Prince Caspian the movie

[Bryn]

I was just wondering if anyone out there was as appalled as I was at the movie adaptation of this great story. It was a travesty of every theme in the book and I felt couldn't stay true even in essence. Do movie writers make it their personal mission to destroy these books? Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Laura]

I have thoughts but you probably won't like them! :-) Keeping in mind I haven't re-read Caspian for about 4 years, I actually prefered the movie to the book. Caspian was never a favorite of mine - just one to get through to get to Dawn Treader - and I really loved the movie. It brought things out in a way that the book didn't for me. Although I should probably do another re-read to see if I see it differently now!

[Lynai]

never really loved movie versions of books. they just couldn't give any justice.

[Martha]

The book is always better than the movie.

[Torie]

I thought the movie was more entertaining than the book. 'Prince Caspian' is my least favorite Narnia book... it's good, but a little slow & plotless. I was annoyed by how poorly the movie followed the book, but they did do a good job of entertaining their audience.
One thing I can never seem to get over is Caspian and Susan's little romantic thing goin' on. There wasn't even the slightest HINT at romance between them in the book! That's a serious problem, to me.

[Andrew Eddy]

Torie wrote: "I thought the movie was more entertaining than the book. 'Prince Caspian' is my least favorite Narnia book... it's good, but a little slow & plotless. I was annoyed by how poorly the movie followed..."
I was also appalled by the movie. How could they add a romance! That nearly ruined the movie for me. The castle attack was fun. I could not believe they didn't add they part where Aslan takes Susan and Lucy to see the dryads and fauns etc. and where they find Caspian's old nurse.

[Stephanie]

About what Torie said. I agree that the book was not that interesting, and yes, it's my least favorite also, but I think that just made me dislike the movie a tad more than I already did. As for the movie, they ABSOLUTELY should not have put the whole romance thing in there. I mean, for one thing Susan was never going to come back to Narnia anyway, and we know Caspian winds up married to the daughter of What's-His-name, the Star. But I guess that's Hollywood for ya. They prob'ly just wanted to appeal to the more romantic indused teens out there. But it seems it didn't work as far as making bigger bucks, 'cause waddaya know, Disney dropped it and come next movie, 20th Century Fox picked it up instead. That's MY opinion on the whole "romance" thing, anyway.

[Stephanie]

Then there's the whole deal with Susan going into battle. This doesn't happen specificly in the first movie, but in the book, Father Christmas tells Susan and Lucy BOTH that girls and women were not MADE to go to war. Of coarse there are several historical examples of women who go into battle. Take Joan of Arc, Mulan, Deborah Samson, to name a few. But, in general, the female "race" was NOT designed for war nor battle. (And don't forget that this is coming from a girl. :) )

[Tiffany]

I think the book is much better than the move...

[Tiffany]

movie....opps

[Jess]

Lynai wrote: "never really loved movie versions of books. they just couldn't give any justice."

Ditto. You said it!

[Emma]

When the movie was released I was ecstatic because it came out right before my birthday. I love this series, so of course I went to see it to celebrate. I literally stomped out of the theater after it was over. It totally ruined Peter and Caspian. This is one of my least favorite movies.

[Becky]

The failed completely with their adaptions of both Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I almost walked out of the cinema during both of them. I was appalled at how they had changed everything. Their adaption of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe was so good I couldn't believe how much they managed to screw up the other two!

[Luke]

Lynai wrote: "never really loved movie versions of books. they just couldn't give any justice."

I totally with you. I hate it when they try to add or redo books. I guess it's because they want to appeal to this generation of teens.

I also hated it because they made it into a love story.

[Sarah]

I liked the movie better... *hides under the table* The only part I didn't like was the Caspian/Susan thing, but it wasn't really a big deal. What did you guys not like about it? I mean, I know they changed some stuff, but most of it either wouldn't have transferred well to movie, or, frankly, was better after they changed it.

[Sarah]

Stephanie wrote: "Then there's the whole deal with Susan going into battle. This doesn't happen specificly in the first movie, but in the book, Father Christmas tells Susan and Lucy BOTH that girls and women were no..."
Woah, that is totally sexist.

[Luke]

I like the movie. Though I don't like that they changed the plot. they did the same with "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader".

[David]

The Narnia movies after The lion Witch and the Wordrobe SUCKED!!!! I stay with the book.

[Charlie]

Agreed. Some of this writers are idiots. The story is well piloted by CS Lewis yet they just wanted to destroy this masterpiece, playing with their CGI and making it coolER than their competition. Pathetic.

