Ship of Fools: The Silver Chair (CS Lewis)

Thread: The Silver Chair (CS Lewis) - movie coming soon Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

Announced here among other places.

I must say that some of the revisions to the books as portrayed in the movie, particularly battle scenes in Prince Caspian put me off a bit, particularly as some bits of faith story were sacrificed, i.e., Lucy seeing Aslan and the others not. I thought Dawn Treader was more creditable.

I wondered how others have taken to the movies, and what you think of this one. I want to see how Puddleglum does. I suspect he'll be CGI.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I want to see how Puddleglum does.

Short body, long,long arms and legs. He'll be played by Jar Jar Binks [Two face]

Edited because my coding is rubbish

[ 02. October 2013, 19:58: Message edited by: balaam ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I think it was a BBC version of "The Silver Chair" some years ago where Tom Baker was cast as Puddleglum. He was absolutely perfect for the part of the Marshwiggle. That version was quite a good rendition of the story and faithful to the books.

I disliked "Caspian" as a film. It didn't work for me, and was spoilt by the romance with Susan. "If you need anything, just call me," as she galloped off into the night. And Lucy was ghastly.

Apart from that, "The Lion (etc)" was very well done. I particularly liked the way Edmund was portrayed - you could see where he was coming from in this one - and Tilda Swinton is always worth watching.

Posted by Lothiriel (# 15561) on :

The LWW and Caspian films were okay (although I also detested the romance between Susan and Caspian), but Dawn Treader was dreadful. Granted, Dawn Treader was a trickier story to adapt to a movie, since the book is episodic without a sustained anatagonist role throughout, but the antagonist they created for the movie--that green fog--was completely foreign to the character of the book.

Silver Chair should be easier to adapt, since it's got the conflict between the Prince, and later his rescuers, and the Lady/Witch from beginning to end. I'm hoping the film makers don't make a complete botch of it.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Someone on that link has suggested Johnny Depp for Puddleglum - which I like.

I think it could be done without all the fiddlefaddle they added to DT and the personality clashes in PC. And the stuff they left out. Totally straight - though possibly the knocking of Summerhill might be thought inappropriate. (I assume that was the school he had in mind, though the bullying seems not one of its characteristics.)

[ 02. October 2013, 21:50: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

I must have repressed the Caspian-Susan romance. Blech! -- I do dislike the 'based on' way they do these things.

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

Funnily enough I'm going through The Silver Chair again at the moment, and was wondering if there would be a film soon. As others have said, it should be the most straightforward to translate to film. For me the biggest disappointment so far was Caspian - apart from Aslan himself of course. He's never as wonderful as I imagine him to be.

Posted by moron (# 206) on :

Where are the Inklings when you need them?

'Not another fucking elf' (paraphrase) [Killing me]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

My greatest disappointment in Dawn Treader was the scene of Eustace's transformation from dragon back to boy. In the book it is so powerful-- a poignant, realistic depiction of the pain of spiritual transformation. In the movie it was a silly, cartoonish, fairy tale that carried none of the spiritual depth and meaning of the book.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Someone on that link has suggested Johnny Depp for Puddleglum - which I like.

He'd be- adequate.

I swear to God, I have been saying this forever-- "if they make a film version of 'The Silver Chair", they'd be nuts not to tap Matt Smith." I mean, come on-- he's like, twelve feet tall and when he does gloom-face, small storm clouds will gather above theaters.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

I gave up watching them after the first one. It could have been worse, I suppose, but all the historical inaccuracies in the first bit and the whole thing about Edmund Missing His Father and going off the rails because of that was just [Projectile]

Why do American filmmakers get obsessive about characters' relationships with their fathers? Edmund betrayed everyone else as a result of plain old-fashioned sibling rivalry, combined with a dose of 'I Know What I'm Doing Because I'm A Boy' (and not inclined to take advice from his little sister). No further explanation needed.

I am not planning to go and see The Silver Chair. It's my favourite of the whole series and I don't want to see it mucked about.

Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on :

Historical inaccuracies? You do know they are books of fiction...

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Or Matt Smith, yes. But that does rather establish a Dr Who wormhole to the marshes, doesn't it?

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

The Rogue:

quote:
Historical inaccuracies? You do know they are books of fiction...

