Hey Netflix, Here's How to Do NARNIA Right

I'll confess, as soon as I started editing this video I felt like I was too harsh on Prince Caspian. The continuity between the first two movies is pretty solid, save for the grimdark lore and convoluted royalty subplots. Voyage of The Dawn Treader though? Oof, man. It's rough. Anyway - which Narnia movie is your favorite, and which book would you like to see adapted in the future? Animated or live-action? I wanna hear all the ideas. The fam over on Patreon got to see this video 2 weeks early! Go check out the Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/user?u=1017531

The Horse and His Boy is highly underrated, imo. Such a great story! I've always wanted to see more of those "in between" stories that took place between the books

That idea that Aslan isn't an allegory for Jesus but is actually Jesus is absolutely fascinating to me. That just changes my whole perspective on the series. Maybe I should reread these books.

Narnia is very precious to me growing up and as a Christian it grew on me immensely when I found out that Aslan is Jesus, everything in the books and the movies began to make more sense and I think it has a beautiful way of introducing Jesus especially to young kids with Aslan always having great purpose in everything he does. It gives someone a sense of wonder and the perspective of choice and choosing to be good never gets old. Netflix better not screw this up.

I like how the core concept of the series is simply; if all-powerful Creator, therefor Multiverse. If Multiverse, therefor Multiverse Jesus.

My favorite movie opening of all time is still the opening of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The moment when the train is traveling through the meadows and that music hits all those perfect notes as the beautiful title card appears.. I tear up every time. I grew up on the movies and the actors who played the characters, so to see someone else play Lucy or someone else voice Aslan would feel so wrong to me. I'm all for giving things chances, but I can't see this series hitting the mark. I really, really hope it does, but anytime GoT is mentioned with Tolkien or Lewis, I get cautious. Spectacular video, Houston. I'm loving the topics you've been talking about lately.

Lewis would be proud that Houston got his take on allegory and mythology right. Calling Narnia allegory cheapens it immensely...

High King Peter is one of the coolest fantasy heroes ever. His helm in the Disney films is awesome.

So, I'm not particularly confident in the direction Netflix is taking, but I think the Christian influence is vital. Let me try to explain as a Christian. In Lewis' vision for the other worlds, they often play out like a literal interpretation of Genesis through to Revelation. God exists in a void of emptiness, He speaks Creation into being, Creation rebels, introducing evil, God takes on a mortal form to save Creation through Resurrection, later a false god appears, and God steps in to save those who believed, and Creation ends. It's a lot more nuanced than that, but that's the basics. Also nothing happens by accident, it's all preordained. The White Witch is the evil that conquered a Fallen Creation, to set up the stakes of Sin. Aslan/God allows these children to witness this evil, and even allows Edmund to give in to temptation to work on the childrens' faith, to teach them (and by extension the audience), a decipherable way to understand the importance attributes of Christianity. But it's up to the children to accept or deny what they learned. For example, and spoiler alert! Susan stopped believing (didn't get saved), so she never enters the wonders of Aslan's realm (heaven). And the lion wasn't random either. In Christian Iconography, God is often depicted as a Lion and a Lamb. Many other parallels reside in the books. Reepicheep is like Enoch from Genesis, who was so faithful to God that, instead of dying like everyone cursed with Sin, was called by God to live with him in Heaven. Long Story short, C. S. Lewis justified his multiverse to abide by the rules established in the Bible to help teach kids some the most important lessons and themes of the Bible. The kids only visit the important benchmarks of Narnia's history to enlighten them about the crucial aspects of the Christian faith. In that way it's kind of like the Magic School Bus, media that's very purpose is to make the aspects of their world more digestible for children, whether it be faith or science. Also it explores the premise about God's Omnipresence; if infinite universes exist, and it is possible for God to exist in just one of those universes, then, by being Omnipresent, He exists is EVERY universe simultaneously.

"Do not recite the deep magic to me, witch! I was there when it was written"

I think it would be better if they made a Narnia show similar to what they did with A Series of Unfortunate Events, it should have a more optimistic tone than that show, but I think A Series of Unfortunate Events was good at jumping into the absurdity of its world. It was a real-ish world, but it was also merging different time periods in its aesthetics.

They should re-film the ending scenes of the first movie now that the actors are the right age.

Great video, Houston. You get Narnia. My favorite Narnia Quote is when Lucy asks if Aslan is safe and Mr. Beaver tells her "He's not safe, but he is good."

Gotta say my favorite book is The Horse and His Boy. Those Focus on the Family Radio Theater dramatized audiobooks were my CHILDHOOD.

I dream with a good adaptation of The Magician's Nephew, I don't know why but that's my favorite narnia book, maybe because the adventure is a lot smaller scale and personal.

My absolute favorite has always been the Silver chair. It teaches me it's never too late to do the right thing.

This is SO spot on! I wrote my undergrad dissertation on the theology of Narnia, and particularly the way in which Lewis (through Aslan), recreates the Christian experience of believing in God. Studying the series in depth, and recognising it as suppositional rather than allegorical, really reframed the way I read the series, so love that you touched on that. I watched the movies again during lockdown, and honestly, I think they hold up in a lot of ways. I agree with you that the casting is spot on, and I hadn't thought about the fact that the strength of the first one is staying away from the lore, but I think you're right. Also, Harry Gregson-Williams' score is truly magical. I read one analysis that noted that the greatest strength of the films is also its biggest weakness: It gives way more nuance and complexity to the kids than the novels, which does wonders for their characterisation, but in doing so, loses the central significance of Aslan. The Magician's Nephew was always a favourite of the novels, so excited to see that on screen, but more than anything, if Netflix do want to expand on the lore, I would LOVE to see more of the golden age of Narnia. The glimpses you see of Susan and Edmund in The Horse and His Boy excite me re: the potential of that era, and I think having them as adults would allow for that more mature aspect, if Netflix really want that. Sorry for the long comment, your video just got me excited about Narnia again!

Narnia is indeed hella strange, but I love it for it. And even though I'm a big world-building nerd, reading Narnia felt so immersive, that I didn't mind the wacky, sometimes non-sensible, worldbuilding.

I think the way Netflix should do it is maybe with 6 episode series for the "core" books in the series, and then maybe have films (and maybe even shorts) alongside for other characters, so The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is a series, but then The Horse and His Boy is a film, and maybe if they want a smaller story, have a 20-40 minute short their story, maybe in an anthology series. Just a thought, and to give you some engagement.

Even though it isn’t incredibly faithful to the book, I like the Prince Caspian movie. The book is by far the weakest in the series so I honestly don’t care much that they diverged so much. I think that movie’s plot works much better than books. The Dawn Treader movie is trash though, which is a shame since it’s one of the best books