Greta Gerwig's The Magician's Nephew Reimagines Narnia with Bold Changes to Setting, Characters, and Magic

A New Vision for Narnia: How The Magician's Nephew Redefines Lewis' Classic World

The film adaptation of The Magician's Nephew is announced as a bold reimagining that promises to completely reframe Narnia's mythology. Greta Gerwig, a lifelong fan of The Chronicles of Narnia, dreams of adapting all seven volumes into films. However, it is already clear her approach differs radically from previous adaptations. Meryl Streep has been cast as Aslan, although reports suggest her voice has been digitally altered so extensively that she becomes unidentifiable. Daniel Craig, who plays Uncle Andrew, appears far more elegant and refined than his book counterpart. The first trailer for The Magician's Nephew does not clearly show what impact these changes will have, assuming they have any influence at all. One could imagine a scenario where Craig's Uncle Andrew is actually more effective precisely because he is slightly more charismatic, making his ruthlessness and courtiership seem even more remarkable.

We have not yet heard Streep's voice as Aslan, a deliberate marketing decision; there is already backlash to this choice among Narnia fans, and Netflix likely does not want to truly ignite those flames. Nevertheless, several fairly major changes are already visible in the trailer.

The Fundamental Change in Time Setting

The biggest change to The Magician's Nephew is one of background that has massive implications for the entire Narnia franchise. In the books, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is set during World War II; this is the setting for the entire story, as the Pevensie children were evacuated from London due to the Blitz. The Magician's Nephew is a prequel, and its hero, Digory, will grow up to become the professor whose house the Pevensie children visit. However, the trailer for The Magician's Nephew confirms rumors that have circulated for a long time: the film has been moved to the 1950s, a completely different setting. Assuming Digory ages at the same rate, this would mean The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe takes place in the 1990s.

This shift in setting may not have major implications for The Magician's Nephew itself, but the ripple effects on future stories are enormous. Why would the Pevensie children leave London for a random country professor in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? What happens to the boarding school plots in later books — those being far less common in Britain during the 1990s and 2000s? It is quite clear Gerwig made this change for strategic reasons, as part of her overall plan for The Chronicles of Narnia, but it is presently impossible to understand the logic behind this temporal leap.

The Aesthetic Transformation of Main Characters

In The Magician's Nephew, Digory and Polly travel through a region known as the Wood Between the Worlds to the condemned world of Charn. There, Digory accidentally awakens Jadis, a powerful sorceress who destroyed her world with a nameless curse akin to a nuclear explosion. Physical descriptions are rare, but he imagined her as a traditional White Witch, a fairy-tale evil queen, not a fantasy epic villain. Gerwig's vision of Jadis looks very different. She is more of a rock and roll legend, dressed in glittering clothes evocative of disco. Admittedly, this is the kind of attire a teenage boy in the 1950s might describe as „dazzlingly beautiful”(a quote from the book). But the aesthetic is so unusual, it brings to mind Labyrinth more than Narnia.

This will give Jadis a very different presence and impact, and presumably means her world will not look as Lewis envisioned it in The Magician's Nephew.

The Extension of Magical Powers on Earth

Jadis's changes continue to accumulate, with the sorceress shown using her magic directly in London. In the books, Jadis is a physical force (capable of tearing metal apart), but her magic does not truly work in London; her physical presence there is a threat to Digory and his family, but not to the world itself. If, however, Jadis does have magic on Earth, the stakes become much higher. Digory and Polly must discover how to remove her from Earth for fear she will conquer the planet. Personally, I do not necessarily object to this change — provided one condition. If Jadis's strongest magic still functions, then it will distort the narrative too much for my taste, taking focus entirely away from the danger she poses to Digory's family life.

Not every story needs world-ending stakes; in fact, these have become so common in Hollywood that they have lost any real impact.

Reimagining the Liminal Space

In The Magician's Nephew, Digory and Polly access a mysterious place known as the Wood Between the Worlds. This is essentially an in-between space, what authors call a liminal space — neither here nor there, a path to prepare for true fantasy. Think of King's Cross and Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter, passing through the wardrobe and the true final lamp-post, or the World Between Worlds in Star Wars (a deliberate reference to Lewis's liminal spaces). Lewis describes this place as a real wood, a relatively quiet spot where everything feels settled and comfortable. You enter different worlds by jumping into pools, and the pools dry up when the worlds end. But the Wood Between the Worlds in Gerwig's The Magician's Nephew is wilder, much less tamed. This might seem like a simple aesthetic choice, but writers use liminal space as preparation for the fantasy worlds to come.

If this liminal space is wild and untamed, it is a different kind of Narnia.