Books of fiction where the protagonists go into an imaginary world from the real one, yes. However, the reality they start out in is 1940s Britain, where children did NOT have large expensive wireless sets in their bedrooms; not even in very rich households. That's the only thing I can actually remember as being definitely inaccurate after all this time (I've been blanking it out, you see), but the air-raid sequence isn't justified by anything in the book. The war is mentioned only in passing and the implication is that the Pevensies did the sensible thing and sent their children away from London as soon as war broke out. Certainly before anyone had the time to excavate an Anderson shelter.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Totally straight - though possibly the knocking of Summerhill might be thought inappropriate. (I assume that was the school he had in mind, though the bullying seems not one of its characteristics.)

If you leave crowds of kids together with nothing much to do and inadequate supervision, there will be bullying. Ask anyone from Kipling on down, or anyone who went through the Residential Schools (for the Aboriginals of Canada, Oz, etc.)

Dartington springs to mind as another candidate, but the Head the school sounds more like Neill.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I've always thought I'd like to see Bill Nighy as Puddleglum.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by balaam:

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I want to see how Puddleglum does.
Short body, long,long arms and legs. He'll be played by Jar Jar Binks

Edited because my coding is rubbish

Conan O'Brian is built to play this.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Totally straight - though possibly the knocking of Summerhill might be thought inappropriate. (I assume that was the school he had in mind, though the bullying seems not one of its characteristics.)
If you leave crowds of kids together with nothing much to do and inadequate supervision, there will be bullying. Ask anyone from Kipling on down, or anyone who went through the Residential Schools (for the Aboriginals of Canada, Oz, etc.)

Dartington springs to mind as another candidate, but the Head the school sounds more like Neill.

I don't think the Head's dealing with the bullying sounds philosophically Neill - and isn't Lewis unhappy that she is not a he?
I wonder if there was somewhere around Oxford along those lines at the time Lewis was writing. (And I was at a private school where the unwritten ethos was supportive of bullying, and us daygirls were not supposed to tell our parents what went on. The staff regarded that as the prime crime of sneaking. Or enough of them, and they being in power. No nonsense about the interesting psychology.)

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I've always thought I'd like to see Bill Nighy as Puddleglum.

... Yeah!

Posted by Polly Plummer (# 13354) on :

I've managed to hold out against seeing any of the Narnia films (or Tolkien ones): couldn't bear to watch anyone messing with the characters and story I can see in my head!

Posted by Lothiriel (# 15561) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
... but the air-raid sequence isn't justified by anything in the book. The war is mentioned only in passing and the implication is that the Pevensies did the sensible thing and sent their children away from London as soon as war broke out. Certainly before anyone had the time to excavate an Anderson shelter.

The filmmakers had to provide context and background for viewers half a century and half a world away from the events. Many people watching the movie wouldn't understand why the children had been sent away from home without seeing an air raid and the subsequent loading of children onto trains. North American children born in the 21st century, for example, would be a large segment of the movie's target market, and a majority of them would not know about the wartime evacuation from London. Lewis needed only passing mention to explain it in the book, because when he wrote it in the late 1940s (he finished it in 1949) for a British audience, they knew all about it.

It's the same sort of thing with the cricket ball breaking the window that led to the children escaping to the room containing the wardrobe. The touring of private, occupied houses is a particularly British phenomenon and difficult to explain in a children's movie, and so a simpler device to account for them looking for a place to hide was needed.

Posted by Huia (# 3473) on :

Puddleglum is my favourite character in the series (if fact in all Lewis' writing). Although I mostly liked the adaptation of the Lord of the Rings to film but I usually avoid filmed versions of loved books after being deeply scarred by what Disney did to Mary Poppins (shudder).

Huia

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

I've found the way to handle the film version of most things is usually to see it as a different, independent creation. If you think of it as a visual version of the book it rarely lives up to the mental images you've formed yourself.

The Lion (etc) was a good film but Aslan was a letdown, partly because you can't capture that sort of thing on film and make it work. He looked very ordinary.

I think I have seen the Dawn Treader - again some of the bits in that don't really translate to screen. The island in the dark fog is quite a powerful mental image and at that point the reader usually pauses involuntarily with one or two apposite memories of their own; again it's something that can't translate. And Eustace's story is also a powerful kind of myth that works really well in the book but altogether less so on the screen. But it says something about the film that I struggle to remember anything much about it whereas the book is far more memorable. IMO.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Well, if we're looking for candidates to play Puddleglum, a friend of mine would be perfect for the role. He's about 6'3", very thin with a short body and long limbs. He loves quoting from the Books of Job and Lamentations, but underneath he's an optimist really. Unfortunately he is not an actor and has no ambitions in that direction, so unlikely to be 'discovered' by Hollywood.

