S02E19 — The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

We opened the wardrobe and walked straight into a world of epic battles, deep magic, and one extremely dramatic witch. The book gave us cozy allegory and Turkish Delight; the movie gave us slow-mo action and a fur coat budget for days. Join us as we unpack what worked, what didn’t, and why Lucy Pevensie deserves more respect.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The book is a timeless, whimsical journey with British charm, clear moral themes, and just enough magic to make you check your closet twice. The movie captures the big moments beautifully but adds a layer of Hollywood epic that sometimes drowns out the quiet heart of the story.

Donna: It was too hard to decide so I pick both!
– Book Score: 9/10
– Movie Score: 9/10

Rebekah: It was too hard to decide so I pick both!
– Book Score: 8.5/10
– Movie Score: 8.5/10

Josiah: It was too hard to decide so I pick both!
– Book Score: 9/10
– Movie Score 9/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 9/10
– Movie Score 8.5/10

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Full Episode Transcript

Well, welcome to the book is Better Podcast. Uh, we’re a family of four who can’t take anything seriously generally. Uh, and we review book to film adaptations. Oh, do we? And today we do, we do review book to film adaptations. Also, today we’re covering the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which is the first official, uh, book within the Chronicles of Narnia, not including the bull in the form of the Magician’s nephew, which is also great.

Uh, we are gonna be spoiling the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. We’ll probably also be talking about some future parts of, uh, the Chronicles of Narnia, but I doubt that there will be major spoilers for those. Today’s fun fact, as we get to know each other is appropriate as I started to die. It this week.

Thinking of the gooey Turkish delight, Edmond Swoons over, what is your favorite sweet or salty snack? All of them right now, the answer is all of them. Chocolate on pretzels. Um, I really like pretzel chocolate I and Mss, I like peanut m and ms the most. Oh, my name’s Rebecca. I’m the daughter slash sister, but that’s not important right now.

I really like sour Skittles. Um, that’s a big one for me. Just bread, all bread. I want the bread. Red lobsters, cheesy bread. That also is, I want that. So all of those. So my name is Donna 

[00:02:12] Donna: and I am the wife slash mom of our, oh, it’s not a fellowship crud. What are they called? It’s 

[00:02:19] Rebekah: the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve.

I’m a daughter 

[00:02:22] Donna: of Eve. I’m one of the daughters of Eve. Okay. And I really am actually That’s true. Oh, that’s, that’s. Profound anyway. Okay. Yeah. So, uh, I, for the past almost two years have not had a sugary dessert. So I found interesting other alternatives that are non, not white sugar, but sugar substitute or whatever.

And one, I guess it is considered a snack. I found a lifesaver, no sugar, orange, immense, let me tell you. They’re so good. I love them. And, um, I found a few other non unsweet things that I’ve really loved, a salty snack. I love bugles. I like regular bugles and I like nacho cheese Bugles. So, there you go. 

[00:03:13] Tim: Well, my name is Tim and I have two that I can’t keep in the house because if I do, I can’t avoid them.

Chili cheese, Fritos, the salty snack and peanut butter, m and ms. The sweet. I cannot keep them near me. I eat the entire bag. 

[00:03:31] Donna: Rebecca and I shared that, you know, part of our journey, healthy stuff we’re doing. What about you? Share a little bit about what you’re doing. Just a little sentence. Well, 

[00:03:39] Tim: I’m, I’m losing weight, so, and I’m exercising.

I came back from a missions trip and realized I was not physically prepared for that missions trip, and so I will be physically capable for the next one. 

[00:03:52] Rebekah: Well, I’m, I’m proud of you and I believe that’s true also. You’re already the skinny one, so I’m a little bit jealous, but That’s okay. That’s okay. We don’t talk about it.

[00:04:00] Tim: That’s okay. After. After losing a significant amount of weight several years ago. I’ve hep it off until this last January when I gained 10 pounds. Oh God. And we need to go 

[00:04:11] Donna: onto to TJ now. I 

[00:04:12] Tim: know. I know, I know. But I couldn’t get it off, but I finally did, so I’m very grateful. 

[00:04:16] Donna: Poor, poor. Hundred 97 pound Tim.

Old man Timmy. My gosh. I love it. He walks around sweaty now, so that’s pretty cool. 

[00:04:29] Josiah: Ice. I’m King Josiah, the just, and I’m not a huge fan of snacks. I do snack, but I remember snacking a lot more when I was younger for one, I. Love Pop-Tarts. I can eat a lot of brown sugar, cinnamon Pop-Tarts, toasted and uncosted.

Both are delicious in different ways. I love Oreos, but they just get stuck in your teeth and, and Butterfinger similar. And it’s getting point Butter fingers and 

[00:05:02] Rebekah: Oreos, all Oreos. D it’s not worth 

[00:05:03] Josiah: it. 

[00:05:04] Rebekah: Milk. 

[00:05:05] Josiah: It’s not worth it to me anymore. So I occasionally I’ll get them in like a milkshake, but I don’t really eat milkshakes more than like three times a year.

I might get some sort of milkshake at Steak and shake or cookout or something with a lactate. But I, I, I really enjoy Pop-Tarts. I really enjoy tortilla chips that have lime zest on them. 

[00:05:27] Rebekah: Oh my gosh. Ugh. 

[00:05:29] Josiah: I used to for years, I would always have 

[00:05:33] Donna: baby listener. Rebecca, it sounds like we’re doing a podcast 

[00:05:38] Tim: for a book, 

[00:05:39] Donna: very different type of podcast for a cookbook.

[00:05:42] Tim: A cookbook made into a movie. It’s 

[00:05:44] Donna: interesting that we went this direction and for one reason only the scene of Edmond Eating those Turkish delights, it’s famous in the sled, is this. It’s this famous thing that you remember. He is so like overwhelmed by these, and it is the nastiest looking thing I’ve ever seen.

I’ve 

[00:06:03] Tim: despise gum. Oh, I think they’re good. I despise gum. It looks gross. Delight. I actually like Turkish delight. 

[00:06:10] Rebekah: Oh, why don’t you tell us what happens in this story, Josiah, so that we can, well, it’s all about 

[00:06:14] Josiah: Tur delight, I’ll tell you. Are you sure? It’s a 

[00:06:17] Rebekah: little 

[00:06:17] Josiah: bit of that. Yeah. That’s just Edmond.

There’s actually four PEs children. 

[00:06:21] Rebekah: We should we just talk about all of the food they eat in the, 

[00:06:25] Josiah: it’s a new podcast we talk about, 

[00:06:27] Rebekah: we 

[00:06:28] Josiah: talk about movies and the food they eat. We talk about food to snack adaptations, actually. So there’s actually four ency children, not just Edmund, with his Turkish delight.

They visit the country home of an enigmatic professor to escape the ills of war in their hometown of London. They’re the youngest Lucy who has great teeth. Discovers a magical kingdom of winter behind a wardrobe and meets the fawn, Mr. Toni, who nearly betrays her to the evil white witch, the false queen of Narnia, who has made it always winter and never Christmas.

The other siblings eventually join the journey to this magical country. Although Edmund, their youngest brother, has allied with the white witch. With the help of the good creatures of Narnia and the true king Aslan, the children defeat the white witch and set right. All that has been lost as spring comes yet again.

They are crowned the kings and queens of Narnia and grow much older before once again, discovering a mysterious lamppost and the doorway that brought them to Narnia. As they exit the wardrobe, they find themselves children. Once again, 

[00:07:49] Rebekah: let’s get into some changes between this relatively short book and the adaptation for it, which was really long.

Yeah. It, not necessarily a bad thing, but it was over 

[00:08:00] Josiah: two hours. 

[00:08:01] Rebekah: I was surprised. I thought it was under two. Yeah. Uh, so we’d break these up into setting plot and timeline changes and then characterization changes. The only real setting change is that we see the war torn city of London, the train the children ride to the professor’s home and a stop or two along the way.

Um, everything else in the film is pretty much what we. See from the book originally. So there’s probably a couple of little things about different places in the forest or something. But the river, we’ll get 

[00:08:29] Josiah: to that. There’s, yeah, 

[00:08:30] Rebekah: there’s like very little in the way of actual setting changes. And so we’re gonna jump straight into how the plot and timeline changed.

Mm-hmm. 

[00:08:38] Tim: Okey dokey. Well, whereas the book starts at the beginning of the children’s visit to a house in the country, the film begins as the mother gets the kids out of bed while air raid sirens sound and planes drop ordinances. Edmund runs back into the house to grab his father’s portrait and he nearly gets himself killed before Peter rescues him.

The mother also sees them off at the train station and that is different. That’s a little bit more backstory. 

[00:09:03] Josiah: Okay. Rebecca, how much do you hate Edmond? 

[00:09:07] Rebekah: He’s a terrible, horrible, I can’t seeand him from step one so deeply. Did you flirt? He so wonderfully. Why do you love horrible things? 

[00:09:15] Donna: Did you think part of the purpose maybe of the scene was to show you right at the beginning Edmond’s not unfeeling or uncaring?

Yeah, he, he, he’s overwhelmed by his dad’s good. You know, absence. And I wondered if that was part of why they added it, because I don’t think it was bad they added it. I liked the scene. Yeah, it was brief, but it told you a lot of stuff was 

[00:09:37] Rebekah: action. It really did feel nice to drop straight into action. I think they were trying to make you a little more fond of Edmond.

Because to be totally honest without it, it’s like Edmond just kind of sucks like a lot. I 

[00:09:49] Tim: think there’s an, there’s another purpose for that particular change, adding that at the beginning this movie was released what, in 2005 something in the early two thousands. Mm-hmm. And very few people have any real clue about London and the Blitz during World War ii.

