Prince Caspian

[eborr]

must admit to being a tad surprised that I am the first to want to post on this,

Anyone else out there seen this film - what did you think, or does the absence of a thread speak volumes,

if the film bad or are we moving away from cultural happinging from out of the inklings ?

Happy to give my thoughts in a later post if anybody is botherered

[Alatar]

I enjoyed it. Great fun, quite dark and the kids loved it.

That said, I skipped this book so I'm not in a position to be purist about it.

[Primula Baggins]

I still haven't seen the first one. I've read all the books a number of times, but I've had trouble getting excited about the films.

But Prince Caspian is one of the best of them, and if the film is "dark," that sounds more interesting.

[eborr]

Aquick view spoiler free I hope, the film carries the theme of returning to lost childhoods, of times we thought we couldn't recover but did.

I thought about the realisation and the recovery of dreams, and I think the guy does battle scenes far better than PJ.

I would go and see it

and shame on you not reading the book- go out and buy or borrow it from the library and read it, preferably out loud to children

[Alatar]

I have it eborr. The problem is that I tried reading it to the kids. We got through Magicians Nephew, LWW and half of A Horse and His Boy. It just takes so long to read aloud! Eventually the kids lost interest, and so did I.

I might do a quick marathon read of all seven sometime.

[Crucifer]

It would only take a week or so, Alatar, to read all seven.

And I was utterly disappointed with the film. The digressions from the book were unnecessary and ruined the flow of the plot. I found it was not so much a plot as a loosely strung together group of events. Peter was totally out of character most of the way through, and as for Aslan, well, he may as well have been cut out entirely.

(The Telmarines are supposed to be Caucasian, but that's another matter)

I don't mind films that are different from books, really I don't, but reading Caspian, it looks like it could very easily, with only minor changes, have been transferred to the silver screen. Instead, they took the general idea and Hollywoodised it.

It was one of the few times I've ever fallen asleep during a film.

[Túrin Turambar]

(The Telmarines are supposed to be Caucasian, but that's another matter)

They were Caucasian (technically). They're descended from European pirates and Polynesian natives, so you shouldn't expect them to have very fair skin or entirely white features.

[ArathornJax]

I enjoyed the movie as did my family. Didn't go with high expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I agree with the critics that this was more enjoyable as a film than Lion.

[Alatar]

If I was to have one slight peeve, it would be that I think a woman in childbirth is not necessarily the first thing you want to see in a kids movie.

[Crucifer]

you shouldn't expect them to have very fair skin or entirely white features.

Except that that's how they were described in the book. Prince Caspian is explicitly described as having golden hair. I wouldn't have minded if Caspian had been cast well, but that was some pretty bad acting.

Grimace, bare teeth, and threaten. Grimace, bare teeth, and threaten. Repeat.

[solicitr]

Incidentally, Alatar, the more satisfying read order is that of original publication, not the publishers' recent renumbering by internal chronology: LWW, Caspian, Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, Horse, Nephew, and Last Battle.

[Alatar]

Actually, I initially read Silver Chair first, without knowing anything of the others.

I started reading in the published order cause thats the way Lewis said he'd prefer them to be read. However, most fans seem to agree with you.

[Crucifer]

I've only read them in chronological order so far, but I might consider reading them as written and see if it's a different experience. I'll get back to you on that one.

[MithLuin]

It was my understanding that most fans prefer them in publishing order (LWW, PC, VotDT, SC, HahB, MN, LB) rather than chronological order (MN, LWW, HahB, PC, VotDT, SC, LB). Personally, I think that Magician's Nephew works better as a prequel than LWW does as a sequel, so it's an aha moment when you find out where the Wardrobe or Lampost came from. It's not nearly as much fun the other way around. But I'm not a purist about the books, because I didn't read them until I was 18. My favorite (by far) is Voyage of the Dawn Treader.


I thought the LWW movie was a faithful adaptation of the book and a decent (though hardly spectacular) movie. It had a certain amount of wonder and awe, good music, great scenery, etc. There was quite a bit of 'I'm just a regular kid and eeep, I'm in Narnia now!' And of course the story was epic.

