Re: BBC - the Good and the Better
Posted: Feb 03, 2014 4:58 am
I saw the BBC "Silver Chair" at the weekend. It was the first time I'd ever seen it, as I didn't watch it when it was first transmitted because I was away at university and hardly ever watched any television. I have to say it was easily the best of the BBC Narnia serials.
What was good:
The best thing was Tom Baker as Puddleglum. He was superb. Funny and lugubrious, just like the character in the book. But in the confrontation scene with the Witch, he played it absolutely straight, and delivered his speech about living as a Narnian even if there isn't any Narnia with real earnestness. (I was afraid he might send it up, given his views on religion.)
Eustace and Jill were also good, and had the right dynamic between them. A little bit wooden in places, but not many child actors escape that. I thought they were both much better than the children who played the four Pevensies. Rilian was excellent, being convincing as both the madman and the hero.
What wasn't so good:
The special effects were terrible. It was made in 1990 but it looked like a Doctor Who episode from about 1973. Where characters were superimposed (e.g. to make Eustace, Jill and Puddleglum small in Harfang) the outlines were obvious, and occasionally people's hands and feet got cut off. I know it was "only" a children's serial but the effects in Doctor Who were much better before it was cancelled in 1989.
The puppet Aslan was so dull. Much of the time it was literally static, with only its mouth moving up and down. At first I was glad that they didn't have Aslan as a man in a lion's head, walking around on two legs, as I've seen in some stage productions of LWW, but looking at the BBC "Silver Chair" I wonder whether that may have been better, as a human actor would at least have given the role expression and feeling. Perhaps having Aslan as a puppet wouldn't have been so disappointing if all the Narnian creatures (the non-human ones, anyway) had been puppets.
The overall pace was slow. I can imagine a film shaving the best part of an hour off the total running time without sacrificing anything significant of the story. But the final episode was rushed. We didn't get to hear the gnomes speak after the Witch was killed, so we didn't hear about Bism, and Rilian and Eustace weren't tempted to go there. We saw the gnomes jump into the abyss but for all we knew they were committing suicide rather than returning home. The end of the story was cut short too. We saw the bullies running away from Eustace, Jill, Caspian and Aslan but then Aslan and Caspian inexplicably flew off into the sky, and then the credits rolled. We didn't see the authorities come to find the wall of the school magically restored and the Head acting like a lunatic, or the bullies being expelled, and Experiment House being transformed into a decent school. But then, it wasn't really established at the beginning of the first episode what Experiment House was like.
But overall, I enjoyed it - much better than the painfully slow LWW, the ridiculously rushed "Prince Caspian" or the fairly rushed "Dawn Treader" (which I think was the second best serial of the four). It was a pity they never made the other three.
What was good:
The best thing was Tom Baker as Puddleglum. He was superb. Funny and lugubrious, just like the character in the book. But in the confrontation scene with the Witch, he played it absolutely straight, and delivered his speech about living as a Narnian even if there isn't any Narnia with real earnestness. (I was afraid he might send it up, given his views on religion.)
Eustace and Jill were also good, and had the right dynamic between them. A little bit wooden in places, but not many child actors escape that. I thought they were both much better than the children who played the four Pevensies. Rilian was excellent, being convincing as both the madman and the hero.
What wasn't so good:
The special effects were terrible. It was made in 1990 but it looked like a Doctor Who episode from about 1973. Where characters were superimposed (e.g. to make Eustace, Jill and Puddleglum small in Harfang) the outlines were obvious, and occasionally people's hands and feet got cut off. I know it was "only" a children's serial but the effects in Doctor Who were much better before it was cancelled in 1989.
The puppet Aslan was so dull. Much of the time it was literally static, with only its mouth moving up and down. At first I was glad that they didn't have Aslan as a man in a lion's head, walking around on two legs, as I've seen in some stage productions of LWW, but looking at the BBC "Silver Chair" I wonder whether that may have been better, as a human actor would at least have given the role expression and feeling. Perhaps having Aslan as a puppet wouldn't have been so disappointing if all the Narnian creatures (the non-human ones, anyway) had been puppets.
The overall pace was slow. I can imagine a film shaving the best part of an hour off the total running time without sacrificing anything significant of the story. But the final episode was rushed. We didn't get to hear the gnomes speak after the Witch was killed, so we didn't hear about Bism, and Rilian and Eustace weren't tempted to go there. We saw the gnomes jump into the abyss but for all we knew they were committing suicide rather than returning home. The end of the story was cut short too. We saw the bullies running away from Eustace, Jill, Caspian and Aslan but then Aslan and Caspian inexplicably flew off into the sky, and then the credits rolled. We didn't see the authorities come to find the wall of the school magically restored and the Head acting like a lunatic, or the bullies being expelled, and Experiment House being transformed into a decent school. But then, it wasn't really established at the beginning of the first episode what Experiment House was like.
But overall, I enjoyed it - much better than the painfully slow LWW, the ridiculously rushed "Prince Caspian" or the fairly rushed "Dawn Treader" (which I think was the second best serial of the four). It was a pity they never made the other three.