The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Disney vs. BBC, part 3

[edenfalling]

This is part 3 of a rambling compare-and-contrast on the BBC miniseries and Disney feature film versions of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, with extensive reference to the book (since the book is my only true canon). As of yet, I have no preference for one filmization over the other, since both have elements that make me happy and elements that annoy me to no end.

link to part 1
link to part 2
link to part 3
link to part 4
link to part 5

jump to some thoughts on Prince Caspian

-----

In Aslan's camp:

I confess to liking the BBC's version of the Stone Table much more than Disney's version. I always imagined the table as slightly ragged rectangle about the size of a six-person dining room table -- maybe an eight-person table at largest -- not a square thing with steps in the middle of a henge. But both versions work... at least when we finally get to see them. For a camp that's meant to be at the Stone Table, the table itself is oddly absent from Disney's staging of the next few scenes.

Moving on! Disney, having a much larger budget, can properly visualize the assorted Narnians gathered in Aslan's camp. Except for the tree spirit, I believe in all of them. (The tree spirit is a little hokey for my taste, and I have always been under the impression that the Dryads were solid, not drifts of petals on the wind.) I also believe very much in this camp as the staging point for an army. As the Pevensies walk through, most of the Narnians are wearing armor or working on weapons. The BBC's camp, in contrast, feels like an overgrown picnic, and they resort to bad animation for the non-humanoid Narnians. (They don't even dream of centaurs.) At this point, the BBC includes a shot of the two wolves who, following Jadis's orders, came to the area and are lying in wait; this is a useful reminder, so they don't come so much out of nowhere later on.

The BBC nods vaguely toward multiculturalism by making all the satyrs black and including some gray-skinned tree-spirits, so the gathering isn't quite as lily-white as it might have been, but it's still pretty white. Disney's Narnia is even whiter, though there is a slight Mediterranean cast to some of the centaurs. (This was remedied somewhat in Prince Caspian, but while fixing your mistakes is good, it's better not to make them in the first place.)

Neither version stages the Pevensies' little 'you first, no, you first' scuffle over who will speak to Aslan. That's a pity; I like that business. All that aside, Disney wins hands down on Aslan. First, he's CGI rather than animatronic (or whatever the BBC did; I can't tell whether their Aslan is mechanical or two people in a costume like a pantomime horse -- possibly both?), so among other things his mouth moves in time to his words. Second, they got Liam Neeson to do his voice; the BBC version is too high-pitched to feel right. (Come to think of it, is this the first time the Disney version explicitly identifies Aslan as a lion? The book and the BBC make a point of his species in dialogue back at Beaversdam, but I think Disney may have cut those lines.) Oh! And Disney Peter mans up and admits he's been too hard on Edmund. He even looks properly ashamed, as if he means it and is not just claiming guilt for show. Good. He needs to own his mistakes.

Disney lets the Pevensies change their clothes, which seems reasonable to me. The BBC does not. (On that note, Disney also includes a shot after the Sequence That Does Not Exist, wherein Peter, Susan, and Lucy leave their coats hanging in the forest. Edmund's coat is presumably still at Beaversdam.) Disney also extends the conversation between Peter and Aslan; instead of just showing him Cair Paravel and telling him he's going to be High King, Aslan talks about responsibility and keeping your family safe. Peter is clearly not ready to be a king, and says so, which shows good sense. He does not directly say that he's been a jerk toward his family -- he says that he hasn't been able to protect them -- but I suppose one can read that as him channeling concern and fear into anger and guilt because it's easier. So... I still want him to apologize to Susan and Edmund, but I'm no longer so put out about the moral message the movie is conveying.

Disney also concocts a conversation between Susan and Lucy, before the wolves attack, wherein Lucy suggests they bring home fancy dresses for their mother. "If we ever get back," Susan replies. That's a welcome reminder that the Pevensies have lives outside the Narnian world, and they haven't forgotten them at the drop of a hat. The Disney Pevensies' involvement in Narnia is much more gradual and reluctant than their BBC or book counterparts. Again, this is the realism vs. wish-fulfillment tension.

