Product: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Two Disc Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (2008)
Rating: 2.0
Too many departures from the book
I have been a huge C. S. Lewis and Narnia fan practically all my life. I loved the new adaptation of LWW and was really looking forward to seeing Prince Caspian. There are some things that were captured very well, such as the lovable feisty characters of Reepicheep and the dwarf Trumpkin, and the culture of the Telmarines. Lucy and Edmund were in top form. And the visuals - the special effects, costumes, etc - were superb.But I was disappointed that they took so many departures from the book. There were some departures in LWW as well, but not quite so many. It seems most of the professional critics think the filmmakers "improved" on C. S. Lewis' plotting, but I disagree. I believe these differences cheapened Lewis' story.First of all, Peter was not nearly such a mess-up in the book. The only mistake he made in the book was not listening to Lucy at first when she tried to convince them that Aslan was telling them to go a certain way through the woods. He never got in a fight in the train station. He didn't plan or execute an ill-fated raid on Miraz' castle (that whole scene was an invention of the filmmakers; there was no castle raid in the book and no Narnians died in vain). And he was always respectful of Caspian; they never had any sort of `power struggle.' He relied on Aslan to be the main savior of Narnia, not himself. It was his idea to challenge Miraz to a duel, not Caspian's. This excerpt from the book shows how far the movie went away from the book in all these ways:"Now," said Peter... "Aslan and the girls are somewhere close. We don't know when he will act. In his time, no doubt, not ours. In the meantime he would like us to do what we can on our own. You say, Caspian, we are not strong enough to meet Miraz in pitched battle.""I'm afraid not, High King," said Caspian. He was liking Peter very much, but was rather tongue-tied...."Very well, then," said Peter, "I'll send him a challege to single combat." No one had thought of this before."Please," said Caspian, "could it not be me? I want to avenge my father.""You're wounded," said Peter. "And anyway, wouldn't he just laugh at a challenge from you? I mean, we have seen that you are a king and a warrior but he thinks of you as a kid."Second, Susan wasn't anti-social or giving boys a fake name to put them off. She was actually much more of a brat than Peter in the book; she was mean to Lucy and wouldn't believe Lucy had seen Aslan. She and Lucy went together, with Aslan, to destroy the bridge at Beruna (which was a town with people in it). And Caspian was most certainly between 10 and 14 years old in the book and presumably too young for Susan; there was no hint of any romantic interest.Third, Aslan was much more of a presence in the book. He was a constant presence from when he led the four siblings and Trumpkin to Caspian's hideout, till the end of the book. I was disappointed that this was not the case in the movie, because Aslan is by far my favorite character in the stories.Fourth, the movie almost seemed like nothing but near-constant battle scenes with loud dramatic music. They added the extra invented castle battle scene, and left out several `non-battle' events in the book, such as Lucy and Susan freeing the town of Beruna, and two celebratory parties hosted by Aslan. I don't know if maybe this is because they were trying to make it more LOTR-ish, or more appealing to the male population, or what. But it was annoying and felt very unbalanced.The third book, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," is my favorite in the Narnia series. I hope they see fit to stick more closely to the book. Although that's hard to imagine, since - gasp - there are no battle scenes in that book! Whatever will they do?? Invent some, I guess.