OnceUponaTime said:
BBC Jadis. Because:
1.She is a lot truer to the book. Lewis wrote her as strong, powerful, loud, and sort of...unsettled in Narnia. She's not in her element, she is a witch, but she is also a spoiled brat. She was used to getting her way in Charn and she is used to getting her way in Narnia. That's how the BBC Jadis is. Almost......well, scared. Walden Jadis is too sure of herself, too overly confident.
2. She looks like Jadis. Again, Lewis wrote her as dark-haired, white-skinned.(As in the color WHITE, like snow. Not peach.) Red lips, and wild eyed. and very intimidating.
3. She has a better emotional pull over people. When you are watching the Turkish Delight scene, you become Edmund, and you feel all the emotions coming from Jadis. You are scared at first, by her wild eyes and loud voice, but you are also entranced by her sort of...grace. Then Edmund thinks she likes him, your heart just leaps, and you're blissfully happy for a few fleeting moments. But then you are just sick when you get to the castle and she is all horrible. Walden Jadis doesn't convey that much emotion.
So BBC wins. Atleast to me.
I can see the reasons for giving the BBC Jadis the edge, but I still would go for the Walden/Disney one. Just talking about these reason for instance:
1. You know, Jadis kind of does have a reason to be overly confident. She's ruled for a hundred years! Easily! And any resistance is easy to deal with because she can just turn them into stone! I also think the Jadis in W/D acts scared too, but she's scared of what she should be scared of. She's scared of Aslan, and she's scared and livid when the Narnians start to think of the children as thier rulers instead of her. The BBC version is way melodramatic. I think you're estimation of her as a spoiled brat is probably true, but I think to inspire more fear and loyalty in her followers she would need to hold the spoiled brat part in more than she does in the BBC.
2. Ok, you are totally right on about the white skin, dark hair thing. I really don't know why they didn't do that. Maybe they were trying to avoid the clown or mime look? But it worked ok in the BBC version. Maybe it wasn't working in the W/D version so they changed it. (Actually, to be absolutely truthful, it wasn't until I finished watching the movie that I said to myself: "Hey! She wasn't white at all! What's up with that?!" I noticed it in pics beforehand, but during the movie it didn't bug me.
3. I think the Jadis in W/D conveys enough emotion to get you to understand her, but not so much that Edmund looks like a complete and total idiot for trusting her at all. In the BBC version she's yelling at him every other minute, and not in a nice voice. Even when she's talking in a nice voice it sounds totally fake, (Even when I was a kid is sounded fake) and it makes me wonder how Edmund could be dumb enough to be taken in at all. When she changed while inside her castle, it wasn't really a huge change, at least for me. In the W/D version she actually seemed genuine in her liking of Edmund, and only let her spoiled self that wants only what she wants slip through a couple times (Like at the end when she refuses to give him more Turkish Delight). In fact, it kind of even reminded me of the serpent in the Garden of Eden. She tells sort of half the truth to lure Edmund in. ( Did God say you can't eat from any of the trees in the garden) She says she could see him becoming King of Narnia some day, which he of course, does, but not all by himself. (They could not eat from one tree, but they could eat from all the others) And she does it in a nice way, so when she switches to hating him it is really a switch, and not just the dropping of a very, very thin facade.
I've been thinking about this a fair amount since I'm actually playing Jadis in a LWW play this Decemeber, and I've been thinking of the best way to play her. Going back to the book, I really see more evidence for the W/D's interpretation of the scene with her and Edmund for instance. Even at the very end of the scene, when she yells at him, in both versions of Jadis, in the book she just laughs beautifully and rides away. She laughs, not yells, that really surprised me when I reread it. I'd been used to thinking of it the way I had seen it in the BBC version, and in the book she was very different.
I'd love to hear any more opinions about the way Jadis should perhaps, have been played, so I hope someone else posts here to continue the discussion!