As with Aslan, Disney wins hands down on the battle with the wolves. First, this is one case where their use of heightened tension works perfectly -- I believe with all my heart that Disney Susan and Lucy are in danger, whereas their BBC counterparts are simply alarmed at Maugrim's presence on the Stone Table. Second, Disney has the fight happen on the edge of camp, which avoids the riot the BBC stages, and also avoids raising the issue of how a group of such easily panicked Narnians are going to be any use in a battle. (One wolf on a table can terrify a hundred free Narnians, many of whom have swords or spears? My left foot!) Third, the BBC 'duel' is simply too stagey for my taste, complete with a melodramatic lighting change and obvious transportation from location to a soundstage. Fourth, the BBC's subsequent pursuit of Maugrim's hench-wolf is animated rather than live action, and teeth-grindingly slow.

I like realism in my battle scenes. Disney provides -- maybe even over-provides, considering that LWW is meant to be family-friendly. The BBC, in contrast, is utter pants at violence.

-----

Edmund's rescue:

Peter kills Maugrim in mid-afternoon, but dusk has fallen by the time the BBC's hench-wolf reaches Jadis to give his report. (I suppose he was circling around a lot, trying to lose the pursuit.) The BBC begins the scene with Jadis sending the wolf off to summon parts of her army. Then, indulging Kellerman's melodramatics, I suppose, they have Jadis lovingly clasp her wand and summon "all whose evil works for meeeeeee!" Bah. Jadis is selfish and heartless and cruel. She is not melodramatic. She is far too practical for stupid summoning recitations that end with her standing on tiptoe with arms outstretched. Also, she does not think of herself as evil. She thinks she's in the right and is perfectly justified in all she does. But Kellerman cannot play that sort of subtlety. *sigh*

The BBC's animation of the summoned critters is horribly tacky, as bad as the winged beasts in Aslan's camp. The only moment that works is when one nearly crawls over Edmund's toe -- Jonathan Scott sells Edmund's reaction brilliantly. (Can you tell that I have no patience for the BBC's animation? That may seem odd since I am just fine with the silly fur suits, but the fur suits have the virtue of unquestionably being in the same universe as the rest of the live action. The interactions between people playing people and people playing Talking Beasts are seamless. There are no timing glitches. There are no issues with three-dimensionality vs. two-dimensionality. The color schemes and lighting effects are all of a piece. None of that holds true for the animation. I think the BBC should have used fur suits and prosthetics for what they could manage, and left every other effect up to viewers' imaginations rather than fill in with pathetic animation.)

The BBC then picks up with Jadis and the Dwarf's conversation about what to do with Edmund, which, as usual, Kellerman botches utterly. By this point, I don't just think Kellerman is the worst thing about this production. I know she is. Yeah, she's vaguely scary in a loud, over-the-top fashion, but Jadis is supposed to be chilling, not shouty. Disney should be so damn grateful to Tilda Swinton for saving their production from this kind of laughable amateur theater dramatics.

Disney Jadis, meanwhile, has finished setting up a war camp long before Maugrim's hench-wolf and his pursuers arrive. Edmund is tied up and gagged -- brutally gagged, I should say -- and the Dwarf is taking great glee in menacing him. The lighting is gray and smoky, not golden like Aslan's camp. Ostensibly that's because her camp is in the middle of the deep woods and there are forges at work, but I think there may be camera filters in use, to wash out any green from the background.

The BBC continues to botch the sacrifice-and-rescue scene. Instead of having live action people burst in to interrupt while the Witch is still sharpening her knife, Kellerman raises her arm in a stupidly extravagant gesture and then gasps in patently false shock when the tacky animated flying beasts crash her party. As before, they do not interact at all realistically with the actual people in the scene, so it is blatantly obvious that Jadis throws herself to the ground, rather than being attacked. And when Edmund is plucked into the air and carried off? It is to laugh. Or maybe to weep. Oh, BBC, this is not how you mix animation and live action. Please, put down the pencils and go back to the fur suits.