Prince Caspian had none of that. Well, maybe the scenery. The music was decent, until the end, when they ruined it - whoever decided the singing should start before the credits was an idiot. The kids fell right back into 'I'm a ruler of Narnia' mode, so there was significantly less wonder and awe. Don't get me wrong, they were happy to be back, and there were some great quiet moments. Just - more subdued. It was significantly less faithful to the book, though it had the same general theme/story, just told in a different way. As I said, I am hardly a purist, so I didn't mind this. Cutting Bacchus was certainly a good call. The faith was (to me) more subtle than the first one, but other reviewers found it much more hard-hitting. Perhaps that's because this one is all about faith meaning trust. The battle here is not the forces of good vs. evil monsters - rather, it's men against men, with the 'monsters' on the good side.


As for the movie? I loved it. I went to see it twice in theaters. I think the last movie I saw in theaters before this one was Bella back in the fall. It was dark, Caspian (and the Telmarines) had cool (though occasionally thick!) accents, and there were unintentional Tolkien references. For instance, the symbol of the Telmarines was an 8-pointed silver and black star. As soon as I saw it, I thought of Fëanoreans, and was thus much more sympathetic to their side than I perhaps ought to have been . Ulmo has a cameo, as do the huorns! And of course, New Zealand and WETA make their presence felt. One of the most poignant scenes was in a wholy invented battle. Peter turns back at the castle gate and the look on his face is a much more bitter realization of what his choices to that point have meant than anything that was written in the book. And yeah, maybe in the book, he wasn't supposed to mess up so badly. But part of the point of the story was that his choices and reliance on his own wisdom cost them. The movie rewrote it to show the audience that, and did so very well.

Reepicheep is well done. I will admit, I can't stand the little mouse in the books, but he's cute (oh how he'd hate that!) onscreen. Trumpkin is extremely well done, and every line of his is perfect - you wish he'd be on screen more, he's just that good. He can act with just his eyes. Susan is perhaps the most inappropriately handled. They made her an Amazon, so so much for Susan the Gentle. You can tell that they are setting her up for the Last Battle ending, but in a much more sympathetic way than Lewis did. So, I give them credit for that. Lucy still looks (and acts) exactly like my sister. My poor sister is in her 20's, but whatever. Edmund is great, particularly in his relationship with Peter, but he gets no real character development this time around (since the last movie focused on that for him). Peter...well, they gave him more conflicts than you might expect, but I imagine it would be difficult to go from High King of Narnia back to being just a boy in England. So, it was at least plausible (though Lewis never dealt with that). Personally, I like the way he's handled better than what they are doing with Susan. I'm not sure I buy Aslan's statement that they've grown up, but I do see that only a child can benefit from visiting Narnia. The cloister-walk scene was well done.

Random quotes:

Edmund: DLF?
Susan and Lucy: Dear Little Friend.
Trumpkin: That's not the least bit patronizing.

Lucy: Stop acting like grownups! I don't think I saw Aslan, I saw him.
Trumpkin: I am a grownup

Lucy: I was so tall.
Susan: Well, you were older then.
Edmund: As opposed to now, hundreds of years later, when you're younger.

My livejournal comments on this movie:
First Viewing and Second Viewing - both discussions very spoiler-heavy.

[Crucifer]

Peter turns back at the castle gate and the look on his face is a much more bitter realization of what his choices to that point have meant than anything that was written in the book.

I missed that bit. I was asleep.

I agree with you that Reepicheep and Trumpkin were absolutely fantastic, but I really didn't get much at all out of it. Maybe reading the book the day before wasn't such a good idea, but as I said, what annoyed me was that too many of the changes were totally unnecessary, and that annoyed me.

[eborr]

When I was young Caspian was my favourite book, perhaps it's lighter the LWW, and less doomy - no dead lion, no horrble. Iguess the film is a lot different from the book, however I enjoyed not only for the personal moments but because it was a pretty good fantasy film. I though the job they did in bringing the children into the noughties was pretty good, we had no Ali G init's but there were some nice postmodern lines which I thought worked, and seemed less self concious than say the Gimli humour. Maybe CS Lewis wouldn't have liked it, but I thought it made for pretty good entertainment for a couple of hours

[Pearly Di]

Maybe it's just me, but I thought that was a pretty decent adaptation of a book that IMO is hard to translate to screen, since so much of the first half of the story is flashback and the story itself is quite episodic.

