The Imagination of Fantasy

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

Greetings, fantasy-lovers!  Long time no talk.  Frankly, I feel a bit disconnected from the Spout groups.  I'm not a fan of Spout's current navigational interfaces, so I haven't been participating as much in group discussions, which, unfortunately, has left my own groups in a state of stagnation.

Fortunately, I've seen a couple of movies that inspired me to revive our little Fantasy group.

So: who's seen Prince Caspian?  Have you read the original book?  What did you think?

Personally, I was disappointed beyond all measure.  Not only was it boring and poorly acted, it was the most revisionist adaptation of book to film I have ever seen!  It shared little in common with the book other than key plot points and characters.  I thought the filmmakers had real potential to make this film a good one, but I was so disgusted by the changes and so bored when I tried to enjoy the film on its own merits, that I wasn't pleased. 

I may be a harsh critic because the Chronicles are among my favorite books, though.  I do that with all of them.

Anyone care to weigh in?  Who's seen it?

Re:THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

Re:THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN

indieabby88:

It's been years since I've read "Caspian," but from what I recall, the plot wasn't as drawn out as the movie made it. I understand the need, however, to make a feature-length story, so the fact that there were more effects than plot didn't really bother me, considering the source material. I loved the movie, personally. Not quite as good as the first one, but still an awful lot of fun.

My beef is that plot events were actually changed and resequenced and, in some cases, rewritten, for what reason I don't know.  If they're already adding elements to give it feature-length duration and excitement, I didn't understand why certain things were left out and why others were played up just for the heck of it.  The whole flirtation between Caspian and Susan was nowhere in the book, for example, and comprised a decent chunk of story.  And the story seemed to be more about Peter's shortcomings than a quest to save the land from a tyrant.  It didn't help that Ben Barnes as Caspian, though handsome, was kind of stunted in his acting.

I just felt they had potential to do so much better, even better than the BBC versions from umpteen years ago.  I also feel it is a disservice to the source material; new readers are going to pick up the Prince Caspian novel and probably be confused now.  The Harry Potters don't venture off this far because the filmmakers know the readership will be up in arms about it.

I always expect a degree of alteration in adaptation, but this I felt was probably the most extreme example.  If I could remember the film better as I type this right now, I could draw the comparisons, but I was really very displeased mostly.  Though there were some nice embellishments too (like when the hag and werwolf attempt to conjure the White Witch from the dead).