Anthropomorphic Aslan is a Blasphemy

From Letters of Note , a letter of C.S. Lewis’ to BBC producer Lance Sieveking about the possibility of adapting his Chronicles of Narnia to the big screen:

The Kilns,
Headington Quarry,
Oxford
18 Dec. 1959

Dear Sieveking
(Why do you ‘Dr.’ me? Had we not dropped the honorifics?) As things worked out, I wasn’t free to hear a single instalment of our serial except the first. What I did hear, I approved. I shd. be glad for the series to be given abroad.

But I am absolutely opposed—adamant isn’t in it!—to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography. Cartoons (if only Disney did not combine so much vulgarity with his genius!) wd. be another matter. A human, pantomime, Aslan wd. be to me blasphemy. All the best.

Yours
C. S. Lewis

Presumably, he’s rolling in his grave.