Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew goes where no Narnia movie has gone before

Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is about to enter the beloved fantasy universe created by C.S. Lewis, but in a very different way. The stories of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are familiar to audiences, but Greta Gerwig’s retelling goes way back in Narnia’s history.

What’s really interesting about The Magician’s Nephew is its deceptive place in the book series. It was published as the sixth book, but the events of it take place before the other major Narnia stories.

That way, the film can tell the story of how this magical world came to be instead of just going back to a world that the audience already knows. At the heart of the story are Polly and Digory, two children from London whose normal lives are about to take an extraordinary turn.

Their journey will introduce them to magical travel, strange worlds and people whose actions will have ramifications for the future of Narnia. It also knots together a few strands of Narnia’s larger mythology. It considers the origins of Aslan, the history of Jadis before she became the White Witch, and the circumstances of the creation of Narnia itself.

More interesting details below!

Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew takes the story beyond familiar Narnia

Digory and his neighbour Polly are drawn into the experiments of Uncle Andrew, an amateur magician who believes that he has found a way of crossing between worlds, and so the adventure begins.

As mentioned by Empire, his experiments involve magical rings, and eventually the children find themselves in situations they never could have imagined. Their journey brings them to one of the most unusual places in the story, the Wood Between the Worlds.

This strange land in Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is not just another part of Narnia, but a link between worlds. Its pools permit the travellers to move between worlds, including their own London and the desolate land of Charn.

These encounters give the film a wider scope than a single journey through a fantasy kingdom. The characters are moving through different worlds while gradually becoming part of events that will shape Narnia itself.

Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew reveals the origins behind the legends

One of the best things about Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is that you get to see Narnia at the moment of its creation. Aslan, who is to be an important character in the larger series, plays a particularly important role at this beginning.

The story shows that Narnia was created as a magical place through the music of Aslan. This allows audiences to see the fantasy world before the known conflicts of later stories took place.

Jadis is yet another key link to the future. This earlier story connects to the threat faced by the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe through her transformation into the White Witch.

Digory also links the two parts of the story. Eventually, his childhood adventure becomes part of the story of the professor who later takes in Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.

But the famous wardrobe is not the main thing here. Yet the story contains links which help explain why familiar Narnian elements become important later.

Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew approaches Narnia from a very different starting point, with an emphasis on origins, multiple worlds and the beginnings of characters audiences already know.