[Sarah]

What exactly are you guys mad about?

[Nat]

Some of the movie is an okay hollywood flick, but the parts with Peter(who looks like he is pretending to be a kid)is basicly just cheessy. Remember the part where Mirar is fighting Peter and his helmet just flat brakes and falls off.
Simply Pathetic.

[Beth]

When I read Prince Caspian, I'd imagined Caspian as closer to Lucy in age than Peter.

And I felt like something was missing at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie, but I can't think of what it was.

[J.D.]

I thought the movie was terrible, and it was so badly made, apart from anything else. it was soooo slow.
i was really sad, i love the stories, and I want everybody else to love them, and if they saw that film they won't even like them...

[Autumn]

I didn't mind the movie. I kinda wanted the scene where Lucy and ASlan wake up nature... actually... I really wanted that. But, there's only so much they can do. It wasn't all too bad. but that stupid romance. Whyyyyy?!?!! I don't know anyone who approved of the romance. Every time I watch that movie I want to yell at the screen over Susan and Caspian. Although, i do love the end part when they are about to leave and Lucy and Edmund comment on it.

[J.D.]

the romance as well, was ridiculous, and just played awkward

[C. J.]

I was actually pretty impressed at how well the film handled the story from the book. For example I felt that it had such a clever way to begin. Instead of the long story of Trumpkin telling the children why they were in Narnia, they give you the epic telling by showing you what was happening with Caspian and why they were "called" to be there.

---Though I do kind of feel a little disappointed some form of Trumpkin sitting down at a fire and telling the kids a tale scene still didn't exist for the film; it would have been like a reflection of the badger family telling the children about Aslan and the coming hope for Narnia!

[C. J.]

Beth wrote: "When I read Prince Caspian, I'd imagined Caspian as closer to Lucy in age than Peter.

And I felt like something was missing at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie, but I can't think of wha..."

With Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I know what you mean. I think the thing that was "missing" with the film version ironically was that they did not add to the characters. They did not give the characters life after lifting them off of the pages. Instead of making them like living, breathing people, they just took what they read in the book, made that exactly how they wanted the characters to do and say and plopped in their subplots with little to no imagination at all.
Sometimes (only sometimes) it is not good to completely follow the book.
((Though many of the other changes they did compared to the book are a different story. . . many of them not good))

[Mary]

Bryn wrote: "I was just wondering if anyone out there was as appalled as I was at the movie adaptation of this great story. It was a travesty of every theme in the book and I felt couldn't stay true even in es..."

i think that the movies were actually pretty good. i like the way they portray the message of the books. or in other words, they did a good job of showing Aslan, and his love for eveeryone, and how no man stands alone if they stand with god. if you read the books right and have read the bible, you will know what i mean...

[Mary]

Laura wrote: "I have thoughts but you probably won't like them! :-) Keeping in mind I haven't re-read Caspian for about 4 years, I actually prefered the movie to the book. Caspian was never a favorite of mine - ..."

did you know that j.r.r. tolkien was best friends with c.s. lewis? anyway one time they had a deal that they would each write a seiries that contained all the truths that the world needed. when i re-read prince caspian, i was searching for those truths. it made the book so much more meaningful! try it!!!

[Mary]

Sara wrote: "I thought the first was amazing, I though the second movie was alright.

But there were so many problems with it. I mean, first of all, the whole Caspian-Susan relationship, and then the waking tre..."

Sara, I totally agree!!! i hate the caspian susan relationship thing!!! and i hate that it made peter and caspian rvels! they were friends!!! they respected eachohter!!! why did the movie have to ruin that!?!?
and i was disapointed with the trees too...

[Mary]

CJ wrote: "Beth wrote: "When I read Prince Caspian, I'd imagined Caspian as closer to Lucy in age than Peter.

And I felt like something was missing at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie, but I can't..."

the voyage of the dawn treader did not follow the book. and you are right, teh people were more alive in the first two...

[Mary]

Michaela wrote: "It was terrible. A totally different story.

The directors decided since they had been so successful with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, they could just not worry about it and do whatever th..."

and prince caspian was closer to the book than the voyage of the dawn treader! go figure!

[Mary]

Stephanie wrote: "Then there's the whole deal with Susan going into battle. This doesn't happen specificly in the first movie, but in the book, Father Christmas tells Susan and Lucy BOTH that girls and women were no..."

and in the book it was lucy who went to battle, not susan!!!!

[Ruth]

I thought the movie was crap

[Mary]

Ruth wrote: "I thought the movie was crap"
i actually liked it, it just had problems...

