Discuss the White Witches in BBC and Walden

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There are threads to compare and contrast the kids, but I thought I'd start one for the White Witch.

I thought that the BBC witch was done in way too large of a manner, but still the story came across well. My little nieces responded more to that white witch than Tilda's. She also looked closer to what the book describes her as. However, I still thought that Tilda did a good job as well. She played the witch in more of a controlled manner. She was incredible in the battle scenes.

What do you all think?
 
I think Tilda Swinton did a much better job portraying Jadis.
Barbara Kellermen, i think, made it look and sound a bit more like Opera than a film.
Just my opinion though.
 
Samak said:
I think Tilda Swinton did a much better job portraying Jadis.
Barbara Kellermen, i think, made it look and sound a bit more like Opera than a film.
Just my opinion though.
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I agree. She was a bit over the top, but I did find her to be a lot more scary than Tilda. Even as a kid, I don't think that Tilda would have scared me at all till the battle scene. Then I would have just thought of her as mean rather than scary per se. Tilda was good, but I didn't have nearly the reaction to her that I did to the BBC series as a kid. It could be that I'm older, but I'm not sure.
 
The witch in the BBC movie, sort of scared me. She was WAY overly done, and sometimes, it looked like she might have been doing that on purpose. I think she ruined it because I even found her performance humorous. Tilda is definitly better. Although, I had always imagined the witch with dark hair. Her performance was believable and she did a good job. Not as good on the scary part though. She didn't look or act as scary as the other witch.
 
Samak said:
I think Tilda Swinton did a much better job portraying Jadis.
Barbara Kellermen, i think, made it look and sound a bit more like Opera than a film.
Just my opinion though.
Click to expand...

I agree on that.Tilda was more like I had imagined Jadis to be like.Cold,powerful,white and beautiful.
 
I know some folks will get on my case over this...but if we speak ONLY of outward physical attractiveness, and if you look at Barbara Kellerman with the much more natural look she had when playing the Green Witch in "Silver Chair," I think that Barbara Kellerman is a far more attractive woman than Tilda Swinton.
 
Not being a guy I couldn't say. That and we haven't seen Tilda dressed in anything Narnian other than the white witch...now, I hope they won't make her the green lady too and rather only allow her to do Jadis in MN, but personally I didn't think either lived up to the book's description of the most beautiful women ever. They looked ok for what they were trying to accomplish. So, it's tough to merely speak to appearances. I thought Tilda was prettier in LWW as the witch, but Barbara looked more like the book description rather than an aryian witch. Barrbara looked better in SC than she did in LWW, but I don't think she looks all that great. As I said though, I'm not a guy.
 
I think I said in a long-ago post that, given adequate acting ability, I would salivate to see the role of the Green Witch played by Irish dancer Gillian Norris, who was the "bad girl" in Michael Flatley's "Lord of the Dance." She is SO drop-dead gorgeous that, with her in the role, I would yearn to have her character come to repentance and salvation rather than having to be killed.
 
Um...ok. I don't know who they'll get for the future roles, but I believe that Tilda was in favor of coming back to do the role of Jadis in MN. That's about all I know.
 
I think the BBC's witch is much closer to how I pictured the witch when reading the book.

The only thing I liked about Tilda's performance is that she was more "icey" as Jadis. The BBC's Jadis was more over-the-top, BUT so was the whole production so in context, she actually wasn't.

Physically, I always pictured the witch to have dark/black hair. Blonde Jadis looked more like an angry princess than an evil witch. She wasn't scary either. And in the movie, I didn't get the impression any of the Narnia people were really scared of her. They were too busy hating her and preparing to rebel.

Of course, in the book and the BBC version they hated her too. But they were also scared to hate her, and scared to stand up to her. Didn't get that impression in the movie at all.
 
I seem to be all alone with picturing Jadis as blonde in the first place LOL :p

The first thought that hit me when I saw the BBC movie was "Did Jadis gone mad or what?".A few people have been barking me out for having this opinion,but I find the BBC Jadis looking more like a lunatic than a powerful Witch who turned a whole land into eternal winter.She isn't enchanting,she isn't beautiful.She isn't the Witch I imagined her to be from reading the book.
I vote for Tilda.I hope I didn't offend anyone now but that's just what I think.
 
I like the principle of having a non-screeching White Witch; both the animated and the BBC witches were a little too loud. Unnaturally loud, I mean. If they did it more naturally, it probably wouldn't bother me. Anyway, a menacingly quite White Witch would be really great. But Tilda wasn't menacing, as far as I could tell; just quite. :( Along with her blond hair (did they have to do that? *sigh*), that about ruined the Walden White Witch for me. I wish the BBC witch had had a slightly more natural white make-up – I don't the obviously made-up look. But she has long black hair :D and she's better looking than Tilda, I think. If you try to ignore the heavy, ugly crown. ;)

I like the Animated White Witch! ;-)
 
Aye, when we were watching them all last Saturday, we were talking about this. We decided that although Tilda acts better, Barbara looks better. Tilda looks nicely beautiful, rather than coldly beautiful and her face isn't pale enough.

I haven't seen the animated so I wouldn't know about that.
 
Yes. 'Nicely' beautiful sounds about right. She looks like a tall, pale, pretty human.
 
Tilda is a great actress, she did a great job. Andrew said he always had her on mind whenever he thought about making LWW cuz she had the manner, the height and I believe she really looked like an Ice Goddess, or something. She's very pale and she looked more like a White and Ice's witch than Barbara, who looked like most witches in films.
However, it's true that Barbara looked more like the book's Jadis, physicaly.
 
ste said:
I think the BBC's witch is much closer to how I pictured the witch when reading the book.

The only thing I liked about Tilda's performance is that she was more "icey" as Jadis. The BBC's Jadis was more over-the-top, BUT so was the whole production so in context, she actually wasn't.

Physically, I always pictured the witch to have dark/black hair. Blonde Jadis looked more like an angry princess than an evil witch. She wasn't scary either. And in the movie, I didn't get the impression any of the Narnia people were really scared of her. They were too busy hating her and preparing to rebel.

Of course, in the book and the BBC version they hated her too. But they were also scared to hate her, and scared to stand up to her. Didn't get that impression in the movie at all.
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You just stole my words. That was exactly what I was going to say. The Walden White Witch, to me, couldn't scare ANYONE, and her acting was OK, but NOTHING like Jadis. And besides Tumnus, she couldn't scare a 2-year-old. I hated the BBC series, but I have to say, although their Witch was a bit of a stereotype and couldn't fool anyone, at least she was more of Jadis than Tilda. That's the one thing I DIDN'T like in Disney/Walden's LWW; she wasn't a witch, she was a pale, skinny, blonde angry princess who had wolves for servants.
 
Well, if you look an image of Barbara as the white witch and a Tilda's as the white witch too, I'd say Tilda looks more like a witch. Barbara looks like an Evil Queen. But Tilda looks as a sorceress.
 
Wunderkind said:
I seem to be all alone with picturing Jadis as blonde in the first place LOL :p

The first thought that hit me when I saw the BBC movie was "Did Jadis gone mad or what?".A few people have been barking me out for having this opinion,but I find the BBC Jadis looking more like a lunatic than a powerful Witch who turned a whole land into eternal winter.She isn't enchanting,she isn't beautiful.She isn't the Witch I imagined her to be from reading the book.
I vote for Tilda.I hope I didn't offend anyone now but that's just what I think.
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Gosh! I'm agree with you, dear friend!
 
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