An Animated Magician's Nephew

[starkat]

I'd have a bit of a disconnect between the films with the format change. That's the problem I'd have with it. I wouldn't mentally connect it with the other movies being animated.

[Varnafinde]

There shouldn't be one animated movie in the middle of a series of live action movies. But the live action movie could contain lots of CGI, which I guess is one kind of animation - for Magician's Nephew, I think it would be required in order to make the film work at all. The Creation scene was mentioned, and is one that I think really need a lot of CGI work. Another is the flight on Fledge.

[Glumpuddle]

I wouldn't mentally connect it with the other movies being animated.

How would you feel about this ... Just make an animated film called The Silver Chair. Take Chronicles of Narnia out of the title. Disregard the Walden films.

Imagine a filmmaker who has never ready any of the books randomly reading The Silver Chair and going "wow, this is a great book and I think it could be a great stand-alone movie!"

I think the books stand alone well enough for this to be worthwhile.

[starkat]

Nope. I'd know the difference. If I hadn't read the books, that would be one thing. Having read the books, I would find it incredibly jarring to be thrown from one style of movie to a drastically different style. I think it's a color thing. Real life colors and skin tones vs computer done just isn't the same. I edit photos for a living right now and I tend to pick up on color.

[Glumpuddle]

^ I am not proposing continuing the Walden series. I am essentially saying reboot, starting with SC. Alternatively, they could start this brand new series with LWW if they want to.

Bottom line: SC is a good stand-alone book and I think it has potential to be a good stand-alone film.

[Meltintalle]

I agree with glumPuddle's bottom line.

Also, there is an animated LWW so an animated MN or SC wouldn't be totally out of continuity... but I'm not sure any of us want to see more of that style animation.

[waggawerewolf27]

It wouldn't bother me much to have an animated movie for SC, MN or even HHB and LB, despite what has been said. I'd just like to see these books done at least once

Yes, there is an animated LWW movie, but it was very much in the style of the 1970's. You can't really compare animation then with animation of the 2010's, a good 40 years later. What annoys me is the same churning over of the same 3 books. If I want to look at a live version of SC I can still look at the BBC version, incidentally the best of the 4 in that series.

[aragorn2]

[/b]

There shouldn't be one animated movie in the middle of a series of live action movies.

I would agree if the Walden series was continuing, but from everything we've heard it's not going to.

[FriendofNarnia2]

This topic inspired me to create this. My interpretation of The Wood Between The Worlds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV53OL27 ... e=youtu.be

If you all like it I might finish the rest of it using the traditional hand drawn style of animation.

[aragorn2]

FriendofNarnia
That's really cool!

[twinimage]

I'd love to see animated Narnia movies in Traditional 2D animation. I've grown tired of live action adaptions. They often turn out disappointing and are difficult to adapt the more fantastical elements.
What aren't we seeing a lot of right now? Traditional animated movies. If the style of animation was top quality and styled right, I think it would have a great appeal!

So whether it's Silver Chair or any other Narnia book, I'd love to see Narnia forge it's own path and not just follow the rest of the fantasy movies coming out today.
I also agree, just take "The Chronicles of Narnia" off the title, at least for the first animated movie, so audiences won't connect it with the Walden movies as easily.

[Aslan Fan]

I vote live action for MN. I think they could pull off the movie without mangling the story. As long as they didn't add any extra stuff but UNDERLINED the action in the book, it should go well.
They could even have a flashback action sequence of Jadis' army fighting her sister's in the city. And have a crazy shock wave when Jadis says the Deplorable Word. It would be really cool and it wouldn't contradict or go against the book. Plus, they would need to amplify the mystery behind the Magician. They would need to show the fear and awe that the books shows. It would have enough tension for a 2 1\2 hour movie. But that's my opinion and nothing else.

[David West]

Due to the difficulty of producing such beautiful animation, Disney's 2D animated films are generally only 80-90 minutes long. Some of the older films are in the 60-80 minute range. At 97 minutes long, the Princess and the Frog is their longest film by several minutes.

Point being, if you want a faithful two-hour-plus adaptation of the book, 2D animation is not going to give you that.

[Movie Aristotle]

Please no. Not without a full reboot and making them all animated. If they are going to do one format, then stick with it for all 7 films.