Yeah. Where Germany was close enough and powerful enough Yeah. To continually bomb. Biggest city in all of England. So it, it sets up the danger, it sets up this thing that a lot of people in modern, in the modern day world have very little concept of. Yeah. It gives the urgency of why a parent would send their children Yeah.

To this mansion out in the country. Yeah. And it gives more context to that because Lewis knew that everybody reading the book knew that. Well, contemporary knew that. Right. But those watching a movie are like, well, why are they sending them on a vacation to the country? 

[00:10:45] Rebekah: I think that it makes sense. I like the opening scene being this way.

I also think that they tried to build a little more foreshadowing in potentially, but Peter and Edmond. Have a strained relationship in the movie and it’s more pronounced in the movie than it was in the book. I think like they don’t make as big of a deal about it in the book in the same way where, you know, he’s talking about how like, you know, you’re not my dad and he like, Edmund gets mad that Peter tries to be a father figure and, and all of this stuff.

And a lot of it comes from Edmund missing their absent father because he’s at war and blah, blah blah. And so I think that whereas the book actually foreshadows what I believe happens in later books because Lucy, I isn’t it, Lucy says in the book to Edmond, like, you’re finally so much back to yourself, more than I’ve seen in years since you were in that school.

And she mentions like the school experience he had that changed him. And so like she calls back to something and I think they talk about that in wage of the Don Treader, maybe, I don’t remember. It’s one of the books that Edmond comes back in and um, so I think in this movie they were trying to like build in some foreshadowing just.

For the movie where there’s this like big strain between Peter and Edmond, that’s like ongoing, but I don’t think that that was in the book and I think it was a good add to the movie, like it felt appropriate. 

[00:11:59] Donna: Well, not long after they go from their London home to the castle with the professor and the first time that Lucy finds Narnia in the novel, the four children are exploring the house and she walked into the wardrobe as they were leaving the room.

But in the film, she discovers the wardrobe in is a magical country during a game of hiden seek. In both cases, however, she is confused at the fact that no time passes from the time she enters the wardrobe and the time she comes out and then the rest of the children check to see that there’s nothing odd with the wardrobe.

I did like the hide and seek angle. 

[00:12:38] Rebekah: And the book uses hide and seek, but at a different point. 

[00:12:40] Donna: Yes. And and I like the way that, you know, she runs out being, she’s just sure they will be furious with her. And it kind of reminds you that Lucy is, she’s adventurous, but she’s also concerned about everyone you know, and she runs out and then Edmond’s like, what are you doing?

He’s gonna find us. And that whole scene I thought was. Was super effective. I thought it was. I thought that was a, a pretty cool way to, to work through it. 

[00:13:07] Rebekah: In the film, as Lucy Falls to sleep, while Mr. Tums is playing, uh, some music for her, we briefly see Aslan’s face show up in the fire mm-hmm. As she’s kind of watching little magical creatures and things.

And we notice Mr. Tum seeing Aslan’s face Dryads 

[00:13:23] Tim: and Yeah. 

[00:13:23] Rebekah: Uh, 

[00:13:24] Tim: the Centar. 

[00:13:24] Rebekah: And I thought it was interesting. I read a couple places that this seems to be like a sign that Aslan was trying to warn the fawn against his plans to kidnap Lucy and turn her into the white witch. So this isn’t specifically in the book, but I did think it was a, a good, it was kind of like something you could totally see happening in the context of the book, and I thought it was a really, a good little add-on.

[00:13:44] Josiah: Okay. I love how Mr. Tums is immediately endeared to the audience as complex character of trying to follow the rules. Of his evil monarch. ’cause he never thought that he would have to do anything bad. He is like, oh yeah, if I ever see a person like a human being, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll kidnap him. Yeah, 

[00:14:02] Tim: sure. That’s her law.

But who has to take care of that? Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:14:05] Josiah: And then to see the conflict in his heart. ’cause we don’t see Tums very much in the movie. He has three scenes in the book. He might have two scenes if that. I does. He comes back at the end. Does he? Mr. Mni. Okay. So in the film he, he comes back and he has a little scene with Edmund in the middle, in the prison.

But we don’t see much of Mr. Mni and in the little bit we see immediately he is such a captivating character and we feel that he does not want to follow his orders because now he’s met Lucy and their friends. And it also adds a little tension and it adds complexity to this character. I just think Mr.

Tni is a great edition and it’s in book and movie. 

[00:14:54] Rebekah: I like. I like him. It annoys me that he wants to betray Lucy, but oh my 

[00:14:59] Josiah: goodness, you don’t have stories if you don’t have conflict. 

[00:15:03] Donna: But let me say this about him. Everybody else we encounter throughout the story until you get into the land of Narnia and after the snow and all that, and when things are green again, everybody you meet in the beginning is a very significant part of this.

But Mr. Nus is just an innocent. Fawn. And he’s a, he’s not a strong fawn because he is terrified of the queen. He’s not like this prominent, you know, determined character. Like even the beavers, the beavers are very resolute and things like that. But yeah, he, he, he comes home from 

[00:15:41] Tim: shopping. She just passes him and he’s 

[00:15:43] Donna: shopping on his way to go home.

And I think that’s great. And they, James Voy again, casting, casting, casting. I 

[00:15:51] Tim: can’t believe this is what I thought. And that was his big break. 

[00:15:53] Donna: Yes. And he, 

[00:15:55] Tim: and isn’t that amazing at the, the tiny bit of springtime and he 

[00:15:58] Donna: immediately won you over and he, he’s very believable as just completely falling for Lucy’s innocence and just loving her, you know, seeing that she’s this beautiful person.

I mean, it’s just, it’s, yeah, I mean, it’s just great. 

[00:16:14] Josiah: And you know who else, this was their big break. Tilda Swinton. 

[00:16:17] Tim: Yes. I remember, I, I made the comment when we were watching the film again this last week when she first comes on the screen, we all looked at that and said, wow, what amazing makeup that makes her look so pale.

And then we find that that’s her. This way. They barely had to do anything. 

[00:16:36] Donna: Um, also another, um, another debut. It was Georgie Henley’s debut. Lucy pe It’s her first. Oh yeah. The famous Georgie 

[00:16:44] Josiah: Henley. 

[00:16:45] Donna: Guess what else? She’s in the Unaired Game of Thrones prequel plot. Hmm. That’s interesting. 

[00:16:51] Josiah: Yes. Uh, Tilda soon when we meet the white witch on her sledge in both book and film.

Edmond is seduced by Turkish delight, magically created from a little magic, evil potion in the snow. And I love Edmond. I love the, the traitor who’s redeemed. I love that trope and that character arc in shows and TV and, and movies. And I think that my love of that trope started with this movie, watching it.

I’m like, I think this is the first time I ever engaged with that. Trope and it was so evil of Edmonds to come out of Narnia and then say that Lucy was lying in the book. Even the book added that was such a sad, sad thing. Now you’re, what you are about to read is the worst thing that happens in the whole book.

And it, it’s, and it’s Edmond lying about Lucy, about seeing Narnia. And it’s like later in this book, Jesus is murdered 

[00:17:55] Tim: as Lynn. But yeah. Oh no. Okay. Interestingly enough, CS Lewis, a professing Christian cleverly used a Tri Lima as the basis for Lucy’s siblings deciding whether to believe her story about entering Narnia through the wardrobe.

Was she dishonest, mad, or to deranged or being truthful? A ama defined as a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between three alternatives. In Christianity, a Tri Lima posits the choices of Jesus. Being either a lunatic, liar or Lord, or mad bad or God. So Lewis wanted to use that. 

[00:18:36] Donna: I found it interesting, like I had never heard the word trimmer before, but I mean, all throughout my adult life since, well, since I became a Christian, I’ve heard that argument before about Jesus.

You know? Mm-hmm. Either you believe every, it’s not an either or. Yeah. It’s, it can’t be either or. You can’t say, well, I think he’s good, or, I think he’s, I thought he, he was a good teacher, which there are many that like revere him like that, but they can’t see him as savior or son of God. And, and I, so I thought it was interesting to read this in the book and then him specifically use it in the scene with the professor saying, look, is she normally truthful?

Who? Who’s the more truthful of the two? Oh, so’s normally the one 

[00:19:22] Tim: that’s more truthful. Yeah. Oh, well, no, as a matter of fact, he’s not. I 

[00:19:24] Donna: love the way they, they put it together. I thought it was really awesome. 

[00:19:28] Rebekah: So after all of the four children find themselves in Narnia, they discovered Tum This’s home has been ransacked.

They also then hear about the prophecy and Aslan on the move from Mr. And Mrs. Beaver side note, every time somebody says Aslan is on the move, I tear up like I get very emotional. Edmund then runs away during their dinner together to follow through on his promise to find who he calls the Queen, and who they call the white witch and the false queen, whatever.

In the film, the children chase Edmond far enough to see the actual castle of the white witch before agreeing to find Aslan and rescue their brother, rather than going back to, you know, their home outside of the wardrobe, which they did want to do at the time in the book. The children don’t chase ’em as much.

They don’t see the castle until later. And then instead they just set off with haste from the beaver’s home, which I thought I, it was cool to see the castle actually. 

[00:20:19] Josiah: I think it’s funny, we say with haste, there was haste. But Mrs. Beaver, I mean in the movie too, but especially in the book, she was like, we’re not leaving without a spatula.

Let me get my wisk, let me get my 

[00:20:33] Tim: jam. I need all of these things. We cannot be caught without them. So funny. It is funny. 

[00:20:40] Rebekah: She’s a very charming character, just in general and voiced by, 

[00:20:43] Tim: and I love Dawn French. Dawn French, yeah. Voicing. Voicing Mrs. Beaver. She does a beautiful job in in that. And there again, I think they did an excellent job in the movie of taking, talking animals, farfetched concepts.

So farfetched that the Lord of the Rings, remember they wouldn’t use talking animals ’cause he thought it would be silly. Mm-hmm. But it’s so farfetched. And yet right off the bat you believe that you believe them, you’re endeared to them. I mean, you know, Mrs. Beaver is concerned that her fur’s not quite as.

