CalvinValjean This is the third in my three-part review of the BBC Narnia serial. Please check out my earlier two.THE SILVER CHAIR This one's always been the best, hands down. Similar to Dawn Treader, this is due to the story being a quest, which adapts well to film, and there is less emphasis on battles or visual f/x, but more on adventure and discovery. The climatic scenes involving Rillian imprisoned in the silver chair make for compelling drama. I also think the costumes and sets improved this time around, especially in the Underland Palace.The cleverest conceit of this adaptation is the idea of the bewitched Rillian wearing an iron mask, something that wasn't in the book but works BRILLIANTLY on film. Obviously they HAD to do this so that the audience wouldn't recognize him at first, but it just adds such a great visual touch to the tormented character. Indeed, the role of Rillian is really a three part performance: 1. A naive romantic youth in the flashbacks, 2. An angry and tormented knight while bewitched, and 3. A more mature and valiant version of the first stage after he is freed.Camilla Power is very good as Jill, making the character very headstrong and likable (which Lucy wasn't). She's also very pretty. Eustace is good again. Warwick Davis (who previously was Reepicheep and this time is Glimfeather) and Big Mick (as Trumpklin) are also good again, but sadly there is less of both. Barbara Kellerman (playing a different witch) totally overacts yet again, and THANK GOD that there is also less of her this time around.But the real star is Tom Baker as Puddleglum. Everyone who's ever seen this agrees that his performance is likely the best in the entire BBC series, and I personally think he deserved a BAFTA. He just plays the role so pessimistically, yet delivers his jokes with such a straight face. And underneath all that, he's actually a very brave companion, and his speech to the Witch makes you want to cheer.Alas, nothing is perfect, and this entry still has problems. The production value is still what it is, and the pacing becomes a problem again (a full 3 hours on a rather simple book). There is one scene that LITERALLY DID make me crack up at its corniness, which is when Eustace tries to stop Jill from falling off the cliff and ends up falling himself. What makes it so funny is the fact that you don't actually see the cliff they're standing on, and it was obviously just filmed over a hill. But I will forgive them that, since I realize that with their budget, there probably was no alternative way to film the scene.WEAKEST MOMENT: When our heroes arrive at the committee of the Owls, and we're staring at a bunch of cartoon eyeballs in the dark. Oy vey!In conclusion, the BBC serials were a worthy attempt at adapting Narnia, and most of us who loved Narnia as kids and had no other film versions will look back at this series with nostalgia. But I for one look forward to the new versions. The true Aslan and Narnia exist only in the pages of C.S. Lewis, and that is the best place to get the story!

Mr__Underhill I agree that this last in the series was an improvement over the others, though still a bit slow moving. I bought the DVD mainly because it had Tom Baker in it. He seems a bit uncomfortable in the role at first, but gradually sinks into it. The trouble is that Baker's version of "the Doctor" in Doctor Who was so upbeat that when attempting to play the glum Puddleglum, I actually caught him suppressing the big toothy smile that he is famous for. His frog-like frown worked very well, though it took him a while to integrate the glumness naturally into his speaking performance. There are actually two others that I think could play that role quite nicely. One is Ozzy Osbourne. The other is Joey Ramone of the Ramones(though he passed away a while back).I would also like to comment on one other note that others have ignored so far. While C.S. Lewis intended the books to have a Christian message, he at least had the decency to be subtler in execution so that more general audiences could enjoy the books. The BCC films, on the other hand are as subtle as a New Testament smacked across your forehead.Just out of curiosity I checked the original ending of Silver Chair against the film, and I was correct in my guess that the screenwriter had changed it. The book does NOT include Aslan's ending line from the film where he says that he also exists in the human world, but that the kids MUST learn his "other name."There wasn't a moment in the series where the screenwriter didn't go out of his way to remind adult viewers that this is about Jesus, and not magic as would be the case with a movie like Harry Potter or Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The nice thing about Lord of the Rings is that I could just sit back and enjoy it as a story without feeling preached at. Sometimes the Narnia books did that, but the BBC films boiled too much of it down to the preaching.

LT-10 The Silver Chair, BBC's final journey into Narnia, is a solid and enjoyable entry.Visually and Technically it is the series greatest achievement. The Underground World and it's people have been created excellently, as well as other sequences such as the giant's bridge. Of course we're still going to have those animals in costume. I really don't have much of a problem with this, but still, we don't need to flaunt hedgehogs that have no relation to the story. The Silver Chair is the only film in the series that has areas where the writing needs a little perk up. The pacing is fine until the last 30 minutes. It becomes almost hard to follow, and lost my attention a bit. Despite that the first 2.5 hours are absolutely addictive.Locations, as always, are perfect. They are dead on to C.S. Lewis' books. I hope to get to some of these places in my travels. The locations for all the Narnia films are perfect.Its kind of a shame that finale of the Narnia series is a bit of a let down, but a message still comes through. "I have different names in your world..." Probably one of the rare times children's entertainment actually gives you chills. Acting- 2/2Locations- 2/2Script- 1.5/2Visuals- 1.5/2Total---> 7/10

Spleen This is much better than the BBC's earlier forays into Narnia, partly due to the book it's based on. It's set in the bare, unpopulated wastes to Narnia's north, so the drab scenery is not a defect. Nor is the absence of extras. Puddleglum, C.S. Lewis's best Narnian creation, is played by Tom Baker, who fits the role as well as anyone on Earth. In general the acting is better in `The Silver Chair' than it was earlier on. Direction is crisper, costumes are more convincing: everything has improved. I have commented harshly on `The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', and most of those comments apply here as well, but never to the same extent. This is actually okay television. Of course, an adaptation of the Narnia books should be much more than that.