Transition from Earth to Narnia In Film or Series Adaption

jasmine tarkheena

jasmine tarkheena

Active member
I think it will be a challenge on how to do the transition from Earth to Narnia in the new film or series adaption. It's actually not easy to do on screen. I'm sure filmmakers are going have to re-imagine some of them.

In LWW, I think we have next to nothing to worry about. All it is Lucy walking into the wardrobe and has the child like wonder when she sees the snow falling in the woods. So I think it's pretty simple enough.

In PC, the book describes as the Pevensies feeling like something is pulling them. Then at an instant, they're in Narnia. The Walden got dramatic, with the epic train station disappearing. It will be interesting on how a new PC adaption will come up with that.

In VDT, the book describes as the kids getting smaller and the picture dragging them in. In the Walden, water was gushing out of the painting and flood the bedroom. I think it would be cool to see the kids getting smaller or the picture getting bigger. Yet, it might not happen that way.

In SC, it's pretty simple. Eustace and Jill are escaping from the school bullies and they see a door. They open the door, and they are in Aslan's country at first. Then Aslan blows each of them into Narnia. I think that will be kept pretty low key.

In HHB, there's no earth to Narnia transition since it' takes place during LWW. So there's next to nothing to worry about. Then they might decide to move the hunting of the white stag from LWW to HHB.

In MN, it might be a little tricky. Digory and Polly put on the rings, and first arrive in the Wood Between The Worlds. When they jump into one of the pools, they're in Charn, a dead world. Then in another pool, they're in Narnia, at the Creation. So I don't know how they're going to do that on screen.

In LB, it might be a little trickier. We get the story from a different perspective, and only get a glimpse of Earth when Tirian appears before the Seven Friends of Narnia. They might show Eustace and Jill on the train on the way to school. When the train starts going too fast, they cut to where Tirian is tied up to the tree and Eustace and Jill suddenly appear.

Any ideas on how a Narnia screen adaption could do a transition from Earth to Narnia? Will they go by how each are described in the books or will they have to re-imagine some of them?
 
Transitions are somewhat easier in these days of advanced CGI and motion capture. As for jumping in the pools....jump in feet first, then turn down and swim deeper and deeper...then a closeup of the face and arms paddling. Then showing them coming up...splash! This was even handled in the primitive days of the 1960s in the final original Twilight Zone episode "The Bewitching Pool" where a brother and sister escaped their dismal and contentious life with quarreling parents by jumping in the swimming pool and emerging in a swimming hole in a magical woodland glade. Editing and blocking the shots is everything.
 
I am in a The Silver Chair frame of mind right now, so I've begun re-reading it, and am just barely in the second chapter.

There is so much to work with with The Silver Chair for an opening sequence, and there are so many ways they could go about this. Here are some of my ideas. They could start in Narnia with Rilian's backstory. I love how the BBC handled Rilian's backstory (it was shown a ways into the story during the Parliament of Owls). Something nearly identical could be the new version's opening scene.

Here's how I propose we transition from Narnia, England and into Aslan's country.

We could see an aged, weathered and distressed King Caspian grieving. He has returned to the glade where he lost both his beloved wife and his only son, ten years ago. Perhaps there is a small pool there, into which he looks and he sees his grief-stricken reflection. A tear falls from his face and creates a ripple in the water as he sighs out "Oh Aslan..........."

When the water clears again, it is no longer Caspian's reflection we see staring into it, but that of a girl. She has been crying behind the gym, and rises from a clear pool of water there on a dull autumn day, and composes herself. We hear the faint echo of "Oh Aslan" continue across worlds and soon realize they are now the words of a mere youth; a boy nearby (Eustace) is found to be sentimentally speaking these words. The two notice each other and begin talking. This kindles a conversation between the two, and eventually Scrubb asks Pole if she would believe him if he told her he had once been taken out of this world and into another...

Cut to a brief shot of King Caspian back in Narnia, rising from his grief. His countenance now becomes determined, as if resolved upon specific action. He informs his courtiers to ready his ship.

Then shifting back to England we are given a panning tour of Experiment House, as the action really starts to pick back up again. Eustace tells Jill about Aslan and how he had called him and his cousins before out of their own world. Then the bullies chase the two up the hill. At the top of the shrubbery, they come face to face with a high stone wall with a door in it out to the open moor.

Cut to King Caspian, with the winds of change blowing in his tear-stained face. Turn to reveal he is staring face to face with a high stone wall around the rebuilt Cair Paravel, with a door in it that opens looking out onto the open Eastern Ocean. Through the door, the rising sun comes beaming through. Cast in a new golden light, Caspian takes one last look behind him at his beloved Narnia, then turns back to the stone wall and walks through the door. There is his dock with his ship, ready to set sail, which he boards intently at once.