That was so precious. She be right now and, oh, you’re beautiful the way you are. It, you know, I would’ve given you warning if I thought it would’ve helped. That’s a husband kind of thing to say, but they’re very endearing and it’s like you just, you just think that they’re real very quickly. Mm-hmm. Very easily.

[00:21:36] Josiah: Are we not gonna mention the movie Only in Line when they meet the Beavers for the first time and they’re confused and they don’t know whether they’re good or bad? Peter says they, but they say they know Aslan and Susan says The Beavers. They shouldn’t be saying anything. I would love that. It’s good.

Everyone didn’t. That’s a good one. Yeah. I laughed a lot at that one. Yeah. That’s iconic to me. 

[00:22:00] Tim: Yeah. 

[00:22:01] Donna: Yeah, it’s, I think it’s pretty cool though that that is film 

[00:22:03] Tim: only. 

[00:22:04] Donna: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:07] Tim: Good touch. 

[00:22:08] Donna: Now the film, uh, also adds a narrow escape on the beavers and children’s way to find Aslan that isn’t in the books.

Fox leads the group some of the way and is surrounded and actually hurt by a group of wolves while the rest of them kind of have to watch him from, from up in a tree, which is really harrowing. I, I liked the tension in that scene. He’s hurt by this group of wolves, including the quote unquote chief of police as he lies about the human’s location to the wolves.

And, you know, I thought of Josiah, this is a very wild robot coded, um, great emphasizing of a fox. Mm-hmm. Um, 

[00:22:51] Josiah: yeah. It’s funny that we, that it keeps happening. I feel like it’s not the only two times when we’ve added a fox. 

[00:22:57] Rebekah: Mm-hmm. Interesting. 

[00:22:59] Tim: So Fox is not part of the book? No. Oh, 

[00:23:02] Josiah: there’s surely a fox somewhere, but not in, not mentioned.

No. Yeah. You know who is in the book and movie? Who? 

[00:23:09] Donna: Oh, 

[00:23:09] Josiah: Saint Nick. Hey. 

[00:23:10] Donna: Woohoo. 

[00:23:11] Josiah: Saint Nick. Uh, 

[00:23:12] Donna: is that what his name is? I can’t, I don’t, 

[00:23:14] Josiah: no. In the book, father Christmas tells both Lucy and Susan that they won’t fight in the battle to come. He does not repeat this in the film, but he does make the comment to Lucy that battles are ugly affairs.

[00:23:28] Donna: I also like the visual of Father Christmas in the movie. They did not make him this mall Santa with the very white beard and the very white mustache we got against small Santas. Well, I didn’t say I had anything against them, uh, but I, I did like the fact that the way they depicted Father Christmas, I thought that was British.

Pretty cool. Very, it, it is. But I thought, I just really liked the way it just maintained the visual. Effects of the film. Mm-hmm. 

[00:23:58] Josiah: So did we not share with mom our findings that 100% of our audience are mall Santa?

We need a wider audience, guys. 

[00:24:09] Donna: I am getting a little alternate 

[00:24:10] Josiah: joke, alternate joke, uh, Darth Mall. Santa

[00:24:18] Donna: well already had to be. We’re 

[00:24:19] Tim: reaching even farther back. The film adds a scene in which the beavers, Lucy. Peter and Susan must cross a dam. As the ice over it quickly melts. They ride a patch of ice down the river before coming out to a patch of wood. Fast turning to spring. This isn’t in the book, although they do note several times on their journey, the signs of spring coming.

Mm-hmm. This was an addition for the film to give it a little bit more action, and we get a little bit more of the wolves as well. I think 

[00:24:51] Rebekah: in general, there are just several points at which the film decided, hey, the book as is, is like very not action packed, like we’ll talk about later. Mm-hmm. Like some of the biggest action scenes in the film on the, like, we’re not on page in the book at all.

We just like hear about them. Later in 

[00:25:08] Tim: the book. There was a battle, blah, blah, blah, and Josiah goes, goes on from, yeah, 

[00:25:11] Rebekah: Josiah talked several times. In other movies that we’ve discussed, where a lot of times things in the book where you’ve got really interesting, like internal monologue or where something is interesting to read, it’s just not gonna be interesting on screen if you don’t insert some action.

Now sometimes it’s done really poorly, like in Harry Potter, um, the final movie. But in this case, I think that that was a good example of like, I had, I don’t remember, I don’t think I had read the book before, the first time I saw this movie. And like you said, we saw BBC versions growing up. So it’s like I knew about the story, but I would say like, unlike some egregious uses of this concept, like in the Harry Potter thing I just mentioned, unlike that, it felt very much like I could just believe that this happened in the book and I had to figure out if it happened in the book as I was reading.

Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:55] Tim: You 

[00:25:55] Rebekah: know, so, 

[00:25:55] Tim: right. It didn’t seem to stick out like a sore thumb definitely fit just fine. 

[00:25:58] Donna: Well, another Harry Potter comparison would be, dad, always, this is such an issue for him. They changed the seasons in one of the first few movies. They changed the seasons by Hedwig flying off in the current season and flying back.

And it’s a new season and the trees are, it’s not snowing anymore. The trees are green and that drives dad crazy. It’s like, it’s just such a weird, it’s too subtle transition. But this, they’d mentioned when the daughters of Eve and the Sons of Adam came and things would begin to change. And then you see Father Christmas, the winter, and then you have this next scene, which I agree is, is an a.

An appropriate use of action. And it’s ex, it’s exciting. Mm-hmm. It’s tense, um, and all those things, but then you gradually see, oh look, it’s the snow is melting. Yeah. Context. So it was a really cool, uh, it was, it was a very good choice, I think. Great editing choice or writing choice 

[00:26:54] Tim: at that point. I want to say the special effects were really great.

This, this movie is 20 years old or so. There’s a lot of technology. There were a few, there were a few places that I noticed on our big HD screen that didn’t quite hold up so well, but the vast majority of the special effects were mm-hmm. Amazing. Including Beaver Beavers be, well, the beavers, yeah. Are great.

They’re fur moved, you know, hair by hair kind of thing. And Aslan that we’ll talk about, I’m sure. Amazing. But. When the flowers began to bloom on the trees, I’ve seen that kind of effect done. And I don’t remember if it was before or since then, but it still holds up. It looks mm-hmm. Very believable. Yeah.

As you begin to see the pink flowers begin to bloom and the ice begin to melt and it’s just so well done, even this many years later, it still looks great, most of the places. 

[00:27:55] Rebekah: So another change. Speaking of someone who has great special effects, uh, Lucy and Susan stay with Aslan. Okay. Wait, hold on. I’m sure that most people listening to this have probably watched the movie at the very least, but I do just wanna clarify that there’s like all, it basically stays the same between the book and the movie, but as the children reach the area where the stone table may be and the point at which they’re going to approach this battle with the white witches army.

The white witch demands like Edmund’s blood in return for his betrayal and, uh, mentions the deep magic. Oh my gosh. One of my favorite lines of this entire thing is when Aslan says, do not speak of the deep magic to me. Which for I was there when it was written, and I just wanna like cheer, like I get so excited.

She sits back at, she sits back in the chair. 

[00:28:43] Donna: It’s 

[00:28:43] Rebekah: a great, great, it’s wonder response. Um, and so then she, and essentially she and Alan meet. And what we discover, you know, through watching it unfold is that Alan offers his own life in exchange for Edmund so that the white witch does not get to take control of Narnia.

You know, he surrenders himself. He’s tied to a table, the, the stone table specifically, and he allows himself to be killed. And as she’s about to kill him, she like whispers to him that essentially he has saved no one because how is he to guarantee that she won’t just kill Edmund and take over Narnia anyway after he died?

So Lucy and Susan had heard Aslan leaving the camp, uh, and follow him and watch from a distance as all of this happens. So they’re the only two on the good side other than Aslan that observe like this entire thing. So all of that plays out in the film, essentially the same as the book. Obviously some lines and stuff are different, but that’s normal.

So then the change we get is that Lucy is Lucy and Susan in both works, stay with Aslan until he’s brought back from the dead, after which he runs them to the witches castle to awaken the statues, which I think we’ll talk about briefly later. In the film, we see an extended battle scene kind of in the middle of this.

And so we, like, we watch the girls in Aslan and then we don’t really know where they’re going. When he, uh, which does happen. This is like the next part of the story. He raises it from the dead, uh, because there is a magic even older than the deep magic the witch knew and she didn’t understand that if a, an innocent person surrenders his life in the stead of a traitor, that death itself will work in reverse, I believe is how it’s.

Worded so freaking good. 

[00:30:19] Tim: Mm-hmm. But in the movie, just a tiny connection before you get to the mm-hmm. That other part in all of that do, do you, I, I don’t know if I really thought about it as much the first time, but do you realize the stone table, when it breaks, that it, as land has offered himself on the stone table and that.

So like the 10 Commandments. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, that he’s offered his mm-hmm. You know, Jesus offered his life, uh, and it’s just amazing that he completed the 10 Commandments. Yeah. And all the prophets fulfilled them all, and the prophets fulfill, he fulfilled them. Uh, and all of that was broken. It’s just a powerful love it moment fulfill when that breaks.

And it’s like, you know, this isn’t subtle. Well, and it feels 

[00:30:59] Rebekah: too, like it also represents like the, you know, the veil of the temple being torn into mm-hmm. Yeah. That’s, that’s what I think of. That’s what comes to mind for sure. Yeah. 

[00:31:06] Donna: But also the, but also the stone being rolled away from the tomb. Mm-hmm.

Where Mary and Martha. Come and, or Mary comes and finds it in scripture. In this case, Lucy and Susan had turned away, heard the noise, and then they go back and they do, similar to what Mary did when she saw that the stone right away from the tomb. They’re like, where is he? Oh no. What have you done with him?

