Cymru wrote:Although Silver Chair has enough story on its own, Eustace has a definite backstory. Aslan has a strong backstory. And the royal connection to Caspian plays a key part in at least one scene. The writers really can't just let all that go without losing some of the strong character of this book, but they can introduce a new style/voice that says clearly that new artists are helming the story's telling.
But in SC, it is
Jill who is the central character, rather than Eustace, himself. The film, like the book, could very well start with Eustace coming upon a crying Jill, but it is Jill's reaction to Eustace that is the important bit, that she doesn't like Eustace, that she hadn't really noticed yet, how much he had changed his personality over the holidays. It is Eustace who has to convince her that he is no longer as bad as the bullies who have been tormenting her, and part of this convincing of Jill is explaining his backstory from his point of view. At the beginning of the movie, exactly why should Jill trust either Eustace, Aslan or anyone else?
Jill's meeting Aslan is another place where backstory is going to be important. I think it is very important that a very thirsty Jill meets a fearsome lion, blocking her access to a lovely gurgling, rushing brook, a lion that unexpectedly quizzes her on her own assumptions and behaviour, then starts telling her what she must do at his command. Also, that Aslan only doles out information on a strictly need-to-know basis, leaving Eustace to supply what else she needs to know from what Eustace is willing to tell her about his previous Narnian experiences.
I hope the Parliament of Owls is included as well, not just because this is another key backstory moment, supplying information that both Eustace and Jill need to know. It is also where Jill gets to hear, rather than see, Eustace's own history with Caspian the Seafarer, and Eustace's consequent unswerving loyalty to that Caspian. The last bit of backstory we need, is right at the end, when Prince Rilian, himself, is aroused from his own memory loss to take his rightful place as Caspian's heir.
Whilst SC is a stand alone story, it is as though Eustace's own VDT memories are going to be the memories at the heart of the SC story, with the earlier Pevensie experiences as a mere historical context, if that. I've enjoyed an Australian history series of books (E.V.Timms' Martha Gubby) a little like this, where at the start of the series, the main characters in the series are dominant, but in later stories they or their family members become barely mentioned, or marginal, though often helpful, characters, such as fellow travellers along the way, or the innkeeper/s where later main characters stay for the night.
The key difference with book SC, within the Narnia series, from that particular Australian history series, is that the innkeeper/s and fellow travellers are most definitely to be distrusted, that Puddleglum, and even Glimfeather, their guides, warn them against saying too much, that Caspian is departing as Jill arrives, & that even Eustace has never met Trumpkin beforehand, though he has heard about him. And that the Pevensies are mentioned only in a song at a feast about the
Horse and his Boy. And wasn't this a main difficulty with previous Narnia films such as PC, and, in particular, VDT and the BBC version of SC, that we definitely do not want any tying back SC to LWW, because of the White Witch?
So long as Eustace remains the same character of the book, mentioning, (or even failing to mention) his experiences in a timely fashion, I see no difficulty in relating SC back to earlier Narnia novels without having to tie the movie more closely to other books in the series.
In other words, all through SC (the book), it is Jill, and the various characters she meets, who supply her with the backstory to what she is supposed to do. The good characters help her, but it is the bad characters who either block the information or cause her to doubt the importance or reality of what both of them are learning. Remember the signs, or the signposts, indeed.