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| Featured CED VideoDisc No. 38 - Fall 2005 | ||||||||||||||
With the live-action version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" coming out on December 9, the animated CED version of this C. S. Lewis classic book was chosen as the featured CED for this season. Mr. Lewis published this tale in 1950, but the book dedication to his Goddaughter, Lucy Barfield, indicates he may have been writing it for some time before then:
"I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis"
Lucy also happens to be the name of one of the four children who are among the principal characters in the novel. The story takes place around 1940 (Earth time) during the London blitz, but only a small portion of the novel takes place in the mysterious countryside house the four children have been evacuated to. Most of the story takes place in the country of Narnia, a kingdom that can sometimes be entered by stepping into a wardrobe in that strange house. Once in Narnia, a land where it has been "always winter and never Christmas" the children experience adventures with many of the fantastic creatures found there, including Mr. Tumnus the faun, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Maugrim the wolf, Jadis the white witch, Father Christmas, and Aslan the lion.
The 1979 animated adaption available on CED is fairly true to the book except in one notable detail - the children never actually meet Father Christmas. Instead Aslan himself presents them with their gifts. The title of the animated feature also states that this is "the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia." That is true based on the year published, but in C. S. Lewis' chronology of the Chronicles of Narnia, it is actually Book Two:
|
Chronology
|
Title
|
Year Published
|
| Book One | The Magician's Nephew | 1955 |
| Book Two | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | 1950 |
| Book Three | The Horse and His Boy | 1954 |
| Book Four | Prince Caspian | 1951 |
| Book Five | The Voyage of the Dawn Treader | 1952 |
| Book Six | The Silver Chair | 1953 |
| Book Seven | The Last Battle | 1956 |
From the previews that have been shown so far, it appears that the 2005 version of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" will be an impressive production. If it proves popular enough, more of C. S. Lewis' books in the Chronicles of Narnia will no doubt be made into movies.
A previous CED feature The Hobbit has proved enormously popular in elementary school curriculums, as it tells the story in slide show picture form, complete with quotes from the book. For that reason, this feature for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is structured similarly. It's interesting to note that J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of "The Hobbit" and C. S. Lewis were, in life, good friends and colleagues.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the Internet Movie Database
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
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