Who, where has he gone? And so, uh, again, you know, and back in talk of, we’re gonna bring this up, I’m sure more and more how Lewis was a Christian and this, this allegory was just such a. A poignant thing and let me say thank you, Disney for not completely destroyed it. Trying to be true to the original.

[00:31:51] Rebekah: Well, and I think that the thing that stood out to me in the book, which I like from the book’s perspective, is that instead of all of the other stuff going on behind the scenes, we follow Aslan. ’cause at this point we realize mm-hmm. That like what he is doing is the thing that will revive like the, the land of Narnia.

And so it’s interesting ’cause we don’t see all of this other stuff that feels extraneous. It’s like whatever Aslan is doing, we wanna follow like what is happening. So 

[00:32:17] Donna: yes, I think that is very true. That’s a very good point. Um, a little bit of trivia here. Um, in the scene where Susan and Lucy are grieving over Aslan at the stone table and a popplewell who, who was portrayed Susan was so afraid of mice, they had to use a body double in any part where mice were involved in the scene.

Real mice. I thought that was interesting. Were there real mice? Wow. 

[00:32:42] Tim: Well, there had to, had to have been some, I suppose if they, or maybe she was, that freaked, freaked out of the 

[00:32:47] Donna: fakes that fake that she just couldn’t even 

[00:32:50] Josiah: have the idea of mice. I just didn’t, C-C-G-I-I, 

[00:32:54] Donna: I just thought the mice were CGI.

Right. 

[00:32:56] Josiah: Yeah. Some of them, maybe she doesn’t understand what CGI means 

[00:33:01] Tim: in 

[00:33:01] Josiah: my presence. 

[00:33:02] Donna: Right. 

[00:33:03] Josiah: Also, dad. Yeah. As the theologian, what are the mice, um, eating up the restraints? What does that represent in the Bible? 

[00:33:11] Tim: Hmm. I’m not sure. Genuinely, I’m not sure except that all of creation groans under the weight of sin, and so all of creation rejoices.

Um, that, that may actually have been the tearing of the veil more than anything. 

[00:33:29] Rebekah: I looked it up. I was curious. So the mice, after Aslan was bound by ropes and killed by the white witch. Mice chewed through ropes, which bound Aslan these mice and their descendants became talking mice as a reward for this kindness.

The Warrior Mouse reap Aachi is likely a descendant. Descendant. And so they, what he’s basically saying is, the use of mice by Lewis is a reference to the beatitudes, blessed or the meek for they shall inherit the Earth. 

[00:33:55] Josiah: Gotcha. Meek is, it is another pronunciation of mice. 

[00:34:00] Tim: It’s also when the mice began to speak mm-hmm.

Ache talks about that. Mm. That’s, that’s when he granted it. Yeah. So 

[00:34:08] Rebekah: that looks like it’s essentially, essentially just a symbolism of that, that thing. 

[00:34:12] Tim: I am, I, I’m pleased, uh, director Adamson, well, I don’t know what his first name is. Um, 

[00:34:19] Donna: I think it’s Adam. I’m not positive. I’ll look. Could 

[00:34:22] Tim: be. Um, I think he did a really good job and I think he was, I think he was true to the source material, which is always a big deal.

But he wanted Lucy to reach out and touch Aslan, so he refused to use a real lion for the film. They rendered each frame of that shot. It took close to 10 hours to capture, capture the moment, which included 5.2 million individual hairs on Aslan’s coat or mane. They couldn’t use a real lion because she couldn’t have touched a real lion.

What wanted child labor 

[00:35:01] Josiah: laws? The government overreach, some 

[00:35:03] Tim: kind of, you know. Yeah, health and safety might have been a problem. 

[00:35:07] Josiah: That’s crazy. That’s a crazy amount of time. This is really great effects for the, for the 2005 especially. 

[00:35:14] Rebekah: And can I make the comment? It was funny, Nathan watched the movie with us the other day and he said, wow, the special effects actually are really good for how old this movie is like, and how much things have come past this.

Mm-hmm. He said, I guess that makes sense as to why people make fun of the New Lion King movie. That came out like last year because it was so bad. But this movie actually holds up 20 years later. 

[00:35:33] Tim: I thought that was funny. Remember in the Lord of the Rings, um. Jackson was absolutely adamant that every character have a full costume.

When we’re talking about warriors and things like that, they don’t have just a costume, plastic, pleather, whatever on the outside and wear whatever they wear underneath. He wanted everything to be as authentic as possible, and when they hef it a sword, it needed to be made of metal. Uh, he wanted it to be authentic and took the time and spent the money.

Um, not everyone is willing to do that. Especially when a theater says, or a, a production company says, Hey, if we double the advertising budget Yeah. And cut the CGI budget in half. Mm-hmm. We think we can do better. Well, you get a result. 

[00:36:21] Donna: Yeah. That shows that Related to this specific film, Lewis, in the nineties, people were asking, were trying to get film rights, trying to get him to sign over film rights for this.

In a movies.com article I read where Lewis, before he died, had been asked about film rights. It was early on. He died. You know, we know he died, I think we just said in the sixties. And one of his concerns was the part human, part animal characters could never be well portrayed. And that was important to him.

Well, his, uh, stepson George Gresham continued, uh, as, uh, you know, he was handling, of course handling a lot of his estate. He wanted to stay with that. He, he said he, he never, he didn’t think in the nineties come forward, you know, 30 years that they could depict this well enough. But they, once they showed him.

What they could do with computer graphics tech. He said, okay, I’ll, I’ll go with it. And I think he ends up, he’s the co-producer, I think maybe better be of the film. He is a part of the film and had a lot of say so in it. But I just thought it was interesting that that particular thing was important enough to Lewis that his stepson would say, okay.

I’m gonna preserve that. I thought that was pretty cool. As we are remarking, you know, we, how impressed we were with the, with the graphics and the CGI. 

[00:37:51] Rebekah: Fun fact, uh, Douglas Gresham, who was the co-producer and the stepson, he is the radio announcer at the start of the film. That’s pretty cool. Oh, 

[00:38:01] Josiah: well, you know, talking, speaking of action, the film does add a huge amount of battle to the climax and related scenes around the battle that we never see in the book.

We hear about some of them, but Film Lucy. Sends word to Peter of Aslan’s death, but the book timeline does not require any such message. 

[00:38:20] Rebekah: I do love, I thought that was so good. ’cause it’s one of those things that feels like it fits. ’cause they’ve talked about the trees, like some of the trees are for her.

Mm-hmm. And it was kind of cool to see it on screen them, like passing a message along. Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:32] Josiah: Using, using the magic that they’ve heard about. I thought that was fine. So in the movie we see a lot of the battle that’s taking place while Alan is being resurrected and gathering up the resurrected creatures from the white witches courtyard handled very quickly in the movie compared to the book, I thought the book took its time to show this and that, uh, in the book we follow Aslan.

Doing all these things. And when he gets to Peter, the battle is already in the in media rest. It’s happening and Aslan ends it. Mm-hmm. And then Peter kind of talks about the battle in retrospect, but of course in the film we see the battle while we also are cutting back and forth to Aslan, for instance, we actually see El Edmond in the film break the witch’s wand and get stagnated 

[00:39:20] Rebekah: using her gift from Father Christmas.

Lucy heals Edmond from his mortal wounds in both the book and the film. I thought that was a really cool callback, like to why Father Christmas gave her this gift of the something fire of something. I don’t remember what it was called exactly. Um, in the film, Aslan nudges her to notice the other wounded and she gets to tending them right away and the scene fades out at that point.

In the book though, there’s a small but impactful line that gets cut from the movie, but I really thought as a book line, it was really good. Aslan asks Lucy. How many more must die on Edmund’s account and that line, not just that she noticed the fallen on the battlefield ’cause she’d already seen them at this point and chosen not to get up, is what causes her to get up, find and heal all of the soldiers that she can.

I thought that was really poignant because it is like, Aslan isn’t forgetting the fact that he, like he stepped in and helped, you know, he sacrificed his own self, but also watched other people sacrifice themselves for Edmond. And like, it’s not that he hasn’t forgiven Edmond or anything like that, but it’s just a reminder that like the realities of this is that this war happened because of this one person and there have already been enough to die and I know that you wanna sit here with your brother, but right now your brother’s fine.

Like you need to go and help the other people so that more don’t die on his account. You know? I thought that was just a really. It was very poignant, 

[00:40:42] Donna: but I think that’s, that’s a very consistent, uh, characterization of Lucy though all through the book. She’s concerned about other people and as passionate as she is about her family and she loves them, she, she will never give up trying to get Edmund to let him hug her or let you know.

And, and you can see that with tum ness. And she’s just, she has this passion and I love that about her character all the way through. Do you 

[00:41:08] Tim: remember the name that, that, uh, Aslan gives her at the end? Queen Lucy. The, they, they all have a, a, the behind it grave. Maybe I don’t, I don’t know. Uh, I was trying, I was trying to remember.

[00:41:21] Donna: Valiant. 

[00:41:22] Tim: Valiant. 

[00:41:23] Donna: Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. That’s good. Speaking of the coronation, it is not described in great detail in the book, in the film, we see Mr. Tni placing the crowns on the heads of the four new members of royalty, 

[00:41:38] Tim: which are given to him by Mr. And Mrs. Beaver. 

[00:41:41] Donna: Yes. Um, but he, he puts them on the heads of the four children.

Uh, and there’s a few lines from Alan that do come from the book about wearing the crowns as, uh, wearing the crowns well, and that a queen or a king or queen of Narnia will always be. So, uh, I loved this scene in the. I did not think they took too much time and drug it out, because like we said, it’s the movie almost.