'Back on this side of the door,' (at the top of the shrubbery that is), Scrubb and Pole in an act of faith reach for the door in their own stone wall and miraculously find it to open. Jill's tear-stained face is now no longer one of sorrow, but one of new-found hope. Instead of the dull grey sky nearly surrounding them, through the open door blazing sunshine and blue sky pour through, guiding them into Aslan's country.
 
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In MN, when they enter the pools, it could go black with white streaks to show to the audience movement through different worlds. Going to and from the Wood should just be a quick scene transition.

In PC, the book version of the train the station was more of the kind of station they exited at the beginning of the first movie. It was described as an empty station in the country. They could easily make this station have lots of trees and as they walk back into the trees, they suddenly find themselves surrounded by many more trees (which is how it was in the book) or the trees just appear around them.

If they wanted to do more of a series, I have already given my transition between the end of LWW and the beginning of H&HB.

For VotDT, I think it would be better for the picture to get bigger than them getting smaller. First they see the picture moving, then they feel the sea breeze, then the picture starts to grow larger and larger until they find themselves standing on the bottom of the frame, which turns into floating wood in the ocean for them to hang onto.

In TLB, one possibility would be to show Eustace and Jill on the train talking. Maybe they are looking outside or looking at a picture of what would become the are where they would enter in Narnia when they are transitioned by being flung onto the ground in Narnia, a hint of what happened to them in the real world.
 
MrBob, that's exactly how I "picture" the picture in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader! It sounds like we visualize the same thing we read the text. I would like to see at least a few shots of most of the picture frame, not showing them shrinking, but showing them a gradually smaller and more precarious each time relative to the expanding frame. Also, a definitive sea gust that flings books and papers across the room, not a gentle offscreen spray fan pointed at Georgie Henley. I hope the next adaptation will really make this scene into one of its own, not just a quick 'get there to Narnia' moment. The picture in the bedroom is to me probably the most adventurous transition to Narnia, a mini adventure in and of itself!
 
Glad we see some things in common, tirian. However, we do disagree slightly in that I wish the magic would only affect the kids, not the room. I was slightly disappointed in the Walden movie to see the room filling up with water. If they kept with the wind and ocean spray only, it would be fun for it to just affect the kids and leave the rest of the room alone, maybe showing that the papers and bed sheets are unaffected by this wind.
 
Okay, now I see MrBob, and thank you for acknowledging my post. Yeah...I think we do see some things different. I know for one thing that what I want is for as many little details that are in the book to be included onscreen. Now, sure, that could take different forms. I DEFINITELY think that Lewis was showing the magic to carry through from Narnia into our world, papers and flung books and ALL! I support this argument by pointing out that in LWW, Lucy opened the wardrobe and " two moth balls dropped out." For another noteworthy moment, let's point back (just for a moment of course) to my previous post describing an immersive opening for The Silver Chair. Pulling directly from the book for a second, when Eustace and Jill open the door in the stone wall, a blaze of sunshine met them: "It poured through the doorway as the light of a June day pours into a garage when you open the door. It made the drops of water on the grass glitter like beads and showed up the dirtiness of Jill's tear-stained face." Now, I interpret this passage to mean that sunlight is pouring from Aslan's country INTO England.

It raises a question, at least for me it does. Would the bullies running up behind them catch a glimpse of this sunlight? Would they see as much beauty coming from Aslan's country as Eustace and Jill did? Perhaps the bullies would emerge at the top of the shrubbery one moment too late, and miss it all! Now, back to the bedroom in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was just Edmund, Lucy and Eustace. Here is a "nonbeliever," so to speak, that is, Eustace at that moment. And yet Lewis describes the magic in a way that transcends the realm of earth. I believe this is a vital visual detail. Eustace sees what is happening! I think it would be really weird for them to just be sucked into a picture-turned-motion-picture. Some of the other details, like the picture frame, I find a bit more ambiguous. I was also disappointed how the room was filled with water in the Walden Media version. "...And by this time either they had grown much smaller or the picture had grown bigger. Eustace jumped to try to pull it off the wall and found himself standing on the frame..." I think it's probably one of the most difficult sequences to pull off in a movie or tv series, personally. Though I am a strong proponent of seeing the effects of Narnia and Aslan's country carried through to our world.
 
The hardest thing about TSC would be to show how Experiment House allowed bullies to nearly be in charge. This was the reason the attack on the bullies at the end was so necessary. I say this because I imagine Eustace and Jill to go through the gate with the sun shining through into their world. The rest of the movie entails and then they show the bullies finally finding their way to the gate to find Jill, Eustace, and Caspian armed and ready to go after them.

As for VotDT, an alternative is that they don't show either the picture getting bigger or them getting smaller but the picture becoming more real the longer they look at it and then the scene focuses on the ship, the camera then pans around to show the three of them in the room framed like a picture. It then zooms in to the picture and they find themselves hanging onto the frame in the ocean. Absolutely necessary is that they show them from underneath as Lucy kicks her shoes off. I liked that description in the book.
 
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