Amen. We can experiment with animated films later on after all 7 live action movies are made. I don't disagree with the idea of someone doing animated Narnia, say, about 20 years from now, but let's get through the entire series first before we start making drastic artistic changes.

I am essentially saying reboot, starting with SC. Alternatively, they could start this brand new series with LWW if they want to.

Bottom line: SC is a good stand-alone book and I think it has potential to be a good stand-alone film.

One might suggest that we "forget" the Walden films, reboot the series (with SC?), and make each of the four remaining books a standalone movie, but there is no way this is going to happen in the near future. We as Narnia fans understand each book is a standalone story, but nobody outside of our circle sees them that way.

Audiences and movie makers alike will be seeing any film other than LWW, PC, or VDT as Narnia 4, and it seems that Mr. Gresham has no desire to remake any of those three films at this point. As for rebooting the franchise, that could only effectually be done by starting with MN or LWW. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your use of the word "reboot," but to me, rebooting with SC makes no logical sense. It is neither the first book in the series written, nor is it first chronologically. I think that the upcoming SC movie may seem like a reboot, what with the new company and all likelihood of new actors, but like I said, everyone else is going to see this movie as Narnia 4, the continuation of the story. Making it animated would confuse general audiences.

But let's get back to the actual question:

If you think about it The Magicians Nephew might actually make a better film if it were adapted as animated film than a live-action one. I'm not even sure if it could even be adapted into live-action without completely mangling the story. But with an animated movie you can do many things that would be completely unacceptable to audiences if is was live-action.

What do You think?

Whether or not MN would be better as an animated film is largely a matter of taste. Personally, I've thought that Lewis goes a long way to establish Narnia as a "real" world that you could actually get to, and so making it animated a la Pagemaster would ruin the "realness" of the world. That's why I'd think the better version would be the live action.

On the question of whether or not you could make it live action without mangling the story: What makes you ask that question? With the invention of CG animation you can photo-realistically do anything in a live action film that you can do in a traditionally animated film. What would you need to change in order to make the story with live actors? What is an example of something in MN that would be "completely unacceptable to audiences if it were live action"?

The creation scenes in MN will be animated anyway, regardless of whether the film as a whole will be animated, so I'm not really sure what you're getting at.

[The Rose-Tree Dryad]

I really like the idea of animated Chronicles of Narnia films in general—I'd love to see the entire series rebooted maybe ten, twenty years down the line as 3D animation. Something like what you see in Disney's Tangled or Frozen could potentially be nice, but what I'd really like to see is a very unique and stylized design that draws heavily from Pauline Baynes' illustrations. I think that would be awesome.

As for The Magician's Nephew specifically, I can definitely see the pros of doing it in animation, especially when you think about scenes like the creation of Narnia. Still, it could be a rather startling change, particularly if you consider this film to be part of the current series of Narnia films.

One way you could possibly bridge the gap is by beginning the film in live action and showing a meeting of the Friends of Narnia as is described in The Last Battle. It could be the very first meeting of the Friends of Narnia, and you could bring back all of the actors for a reunion of sorts.

Professor Kirke and Polly could begin to tell the story of how they first came to Narnia—or what would become Narnia, rather—and maybe one of the younger members of the group (whoever would be the most artistically inclined) decides to draw the story as it's being told. Maybe they've even been working on a book about Narnia, a sort of journal where they detail their memories and adventures, compiling everything they know about it. As Digory and Polly begin to narrate their story, the artist begins to sketch out the opening scene of young Polly meeting young Digory in the garden. (In Pauline Baynes' style, please? ) The live action scene then begins to fade and the illustration starts to grow of its own accord, spilling across the page in incredible detail, until finally coming to life as animation, 2D or 3D.

Could end up feeling cheesy or awkward, but done well, it might work and even tie into the story's theme of creation—from an artistic standpoint, anyway. Not necessarily something I'm advocating they do, but an interesting possibility to consider, especially if they intend on having some sort of continuity throughout the series of films. Personally, I wouldn't mind at all if they made it as though it were a standalone film with no connection to the previous movies, but I don't know if that's reasonable to expect or not.

[jewel]

I personally wouldn't be for it. To many animated films that turn out not so great anymore. Rare to find a good one. Toy Story wins in this arena. We need more Narnia films, actual movies.