Um, it’s about an hour shorter than the whole book. So it’s like, I, I felt like adding this was important. I felt like having ness there to make that connection with, by connecting him again. Um, even like I talked about him being before just a simple creature who was not of huge character, of huge bravery or some other characteristic, but to see him get to be a part of this at the end I thought was lovely.

So, 

[00:42:41] Tim: comparing that to another film, how do, how do you think it compares to a similar scene at the end of the very first Star Wars movie? It came to be known Star Wars, A New Hope. It was, 

[00:42:56] Donna: Hmm. 

[00:42:56] Tim: You know, yes, it was episode four. 

[00:42:58] Donna: I mean, very similar. They have, I hate to admit that I don’t remember enough to tell you what I think.

Yeah. Who puts the, who puts the Josiah things on them, 

[00:43:08] Tim: man, MOBA. Well, it’s, it’s Princess Leia that, that places the, the, um, medallions. She’s, because she’s already the Princess Royal, she’s already royalty royal. She places the medallions around the next, but not on Chewbacca because he’s too tall. Boo justice for Chewbacca.

But 

[00:43:28] Donna: yeah, I think it’s a, um, this is understated more than that scene in Star Wars. 

[00:43:35] Tim: I, I think the one in, in, uh, I think the one in Star Wars seems to be a little more awkward to me. Uh, speaking of one that’s, that’s awkward. There is also a similar scene at the end of Star Trek, the undiscovered country, where they all end up being, uh, applauded and awarded basically for saving the galaxy once again.

[00:43:58] Donna: And then of course, we have the famous scene at the end of Return of the King. Where 

[00:44:04] Tim: the 

[00:44:04] Donna: coronation king is crowned, but then that has the added element of him kneeling before the four. Right. The hobbits kneel and he said before the hobbits, right, you don’t kneel. Have to kneel before. Please have to. I’ve cried enough this week.

Let’s just move on Past that scene, I mean, 

[00:44:18] Tim: all of those, all of those are those moments where the audience is rewarded. You know? We get to see the good guys rewarded for being the good guys. Yeah, and I think it’s, I think it’s a pleasing kind of trope, so, 

[00:44:34] Josiah: well, during the feast. And award ceremony after the coronation, Lucy notices Aslan leaving for good or so.

It seems in the film it’s Mr. Tum Ness who lets her know that he will one day return and not to worry. In the book, it’s Mr. Beaver. Who offers this comfort? I did not remember that change. Mr. Mr. 

[00:44:55] Tim: McAvoy probably needed a little bit more. Mm-hmm. To say he was he new. Yeah. Mr. Beaver had 

[00:45:01] Josiah: plenty of screen time.

Sure. He had his little bow and arrow during the battle. 

[00:45:06] Rebekah: This, and Tums like crowning them, felt like a good way to make sure that in the movie, that his character felt as impactful as the Beavers. I do think it’s a little, like in the book, Tums is a big, I mean, when you say Mr. Tums, everyone knows what you’re talking about.

It’s Narnia, right? When you say Mr. Beaver mm-hmm. I’m like, are we talking about the beaver from wild robot? Like what is which beaver? There’s, you know, and so I think. But just between Mr. Tana’s name being so recognizable and things like that, I thought it was a wise movie change to just bring him in a little bit more, make him a little bit more like a through line, you know, for the whole thing.

So I liked that. Uh, we learn in the book that the four PEs ruled with honor to bring Narnia into a joyful and prosperous season. It is through their growing older that they received their titles. Not at the coronation as in the film. Uh, I think, let’s see, we said Lucy was, which one was she? Valiant? Uh, Peter was the magnificent, uh, queen Susan the something.

And then Edmund is just because I think this is interesting. Uh, when, so it’s weird. This is one weird thing in the movie, you know, Aslan gives them their names, which they do have in the book, but in the book they talk about how Edmund becomes like a great judge. Like that’s one of his things as a king, that he’s like very, very.

Um, conscious of justice and doing what is right, and so he earns that name. It’s a little weird to me that he’s given it before. He like, quote unquote earns it. I mean, I think I understand why they did it in the movie. I don’t want them to have added a scene where they explain all of that or anything like that, but I did think it was cool in the book to be like, oh, he like earned it.

He is Edmond. The Just now there’s justification for that 

[00:46:49] Tim: scripturally just. Ification. There is justification for that in scripture. You are mine. I have called you by True name. So it works. And that’s, that’s the way the, that’s the way the movie ends is if Aslan is calling into reality, what will be, 

[00:47:10] Rebekah: um, several of them even get married.

I think all but Lucy, technically they mention that they all get married, but Lucy’s like offered her, you know, someone has offered to take her in marriage multiple times, like multiple, uh, kings of neighboring kingdoms or something like that. Um. And they also talk about how they’ve met and created peace with the kings and queens of neighboring kingdom so that there’s, it’s a lot more kind of broad and sweeping, but it’s all just a, just a narrative.

Like it’s not storytelling, it’s just like. Sorry. It’s not something that we see on screen, it’s just the narrators saying, here’s what happens. And so they speak in a much more formal tongue, uh, which they, you know, at this point is normal. So in the book, I’m glad that they didn’t do this in the movie, but in the book, the scene where they’re chasing the stag at the very end is like kind of odd because they’re speaking in the book in these like very, very stilted terms and things.

And so, um, the white stag that they’re chasing actually when they discover that lamppost, uh, Mr. Tums told them about, and he is a wish granting stag. If you can catch him, he’ll grant you a wish. Um, so that all is just eliminated in the film. All we see is the four of them as adults, and they’re clearly like the kings and queens.

They’ve, um, been ruling. They’re older, they’re riding horses and they’re chasing a stag. We don’t know much else about that. There’s just a lot of little extra bits of context in the book. And then at that point, they discover the lamppost again, uh, which we do see that in the film. And they walk back out through the wardrobe into spare, um, spare, um, and become.

Kids again, 

[00:48:44] Donna: I, every time I see it, I ha I every time I go through this same roll of emotions of how do you fall out of that wardrobe, 15, 10 to 15 years younger, or 20 years, however much younger they were, it’s been a while. How do you do that? How would you even deal with that? I mean, I get That’s part of the question.

I, that’s the whole part of it. But that’s 

[00:49:07] Tim: the though, in the, in the next story that Sure. That becomes the next movie, um, where they actually, you know, the war is coming to a conclusion or it’s over whatever. And Peter and Susan in particular are like, yeah, you know, I’ve, I’ve been older, I’ve been an adult, and now I’m back to being a teenager.

Yeah. And I don’t know how to deal with it. Well, the book closes with the four children discussing their adventure in Narnia with the professor, professor Gery ki, who happens to be the dig degree from. The first story, which was not written first, but it is, it is the first story. The magician’s nephew in the movie, the same points from the professor are shared, but only between himself and Lucy when she sneaks away to investigate the wardrobe once more, only to find it closed to Narnia.

It’s a, it’s a very interesting encounter and, uh, I like the fact that in the book, yeah, they all spoke with the professor, it, it becomes very, very obvious that he’s not unaware of Narnia. So, 

[00:50:19] Donna: but I, I don’t understand why they let the door glow. Truly. I don’t, I mean, genuinely, I don’t understand. I’ll, I’ll tell you, 

[00:50:26] Tim: it was, it was for the next movie to say, uh, they can’t get back in, but.

It’s still there. So 

[00:50:34] Donna: it’s interesting as we move from, uh, plot and timeline to characterization, I came into this thinking. There haven’t been a ton of differences, but I guess really there were things, and I think this might be one of the few things we have discussed where. We haven’t been really disappointed in a lot of the changes, which I, I kinda love.

But, um, moving into characterization changes, um, not too many here. Just like setting is not a, not a lot of change, just little things. Um, Mrs. McCready is a somewhat more prominent character in the film than in the books. She has more pronounced personality. She’s got a, she’s got more screen time. She’s scary than on page time.

Yeah. I wonder, did they do that? Maybe just to have a, a different personality in the castle with them. 

[00:51:29] Rebekah: Is this like a, is this a trope like the British, I don’t know. Not housekeeper, but like a, the nanny ish. She’s not person who’s like kind of hardcore and a little bit ahead of the house. Snar, not snarky.

Anyway, it’s just so funny, like, 

[00:51:44] Tim: yeah, yeah. Yeah. Super hardcore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you, and you got that in that opening scene when you saw the other children that the IES had on, been on the train with, they got out at a different stop. Mm-hmm. And you see them introduced quiet silently. You don’t hear any of the exchange, but you know what’s going on.

’cause the person that sees them, checks their tag roughly and then kind of turns them around roughly like, oh, good grief. What a bother that you people are here. Um, 

[00:52:12] Rebekah: I mentioned something along these lines a bit earlier, but the vacancy’s father is rarely mentioned in the book. We just know, um, I believe that he’s off to war.

Um, but in the movie, his absences felt a lot more severely from Edmond rescuing his portrait to shouting at Peter at one point, that he’s trying to be their dad, but he’s not their dad. I think is this something that is kind of set up for future stuff mm-hmm. Too, to kind of outline what happened to Edmond to make him, you know.

Someone that the rest of the children didn’t really recognize. Is that like a thing that comes up more? ’cause he’s more of a feature of the Prince Caspian, right? Like he’s like the main character. Am I remembering this correctly? I haven’t read these in so long, so No, I know that, 

[00:52:52] Tim: but they’re all four in the second one with Prince Caspian.

Um, Edmund and Lucy are the only two of those original four that come back in the voyage of the dawn shredder that he, that he loved and missed his father. 

[00:53:05] Donna: And the, it also showed that they all did, even the mother, you could tell she was so desperate in, in missing his, you know, his presence was missing.

So I thought that was, that was a great handle. That is, 

[00:53:17] Tim: that is interesting because there are many people who go through life with emotional holes in, in a, mm-hmm. In them from having lost or not, not had the, uh, had the presence of, of certain people in their life and, and it affects the rest of their lives.

