Into the Wardrobe

It sounds like Prince Caspian (the movie) won't be what we expect from a great adaptation of the book. Caspian's arrogance is also in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in which he wants to please himself with his own adventures. But he will probably overdo his part in the film if the people who preview it are correct.

Larry W.

It seems to me, scribbly, that you forget how much content there is in the the Narnia books. There's more than enough content to make a movie in each of the seven books. Take LW&W for example - the BBC series kept very close to the book, and they made a production that ended up being about 3 hours long! However in the Walden Media/Disney film they drifted from the book in areas where it was not necessary, and in fact went as far as making stuff up intending to make it more "interesting" where as in fact those portions of the movie were somewhat BORING - like that whole river crossing scene with the wolf - talk about BORING!

I understand Walden & Disney not wanting to have all the walking in PC - it can be limited, but there's plenty of content in the book to make a really good and very faithful to the book movie without changing it. Sure the language can be changed, it doesn't have to be word-for-word, but why have Susan fighting - when it's not in her character anyway? And that's just one example.

The BBC series offered only about one hour of Prince Caspian, which was followed with about two hours of Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the series. I was hoping that this new movie would offer much more of Prince Caspian, although I'm really curious about what will happen with Dawn Treader, my favorite book of the seven. Why Adamson departed from th original text so often in his first film is difficult to understand since all that was needed in most of the movie was shortening the story a little to fit the standard length of a feature film. He was giving us his own interpretation of the story, but he wasn't so faithful to Lewis.

Larry W.

I'm with you Scribbly. I don't mind departures from the book in chronology, dialogue and even minor characterization (I did dislike the change in Faramir's character in LOTR). A Narnian film can never live up to the book (especially in things like the awe surrounding Aslan). There were weaknesses in TLWW adaptation, but certainly not enough for me to dislike it. In fact, I loved it.

But there are purists among us (my wife being included in that lot) who cannot get past departures from things they think are critical. This is good because it leads to interesting discussions about what is critical to the themes of the books.

- Dan -

That's true, Larry, the BBC version of PC was only an hour long, but that was in no way due to lack of content in the book (not suggesting you're saying that), but much of the characterisation of Susan was lacking in the BBC production, as well as for some reason they made Lucy into a whiner, which I dislike! Finally, they didn't include all the events that happened to the girls and Aslan whilst the boys were with Caspian's army. There could have easily been a 1 & half - 2 hour production made of it.

I still find it surprising that some people interpret either Susan or Lucy as 'whiny" and "a brat" in either the BBC or Walden versions.

I never saw them as whiny or bratty, and can only assume it relates to different cultures (US vs UK/British extraction), "accents" of voice behaviour, and my being a bit older than some of the people I've heard say it. I just saw them having different uses of their voices to try to express emotion, not that they were whingeing and whining.

In the BBC version of Prince Caspian Lucy very evidently comes across that way - as a bit whiny. And I don't think it's got anything to do with the accent, at least she wasn't like that in LW&W or VDT.

A couple of evidences of her whinyness in PC:

"Don't talk like a grown up! I don't think I saw him, I know I saw him!"

And

"We can fight just as well as any boys!"

And that's just a couple of examples...

I wouldn't have thought the first was an example of Lucy being whiney (I don't really think she is ever). She's indignant at the way she's being treated as a child by the others. I wouldn't be surprised if she's remembering, at that moment, the way the others disbelieved her about the Wardrobe in the first place, thinking she was just a silly child playing games.