David starts off Season 10 of Pints With Jack by discussing the recent Netflix controversies around The Magician’s Nephew with Aaron Earls, author of the blog, The Wardrobe Door.
Show Notes
01. “Aaron Earls”
- He grew up on a farm (though he insists he’s not handy)
- Studied journalism and earned a Master of Divinity in apologetics
- Aaron and his wife recently celebrated 25 years of marriage and they have four kids.
02. “History with Lewis”
- Started with Narnia: his mom read the books to him at bedtime.
- As a teenager wrestling with doubts, Aaron came back to Lewis through Mere Christianity and learned what it means to love God with your whole heart, soul, and mind
03. “The Wardrobe Door”
- Aaron started The Wardrobe Door about 20 years ago
- It mixed Lewis with political and cultural commentary until the daily hot takes burned him out
- About three years ago he relaunched it on Substack, focused entirely on Lewis
04. “Adapation Philosophy”
- What makes a good adaptation?
- Adaptation requires change in order to work in a new medium
- A good film that stays true to the original’s core message
- He ranks the Walden Media films, which got worse as they strayed from the text
- The BBC adaptations
05. “Netflix purchase”
- Worried, but curious because Netflix had no big-budget track record, a spotty record with faithful adaptations, and a habit of cancelling shows
06. “Greta on board”
- After Greta Gerwig was announced, Aaron watched Barbie and Lady Bird and came away hopeful
- David found her Little Women to be a creative rather than slavish adaptation, a hint of what Narnia might get
07. “Streepgate”
- Meryl Streep as Aslan turned out not to be an April Fools’ joke!
- Even if her voice is processed to sound male, the casting dragged the film into the culture war and alienated its built-in audience of Lewis readers
- Was this a deliberate publicity play?
- Problems with the changes to the time period and the rock-and-roll focus
- Aslan Is Male, But Does It Matter Now?
08. “The family response”
- Ted Baehr reported that Douglas Gresham’s family had major issues with the film.
- “The Lewis family” is more complicated than it sounds: Lewis had no children, his literary estate was sold to the C.S. Lewis Company in the early 1980s, and Douglas is living with dementia and Parkinson’s.
- What Does C.S. Lewis Family’s ‘Narnia’ Statement Actually Mean?
09. “The Trailer”
- The London scenes with Polly and Digory feel right, but Charn looks like the inside of the TARDIS
- Uncle Andrew comes across as a bumbling, misunderstood magician instead of the villain the story depends on
- Aaron- Our First Look at “The Magician’s Nephew”
10. “Loving Narnia to death?”
11. “How Aaron is feeling…”
- Aaron recalls tearing up at seeing Lewis’s name on screen at the Walden film and he’s hopeful, worried, and praying that reading Lewis has changed Gerwig.
More Information
Read Aaron’s writing at TheWardrobeDoor.com, where he helps readers see why Lewis is still relevant.
All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.
C.S. Lewis
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