Disney dropped The Chronicles of Narnia film franchise after The Voyage of the Dawn Treader — the sequel to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe — brought in about half of the previous film’s domestic box office. That said, Wardrobe didn’t really have very long coattails to begin with as many fans found the film’s effects to be wildly variable and older viewers who’d read the books as kids inevitably found Wardrobe to be a little too cute compared to the dark epic of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy — the comparison isn’t really fair, but it’s hard to avoid.
It’s tough to adapt a kids’ story to film and hit that sweet spot that makes it dynamically enjoyable enough for the whole family to love. I think they did a better job with Aslan and pals when they adapted the book into an animated prime time television special 35 years ago.
Here’s a remembrance of the original screening from The Haunted Closet…
So even though the original broadcast of the animated adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe did not coincide with any holiday, there was a similar sense of excitement when I watched it in two parts, spread across two nights, back in April of 1979.
Directed by long-time Peanuts animator Bill Melendez (he also directed the Christmas special Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus), The Lion… is a reverent and engaging version of the Narnia chapter that would go on to spawn a big-budget blockbuster some 25 years later.
Don’t be mislead by the cutish character designs. This adaptation takes its story seriously, as it should. No attempt is made to dumb-down the tone, and at no point do any of the characters break out into song. Aside from perhaps the Rankin Bass adaptation of The Hobbit, this was probably the most serious piece of animation I’d seen by this time.
I was enthralled by scenes of the evil Queen, whose minions include all manner of monster. Some scenes challenged the expectations I’d held as to the degree of evil that was allowable in an animated film. Scenes like this, in which the Queen has tied young Edmund to a tree and intends to sacrifice him with a knife. The finale, in which a gleefully vicious mob of monsters ritually kills the noble lion Aslan, is powerful, and perhaps even more effective than the live-action Disney version.
Here’s the whole special…
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