So, 

[00:53:35] Josiah: well, you know, the children are mostly unchanged from book to film. The movie, uh, for some reason, adds a lot with Susan. She, she occasionally in the book makes comments about, we need to go back. We, we can’t do anything dangerous. The film makes this like her primary personality trait. She’s always mentioning, we need to leave, we need to get out of here.

Don’t 

[00:53:55] Tim: do it. It’s dangerous. Mm-hmm. We meet the giant Rumble Buffin at the Witch’s Castle after being awakened by Alan in the book. He’s in the film, but in a much smaller role. You must tell me who it is. He’s, I think I, he’s in the recognized him the giant in the battle, the 

[00:54:16] Donna: giants in the film. But yeah, it’s just the 

[00:54:18] Tim: giants are all on 

[00:54:19] Josiah: her side.

It’s like a frame. When the battle land comes with the courtyard people, there’s, there’s one good giant for about half a second. 

[00:54:27] Tim: Oh, so that’s a bit more like, um. Oh yeah. Where like most of the giants are on the side of evil in Harry Potter. The Giants are the bad guys. Yeah. Oh, how sweet. Um, 

[00:54:37] Donna: there’s also a Centar general named Orus in the movie that stands beside King Peter.

Well, he’s not crowned King Peter yet, but he’s the head of the battle. He’s leading the battle. Orus is a film only character. There are Centar mentioned in the book, but, but not one this. Specific to the storyline. We 

[00:54:57] Josiah: need some, we need some mini bosses on the good and bad side for the battle set. And 

[00:55:01] Donna: the centar in the movie for me were similar to the feeling I got from some of the elves in the Lord of the Rings t trilogy.

Some of the secondary elf characters that you only saw once or twice. I, I almost, I think, I think the visual felt weird for me for a lot of them. I don’t know if they just tried to put long hair on them because they felt that it was right to the time period, but it didn’t look right to me. I don’t know.

And I kind of thought this way with this character and he’s a good guy. We see him back in the, the horse is 

[00:55:33] Tim: main. 

[00:55:34] Donna: Yeah. But we see him back in the, the field as well before the witch and Aslan talk. He’s there as well. But I just, um, sometimes the visual things catch me off guard a little bit. 

[00:55:46] Tim: But physically, I think the centar are probably the most awkward looking thing.

I realize these are all fantastical characters. Don’t, don’t get me wrong, but the centar has always been strange. ’cause so much of its body weight is in the back with the tail. But if it’s, if it’s human, if it’s man front stands tall, just looks awkward. Yeah. Because horses aren’t quite built like that.

Their head, their head’s at an angle, you know, to balance off everything. Horses don’t stand with their head straight up, you know, relax. It’s always at an angle and that just always feels physically weird to me. That’s just a, you know, observation. 

[00:56:31] Rebekah: What do you guys think of reus? Because I was like watching the movie and I’m like, I don’t think this was in the book at all, but I felt like he was such a, like an integral member of like Peter’s, you know?

[00:56:44] Tim: Yeah. I thought he was a good character. I thought it was a good addition. Um, I think what the film added was there obviously has to be someone with military strategy background with this child becoming the leader, this child general with no experience or training in anyway. Yeah. Somebody’s gotta know what we’re doing.

[00:57:06] Rebekah: Also, another thing with Centar that occurred to me yesterday, all right. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a pop quiz. There’s, I don’t know the right answer. Okay. I just, I need to know the majority. Where is a Centar heart? 

[00:57:21] Tim: Wow. 

[00:57:21] Rebekah: There’s a 

[00:57:22] Tim: horse’s heart. Because a horse’s heart would be a horse’s heart would be, uh, in the large part of his body between his four legs.

Um, but a man’s heart would be in his chest. And since the upper part of him is a man, I would assume that his heart would be in his chest. The one in the movie was male. Mm-hmm. In the front to protect all that, the chain mail to protect. All of that. If there weren’t any vital organs there, there’d be no need to protect it.

[00:57:50] Donna: So moving into a little bit of numbers and specs, let me tell you a little bit about this. The book release was in October of 1950. Nice. So that’s pretty cool. It’s nice. It’s 75 years old this year. The movie release was 55 years after the book in December of 2005. So didn’t catch on all that 

[00:58:15] Tim: quickly. 

[00:58:17] Donna: I think it did.

But CS Lewis, you know, we said before, he held off on letting this thing go to, to film. It released on December 7th, uh, chosen by to be a part of the Royal Film performance. It was released December 8th, 2005 in the uk, and then a day later on December 9th in the US and worldwide, which I thought was pretty cool.

The book rating on Good reads was a 4.25 out of five. I thought that would be hard, but that’s okay. The Rotten Tomatoes critics rating is a 75%, which is solidly fresh, but I, I have ideas why I think it could be le more why I think it wasn’t more, but doesn’t matter. Uh, IMDB was 6.9 out of 10. Even a little lower.

[00:59:05] Tim: Can I, can I insert just a tiny bit of trivia? We, we mentioned the BBC TV series. It aired between November of 1988, a significant year in our family. Oh. Uh, and December of 1990. It didn’t quite go to 94, but 

[00:59:24] Donna: that would’ve been just another significant iconically profound. The Flicker audience score was 61, so the audience liked it too, but even less than critics, which still is a little interesting to me.

It’s not super significant, but I, that’s interesting to me. Uh, probably because I just like it. Um, the production cost was $180 million, so they sunk a fair amount of money in there into it. Opening weekend in the us, 65.5 million. The USA Canada gross was 292 million. But the international gross. 453 million, so that brings a total worldwide gross to 745 million.

So it was totally a, a money maker, but I, I did think, you know, it’s just not two times, not, uh, fully two times the international over U-S-U-S-A and Canada, but almost, almost 

[01:00:21] Tim: twice wonder, I wonder what, what the number would be 20 years later, including DVD. DVD sales, all those kinds of things. Yeah, I, and I didn’t look for that.

I didn’t look for that percentages. Um, yeah, I know, uh, it is just, I would find it interesting. 

[01:00:38] Donna: The movie was, uh, had a PG rating, but in Australia, the Australian Classification Board actually gave the film an M for mature, which was the first time they’d given a Disney film that harsh of a rating, which I thought was interesting.

I’m assuming it’s the war, the Death of Aslan. And some, some of those things kind of contributed to it. But, um, it was filmed, uh, mostly in New Zealand from late June. Uh. 2004 until Christmas. There was a little bit of wrap up filming between Christmas and February of 2005, uh, in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Poland.

They did a few just, ah, so the snow scenes, specific scenes, I wondered about that, if that’s, if that’s where those came from. So it was pretty interesting. And it also interesting that this, and Lord of the Rings were both filmed in New Zealand, that that place was such a, um, a, a great backdrop to these, to these things written similar times as well, you know, and, and by contemporaries and, and all that.

So now that I’ve read some numbers for you, let’s look at a few other tidbits of trivia. 

[01:01:51] Tim: Any plot similarities between Narnia Tales and Lord of the Ring Stories. Should be no surprise. Lewis and Tolkien were close friends and members of a literary discussion group called the Inklings. Both men were strong Christians.

Both of them wrote their timeless classics as allegories or references of some type. Mm-hmm. To Christ. Okay. So, 

[01:02:16] Josiah: because Tolkien always insisted that he hated allegory and he never intended any allegory, he’s liar time. 

[01:02:26] Tim: It’s really difficult to read his stuff and not see allegory, although, because they, a lot of them were English professors or language professors, uh, things like that.

It would be just like that category of, of person to say, well, the actual definition of allegory is blah, blah, blah. What I wrote. Isn’t exactly that. Yeah. And then, and justify it that way. 

[01:02:55] Josiah: Well, according to a Daily Telegraph article, William Mosley, who played the part of Peter, he quit school to learn his lines.

We don’t know if we recommend that. He also, before playing the part of Peter Peci, he had auditioned for the role of Eddie Potter. Harry Potter. 

[01:03:14] Tim: Um, and one other tiny thing about William Mosley, he was, uh, badly injured on the set of another movie. By a lightning strike, which left all stars on his bicep.

Well, walden.com Walden Media’s official website stated that they initially got the rights to the works in 2001, but settled with Walt Disney in March, 2004 to co-produce and finance under the Disney pictures banner. Nice. Yeah. Maybe Walden Media had more to do with the faithful adaptation than Disney, 

[01:03:53] Donna: and thankfully they kept Lewis’s stepson in the mix of things, and maybe they had to because of the estate.

Who knows? But, well, you make, I’m thankful that he was a part of it. Agreement. Because I’m kind of assuming that he had a lot to do with the preservation of that, 

[01:04:08] Josiah: what a workshop took on the special effects of this film. Headman, Dickie Taylor said he used the painting, the Garden of Earthly Delights by MOUs Bos.

Of course, he’s my favorite. Won, won Bosch as the inspiration, as the inspiration for the look and the visual effects of the film. Rebecca, maybe you could include the screenshot would to photo in our show notes. Yeah, put it on the webpage. Go to our website to check it out. 

[01:04:39] Donna: I saw some painting. I thought it was fascinating looking and I, I actually that the middle section of it and baby listener, you’ll see if you’ll look at the show notes and, and we’re able to put it in there.

Honestly, that middle shot, it reminds you a lot of the, the field and even the, could even be the scene of battle. I think it was. 

[01:04:58] Rebekah: Yeah, 

[01:04:58] Donna: we’ll make sure you can 

[01:04:59] Josiah: Very MOUs 

[01:05:00] Rebekah: Very much. Yeah. Very ous of the other reindeer. Very Bosch. Wow. You still laugh and call the vet. Like the New Zealand Herald reported that filmmakers asked to bring 12 reindeer to New Zealand to pull Queen Jada’s sled ledge.

