Other Titles • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe • The Chronicles of Narnia
“I think C.S. Lewis used a lion for Aslan because he represents something that’s both fearsome and awesome. He’s the epitome of strength and power, but he’s not just a dream lion. He’s flesh and blood and that was very important to our conception.”
For the filmmakers the key to creating Aslan was to use the latest digital magic to make him look like he isn’t digital at all—but a true beast of the forest, albeit with disarmingly human and intelligent eyes, right down to his thunderous roar. “We hope Aslan will be the most photo-realistic computer-generated animal yet seen in a motion picture,” says producer Mark Johnson. “We want audiences to wonder just how we were able to get this dangerous beast to interact so beautifully with children actors.”
It took VFX supervisor Wright some 700 individual VFX shots and almost two years to breathe life into the Aslan who graces THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. He had his work cut out for him. “There’s a very fine line when taking an animal character and having it talk and relate to humans,” Wright admits, “and we definitely didn’t want to cross the line of becoming cartoonish. The photo-realism and the movement had to have almost a hyper-reality to them in that Aslan acts just like a lion yet can do more than you expect a lion to do, and that was our challenge.”
Vital to Wright’s work was allowing Aslan to speak in a natural, organic manner which meant mapping the movement of his speech unto the whole musculature of the animal and not just his mouth—creating a realism that takes the animation that brought “Babe” and other talking animals of recent cinema to new heights. Comments Adamson, “It was essential to me that the animation in this film not be caricatured. I wanted the moment where Lucy nuzzles up to Aslan to have the power of ‘Oh my gosh, that little girl is snuggling up to a real lion.’ It had to have the kind of weight and believability that you don’t usually see in animation. We’re very lucky that technology has just reached the point where this was a possibility.”
Meanwhile, to match a voice to the mighty beast, Adamson turned to leading screen-star Liam Neeson because, he says, “Liam has such beautiful depth and resonance to his voice. He can exude such great warmth and compassion while also possessing a ferocious strength. He completely believes in the character and it comes across in a performance that adds the final touch in bringing him to life.”
In addition to the primary CGI work used to forge Aslan in the computer, Adamson also relied on K.N.B.’s Howard Berger to provide three life-sized animatronic lions for a few key scenes. “One version is a full-size Aslan that was utilized for stand-in work, so Dean’s digital crew had a special reference point when filming on the set,” explains Berger. “Next, we built a version of Aslan for the Stone Table, which was a full-scale, eight-foot lion puppet, just a magnificent piece of work, with a radio-controlled head. It breathed and did all this amazing stuff. Finally, we created a riding version that Susan and Lucy rode against green screen. It was this enormous, hulking thing that weighed a good 500 pounds, if not more.”
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