Also, how dumb are the BBC rescuers not to notice that Jadis's wand is lying on the ground in plain view? Break it or take it with you, numbskulls! (Alternatively, BBC directors, do not stage your scenes in ways that make me want to smack heads. *growls*)

Disney, in contrast, pulls off the rescue brilliantly (thought not particularly canonically). First we see Jadis's camp in the dim forest twilight, as various horrific creatures sharpen their weapons. Jadis and a minotaur are in a tent, making battle plans, when the rescue party charges into camp (relatively silently), snatches Edmund, ties up the Dwarf in his place, and absconds into the night. Jadis is disgusted when she notices the commotion, but she cuts the Dwarf free. "You're not going to kill me?" he asks, shaking with nerves. "Not yet," she tells him. Then she turns back to the minotaur, utterly dismissing the Dwarf. "We have work to do," she says, and they begin to revise their plans.

Strict canon compliance be hanged, that is Jadis: cold, ruthless, undaunted, and devastatingly practical. That is the woman who ruled Charn, who fought a world-wide civil war, and who waited until she could see her sister's eyes and speak with her face to face before she spoke the Deplorable Word and ended a universe. *applauds*

-----

Negotiations and battle plans:

The BBC follows the book closely in the immediate aftermath of Edmund's rescue: Mrs. Beaver tells the other siblings that he's back and is talking with Aslan. They rush out to meet him, and there is a slightly awkward reunion. Disney has their centaur OC (Oreius) subtly point out the conversing figures to Peter, after which Susan and Lucy leave the tent and join Peter. Disney therefore lingers a bit longer on Edmund and Aslan speaking alone. Disney stages that conversation a slight distance from the camp, halfway up a hill; the BBC has them right in the heart of the camp, next to the Stone Table. (The table, incidentally, has still not appeared in the Disney production.)

Lewis immediately interrupts the reunion with the Witch's messenger. The BBC has the Pevensies go off and reacquaint themselves offscreen; there is an implicit scene shift before the dwarf approaches with a request for parley. Disney actually shows the reunion. Lucy and Susan hug Edmund -- there is obvious forgiveness and relief on all their parts. Peter watches silently: a little annoyed, a lot sad, but mostly desperately relieved. Then he botches the first thing he says to Edmund -- you can see the old pattern of orders and resentment ready to kick back in -- but after a moment Peter breaks his half of that self-reinforcing downward spiral and says something inane with an expression and intonation that let Edmund finally see that Peter really does love him and is trying to be a better brother. And Edmund smiles, and walks off to take a much-needed nap.

As you can see, I don't mind departures from the book in and of themselves. What I mind is departures that don't have sufficient justification. I like Disney's opening in the London Blitz, because it gives context to the story. I am iffy about breaking Edmund's betrayal into three pieces, but it's an interesting character exploration, so I accept it within the context of the Disney filmization. I am not okay with the rearrangement of geography that puts Beaversdam so close to the Witch's house; that kills some good character stuff from the book and was done only to allow for a stupid chase scene. I don't mind the blatant changes to Edmund's rescue, because the new scene makes sense on its own terms and still shows a lot about Jadis's character. I am implacably opposed to the Sequence That Does Not Exist, because not only does it say nothing about the characters, not only is it pointless melodrama and chase scene nonsense -- it doesn't even make sense according to its own internal logic! (I repeat: the wolves crossed upstream from the waterfall. Why the hell didn't the Beavers and the Pevensies? *headdesk*)

Anyway, moving on! Disney now shows the Pevensies eating brunch, arguing over whether Peter should send the other three home (because he's supposed to protect them), and then deciding that they have to stay and help... and that if they're going to be helping in a war, they ought to learn how to fight properly. Cue ye olde standard training montage. *sigh* This is interrupted by Mr. Beaver rushing up to say that the Witch demanded a meeting with Aslan.

The BBC uses satyrs instead of leopards in the negotiation scene. That is an example of the kind of make-do and understanding of production limitations that I wish they'd shown all through the film instead of resorting to animation. And then, of course, after a decent beginning, the scene becomes farce the moment Kellerman opens her mouth. Blecch. The dialogue is fairly true to the book -- a line is cut here and there for time and concision, and another few rearranged, but the gist is there... except the Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. I wonder if that was cut for time or to soften the Christian allegorical aspects of the story.

Hmm. Seeing BBC Aslan walk away, I am now fairly sure he's played by two humans in a lion suit. The gait of his hind legs is telling. (The face is probably a semi-animatronic mask, though.) Also, the bit where Aslan roars and scare the Witch away is extremely unconvincing as staged by the BBC.