[Mary]

Stephanie wrote: "Then there's the whole deal with Susan going into battle. This doesn't happen specificly in the first movie, but in the book, Father Christmas tells Susan and Lucy BOTH that girls and women were no..."
sarah wrote: Woah, that is totally sexist.
no it isn't!!! women weren't made for war and battle, thats all. they were made to take care of their babys. and i am not saying that it is entirley bad if women feel they need to go to war instead of having children. take joan of arc for example, her calling was to go to war and save france and that was a good thing. but most of the time women should not go to war.

[Lesley]

Women get caught up in wars, though - why shouldn't they be able to defend themselves?
I always thought that the line from Father Christmas reflected CS Lewis's own attitudes, which were formed around a hundred years ago. We should have moved on since then. Women are human. Humans go to war. Humans look after babies. To suggest that half the human race can't do something - anything - that the other half can do is sexist.

[Gary]

At their core, the film adaptations of these books are disrespectful of the author's work. There is a lot of money behind them, so they get great effects, excellent costumes and some nice cinematography. Plus, the casting is excellent. In the long run, though, the film makers are simply not interested in C.S. Lewis other than to attach their product to his name and the story he created, and have churned out very mediocre films, changing them in substance, style and significance into something that is very common.

It's a shame, really. So many film makers seem to have understood the lesson of the 20th century adaptation: stick to the original as much as is practical. We get a lot of movies these days that try to bring an author's work to life. Others ignore that basic lesson and waste an awful lot of time and effort. In this case, they'd rather produce something that is at best derivative but more often a hamfisted attempt by the film makers to tell a story of their own and pass it off as something done by a much more creative mind. Unfortunately, some misguided and not-so-talented folks are behind the Narnia films.

[Charlie]

Gary wrote: "At their core, the film adaptations of these books are disrespectful of the author's work. There is a lot of money behind them, so they get great effects, excellent costumes and some nice cinemato..."

I'm ditto to what you have elaborately discuss. The spirit of the book did not discuss an impending shift of power from the Kings & Queens of Old (aka the Pevensies) to Caspian. Instead they made the story complicated, setting plots that are not necessary. The story and its dilemmas are already set as it is, and their are purposes to those plots.

Rather than that agenda stated from above, the director should have discussed the other main reason why the Pevensies kids are summon, more specifically to Peter and Susan, as they are slowly loosing (their) faith in Aslan.

All ideas, all twist and turns are inter-loop to the next chapter, all having their reason why the author and creator implanted such scenarios. Hopefully Walden would not do the next adaptation due to capitalism. SO if Mr Grisham loves Mr. C.S. Lewis as he manifest it to be, I hope he can intervene, for the sake of Mr. C.S. Lewis, for the sake of Narnia, and the treasures it shares.

[Sara]

Like all movies, the directors have to change a lot of the main things. I would say that the only thing that I highly disliked was the "love" between Susan and Prince Caspian. It never happened in the book, and I could do without it, I thought it ruined the whole plot and story.

[Gary]

Sara wrote: "Like all movies, the directors have to change a lot of the main things. I would say that the only thing that I highly disliked was the "love" between Susan and Prince Caspian. It never happened in the book, and I could do without it, I thought it ruined the whole plot and story."

Yeah, ugh. That was trite film making. A romantic subplot is a standard film/TV cliche, and such is the thinking of the people making these films that they thought they should put that kind of thing in.

However, I have to say that the majority of the time, film makers do not have to change the main things. They change things because A) they don't have the budget, talent or support to tell the story, B) they didn't read or understand the book, or C) they don't care about the original text and think they are better storytellers than the author of the book that their work is derivative of, and prefer to tell their own story under the marketing banner of an already successful story.

On rare occasions, that's a good idea. If they make a movie out of a book that wasn't that great to begin with (let's say Heinlein, for example...) then it might not be a bad idea to "retell" the story, but in the case of a lasting classic of English literature... not such a good idea.

[C. J.]

Sara wrote: "Like all movies, the directors have to change a lot of the main things. I would say that the only thing that I highly disliked was the "love" between Susan and Prince Caspian. It never happened in ..."

Gary wrote: " Yeah, ugh. That was trite film making. A romantic subplot is a standard film/TV cliche, and such is the thinking of the people making these films that they thought they should put that kind of thing in.

However, I have to say that the majority of the time, film makers do not have to ..."

Well they wanted to explore "older" Susan. She was becoming more mature (then realized, she was too mature for Narnia) so they were just merely exploring the changes a person would go through that would be different than when that one was a fairly young child.

