On Adaptations
The upcoming release of The Magician’s Nephew adaptation, directed by Greta Gerwig, has created quite a stir. And while I have seen plenty of views of all opinions circulating on Substack, I did want to add my own small voice to the mix. After all, I’ve grown up on Lord of the Rings and Narnia, and am on a mission to read and own everything that Tolkien and Lewis have published (not for the faint of heart). Naturally, I’ve been both cautiously optimistic and hesitant as I await the latest adaptation.
The drama surrounding The Magician’s Nephew regards several of Gerwig’s controversial choices, including the following:
to apparently change the setting from the 1900’s to the 1950’s (potentially affecting plot lines of the rest of the series),
the “David Bowie” rock opera atmosphere Gerwig has said to have influenced the movie,
and perhaps most controversial, casting female Meryl Streep to voice Aslan; a confusing choice since the trailer still portrays Aslan as a male lion with a mane. Moreso, this choice upset fans who realize that Lewis’ original work depicted Aslan as a picture of Jesus Christ; an imagination of what Jesus might look like in another world. Gender swapping Aslan does not seem to be a choice constant with Lewis’ own Christian worldview.
Controversial adaptations of classical books with a Biblical worldview is not limited to The Magician’s Nephew. Without going into as much detail as I could, the recent Rings of Power series from Amazon has its own inconsistencies to Tolkien’s canon that are frustrating to the committed Tolkien fan. For that matter, all of the Lewis and Tolkien adaptations have had their own faults and controversies; there’s the Peter Jackson films; both the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) and The Hobbit trilogy (2012-2014); it won’t be hard to guess which I enjoyed and which I disliked. Similarly, between 2005-2010 Walden Media produced three adaptation of Narnia books with increasingly less consistency to the books (the corresponding box office results were perhaps not unrelated).
Back to the main point: Gerwig’s controversial The Magician’s Nephew adaptation. In the Christian online response I’ve seen takes on everything from the horrified “this is an attack to Biblical Christianity and I’m boycotting Netflix” to a smug “well, they aren’t Christians so what do you expect them to do?” There’s the “freedom of creative license” perspective, but I’ll have to admit that the worst argument I’ve seen yet is those who say that Aslan, representing Christ, being voiced by a woman shouldn’t be a concern when Lewis chose to represent Christ as an animal. Those in this camp don’t seem to understand Lewis or his worldview portrayed in his writing at all, but I digress.
So, are these apparent changes worth all this controversy? Will this movie be worth seeing? For that matter, how should we judge any adaptation of any classical book? I thought it would be helpful to see what C.S. Lewis himself thought about adaptions, and apply what Tolkien fans call the “Shippey test” to this upcoming one:
What did Lewis think about adaptations?
A quick perusal of the books, essays, and letters written by Lewis show us a few things: He didn’t care for the Disney adaptations of his day, particularly the comical portrayal of the dwarves (Lewis’ dwarves were based on Germanic myth and he wanted them taken seriously). He was also against his books being made into movies, but not because he hated film. He felt that the limitations of film and technology would be unable to do justice to his characters, like his talking animals—specifically Aslan. Of course, with today’s advances in film and CGI technology, I think he might feel more comfortable with this and rather like the realistic and majestic Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe film. I think we can derive that Lewis was concerned with faithfulness to the original in adaptations. However, he also viewed each art form as separate entities. A film and a book are not the same and cannot be judged the same; it becomes more tricky when one is an adaptation of the other, of course, but they still must be judged separately. And this is where Tom Shippey comes in!
Who is Tom Shippey?
Tom Shippey is a prominent and respected Tolkien scholar, who has written numerous books and was a consultant for the Peter Jackson adaptation of the Lord of the Rings. The Shippey Test, named by Tolkien podcasters Marchese and Sisto*, is a two-question framework that Shippey derived from Tolkien himself to judge the quality of an adaptation:
The Shippey Test:
Was the change inevitable as a result of the change in medium? In other words, is the change needed in order to tell the story cinematically?
Does it create a different result from the book? That is, does it change or miss the “core of the original”?
*(Taken from Why We Love Middle Earth: An Enthusiast’s Book about Tolkien, Middle-earth, and the LotR Fandom by Shawn E. Marchese and Alan Sisto, published 2023, p. 173)
Tom Shippey is a Tolkien expert, but of course this philosophy of adaptation can apply to Tolkien’s good friend and fellow scholar, C.S. Lewis—as well as any adaptation of any book. Let’s consider these questions in light of previous adaptations:
The Walden Media production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe holds up well; small changes to the plot help the film to tie together nicely. The epiphany of the film, as in the book, is Aslan’s sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection. The following adaptation of Prince Caspian contained many changes from the book. However, those who have read the book understand that telling the story as the book does would not make a good movie. Some changes were needed to produce a movie that would be successful, but some of the changes also missed the “core of the original” (example: Caspian and Susan’s kiss; I do think Lewis would have been horrified). The final adaptation, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, contain so many character and plot changes that are not needed in order to tell the story cinematically. In fact, the movie lost the core of the original amid all the changes.
Peter Jackson’s trilogy adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, while enduring several key changes from the books, overall stays true to the “core of the original”; it honors Tolkien’s work and has the same outcome and purpose as the books. Unfortunately, Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit doesn’t even closely resemble Tolkien’s book, originally written as a children’s story, not an adult high fantasy epic. Jackson made changes that were not necessary due to the change in medium and in the process lost the core of the original.
What does this have to do with The Magician’s Nephew? At this point, with only one movie trailer released, we don’t have much to go off of. I consider myself a staunch C.S. Lewis fan and a book purist, but I’m not overly worried—yet. We won’t be able to judge the movie by the Tom Shippey standard until we can see it in its entirety. I’m hesitant about a few of the choices, but it’s possible that these may enhance the “core of the original”. If Aslan is portrayed as a female, or non-binary, of course I’d have theological concerns, but we must wait and see how all these pieces will be brought together.
An overreaction?
Do Christians care overly much about adaptations? I’ve seen Christians urging their fellow brothers and sisters to “chill out” with the uproar. Is it too much of an overreaction? After all, Lewis’ books aren’t the canonized Scriptures, though many fans treat his writing as such! I would say that yes, this is a subject worth caring about. Tolkien and Lewis wrote from specific Biblical worldviews; Tolkien as a Catholic and Lewis as an Anglican. I’d find some theological differences with both, of course, but their perspective was countercultural to the modernist and postmodernism writing that emerged during their time. Their belief in a monotheistic, sovereign God is reflected in their writings, as is a Biblical view of morality. These worldview components are not things that should be taken lightly or discarded, as it was an important part of their writing and personal theological beliefs.
An adaptation provides a new gateway for new people to encounter Lewis’ worlds and writing. This is always a good thing, but we also want new fans to encounter the real Lewis—his actual worldviews and beliefs. The original books are so much more than an exciting story, and it would be a tragedy for an adaptation to lose the underlying message in something other than, well, the “core of the original”.
As we await the new Magician’s Nephew with different degrees of eagerness or hesitancy, take the time to re-read Lewis’ book itself. Engrained in both his books and Tolkien’s books, and flowing from their theology, are very specific worldviews. These were not accidents. The book will always be the best. Encounter Narnia through Lewis’ own words and imagination, and it’s quite possible you will also encounter God there, too.