I think unfortunately the ministry of agriculture and forestry said no. Due to the potentially deadly Q fever suffered in so many North American reindeer herds. They were allowed 10 wolves and wolf hybrids while they filmed in Al Oakland. So, wait, I’m so confused. The queen had, didn’t she have polar bears pulling her sled?

Yeah. Why would we have cared that we, 

[01:05:40] Donna: she, she did in the battle. But when they meet Edmond at the beginning, father 

[01:05:45] Tim: Christmas makes a point of saying just. Just to be clear, I’ve been using reindeer for a lot longer. Mm-hmm. Than Right. The evil queen, than the fake queen. 

[01:05:55] Donna: But I thought, I did think it was interesting that she, the reindeer are pulling her when she meets Edmond in the beginning, but then in the battle, why?

Why change to polar bears? I didn’t quite understand. Is it just because they’re more imposing or whatever? Maybe. I don’t know. 

[01:06:09] Josiah: Another piece of trivia is that the actress who played adult queen Susan, a couple years at, well, a few years after this film released, she married the 54th in line for the British throne.

[01:06:25] Tim: Oh, so she became 

[01:06:26] Josiah: royalty. She became royalty. Yep. That’s King Charles II’s second cousin. Big. Is that family? 

[01:06:32] Tim: Well, 

[01:06:33] Josiah: uh, yes. She married into the line that does not descend from Queen Elizabeth. I think if you go to her, queen Elizabeth’s grandfather’s descendants. Okay. She married one of them to the 

[01:06:43] Tim: German part of the English monarchy.

[01:06:47] Josiah: Perhaps, I mean, her last name is Windsor. I thought you were gonna say 

[01:06:50] Donna: something about Susan, like marrying a reindeer herder or something. I was like, she actually married a 

[01:06:56] Tim: reindeer herder. 

[01:06:57] Donna: Yeah. Um, 

[01:06:59] Tim: one of them, one of the reindeer was played by an actor and married 

[01:07:05] Donna: without live reindeer. It said that creature effects Mark Rapore created for animatronic reindeer to be used.

Whenever they were standing in place, they had replaceable skin. So for Father Christmas’s Slay, they were brown and white for the witches. Sled 

[01:07:26] Tim: Sledge. Mm-hmm. I find the use of the term sledge very, I keep hearing hearing sludge and so that’s why I can’t, I think it’s a mental, well, that’s what it reminds me of.

Sled sounds like it glides across the snow. Sledge sounds like it drags through the mud. So, oh. Loosies initial reactions to Narnia as well as her squeals upon seeing Mr. Tni were genuine. They were determined they would get georgie’s real reactions, so none of the children could see any of the, the set with all of the snow.

Mm-hmm. They carried her on the set blindfolded. So that beautiful cherub faced wonder would be real when she witnessed for the very first time. And it is the first and only take that we see in the film. It’s so precious when she, precious initially sees. I love that. And all of the snow and the beauty and it makes, it 

[01:08:20] Donna: makes the rest of the film.

I’m telling you. It is 

[01:08:22] Tim: it. And they were really specific that that had to be Yeah. The kids couldn’t even see them working on the set for that. Um, they wanted it to be genius. 

[01:08:31] Josiah: Speaking of her chair of faced wonder. Yes. Uh, it’s reported in the DVD commentary that Lucy’s actress Georgie Henley, she brought a swear bucket to set when it was apparent to her that the language behind the scenes was far too salty for young ears.

The rumor was that James McAvoy, AKA Mr. Tni put the most cash in the jar, but even her young co-stars had to contribute for their disgusting potty mouths. Aw.

[01:09:03] Donna: Oh, I love it. 

[01:09:04] Tim: What is the significance of the silver apple container holding the professor’s tobacco? 

[01:09:10] Donna: Do you know the answer to that? Sitting on his 

[01:09:12] Tim: desk? 

[01:09:13] Donna: Yes, I 

[01:09:13] Rebekah: looked it up. Dad’s supposed to be the one we’re asking, but Dad, did you, do you know 

[01:09:17] Josiah: the answer, dad? Sorry. Sorry for him. 

[01:09:19] Rebekah: What do you think it is?

I looked that up. So I’ll tell you. I, sir, 

[01:09:22] Josiah: what do you think? 

[01:09:22] Tim: Yeah, 

[01:09:22] Rebekah: what do you think it is? Well, I think 

[01:09:23] Tim: it’s supposed, it’s supposed to represent the, the fruit, the forbidden fruit in the, in the garden of s Josiah. 

[01:09:30] Rebekah: Do you have a guess? 

[01:09:31] Tim: But what is, what is your tribute? And that’s what, what’s 

[01:09:33] Rebekah: your guess? 

[01:09:34] Josiah: Oh, of course.

Well, it’s silver, so it’s all about Judas betrayal. The apple is of course about the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, and the tobacco is about how smoking is the most disgusting original sin, so that one can commit. 

[01:09:52] Donna: Forget prostitution, forget murder, forget all those. 

[01:09:57] Tim: Forget. Forget that they exist.

That’s an interesting point because one of the warnings for the movie now to see it is there’s use of tobacco. It’s that is one of the warnings the same kind of thing is mature language and sex and all of that kind of stuff. No, they use tobacco. 

[01:10:16] Rebekah: So what I looked up, and this is I’d read the original and then.

Uh, googly. I kind of summarized it, but basically dig degree Kirk, the professor, planted the tree of protection in Narnia during the Magician’s nephew. The tree grew from a silver apple. Oh, that’s quite insane. With powerful properties. That’s 

[01:10:35] Tim: what the, that’s what the war you Go is made from. Mm-hmm. It, it, the wardrobe was made from the tree when it finally died.

[01:10:45] Donna: So our last little bit of trivia gets away from all that serious stuff. Yeah. And tells us that all the waist down shots of Edmond first entering and kind of tripping out of the wardrobe into Narnia or actually of Anna Popwell Popwell, who played Susan Edmond, whose name I thought was interesting, Skandar kinds, or Keens, I thought that was a pretty cool name.

He had left for the day, but they needed to wrap the scene and so she stepped in, put on his shorts and shoes and they, they took the shots of, of that, uh, from Susan’s body. Wow. Interesting. Interesting. And also a little bit to just add to kind of makes. It kinda adds to this, but it also speaks to something we talked about earlier and Hines was the last of the four children be cast and probably had to be a specific as such.

Yes, he was. They needed that specific person. They needed person to look at him and immediately feel the other three had had a month together in prep before he came into the group. And so it kind of worked. But that would’ve helped make him 

[01:11:50] Tim: feel like an outsider. Exactly. Mm-hmm. But it kind 

[01:11:53] Donna: of worked in his character in the movie because he’s the one that’s grappling with missing dad and they’re all missing him.

But it super affected him and he’s, you know, frustrated with them and frustrated with Lucy and, and it, it was, they, the little piece I was reading said they thought that kind of helped him to. Get a picture of what that would be because he came in after the three of them had already started getting acquainted with one another and things like that.

I thought it was interesting parts that I don’t think about when you see a movie, you don’t think of all the things that surrounded it and how these actors, uh, impressions of things were affected and how they’re. Out their real life things affected what happened with them in the movie. So it’s interesting.

Well, let’s head to a little mini game. We don’t all do these all the time, but I think it’s kind of fun at the end. It makes us think in a different direction. And, uh, I get a lot after we’ve talked too, I get a lot of ideas. Um, so the first of too many game questions, number one, m Knight Shalon was offered the director’s spot from the film, but he turned it down.

What might one of the scenes have looked like had he been the pick a scene and tell me? 

[01:13:09] Tim: Well, good grief. He’s known for, he’s known for everything in the movie being unreal until that last Gotcha. At the end. So I can imagine that the, the LA final scene. With Lucy and the professor would actually be a final scene, and when she turns around and Narnie is not in the wardrobe anymore, she would turn around to find the white witch sitting there in the window and say, mm-hmm.

You thought you’d won 

[01:13:40] Donna: or better, or the white witch sitting in the window and she just ate the fly that Lucy saw buzzing around when she ran in there. 

[01:13:49] Josiah: Really bad. 

[01:13:51] Donna: Yes, it would’ve been, it just would’ve been bad. I couldn’t think of, I couldn’t think of anything really specific. I do think it would’ve been really bad.

[01:13:57] Rebekah: I’m so grateful that the person who directed was the person who directed, so I’m so grateful that the person who directed was the person who 

[01:14:03] Tim: directed. Speaking of that, have you heard about Netflix? Adaptation to film by director Greta Gerwig. Does this excite you? It deeply concerns me. You 

[01:14:15] Josiah: concerns me.

[01:14:16] Tim: Directors, unlike the Barbie movie, right? What else did she do? 

[01:14:22] Josiah: Lady Bird, which I loved. And the little women remake, which I loved. Hmm. She, I really like her as a director. Do you think, you think she would, but she’s not a woman of faith. 

[01:14:31] Tim: Well, that would be a big problem, but do you think she would be faithful for the material?

So 

[01:14:36] Rebekah: producer Amy Pascal has described Gerwig vision. I wonder from an article on Backstage as a quote, very new take on Narnia saying it’s all about rock and roll. 

[01:14:46] Tim: Oh, no. Yeah, they have 

[01:14:48] Rebekah: mercy. Don’t say that. 

[01:14:50] Tim: So instead of Peter, it’s going to be a strong woman who’s the oldest child. She’s gonna be, the four says 

[01:14:56] Rebekah: that the.

Her take, Gerwig take won’t be a counter to how the audience may have imagined these worlds, but it will be bigger and bolder than they thought. So I don’t know. There’s also a rumor, but it’s not confirmed that Meryl Streep might be voicing Aslan, which is like weird, I don’t know. I’m just, it’s supposed to come out at Thanksgiving of next year of 2026.

