MovieChat Forums > The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) Discussion > Professor:: "Try me"

Professor:: "Try me"

posted 2 years ago by ExTechOp (2770)
1 reply | jump to latest

Obviously, the professor knows something's up with the wardrobe, but Broadbent's line goes further than that.

The plot point reminded me of the ongoing debate about whether this or "Magician's Nephew" should be "Narnia book 1."

Personally, I'm glad they stuck with this story as the first.

Apparently, Lewis himself was vague on the issue. It IS clear, however, that he hadn't conceived of a sequel when he wrote this. He also considered both "Caspian" and "Dawn Treader" to be the "last" in the series. In that respect, it's hard to argue "Magician's Nephew" was ever meant to be the "first book in the series."

Think of the intro sequence of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." No one's ever suggested cutting out River Phoenix's sequence and pasting it before "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Same here.

But again, fans and scholars differ on this issue.

[–] AmeriGirl26 (14793) 2 years ago

I got the chance to read the Narnia books "in order" and it made more sense when the "Magician's Nephew" was first, and "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" was second, because "The Magician's Nephew" is something of a prequel story, taking place back when the Professor was a little boy named Digory (early 1900s) and was going on adventures with his friend, Polly. You get to see where the White Witch came from, how Narnia was born, and where the magic wardrobe came from. They even make references to "The Magician's Nephew" in carved images on the wardrobe used in this film, but I only learned that when I read the companion book. There was a diagram of the wardrobe made for the film with the different pictures labeled. So it makes sense that the Professor knew all about Narnia, but hadn't visited in a long time.