Three cheers for
narnia fan 7 for finding these videos!
I'm not thrilled to hear that they're rewriting the script. Magee helming the script has always been the thing that has given me the most hope and confidence in the upcoming film. Still, I'm trying not to read too much into it at this point (for once, wow
) and remember what Magee said about the evolution of scripts in
his interview on Talking Beasts:
As soon as a director comes on board, his visual ideas, his ideas for the rhythm of the script, what needs to be said and what really doesn’t because he can get that from the actors — that becomes a new draft in a sense. So, I’ve been working with Joe and continuing to work with everyone else to get this script to a point where we were feeling really confident about it.
Joe is a very visual director and so he’d sketch little ideas of ‘What if it looked like this?’ or ‘What if the characters were like that?’ and then you start incorporating those ideas into the actual draft. So, it’s a constantly evolving document. People always ask if the script done, and the script isn’t really done until everyone’s done shooting it and making it and they’re sure it’s where they want it.
I was quite intrigued that Johnston said he thought
The Silver Chair was the darkest book in the series. I'd have to go with
The Last Battle, but I suppose I can see someone arguing that the incandescent joy of Aslan's Country takes the edge off the preceding apocalyptic despair. As much I adore the Snow Dance, it's not Aslan's Country, and it only spans a few pages as opposed to a few chapters. I might agree that the general tone throughout SC is the most somber, but I have to say that LB has darker content.
I feel like a heartless, nostalgia-crushing person, but I loved that Johnston said:
No, I don’t want it to look like the other films. I want an audience to look at The Silver Chair and think, “This is a whole new vision of The Chronicles of Narnia.” In fact, I don’t even want to reference the other films.
I do really like the first two Walden films in many ways, but I love the idea of seeing a new, fresh take on Narnia, too. Especially if that means they get right some of the aspects that Walden got wrong, imo.
*cough* Aslan *cough* ... *cough* corporeal dryads *coughCOUGH*