IT WAS SOOO GOOD.

obviously, things about the books that are AMAZING have to be left out for time. but i’m ok with that. i can understand when people are upset that the movie isn’t sixteen days long so that all of the book can be cinematized perfectly … but i’m ok with a two-hour abridgement.

the scene when edmund delivers the message is especially good ….

and this is how good it is: there is a scene near the end that actually brought my heart to worship the Lord. i don’t want to spoil it or change the moment and how it might affect someone else, but it was STINKIN GOOD!!

the only bad part was the preview for some annoying disney movie that employed every single chihuahua that God ever put on this earth–SINGING. parents, bust out the advil now ….

I haven’t actually seen the movie, but I wanted to ask:

Is that painting a Portland Studios piece?

We’re going to see it this afternoon, and I’m soooo excited. My wife & I have both read the book a few (hundred) times and are expecting it to be less complete than the book, but more glorious on the big screen. Whooo Hooo - I can’t wait!

We just finished the book a few weeks ago and was on a road trip and listened to the Radio Theatre version… we are so excited about tonight!

I’m with Jeffrey on this one. He quotes Steven Greydanus as saying that “… while the essence of Lewis’s plot is preserved, the themes and ideas behind the story are largely lost.” I felt the same way about “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” - that it was true to the book in as much as it had 4 kids and a lion - but that the themes and ideas behind the story were completely changed. I haven’t read “Prince Caspian” in years, so I may go ahead and see the movie now so I can enjoy it as an “inspired-by-the-book” story, which it apparently does quite well, and not as a faithful adaptation of the story, where it misses the mark.

Drew, that’s the scene that I will forever connect with the Narnia series. It was life changing in that following when no other can see may lead them to follow as well. Part of the scene, (the first time Lucy meets Aslan again) when Lucy told Him that He looked bigger and He said something to the effect ” I haven’t grown Lucy. Its you that has grown. The bigger you get, the bigger I get.” That has been so true in my life. I’m amazed at the small god I used to think I knew.

I just read it to my 6 year old son. We can’t wait to see it.

I haven’t seen Prince Caspian yet. I am hoping to as soon as possible, however, something worth noting about the next movie: The director of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader will not be the king of Shrek again. Michael Apted is set to direct instead of Andrew Adamson. Apted directed Nell, Rome (tv series), and Amazing Grace (and a lot of other movies that I did’t recognize at first glance) and is the current president of the directors guild of America (I got all this from IMDB). Hopefully, he will do a better job of translating the depth of the stories onto the screen rather than just the plots, images and settings, than Adamson did on the first movie.

Mike, Steven Greydanus points out that they changed that line in the film. A small difference, yes, but it changes what Lewis was saying.

“Yet, as noted in my review, the film makes slight edits in Aslan’s dialogue that subtly un-divinize him. For instance, Lewis has a seemingly larger Aslan tell Lucy, “I have not [grown]… every year you grow, you will find me bigger.” In the film, the line is simply, “Every year you grow, so shall I.”

GAH!

As of right now I don’t know when we’re going to see Caspian.

Normally our movie night is either Sunday night or Monday night due to my work schedule, but our babysitter (i.e. my sister-in-law) is leaving tomorrow morning for France. And, I fear, this movie is still quite beyond our 3-1/2 year old daughter.

Hopefully we’ll see this sooner rather than later as the opportunity presents itself.

I own a gaming/comics shop and have framed posters from both Narnia pictures adorning my walls.

Haven’t seen it. Won’t see it. Haven’t seen “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” either.

It’s not that I don’t like the books; they are some of my all-time favorites and I re-read them every year or two. It’s my love for The Chronicles that keeps me from going to the movies about them.

No, this is not another indignant cry that the book is butchered in the movie. See, “The Lord of the Rings” is another set of my favorite books, and I rushed to the theatre to watch each as it was released…and they were AMAZING–possibly the three best movies I’ve ever seen. But they still weren’t as good as my imagination.

So when I went to re-read “The Lord of the Rings” after watching the movies, I found that what I had imagined Gandalf to look like and the elves’ songs to sound like, had been replaced by what I’d seen and heard at the theatre. I can never regain the original pictures that were painted in my mind’s eye as I read Tolkien’s vivid descriptions. (Except Tom Bombadil is still all mine, since he didn’t make it into the movies!) ..And that, I think, is a grievous loss.

