side gatekeeping the discussion as per usual. You know, you don't like the look of this adaptation, you're not allowed to comment in this space because "you're negative".

But I increasingly realized quite a number of these people insisting fans go watch the BBC version are utterly convinced there's a BBC Magician's Nephew! They've been arguing in fandom spaces INSISTING Greta Gerwig's upcoming movie is NOT the first screen adaptation of MN.

Two seconds of googling would reveal these people to be completely wrong, would tell them the BBC never adapted The Magician's Nephew.

But since they're set on arguing, I just want to a) say knock it off, this is not a thing and b) let anyone whose interest may have genuinely been caught and are looking for the adaptation, wondering why they can't find it, know these commenters have led you astray.

There is no such TV film.

The BBC made The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian and VDT (combined as a single feature), and Silver Chair.

That is all. There is no more.

I mean in contrast to Bowie Aslan and blue-light magic lab Uncle Andrew, and Drag me to Hell Jadis in go go boots shrieking in front of Lewis's favorite pub, they look at least normal.

Honestly if this were a regular period film from the 1950s, unconnected to Narnia, and I saw THESE images first, I would think they looked generic but vaguely nice. The young actors are very cute. They still look more like Jill and Eustace to me, but they're cute. And they look like they're giving a very earnest performance. They'll probably be the highlight of this movie, even if it turns out terrible, and I hope it lands them parts in other things in the future.

Some details I did like:

Polly's smuggler's cave has the normal, soft "nothing happens here" kind of lighting the wood between the worlds should have had. And I like the touch of the empty bottles all around.

The "wings" on what I assume is Strawberry/future Fledge.

Uncle Andrew in a more normal setting so we can see what he looks like outside of Dexer's Lab and the Dark Forest. I even kind of like his costume. Considering I've hated pretty much all the costumes I've seen so far, this is nice.

And that's pretty much it.

To anyone who wants to know why I didn't mention Digory with his mother, it's not that I don't like the photograph, it's sweet looking, and I like Carrie Mulligan, but this whole renaming Mabel Flora to "honour CS Lewis" feels performative to me. Maybe honour him by using the time period he intended and not making Aslan look like David Bowie. But because I don't want to get too deep into my feelings on that and have EVERY comment whining that I'm a book purist who wants "OMG nothing from the book changed" (how original) I'm just gonna move on quietly to my next thought.

So (without seeing the trailer yet, because if I don't acknowledge that Greta's fans will freak out on me for having an opinion), I'm now getting the impression I might somewhat enjoy the non-fantasy scenes more than any of the fantastic stuff. Because when Aslan and Jadis look THAT bad, I get the feeling I'm not going to like much after their arrivals in this "adaptation". And the 1950s stuff looks sweet but only dimly connected to anything that screams "Narnia" to me personally.

But yeah these pictures are nice.

‘It says here your name’s Alexei.’ Jo pointed to the encyclopaedia.

‘It sounds too Russian. Nicholas sounds English. And besides... it was Father’s name.’

-- Mirror Mirror by Hilary Bell

These are arguably the best pictures we've gotten so far, and I'll acknowledge what I like about them, but this does almost nothing to convince me I've been mistaken and this is actually going to be a faithful adaptation after all.

What I don't like: there are two ideas that enter my mind about when the first picture could take place in the story and neither feels book accurate. 1) This is (most likely) the wood between the worlds. I don't like that it looks like nighttime; the world between the worlds isn't a WORLD. There's no time. There's a greenish dappled light, similar to the light coming between the slates in Polly's hiding place between the houses. It's quiet and green. Not dark and eerie. 2) on the off chance I'm wrong and it's "dark" because they've arrived in the empty world that becomes Narnia, why is there GRASS? There wouldn't be grass. Not yet. And it doesn't even match the concept drawing of where they are at that point (presumably) in the movie.

Jadis and her god-awful armour still look god awful. Not a fan.

And on that theme Polly and Digory, while the actors are adorable, still look all wrong in costume like a cross between bargain bin Jill and Eustace and that sketch on YouTube by Dominic Noble.

What I do kind of like: this is confirmation that after Jadis's rampage even though it looks completely different from the book version (with her having magic), they likely end up in the same place (wood between the worlds) and Frank the Cabby and Strawberry are with them. Daniel Craig looks more like I pictured Uncle Andrew here, compared to the last photo, so that's kind of cool.

I like that the second picture looks like it could be in Narnia while they're traveling to get the apple. I wish it had better lighting, but at least part of that journey WAS at night in the book so it's not inaccurate. I also really like Polly's sweater. It looks less cheap than her dress.

Overall I'm glad it's not blatantly bad, like Jadis screaming magic in the streets, Steampunk Andrew, or dino-Aslan-Bowie with scales and feathers. These just seem off/generic, but not horrible like the last ones.

Better.

Kinda.

But not great.

That's my opinion.

Whenever I see BBC Narnia discussed on Reddit or Narniaweb I usually see the focus on the Pevensie-centered stories with heavy emphasis on comparing them (whether favorably or unfavorably) to the Walden films. Sometimes I see someone reminiscing on how much they loved watching BBC LWW on Christmas in the 1980s/1990s growing up, which is always sweet.

But I don't often see Silver Chair discussed on its own, which I think is kind of a shame because imo it was the best one. Despite its low budget, so much of it WORKS. The casting, the dialogue, faithfulness to the original book, pacing, lighting, editing... All really really good! Is it perfect? No. Personally I wish they'd gotten a different actress to play the green witch instead of bringing back the white witch's actress, and I wish the gnomes actually looked like gnomes. But those are such minor gripes, especially taking into account we're in 2026 and this 1990 TV show is the ONLY screen adaptation we've gotten of Silver Chair so far.

It just feels more special the more time passes.

Does anyone else love this one, especially?