What If Netflix Did Try to Keep Within the Old Continuity?
Posted: Jun 07, 2020 7:05 am
I'm aware that there are fans of the Walden Media Narnia movies out there who wish or hope that Netflix would make their new franchise be a continuation of the old one. I thought I'd start a topic to talk about what that would look like practically speaking.
I rewatched the movie, Return to Oz recently on DisneyPlus and I realized that movie gives you a good idea of what a Netflix continuation of the old Narnia movies would be like. You see that movie, which was based on the books, The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, wasn't officially a sequel to the famous MGM movie, The Wizard of Oz but it included a number of ideas from it (like the magical shoes being made of rubies and the citizens and things in Oz corresponding to people and things from Dorothy's regular life.) Simultaneously, it included ideas from the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, that weren't in the movie (like the deadly desert separating Oz from the rest of the world and the Tin Woodman's origin.)
I wouldn't say the result was a bad movie per se. It's technically very well done but it's also very confusing to watch. It clearly wants us to be thinking of the MGM movie but everything's so different, the actors, the visuals, the style, that it never feels like a real sequel to it. And you can't really forget about the movie and view it as a standalone adaptation of the books either. It's like a sequel to an imaginary movie that doesn't exist and while you watch it, you have to keep imagining what that hypothetical movie was like. You kind of feel like the filmmakers should have just been bold enough to make their own adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz even knowing it wasn't going to be as popular as the old one.
I love the world that the Narnia movies created (well, the first two at least) and I'd love to see what Charn and Underland and Tashbaan look like in that world. But a Netflix recreation of that world would inevitably feel like just that: a recreation of that world, not the real thing. It wouldn't satisfy a desire to explore the world of the movies further. That doesn't mean it'd be bad, just that it'd make more to sense to start a new continuity.
I rewatched the movie, Return to Oz recently on DisneyPlus and I realized that movie gives you a good idea of what a Netflix continuation of the old Narnia movies would be like. You see that movie, which was based on the books, The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, wasn't officially a sequel to the famous MGM movie, The Wizard of Oz but it included a number of ideas from it (like the magical shoes being made of rubies and the citizens and things in Oz corresponding to people and things from Dorothy's regular life.) Simultaneously, it included ideas from the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, that weren't in the movie (like the deadly desert separating Oz from the rest of the world and the Tin Woodman's origin.)
I wouldn't say the result was a bad movie per se. It's technically very well done but it's also very confusing to watch. It clearly wants us to be thinking of the MGM movie but everything's so different, the actors, the visuals, the style, that it never feels like a real sequel to it. And you can't really forget about the movie and view it as a standalone adaptation of the books either. It's like a sequel to an imaginary movie that doesn't exist and while you watch it, you have to keep imagining what that hypothetical movie was like. You kind of feel like the filmmakers should have just been bold enough to make their own adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz even knowing it wasn't going to be as popular as the old one.
I love the world that the Narnia movies created (well, the first two at least) and I'd love to see what Charn and Underland and Tashbaan look like in that world. But a Netflix recreation of that world would inevitably feel like just that: a recreation of that world, not the real thing. It wouldn't satisfy a desire to explore the world of the movies further. That doesn't mean it'd be bad, just that it'd make more to sense to start a new continuity.