…So that’s why I made the decision not to watch movies made out of beloved books I have read (i.e. “The Chronicles of Narnia”), or want to read some day. It’s a hard decision to stick to when I read all these reviews in the RR! Does anyone else feel this way?

The movie is to the book Caspian what Lord of the Rings II is to The Two Towers book…
What edition (exactly, precisely, and preferably with the ISBN so I can find it) is that illustration from? It’s awesome…

Hey Andrew, I’m trying to order some things at your RR store and no items appear.

I thought the film was just about as good an adaptation as was possible. When I read the book a few weeks ago I wondered how on earth the adaptation was going to turn out because basically the entire story of the book can be wrapped up in about 15 mins of screen time. So the outcome is that the film (like many short story adaptations) is actually superior to the book in a LOT of ways (certainly not all). Nothing was outright fabricated but much was expanded on and rearranged to make a for a better film. I was sorry to see some things left out and changed and I wasn’t entirely happy about it, but overall I think there is little reason for complaint.

If they’d left Bacchus in and cut Reepicheep, I’d have wanted my money back. Bacchus, like Tom Bombadil, simply won’t translate to the visual medium in a way that’s likely to be taken seriously.

It appeared to me that there were some scenes cut, too. The subplot about Peter charging off and doing things his own way instead of waiting for Aslan should have resolved more explicitly and I had the distinct impression that there was a scene in there with Lucy somewhere that we didn’t get to see that would have really brought that storyline home.

Kyle… I respectfully differ.

For me the problems ran deep in this movie. They didn’t play out how taboo it was for the professor and the nurse( who was completely omitted) to share anything about Narnia. In the movie it was simply a forgotten part of history. Another part missing is the theme of faith and sight, with faith opening one’s eyes to the extent that one believes. We do see where Lucy sees Aslan when no one else does — however, the rest of that story, in which Aslan is at first invisible to the children until one by one they begin to see him in proportion to their openness and willingness to see him. I also think the portrayal of Peter, though much stronger than LWW is pretty bad. In the beginning he is fighting because he feels like because he was a king in Narnia he shouldn’t be treated “like a kid” now. Then he gets to narnia and is in a stupid pride battle with Caspian over control. Lewis always showed peter (in Caspian) to be very understanding of Caspian’s role in Narnia vs. his. I didn’t really hate this one until the scene inside Aslan’s How where the white witch was conjured. Strangely reminiscent of Frodo vs. the Ring Adamson didn’t trust Lewis’ storytelling and thought that both Caspian AND Peter had to be drawn by a siren-like white witch. Like Jackson turning Faramir into a much weaker version of his written self Adamson ruins Caspian as a character for me in that scene. How do we go from:
————
Above the steadily increasing growl of the Badger and Cornelius’s sharp “What?” rose the voice of King Caspian like thunder.

“So that is your plan, Nikabrik! Black sorcery and the calling up of an accursed ghost. And I see who your companions are-a Hag and a Werewolf!”
————

in the actual book, to the scene in the movie where Caspian decides that conjuring the witch is a good thing and then Peter falling for it too.

Here is a link to the entire chapter from PC Compare that chapter to the movie. That is where Adamson lost me completely

http://www.mylibrarybook.com/books/671/C.S-Lewis/Prince-Caspian-9.html

And Susan kissing Caspian was too much for me to bear!

I agree with this reviewer who said,

———–
“None of this, though, mitigates the fact that while the essence of Lewis’s plot is preserved, the themes and ideas behind the story are largely lost. If the first Narnia film got perhaps two-thirds of Lewis’s intended meaning, Caspian is lucky if it gets a quarter. That may not directly detract from its merits as escapist fantasy, but Lewis fans with regrets about the first film will feel betrayed by the second — and not just because events have been changed…

More inspired by the book than adapting it, Caspian is most likely to appeal to those not especially attached to the book, which is after all a lesser work flanked by two more popular tales. The next hurdle, though, matters a lot more: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader demands better than this series at its best has been able to deliver. If the same team were going on to the third film, I would be about ready to write it off now.”
——–

Honestly, having reread the book today, I would almost rather have no movie than have the movie that was made. That is totally just me though.

Hey, folks.

