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What changed on screen
What changed on screen, title by title: 21 in total. Tap a cover to open it. Titles you haven't marked as read stay locked so nothing gets spoiled.
- Referencenod to comics or other movies
- Cameoa familiar face shows up
- Setupplanted now, pays off later
- Behind the scenesproduction trivia
- Behind the scenesThe lamppost question
Lewis never planned to explain the lamppost in the woods. His friend Roger Lancelyn Green asked where it came from, and the answer became this book. The working title was Polly and Digory.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesGreta Gerwig is coming
It's the next book headed to the screen: Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, from Greta Gerwig, for Netflix. It's set to open in theaters on 02/12/2027.
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- ChangeThe whole battle on screen
In the book, the final battle is only seen once Aslan arrives with Susan, Lucy and the reinforcements. Director Andrew Adamson remembered a huge battle from his childhood reading and put all of it on screen.
source ↗ - ChangeThe broken window
In the book, the four hide in the wardrobe to dodge the housekeeper, who is showing visitors around. In the film, they break a window playing cricket and run in to escape the scolding. The 1988 BBC series kept the house tour.
source ↗ - ChangeTumnus and Edmund in the cell
In the film, Edmund finds Mr. Tumnus locked up in the Witch's castle. In the book, the two don't meet until the end.
source ↗ - ChangeOpening with bombs
The film opens with an air raid on London during World War II, before the trip to the professor's house. The book gives it one line: the children were sent away from London because of the air raids.
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- Behind the scenesDedicated to his stepsons
Lewis dedicated the book to David and Douglas Gresham, Joy Davidman's sons. They became his stepsons when he married Joy in 1956.
source ↗ - ReferenceInside the last chapter
The story takes place during the Pevensies' reign, the years that the final chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sums up in a few lines. Three of the siblings show up as grown kings and queens.
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- ChangeThe Pevensies from the start
In the book, the dwarf Trumpkin tells Caspian's story around a campfire, and the Pevensies vanish for half the novel. The film weaves both threads together from the start.
source ↗ - ChangeThe castle raid
Peter and Caspian's night raid on Miraz's castle isn't in the book. It grew out of a line where Reepicheep says he'd like to storm the castle.
source ↗ - ChangeRivalry and romance
In the film, Peter clashes with Caspian over who leads, and Susan falls for Caspian. Neither is in the book. Susan also fights in the battles, which she barely does on the page.
source ↗ - ChangeCaspian grew up
In the book, Caspian is a 13-year-old boy. In the film, Ben Barnes plays a young-man prince, and the Telmarines got Spanish accents.
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- ChangeThe green mist and seven swords
In the book, the voyage is a search for the seven lords who were friends of Caspian's father. The film invented a green mist that takes slaves and a quest to lay seven swords on Aslan's Table, borrowing ideas from The Silver Chair.
source ↗ - ChangeEustace, dragon for real
In the book, Eustace isn't a dragon for long and mostly helps with ship chores. In the film, he flies along as a dragon and joins the action to the end.
source ↗ - ChangeThe skin comes off
The film cut the scene where Aslan peels away Eustace's dragon skin layer by layer. It also dropped the old dragon dying beside its hoard.
source ↗ - ChangeRamandu's daughter gets a name
In the book, the daughter of the star Ramandu has no name. In the film, she's called Lilliandil.
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- ChangeFaithful to the end
The 1990 BBC series, in six episodes, follows the book closely. It's the only version of The Silver Chair that ever made it to the screen.
source ↗ - ChangeOne extra dragon
In the series, on the way north, the three run into a dragon, and Eustace, a former dragon himself, talks it into leaving. That scene isn't in the book.
source ↗ - ChangeSame actress
Barbara Kellerman, the White Witch of the 1988 series, comes back as the Lady of the Green Kirtle. The double casting is the BBC's idea; in the book they're two separate characters.
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- Behind the scenesA shared medal
The book won the 1956 Carnegie Medal for the year's best British children's book. Lewis wrote to illustrator Pauline Baynes that it was really 'our' medal, since the drawings counted too.
source ↗ - ReferenceAn Aesop fable
Shift the ape dresses Puzzle the donkey in a lion's skin and passes him off as Aslan. It echoes Aesop's fable of the ass in the lion's skin.
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