My fear about Prince Caspian (movie)

[carol]

I still fancy his being portrayed a bit like Sir Didymus in Labyrinth.

[Esther]

[Larry W.]

It was kind of interesting-- Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy coming back to Narnia after so many years had passed there. Restoring Cair Paravel was quite an adventure, although the White Witch was a much more formidable enemy than Miraz. But whenever I read and reread the series I always wanted to finish Prince Caspian quickly so that I could read Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the next in order of publication, because its voyage seemed to draw me into Narnia more. I heard that Lewis considered the title Drawn Into Narnia for Prince Caspian because of the way the children entered that world in the book. But perhaps the other six books were more attractive to his readers. However, I think the beginning is more compelling than the rest of the book-- coming into Narnia from a railroad station and finding that hundreds of years had passed. Let's hope that not too much of the book is cut for the movie-- the BBC version was only about an hour and the story was shortened too much.

Larry W.

[Paul F. Ford]

[Pete]

Paul, you said that they "made too much" of the battle in the first movie, isn't it probably best to state that as your opinion? :/ Whilst I think that they probably down played the mystery of Aslan (in the Beavers house) and also probably didn't give long enough to the resurrection of Aslan and the restoring of the creatures in the Witch's castle (IMO), I think that the battle scenes were quite well done and not made too much of - but it would have worked better if they built up those other scenes a bit more. But that's only my opinion...;)

[Messenger_of_Eden]

[Prince Caspian]

[carol]

Well, I hope they will use correct British terms, eg "railway station", not "railroad".
There were one or two Americanistic forms I noticed in the LWW film, eg Peter saying "we don't have...", whereas it is normal to say "we haven't got" in England. There was one more thing I noticed on the DVD which I have already forgotten - maybe it was that the children used the word "movie" as often as they said "film". That's probably a younger generation thing, or possibly fitting in with the many US workers on the set.

[Esther]

[Pete]

The thing is though Esther, if they took out any of the events that happen in VDT, they'd be taking out substance of the book, where as taking out things like the sleeping in the cave in LW&W (as they did) it wasn't exactly taking substance of the book out, because not much happened there of any real importance to the story.

[wisewoman]

[Theo]

[Esther]

[Pete]

I honestly don't think there's much likelihood they'll take any of the events in VDT out, Esther, if anything, they'll probably add more (IMO). I disagree with your statement that there are very few events (in the book) which are integral to the plot, as they are each vital bits of the story and display bits of the characters personalities as well as their trust (or lack of trust) in Aslan during the events.

As for Trumpkin and Nikabrik, IMO there's not much likelihood they'll change either of those characters too much from the book - they probably will to some extent, but I don't think they're very likely to change them too much.

It seems to me (based on the concerns raised about future Narnia movies, in this thread) that several people who've posted in this thread weren't too happy with the movie of LW&W? :/ I must admit, I'm a little surprised at that...I, for one, found the movie to be pretty faithful to the book, and due to that, I am looking forward with great anticipation to their interpretation of the next one.

[wisewoman]

I enjoyed the movie very much as well, Pete (just not the first time I saw it). I do recommend that if you hated it at first sight that you give it another try. I was sorely disappointed after my first viewing, but I saw it again and it was almost like another movie.

And if you're determined to dislike it, well, another viewing can only give you more ammo ;)

The LWW movie was faithful in some things and very unfaithful in others. My biggest gripe is the insipid dialogue the scriptwriters put in everyone's mouths... followed by the mellowing of Aslan... the cheap, crude coarsening of the Beavers... the general cheapening of everything to get a laugh out of the audience... and those awful end titles songs.

It's easier to be a critic than a supporter because the critics are safe from accidentally liking/endorsing something that some other critic will castigate.