The BBC inserts a little conversation between the Pevensies about how everyone is dying to ask Aslan how he arranged things with Jadis, and Edmund ends it by telling them not to underestimate the Witch. (Have I said enough good things about Jonathan Scott lately? He continues to blow me away. It is lovely to watch him make Edmund so clearly reformed with only body language, expression, and tone of voice.)

Disney's negotiation scene, once again, is not particularly faithful to the book. Jadis arrives in a litter born by four cyclopes, accompanied by her minotaur general as well as her former sledge driver. The dialogue is... interesting. They remove all talk of the Emperor, again. They also remove the bit where Aslan acknowledges the truth of the Witch's claims; instead, they add Peter drawing his sword and trying to threaten Jadis. She essentially laughs him off and mocks him as a child (which he is, of course). Then she and Aslan go into his tent to palaver. Everyone waits; Edmund pulls up handfuls of grass and rips them to shreds, which is both a lovely depiction of tension and a reminder that his habitual response to people and situations is to find a weak point and tear things down. He's trying to reform, but old patterns die hard.

Disney does Aslan's roar much better, though Jadis does not run. She just sits very abruptly, and you can see her discomposure for a second or two before she covers it. Oh, Tilda Swinton, how are you so awesome? Seriously, Disney's hair people and costuming people are consistently doing their best to make her look flat-out stupid -- the dress she wears in this scene is ten thousand kinds of ugly and impractical (and Jadis is never impractical) -- but Tilda Swinton overcomes all such minor issues with the sheer force of her awesomeness.

Now the Narnian resistance ought to pack up camp and move away from the Stone Table. They are meant to be heading into the forest, down toward the river and the Fords of Beruna. The BBC camp duly packs up, and the next scenes follow the book pretty accurately in their choice of setting and in their battle plans. They include the conversation between Peter and Aslan about having a plan for a forest battle and a plan for assaulting the Witch's castle.

Disney, in contrast, does not have anyone move anywhere, since their resistance camp wasn't at to the Stone Table to start with. (I find that very annoying, since the whole point of many earlier conversations is that Aslan has set up camp near the Stone Table!) Anyway, Disney sets up the eventual battle in a sort of stony mountain plain. I grant you, that is a more conventional battlefield, and it makes staging the fighting more visually comprehensible, but it is not very canon-compliant. (It is also tactical suicide, but I will come back to that point in the next post.)

-----

The sacrifice:

The BBC segues into this with a little sibling conversation wherein Peter says that Aslan is leaving the battle to him, and then protests (as if trying to quell his own doubts) that Aslan wouldn't desert them. "Unless he had to," Lucy says. We cut to Aslan alone in the night, and then to Susan and Lucy awake in bed. They discuss their worry about Aslan, skipping some points that were effectively paraphrased in the earlier four-sibling conversation, and go outside to find him. From here, the trip back to the Stone Table plays as in the book, and the darkness conceals the clumsiness of the two-guys-in-a-suit lion.

Disney has Lucy notice Aslan's sadness right after the negotiation with Jadis, while everyone else is still celebrating. We cut to her tossing in bed at night, waking Susan, and sneaking into the woods to follow Aslan. Disney Susan, for once showing more practicality than BBC Susan, brings her bow and arrows. (That is not canon, but it is damn good sense. I am all for forward-thinking self-defense in dangerous territory!) Instead of saying, "Children, why are you following me?" Aslan says, "Shouldn't you both be in bed?" I have noticed that Disney modifies a lot of dialogue away from Lewis's formality toward a more slangy modern phrasing. Sometimes it works. Other times, not so much. I always think of Aslan as speaking with great dignity and weight, so I especially disapprove of his dialogue being rendered informal. The dialogue when he tells the girls he has to go on alone is also weakened from Lewis's formal solemnity.

The BBC once again resorts to animation to portray Jadis's army. I repeat my wish that they had not. Disney stomps all over them both in the realism of its monsters and in the sheer vitality of the sacrifice scene. The BBC's version feels like a college fraternity prank gone slightly out of control. Disney's version feels genuinely diabolical and dangerous -- it feels intentional in a way that I attribute partly to staging (we finally see the Stone Table, and it feels like a nightmare perversion of a pagan altar, swimming in a whirl of torchlight), partly to the technical quality of costumes and CGI, but also significantly to Tilda Swinton's performance, which is cold and terrifying in a way Kellerman cannot hope to approach. On a less important note, the shaving is much more convincing in Disney, as well as the binding. (On an even more minor note, Kellerman's blue-green eye shadow is getting seriously out of control, and Tilda Swinton is fighting yet another deeply stupid dress -- what is that thing on her right shoulder meant to be, anyway?)

