Despite not having written much in the blog I *have* had the chance to sit and make a start watching the Chronicles of Narnia. No not the recent film versions, but a relatively ancient version released by the BBC back in 1988!
Being a BBC production we were prepared for a ‘high quality’ presentation which was as faithful to the book as it could be, We began with “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”… and within 15 minutes the children got totally bored and went off to watch Kung-Fu Panda (again). The wife and I persevered and slowly worked out way through the series. I’m not sure how the wife felt about it but once I’d got used to stepping back in time to those more primitive days before CGI I quite enjoyed it.
We began the second part last night and I got confused very quickly. The story is supposed to be Prince Caspian… yet at the beginning the children started discussing visiting Cousin Eustace who doesn’t appear until the Dawn Treader, Still, so far so good,
The only real fly in the ointment is that the Beeb made no attempt to produce any of the other books… especially ‘The Last Battle’. Rumour has it that it was ‘too Christian’ but to be fair it would have been all bar impossible given the technology of the time let alone considering the costs involved in the midst of an economic recession. Still, what there is of it is quite good in its own little nostalgic way. 🙂
On balance though, and as ‘iffy’ as the recent films are in following the original stories, I have to say they are far better productions. The CGI advances alone have made the representations of the talking animals much more realistic.
So the BBC version is good in its way but… is now way past its sell by date.
The Eclectic Interweb 