I take your point about having to 'explain' why the children were staying with Professor Kirk to a modern audience, Lothiriel, but I still think it could have been handled better. It looked as if the whole beginning of the film had been done by the same person who wrote the ludicrously over-dramatized beginning of the new Star Trek film (where James Tiberius Kirk is born in a lifeboat fleeing from a doomed space station as his father makes a Heroic Last Stand against the aliens To Protect His Family). Is it a new rule or something? You have to have a certain number of explosions in the first ten minutes or the audience will walk out?

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
Puddleglum is my favourite character in the series (if fact in all Lewis' writing). Although I mostly liked the adaptation of the Lord of the Rings to film but I usually avoid filmed versions of loved books after being deeply scarred by what Disney did to Mary Poppins (shudder).

What DisneyCorp did to Mary Poppins is nothing compared to what he did to Winnie-the-Pooh. [Projectile]

And their Jungle Book is only forgiveable because of the music.

However, the most astonishing thing about the LoTR films is that it seems to be the general experience that they fit amazingly well with what's inside one's own head. Considering how many heads are involved, that's pretty mind-boggling. Same thing with Harry Potter, I think, though I'm not a huge Potter fan. The Narnia films have been a bit of a mixed bag. Visually, they've got it more or less right, I think, but somehow the feel is wrong. LWW is the best of the bunch so far IMHO, but I have high hopes for The Silver Chair.

I wonder if they'll dare to do The Horse and His Boy - could be fun, as could The Magician's Nephew ((I'd like to see the Dr Who team tackle that one) but I'm dreading The Last Battle - but then, I think that is curate's egg of a book anyway.

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
However, the most astonishing thing about the LoTR films is that it seems to be the general experience that they fit amazingly well with what's inside one's own head.

I agree. I recall however a book that came out in the late 1970s called A Tolkien Bestiary which the LOTR movie franchise clearly used extensively. I think that a lot of imagery for the books had already snuck its way into the collective unconscious from very early on.

By contrast, the Narnia films seem to pay little or no attention to Pauline Baynes' illustrations, which are very much a part of the Narnia series for many of us.

[ 05. October 2013, 17:01: Message edited by: Eutychus ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
However, the most astonishing thing about the LoTR films is that it seems to be the general experience that they fit amazingly well with what's inside one's own head.

YMMV. I in no way imagined Rivendell or the Elves looking like that - Elrond especially, my apologies to the actor playing him, but if I'd been Frodo and woken up in that awful Rivendell set to find him grinning at me from the end of my bed I'd have screamed.

The long hair and general griminess of the other characters, especially Aragorn, was another thing I hadn't anticipated at all, nor the portrayal of Galadriel as a wimpy young girl whispering slowly in Elvish. The films were well done, I admit, but not even close to what I'd imagined.

This is one of the good things about books - everybody can have their own take on the characters and the story, while a film tends to be a bit definitive. With the book I can continue to imagine Aragorn as a clean-cut romantic hero and the Elves as graceful and handsome. Beauty was notably lacking in the film version.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

I didn't mind Lion too much, but after the horrific disaster of Caspian I had no interest in seeing Dawn, particularly after hearing they were taking further liberties with it. The BBC did a much better job of things.

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
The long hair and general griminess of the other characters, especially Aragorn, was another thing I hadn't anticipated at all ...

Well, yes, mileages do vary - there were odd bits that weren't quite as I'd imagined, I must admit. I just feel they got most of it right, and I'm under the impression that that's the majority view. But, as regards Aragorn - isn't there a fair bit in 'The Fellowship' about how grim he looks? And I always assumed that included being pretty grimy.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Dunno. I always thought of grim as being "serious" rather than "grimy". Oddly enough I'd never made the connection between the two words before.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

Does Tolkien mention washing facilities much? Some of the places they camp don't seem well supplied with water.
And grim and grimy do seem to have different sources, with the latter always meaning grubby, and the former having a whole bunch of unattractive meanings such as fierce, cruel, savage, and further unAragornish meanings which Tolkien must have known.