[Gary]

CJ wrote: "Well they wanted to explore "older" Susan. She was becoming more mature (then realized, she was too mature for Narnia) so they were just merely exploring the changes a person would go through that would be different than when she was a fairly young child."

Lewis pretty much handled that, though. Film makers turning it into a Saturday morning edutainment/YA romance just takes away from the intelligence and subtlety with which CSL treated the subject.

But, oh well. In a few years these books will be in the public domain and maybe somebody else will have a go.

[C. J.]

Filmmakers take big risks when they adapt a story and sometimes the fan's idea of quality with the source material suffers because of it.

In my opinion I got that the makers (especially Adamson) wanted to portray a crueler Narnia. I felt though that to make fights and attacks happen pretty much virtually every scene of the film was not a good choice. It made the film kind of exhausting after a while.

But in the film's defense I overall think Prince Caspian the movie is a wonderful piece of filmmaking. While it lost some opportunities (I am sad they didn't have a scene where Trumpkin and the gang sit around a campfire and hear of the story of Caspian that would have mirrored the Beavers speaking of Aslan) it still has tremendous skill in telling a plot-rich and entertaining story!

[Naomi]

The book was definitely better than the movie. The movie borrowed a little too much from "Lord of the Rings". They should have approached the battle scene differently so it didn't feel like a rip-off.

[Stevie]

one of the worst film adaptions I have ever seen of anything truly shocking, the only film adaption I have ever seen of anything that was worse was the voyage of the dawn treader. I almost cried, not because the films were sad but because they had ruined the beautiful stories. I would agree that Prince Caspian is not the best book but why they insisted on changing the plot of this and adding the nauseating Caspian-Susan love thing is beyond me. The Lion the witch and the wardrobe was pretty true to the book and that really worked well...truly truly truly awful films

[[deleted user]]

I adored it the first time I watched it. Now I'm just "yuck". Ben Barnes wasn't so bad. Not what Caspian was meant to look like, but not awful, either.

The Dawn Treader was just as bad, worse perhaps. And please, don't make everything a romance.

Edmund never liked the woman that Caspian liked. Caspian never liked Susan before that. The Witch never reappeared. You're trying to make Narnia like LOTR. They may be similar, but you're trying to turn a children's story into a PG-13 one.

I haven't watched Narnia in years for those same reasons. This series has lost its magic for me since the days of the LWW.

If you're going to make everything so different, then don't even bother to make another movie and instead just let us sink deeper into our own imaginations.

BTW: The BBC version looks cheesy, but it follows the books much more closely.

[C. J.]

I know I answered this question a lot earlier so that is why I am going off in a weird direction with this.

I will admit that when I first saw the film version of this book (in theaters) I did not like certain scenes. But the thing is I misunderstood some of what was going on.

I still have some disagreeing with the scene with the witch (which in my opinion dwelled WAY too much in evil themes as far as I know) I think overall the film is a fantastic production of talent and a well-made epic movie. The fight between Peter and Lord Miraz should be studied by students who want to get into making films and there is such power in the direction of Andrew Adamson.

...which makes me sad that the producers made the decision to fire him for The Voyage. Why? He was such a professional in the two films. I think they may have gotten rid of him because I heard some people didn't find the sequel as "family-friendly" and heavily battle oriented but I still think they could have given him another chance. Sigh.

[Jenna]

I just watched the movie today and I thought it was okay. Of course, I haven't read the book (read all the other ones but couldn't finish this one).

What really bothers me is that they never made the first book, The Magician's Nephew, into a movie. It explained a lot about Narnia, how it was formed, who the White Witch was, who the old professor was, how the wardrobe connected to Narnia... all in all, important stuff to the series. It was one of the best books, yet there is no movie for it.

Honestly, I'm just hoping for a movie for The Last Battle. The ending to the Prince Caspian movie always makes me sad, and The Last Battle was even sadder really, but I hope it is a movie soon. Then they can stop making Narnia movies, but not until The Last Battle. You can't stop at The Dawn Treader! It's not right. It's just not right.

[[deleted user]]

To me, it is a sin to end the latest Narnia movies at the Dawn Treader, or even after the Magician's Nephew/Silver Chair. I would like to see Horse and His Boy (think I kinda got the titled mixed up).

I just love Narnia and think the movies should try and be true to the books, and continuing the series would help that. Of course, whether or not a movie is made depends on the Box Office, but I think the producers just lack a little bit of imagination right now. As far as I'm concerned, LWW was a MASTERPIECE. Nothing else would get me to read a "scary" book like Narnia, and later LOTR, than a movie that good. :)