Both productions show the fall of the knife but cut away from the actual blow. The BBC cuts away altogether, to a reaction shot of the girls; this is true to the book, where Lucy and Susan look away. Disney cuts to Lucy's reaction, but first shows Aslan's face; his eyes widen in pain and shock, then close and his head lolls to the side. I admit I am a little surprised that Disney cut away at all, given the otherwise unflinching violence of their production, but the timing, the soundtrack, and the reaction shots make the blow perfectly clear, and I think the lack of exact visual is wise for a family film.

BBC Lucy and Susan really ought to have been discovered as Jadis's army rushed off; they were not hidden by any rational standards. But that's a minor point. (Disney Jadis evidently leads her army off the other side of the hill, thus avoiding this issue.)

---------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------

Two more posts should get me to the end of the story. I will try to get through the battle tomorrow.

link to part 4

Comments

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I admit I am a little surprised that Disney cut away at all, given the otherwise unflinching violence of their production

'Prince Caspian' was on TV here a couple of weeks ago and I was utterly astonished by the amount of violence. I couldn't believe that Disney were doing it in a 'family' film. It made it a better film, IMO, but it wasn't what I was expecting. And their Susan was totally awesome in it. A staggeringly lethal warrior heroine who put Peter Jackson's Eowyn to shame.

[edenfalling]

Once I mentally edited out the stupid romance subplot (which is remarkably easy to do; I have long practice at that skill), Susan was indeed kick-ass... except for the fight in the castle courtyard where she just stands there with her bow strung and an arrow nocked and has all the time in the world to shoot Miraz -- or, given that plot requirements forbid that -- shoot somebody... and does nothing until someone grabs her and slings her over a centaur during the mad rush to beat the descent of the portcullis.

Can you tell I am still bitter over that moment? Just a little? :-/

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

I rationalise that by assuming that she's been hit a glancing blow by a hurled stone or something and is temporarily dazed. I prefer to think of the bit where she kills six people in eight seconds, the last by ramming an arrow through his throat.

[grikmeer.livejournal.com]

Forgive my ignorance: I'm not keen on the Narnia series, so it's been years since I read them. Is Susan the one who effectively becomes an atheist by the end of the series and can't go back to Narnia?

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's Susan. C S Lewis ignored his own canon ("once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen of Narnia") and locked Susan out for the sin of having a normal human interest in the opposite sex. Although as he'd destroyed Narnia, like an obnoxious child smashing up toys that he'd lost interest in, she wasn't really missing much.

[edenfalling]

All we know about Susan is that she turned away from Narnia -- she pretended it had all been an imaginary game -- and that she was interested in being a young woman while she was a young woman. Eustace, Jill, and Polly vocally disapprove of her. Peter says only that Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia, and then cuts off the others' complaints. Edmund, Lucy, and Digory say nothing on the subject.

Given that it's the characters with the least personal knowledge of Susan giving the case against her, it is really up to reader interpretation exactly what became of Susan (other than, obviously, having to identify all her family's corpses and go on alone after devastating loss). And there is nothing to say she couldn't stop ignoring Narnia later on.

[(Anonymous)]

You completely missed the point of having Jadis being a "creature" that morphs with the environment. her impractical dress is supposed to be a symbol of her last grasp of showing her being Queen of Narnia. By the way, her sacrifice dress was black and had a dead bird with it's wing up to depict her craziness and her being a predator.

[edenfalling]

If that was the intended point of the dresses, fair enough. Movies made from books are inherently alternate universes and as such the writers/directors/costumers can slap whatever ideas they want onto the story. I can likewise react to those ideas however I want, and I think Jadis being a morphing 'creature' is a stupid idea not supported by book canon nor well-signaled by the film itself (as you can tell by the fact that I 'missed the point' of it), and that idea does not change the fact that the clothes in question are ugly and impractical. So it goes.