Um, even though it’s from Netflix, they are going to have it so that it’s technically like available for awards and stuff. They’re gonna, uh, it’ll be an imax so like it’ll be a legit release. But I have no, all about rock and roll makes me go, ugh. 

[01:15:31] Tim: I can imagine a rock and roll music. And I can imagine, you know, the kinds of things, but one of the comments that I made while we were watching the film and yes, I comment a lot while we’re watching films, um, was the fact that there are several places where the score in the film Yeah.

Is so moving, so appropriate that. Thinking about, Hey, we’re gonna change all this up. I’m thinking, ugh. I just, it would be very difficult. I mean, it could be remade and you know, and be great, but it doesn’t have to be remade and changed a lot. It doesn’t have to be, Hey, this is from a new take. Yeah. You won’t even recognize the original thing.

Well then do a different story. Okay. Call it something else. 

[01:16:19] Donna: Netflix says, A statement from Netflix indicates that Douglas Gresham, he’s 79 now. He’s, he’s involved in the adaptation. So, because it seems like he’s been pretty particular something. And I agree with you and I agree with tj. I do think the things I’ve seen of Gerwig, any little issues I had with Barbie, I felt like the movie was, oh, I thought it, I thought it, I don’t think it was just a throwaway movie.

Yeah. I did think it, it was so pretty. Yeah. And I thought there was a, it was so big. There was a lot of things about it. That a lot of people just assumed it would be stupid fluff, and I don’t think it was, 

[01:16:54] Tim: but well, remember JK Rowling was involved in all of the Harry Potter films and you end up with a, with a couple of them that are like, eh, some of the things, 

[01:17:03] Rebekah: so 

[01:17:04] Tim: didn’t, didn’t you say Stop 

[01:17:05] Rebekah: that.

Don’t do that. I think the biggest thing here though is Gresham being involved kind of Im implies that there will at least be some limitations to taking it too far away from the source material. I would hope not because he’s the author, but because their foundation is who controls who has the rights and they already got in stuff with Disney and Disney couldn’t make any more than three movies because of stuff that happened along with those kinds of things.

Because we can talk about that more. Yeah. The fourth when we get to 

[01:17:33] Tim: Dawn tr. But yeah, as as you get farther in the books, they become more and more faith-based. 

[01:17:40] Rebekah: Yeah. I think that’s my biggest concern is like, I think Greta Gerwig iss a great director, but I think that someone who doesn’t have a. Someone who doesn’t hold faith in like, God, it would be really hard in my head to like, appropriately to let me say, to adapt this in a way that I feel is faithful to the source material.

Right. You know what I mean? Like, it’s not just a random story that’s like, okay, cool, let’s do like a steam punk version of the, you know what I mean? It’s like certain stories you can absolutely take and just go wild. Like, didn’t you just do Josiah, you just did like a sci-fi version of importance of being earnest.

Mm-hmm. You can take stuff and do that direction, but I think this is such a like, op, like, it’s such a clear allegory that I feel like that Yeah. I’m a little worried that it could end up being real weird. Yeah. Well, why don’t we all give our final verdicts? Dad, do you wanna go first? 

[01:18:30] Tim: I do. Um, I would give the, uh, uh, the book.

I, I would have to give it as part, as part of the series. I, I can’t mm-hmm. Separate them easily. Um, I think the, I would give the series a nine out of 10. Um, I think the whole thing is just, just amazing and I bawled when I listened to the, the final one. Yeah. Um, it just, it’s just wonderful and I, you got to know the characters, you really cared and all those kinds of things.

So it was, it was wonderful. Um, I would probably give the movie an eight, 8.5 out of 10. I think it’s a, a really good movie. I would watch it again. I enjoy it. Um, uh, after, after a while, the white witch is a little too over the top. Mm-hmm. Probably so. Eight, 8.5 out of 10 for me, 

[01:19:20] Josiah: I enjoyed this story. I was reminded, it was not at the forefront of my mind that this book was very formative to my early years.

The, uh, I’ve already mentioned about Edmond. I haven’t mentioned that I had a crush on Lucy. I was also a kid, just to be clear. Um, 

[01:19:40] Rebekah: it’s good that you were, you know, a kid when you had a crush on a kid. Yeah. That, that makes sense. Yeah. 

[01:19:45] Tim: I mean, the BBC version was made in when our daughter was born, so Yeah, it only makes sense.

[01:19:51] Josiah: So a lot of formative ways that, um, like the deep magic and as a, as a faith-based story, I think that this is, is pretty close to a 10 outta 10 book. You know, it does have a Dex Mackinac because Jesus Christ rising from the dead is a Dex Mackinac. 

[01:20:12] Tim: Yeah. 

[01:20:12] Josiah: Uh, it’s not narratively satisfying, it’s just what happened.

Yeah. Because of the deep laws of the spiritual realm, uh, con in confluence with our own. So narratively speaking, you know, the, that is not the most, but the, you know, maybe it’s a little bit of a. Prophecy, but we don’t even know the prophecy until after he comes back to life. So as like a narrative story, I’ll still give it, you know, 9, 9, 9 outta 10 movie’s, probably nine outta 10 too.

I don’t know how to distinguish them. The movie expands and it, I honestly don’t think it should work, but it just does. It adds so much. It takes its time. Getting from here to there adds little action sequences here and there. It’s just all so fun. I think it captured exactly the right atmosphere and personality.

So I think that both, both are gonna have to be nine outta tens for me. Can’t really distinguish Booker movie. Mm-hmm. I, I think they’re both about, about right. I cried plenty myself when, uh, Aslan negotiated for Edmond’s life when Aslan was. Killed when he came back to life, especially those times. And it was a great, it was a great read.

I mean, it’s such a short book. Yeah. That one of the reasons I don’t give it to the movie, even though it made so many good changes, is because the book is a tiny little book. Yeah. And it packs so much of a punch without wasting the reader’s time. A hundred percent. There’s 

[01:21:40] Donna: yeah. So much in there. Gosh. 

[01:21:42] Josiah: Yeah.

So I don’t know if the Booker movie is better. I think they’re both pretty darn good. 

[01:21:47] Donna: Oh, I, I am right there with you. I was so impressed with the book. It’s the first time I had not read it before. I think I had read The Magician’s Nephew several years ago. I had started reading it, and I think I read that whole book, but I didn’t go on for whatever reason.

And, and I’m not a huge book reader. And this was before I got into audio books and all that. I had the exact same impression. There’s so much story in three and a half hours of audiobook that I, I just kept thinking there’s only an hour left. There’s only 15 minutes left there. And, but he was able to do it and you could see it, you could feel it.

Uh, one great thing in the movie that I don’t think dad and I had discussed until we watched it for this podcast is when Aslan goes back to the castle to rescue the, the, uh, stone characters Dad said. He’s going back to hell, he’s going down to hell to give the, to set the captive free. To set the captive free.

Wow. And I was like, oh. And so as a Christian, there was so much about it that is not overtly and in your face stated, but is so impactful to my heart, to my spirit. And so, uh, I, I just loved, I loved both of them. Um, I think nine is fair. Um, maybe I could go a little higher one way or the other, but I, I would agree with Josiah.

I, I just, I couldn’t really pick one. I thought I’d have a good, clear. Pick after I, you know, went through it, but I thought, why I can’t, it’s, it’s, they did wise things with the film 

[01:23:25] Tim: and you guys said that it packs, it’s just wonderful. It packs a lot in there. And ts I said that, um, it doesn’t waste the reader’s time.

Yeah. I looked at the version, the physical version that I have, it’s just over 80 pages. Wow. In the version, in the version that I have, which I’m sure the type is a little bit, uh, is set differently Sure. When it was released as a single book. Mm-hmm. But, um, just a little over 80 pages to tell quite a story without wasting the reader’s time.

That that’s an interesting way to put that and, and it does. 

[01:23:55] Donna: Yeah. And think of what he did and then just kind of compare that to what Tolkien did with the Lord of the Rings. And the incredible one, making it library of knowledge behind that and the world building. And Lewis has that in other books and you know, as he writes through this series, but it’s in a much briefer, you know, much more brief setting.

Well, the 

[01:24:16] Tim: entire series in the Chronicles of Narnie, the one that, the one that I have is just shy of 800 pages. Yeah. For the whole story, so. Wow, that’s so cool. 

[01:24:28] Josiah: Can I just mention that the four ies are pretty, pretty much the four houses of Griffin? Uh, of August? 

[01:24:37] Donna: Yeah, I think as long as thought about 

[01:24:40] Josiah: that, as long as Lucy can be Hufflepuff, uh, which I think works, she could be Hufflepuff or Griffindor, yeah.

But as long as she’s Hufflepuff, I think they’re the four houses. I think 

[01:24:49] Rebekah: Hufflepuff works interesting her very 

[01:24:50] Donna: well. 

[01:24:51] Rebekah: So my verdict is pretty similar to Josiah’s. I think that eight and a half out of 10 is probably the rating I would give both works just to rate them like they’re excellent. Maybe nine outta 10.

I don’t know. It’s hard. Like both of them are so good. I think what the movie added almost exclusively felt appropriate for a visual medium. I liked, um, that we see a lot more, we see a lot more action, which was really nice. And it didn’t feel out of place. Like it felt like we were just seeing things that the book didn’t put on page, but they were appropriate.

Um, just in general altogether, I thought that it was just a really strong, um, adaptation in general. Uh, and the book itself is wonderful. I cried several times during the book, during the film, in both cases. I love the allegorical, um, picture of Jesus. I think that it works. Like it all works. It, there’s not really a whole lot that mm-hmm.

I would have to say negatively about it. And so I don’t know that you could say book is better than film in this case. I think it’s just like, you know, am I in the mood to put an audio book on or open a book or am I in the mood to watch a movie? And at that point it’s like, it, you know, either would be in my head equally appropriate.

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