First of all, I found the above picture in Google Images by searching for Prince Caspian. I’m pretty sure it turned up on NarniaWeb.com, where it’s downloadable as a screensaver. And I agree, the picture is pretty awesome.

I saw the movie this afternoon with my family and another family from church. I tried and tried to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, but in the end I had to land on the side of the sorely disappointed. I just don’t think I’ll ever watch the movie again. I don’t think I’ll encourage my kids to watch it again either. I’m pretty sure every one of the moving moments in the book were either jettisoned or tamed so as to be nearly unrecognizable. Like Simon Cowell says, it’s just an opinion. But there it is.

I keep reading from Gresham and Adamson and other filmmakers that there are certain elements that a movie must have in order for it to work, like the presence of a love interest, or bawdy action, or certain kinds of conflict (though of course, conflict is necessary), and I agree to an extent. But if you have to deconstruct a great book and rebuild it into something barely recognizable in order for it to work as a movie, why bother? The silly rivalry between Caspian and Peter was contrived. The temptation of the witch was implausible and pointless. It’s already been said a zillion times, but Lewis’s central themes were ignored. I believe that if he came back to life and saw this film he would’ve cringed that his point was missed. And with these books, there was always a point.

The Narnia books are great stories, but they make no apologies about being didactic. The finest thing about these books is the truth in them. It’s not the plotting, or the dialogue, or the mythology Lewis created. It’s when you brush up against Christ himself roving throughout the story. It’s when you remember how to be a child again. It’s when the milk-faced Jesus of your weak imagination shakes loose the trappings you’ve put on him and he bares his holy arm. I find myself reading these books again and again for the moments when Aslan roars, because I believe that roar is real, and that it woke Jack Lewis a half a century ago and worked its way through his pen to the written page, and when I read his words aloud to my children last week that roar was so vibrant in my imagination that I could almost hear it. Indeed, I wanted to hear it with my physical ears more than I wanted anything in the world.

None of that yearning–none of it–stirred in me at the cinema today.

But then, who knows? Maybe some people felt it. Maybe seeds will be planted, and people will read the stories now who wouldn’t have otherwise. Maybe it’ll lead someone to Scripture, and to the real Story, and they’ll understand it better because Lewis’s story pointed them to it, in spite of the producers’ meddling. I’m glad to hear some of you enjoyed the film, and I ought to make the disclaimer that my opinion of the movie isn’t meant to belittle or put anyone on the defensive. If we were in the real Rabbit Room, I imagine the discussion would be lively but good-natured–and it would come to a blessed halt when the fish and chips arrived at the table.

Saw the movie last night…I get what your saying on many of the major plot points being removed, but honestly, I didn’t expect much less. However I think I need to tell you this story.

My wife has never read the books. She hates fantasy. I had to drag her to see this with me. She walked out in tears and more in love with Jesus because of the elements of the book that were left in! The childlike faith of Lucy and the loving but ferocious Aslan. She loved seeing Aslan save Lucy and then curl up on the ground with her. It really impacted her to see Lucy standing on the bridge and drawing her dagger to face the oncoming army with total faith in Aslan’s strength.

I prefer the book because it is packed with so much more meaning and I cherish the story and the truth it teaches, but I’m also thankful that my wife and many others who will never crack the pages of the book got to experience the powerful metaphor of Aslan that Lewis created.

Besides, though it lacks the truth and simple beauty of the book, it has far more than the majority of standard blockbuster fare.

“The Narnia books are great stories, but they make no apologies about being didactic. The finest thing about these books is the truth in them.”
————————–
I guess I’d respectfully disagree with you here. I don’t think Lewis meant the Narnia stories to be didactic at all. He loved stories and I think trusted his imagination. The truths crept in or, in the case of Aslan, “bounded in.” You can’t separate the medium from the message. They’re the same thing. If you just care about truth, why tell stories at all? Unless stories themselves embody a different sort of truth, one you can’t get at any other way.

I’d say the films have their own examples of this, but being a different medium, it comes through different and simply can’t replicate what’s in the book. I loved the film, though I saw flaws, for the visual, emotional story it told. Seeing a film can never be the same or a near equivalent of reading a book. Nor should it be. Some other filmmaker, starting with Caspian, could make a VERY different film. If I was writing the screenplay myself, it would have been a very different film. The same holds true IMHO for The Lord of the Rings. But for me that doesn’t invalidate the film, or the enjoyment of it.