Do bear in mind though that I haven't actually reread Prince Caspian for 20 years. I just have a good memory and the Narnia books are dear to my heart. I'm more likely to reread my favourites Dawn Treader, Silver Chair and Last Battle though.

I thought that the film made its point well about faith and that was totally in keeping with Lewis's main Narnian themes, IMO.

So I enjoyed the film a lot. I loved the first film too but the second film was in many ways better, more confident and sophisticated.

Someone on my Harry Potter board pointed out that the 'faith walk' was missing, the bit when Lucy makes her siblings follow her because she can see Aslan and they can't and they all grump about it (except Edmund) and then one by one they can see him ... strange how they missed that out, that would have been cinematic and powerful.

But I can't pretend I get as exercised about this half as much as I do about changes to LotR. And since it didn't take much for me to love PJ's films, I still say this was a pretty faithful adaptation.

I take exactly the same line with the HP movies, although the diehard HP purists insist that the first two films are the best. (Noooooooo, kids, they are not.)

I thought the little Caspian/Susan frisson was well done and not offensive.

When Susan said that it would not have worked out because she was 1,300 years older than him, a friend of mine pointed out that wasn't a problem for Arwen and Aragorn.

But Susan's time in Narnia was up.

[sauronsfinger]

Took my grandson to see this and was surprised how much better this was compared to the first film which I found pretty bad. This was much better on almost every level from writing to direction to acting and special effects. Having the younger boy not cling to the title of Worlds Biggest Pain in the Posterior was a huge advancement. In the first film, I hoped and prayed that he would die a horrible death on screen. This time he was actually likable.

[Frelga]

As I posted elsewhere, I found the movie quite enjoyable, and so did my son. He didn't find it scary, although I made it a point to touch him every once in a while just remind him that he was in a safe place.

One thing I noticed even during the viewing, and that bothered me more and more as I thought of it, is the callous way in which the deaths of Telmarin soldiers were portrayed. On screen, they were dying by the score, and no one cared. Lucy was killing left and right, shooting the soldier in the boat even though she didn't really know what was going on. The "good" guys made no effort to reduce casualties. And the point of the war was to reinstall Caspian as the king of these very people, so it's not like they are killing faceless orcs.

There wasn't a single platitude about how war is terrible, no recognition that the soldiers are human, nothing like Faramir's speech in LOTR movie about the fallen Southron. Even Aslan didn't think twice about flushing them downriver. And after all that, Telmarins celebrate the return of the King as if no one is mourning the fallen. Since most of the movie was one battle scene after another, this really affected my reaction.

Ignoring that, it was a fun film, and Caspian is hot as blazes.

[Pearly Di]

As I posted elsewhere, I found the movie quite enjoyable, and so did my son. He didn't find it scary, although I made it a point to touch him every once in a while just remind him that he was in a safe place.

Aww!

One thing I noticed even during the viewing, and that bothered me more and more as I thought of it, is the callous way in which the deaths of Telmarin soldiers were portrayed. On screen, they were dying by the score, and no one cared. Lucy was killing left and right, shooting the soldier in the boat even though she didn't really know what was going on. The "good" guys made no effort to reduce casualties. And the point of the war was to reinstall Caspian as the king of these very people, so it's not like they are killing faceless orcs.

There wasn't a single platitude about how war is terrible, no recognition that the soldiers are human, nothing like Faramir's speech in LOTR movie about the fallen Southron. Even Aslan didn't think twice about flushing them downriver. And after all that, Telmarins celebrate the return of the King as if no one is mourning the fallen. Since most of the movie was one battle scene after another, this really affected my reaction.

Actually, the very same thing occurred to me too, Frelga ... and yes, I found it troubling. (But they're Bad People! They're Nasty to Narnians! Who cares if they dies!) Hmmmmmmm ...

But, then, you could argue the same thing about the Orcs in LotR who are, to put it bluntly, cannon fodder.

I thought the guy playing Miraz was really good, btw. A properly juicy villain and not just two-dimensional sneering.

Ignoring that, it was a fun film, and Caspian is hot as blazes.

Hoo boy, is he ever.