Anita Bensoussane wrote:You've made me wonder, Courtenay, whether the film-makers have decided on a gap of only a decade so that they can still have Caspian as a relatively young, hot-looking man!
Maybe, but during the interval between the two books he has to have had a son, who at the time of
The Silver Chair is most definitely well over ten years old!!
Mind you, I'm just thinking maybe the ten-year gap is supposed to be in
our world, so they can get away with using the same actor who played Eustace (who will be at least six years older than he was in
Voyage), and then the time lapse in Narnia can safely be several decades more. I guess we won't know until they make the film.
That said, there is absolutely no consistency at all in the books between how much time passes in our world and how much passes in Narnia. There's a year in our world between
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and
Prince Caspian, but on reaching Narnia the second time, the Pevensies discover it's been several centuries since they were kings and queens there. Lewis did once write a timeline of events in Narnia — I can't remember how long he made the gap between the two books, but I have a feeling it may even be as many as 1,000 years. Anyway, it's meant to be a very, very long time.
On the other hand, one year again passes in our world between
Prince Caspian and
Voyage, and yet Lucy and Edmund are assured by a still young and recognisable Caspian that it's been "exactly three years" since he last saw them!
I remember the old BBC series got around this by making
Prince Caspian and
Voyage follow on directly from each other — Edmund and Lucy, at the end of
Prince Caspian, are on their way to stay with "horrible cousin Eustace", which would make it perhaps only a few days between the two adventures, instead of a year, hence the relatively short time that elapses in Narnia.
I don't think Lewis ever tried to explain the utter inconsistency in time differences between the two worlds, and it never really bothered me as a child (and still doesn't!)... it's magic, after all.
It's more or less as if the children entering Narnia from our world appear wherever in Narnia's "time-stream" they're needed, however near to or far from the last time that was. It's almost getting a bit Whovian here.
That said, if a year in our world could be anything up to several centuries in Narnia, I can't help thinking that decade in our world (for the new version of
The Silver Chair) could end up being several thousand years in Narnia... after which I'm sure Caspian WOULD look very different from before!!