[ 05. October 2013, 20:41: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :

Read Tolkien's description of Strider when the hobbits first encounter him at Bree.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Why do American filmmakers get obsessive about characters' relationships with their fathers?

It really is a big deal for a lot of American men (I would say for men in general, really) so that's why the theme pops up everywhere from Lucas and Spielberg movies to even soap operas where the male audience is small.

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
I recall however a book that came out in the late 1970s called A Tolkien Bestiary which the LOTR movie franchise clearly used extensively. I think that a lot of imagery for the books had already snuck its way into the collective unconscious from very early on.

If this is the book you're thinking of I used to own a copy and you might be right though I can't remember if the conceptual artists for the LOTR movies, Alan Lee and John Howe, had illustrations in it.

Lee and Howe both did illustrations for the Tolkien Wall Calendars and Lee did illustrations for The Hobbit and the 100th Anniversary edition of the LoTR and cover illustrations for hard and soft cover editions of of the LoTR (and if I remember correctly, editions of The Hobbit and the History of Middle Earth series) before the movie editions came out so their imagery was definitely in the collective consciousness before they even began work on the movies.

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:

This is one of the good things about books - everybody can have their own take on the characters and the story, while a film tends to be a bit definitive. With the book I can continue to imagine Aragorn as a clean-cut romantic hero and the Elves as graceful and handsome. Beauty was notably lacking in the film version.

Strider/Aragorn was described as both grim and grimy. The griminess came mainly from living as one of the Rangers of the North but I'm sure he cleaned up pretty well back at Rivendell [Smile]

.

To be honest, my Middle-Earth is a bit prettier and more fantastical than Peter Jackson's Middle-Earth but I do like it and I think it's griminess grounded the story and made the movies more acceptable to the non-Tolkien-fans and I liked the Shire and the Art-Nouveau-ish Rivendell. I haven't read the Narnia books in years and I've never seen the movies but my Narnia would be something like a cross between the movie "Excalibur" and a medieval illuminated manuscript come to life.

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Does Tolkien mention washing facilities much? Some of the places they camp don't seem well supplied with water.

There's an entire scene centered around bathing (and singing!) at the house in Crickhollow and the hobbits are described bathing at the House of Tom Bombadil. There's probably mention of bathing elsewhere in the book.

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
Puddleglum is my favourite character in the series (if fact in all Lewis' writing). Although I mostly liked the adaptation of the Lord of the Rings to film but I usually avoid filmed versions of loved books after being deeply scarred by what Disney did to Mary Poppins (shudder).

Huia

A family friend worked for Dick Van Dyke, but the star was paid to be funny back in the early sixties!

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Does Tolkien mention washing facilities much? Some of the places they camp don't seem well supplied with water.
And grim and grimy do seem to have different sources, with the latter always meaning grubby, and the former having a whole bunch of unattractive meanings such as fierce, cruel, savage, and further unAragornish meanings which Tolkien must have known.

I always thought it was kind of hilarious in the movies how Aragorn (and most of the other members of the Fellowship; it just looked kinda sexy on Viggo Mortenson) looked as if they hadn't bathed or washed their hair in months, while Legolas obviously slipped out to a fresh-running spring every morning and dug into his extensive stash of elven hair care products.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I didn't mind Lion too much, but after the horrific disaster of Caspian I had no interest in seeing Dawn, particularly after hearing they were taking further liberties with it. The BBC did a much better job of things.

Now I am wracked with foreboding.

"Silver Chair" is one of my most consistent favorites. I love the banter between Jill and Eustace. Suddenly I am worried they will give them a preteen romance.

[ 06. October 2013, 02:53: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
If this is the book you're thinking of I used to own a copy and you might be right though I can't remember if the conceptual artists for the LOTR movies, Alan Lee and John Howe, had illustrations in it.

Yes, that was it.

quote:
I haven't read the Narnia books in years and I've never seen the movies but my Narnia would be something like a cross between the movie "Excalibur" and a medieval illuminated manuscript come to life.

As far as I'm concerned (and recall), in terms of recreating a medieval atmosphere, Excalibur looks like a poor imitation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which does so surprisingly well in some of the non-immediately-obviously-silly bits. (In particular I remember a bit of Excalibur that looked like a direct copy of the "Old man from scene 24" bit, only less scary...).

