You know how when you watch something during your childhood, it can become enshrined as this hallowed, Is Perfect Forever sort of thing? Even when if you watched it nowadays you'd be like "Well this is just made of garbage monkeys"?
I have a RIDICULOUS attachment to the BBC/Wonderworks movie versions of the first four Chronicles of Narnia. And no, don't start referencing that cartoon shit. I didn't watch it and I'm too old to care about it now. But THE BBC VERSION was low budget, had cartoon animals in a live action setting (always a winner) and made this girl its star:
My brothers and I got the tapes for Easter one year and never looked back. If anyone insults that version, I will leap on their back like an angry puma. I DON'T CARE IF ASLAN IS A GIANT PUPPET -- he's the best giant puppet. And whoever does his voice is basically the voice of God to me. I can't even look it up, because it'll ruin EVERYTHING. Liam Neeson did the voiceover for Aslan in the new movies, and nope. Nope. Not him. Good job being Liam Neeson, though. Also that guy from Taken.
The previews before those movies became -- as happened back in the days of VHS tapes and obsessive kid tape watching -- part of the movies to us. Before each of them, there was a preview for Girl of the Limberlost and Jacob, Have I Loved. My brothers and I still have these memorized and a lovingly festooned spot for them in our Temple of Childhood, to the point where when Annette O'Toole, who was in Girl of the Limberlost (which we never actually watched, by the way), was in a play in Chicago, I waited outside the stagedoor for an HOUR so I could have her write one of her lines from the preview in my journal. And when I told my brothers, they freaked. out.
To give you all extra-confidence about my ability to discern the meanings of books, one day, my middle brother and I were rewatching The Silver Chair, and it was the part where Pole and Eustace have to go back to their world and don't want to leave Aslan, and he says "You know me there by another name." And I turned to Middle Brother in frustration, because I'd watched this MANY TIMES, and said "WHAT other name?" And he just kind of stared at me for a second before saying "'GOD,' Alice."
...I would probably pick that up nowadays. Maybe.
In conclusion, the BBC/Wonderworks Narnia films are the best and I accept no other versions. Because childhood.
I have a RIDICULOUS attachment to the BBC/Wonderworks movie versions of the first four Chronicles of Narnia. And no, don't start referencing that cartoon shit. I didn't watch it and I'm too old to care about it now. But THE BBC VERSION was low budget, had cartoon animals in a live action setting (always a winner) and made this girl its star:
My brothers and I got the tapes for Easter one year and never looked back. If anyone insults that version, I will leap on their back like an angry puma. I DON'T CARE IF ASLAN IS A GIANT PUPPET -- he's the best giant puppet. And whoever does his voice is basically the voice of God to me. I can't even look it up, because it'll ruin EVERYTHING. Liam Neeson did the voiceover for Aslan in the new movies, and nope. Nope. Not him. Good job being Liam Neeson, though. Also that guy from Taken.
The previews before those movies became -- as happened back in the days of VHS tapes and obsessive kid tape watching -- part of the movies to us. Before each of them, there was a preview for Girl of the Limberlost and Jacob, Have I Loved. My brothers and I still have these memorized and a lovingly festooned spot for them in our Temple of Childhood, to the point where when Annette O'Toole, who was in Girl of the Limberlost (which we never actually watched, by the way), was in a play in Chicago, I waited outside the stagedoor for an HOUR so I could have her write one of her lines from the preview in my journal. And when I told my brothers, they freaked. out.
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| kind of like this |
To give you all extra-confidence about my ability to discern the meanings of books, one day, my middle brother and I were rewatching The Silver Chair, and it was the part where Pole and Eustace have to go back to their world and don't want to leave Aslan, and he says "You know me there by another name." And I turned to Middle Brother in frustration, because I'd watched this MANY TIMES, and said "WHAT other name?" And he just kind of stared at me for a second before saying "'GOD,' Alice."
...I would probably pick that up nowadays. Maybe.
In conclusion, the BBC/Wonderworks Narnia films are the best and I accept no other versions. Because childhood.
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