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
nor the portrayal of Galadriel as a wimpy young girl whispering slowly in Elvish.

And then, when Frodo offers her the ring, the mask slips and she turns into who she really is and terrifies the crap out of everybody.

Which is the point.

[ 06. October 2013, 13:31: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
And then, when Frodo offers her the ring, the mask slips and she turns into who she really is and terrifies the crap out of everybody.

YMMV. Gollum. on the other hand, was genuinely unnerving, great portrayal.

quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
"Silver Chair" is one of my most consistent favorites. I love the banter between Jill and Eustace. Suddenly I am worried they will give them a preteen romance.

If they did it with Susan and that strange boy on the platform, and Caspian, you can bet they'll do it here. There'll be a boy-girl quarrel between Eustace and Jill - "You'd rather be going out with Adela Pennyfeather, wouldn't you?" which will be her reason for pushing him off the cliff. Then a brief romance with Rilian, who is having an affair with the (jealous) Green Lady.

Still, it can't be anything like as bad as what they did to "The Dark Is Rising."

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
I always thought it was kind of hilarious in the movies how Aragorn (and most of the other members of the Fellowship; it just looked kinda sexy on Viggo Mortenson) looked as if they hadn't bathed or washed their hair in months, while Legolas obviously slipped out to a fresh-running spring every morning and dug into his extensive stash of elven hair care products.

Yeah, well that's Elves for you. High level of personal grooming. Let's face it, there had to be a reason why relations between them and both Men* and Dwarves had longtime bin pretty cool.

*And I mean Men, even if JRRT didn't.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
As far as I'm concerned (and recall), in terms of recreating a medieval atmosphere, Excalibur looks like a poor imitation of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which does so surprisingly well in some of the non-immediately-obviously-silly bits. (In particular I remember a bit of Excalibur that looked like a direct copy of the "Old man from scene 24" bit, only less scary...).

Yeah, but for me the look of Narnia and Excalibur are more about the romance than the realism.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

quote:
If they did it with Susan and that strange boy on the platform, and Caspian, you can bet they'll do it here. There'll be a boy-girl quarrel between Eustace and Jill - "You'd rather be going out with Adela Pennyfeather, wouldn't you?" which will be her reason for pushing him off the cliff. Then a brief romance with Rilian, who is having an affair with the (jealous) Green Lady.

No, no, no no, NO, NO, NO, YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
[Mad]

Don't these idiots realize there is a functional reason the latency period is celebrated in children's literature? It's to give kids a brief sigh of space in between childhood and the point when they can 't think of anything BUT sex!

[ 06. October 2013, 17:59: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

<LOTR tangent> QLib:

quote:
However, the most astonishing thing about the LoTR films is that it seems to be the general experience that they fit amazingly well with what's inside one's own head.

Not with mine. I could just about see why they'd turned Rivendell into a sort of Pre-Raphaelite conservatory, but that bed! That hall of statues! Nonononono. The most culturally distinctive thing about the Elves is their love of music and poetry. They don't go in for statues much. That's why the hobbits are so amazed by the statues in Gondor, because hobbits don't go in for statues much either. The most memorable thing about Rivendell is Elrond's karaoke evening in the Hall of Fire - which is empty apart from a fire and Bilbo's stool.

I liked some of what the filmmakers did. I liked Gollum and I liked the way they updated Arwen's character (except for the bit where Elrond *lies* to her to get her to set off for the Grey Havens; Would. Not. Happen. In. Tolkien.). I hated the way the cultural differences between the races more or less disappeared (except for the costumes) and I thought some of the characters were woefully miscast. Cate Blanchett looked right for Galadriel-the-shy-elf-maiden but was nowhere near scary enough as Galadriel-the-Ruler-of-the-World. The guy who played Faramir was too blond and self-satisfied for the part; he's supposed to look like a more intellectual version of Boromir, not a Californian surfer in fancy dress.

Mind you, I was expecting them to get the Elves wrong. I don't think anyone could get them looking the way Tolkien describes them.

<\LOTR tangent>

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

<Susan Cooper tangent>

Ariel:

quote:
Still, it can't be anything like as bad as what they did to "The Dark Is Rising."

Absolutely agree. Everything that made the book wonderful was ditched; only the names were retained. If you loved the book, have a bucket nearby if you are forced to watch the film.

</Susan Cooper tangent>

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