Phy
05-28-2008, 09:20 PM
Orson Scott Card agrees that this film is better than the book.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2008-05-18.shtml
How good is Prince Caspian, the second installment in the series of films adapted from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia?
For the second movie in a series to improve on the first is rare enough, but it's been done before -- Godfather II, for instance. It took the Harry Potter series until the third film before they started getting really good. Most of the time, though, it's like the sequels to Speed, Rocky, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop, and so many others: the path for a series is downhill, whether fast or slow.
But Prince Caspian isn't just better than the first film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe -- it's better than the book.
Prince Caspian is arguably the weakest of the Narnia books. The four children from the first book had a full lifetime in Narnia, growing to adulthood as kings in that magical land. But when they returned to England they were inexplicably children again, exactly at the ages they had been at when they first entered Narnia.
This had the effect of turning the whole Narnia experience into a dream. Their own bodies proved to the children that it didn't happen -- that even though they shared the dream, it wasn't real. Susan, the older girl, has accepted this and has mostly let it go. Lucy, the youngest, is the one who clings most tightly.
When they return to Narnia, they remain children; worse, they discover that it has been hundreds of years since their "disappearance." They are mere legends now, and a foreign nation has conquered Narnia and rules with such hostility to Aslan and the magical talking creatures that most of the conquering race believes that they never existed.
But the heir to the throne, Caspian, does believe. And when his uncle's new wife has a baby boy, Caspian has to flee the palace to save his life -- and finds that the original Narnians are still alive, though leaderless. He adopts their cause as his own, and vice versa.
In reading the book, however, the experience is one of disappointment. Didn't we end the previous book with our heroes triumphant? Now everything they had done before is ruined -- literally, for even the castle from which they reigned has crumbled from age and old wars. The land is less magical. And everything they try to do fails.
This is quite right, theologically speaking. Since the Narnia tales are meant to make allegorical points about Christianity, Protestant Lewis is making a point about a fallen Church. Strangers have taken over the land, people who never knew Aslan/Christ, and even those who remember Aslan's name aren't all that sure they believe in him except as a sort of nice idea. It's time for a revival, a reformation, a revolution.
But fictionally, the story is just one disappointment after another. Lewis has many gifts, but making battles seem real is not one of them. His focus is on the theological story, and as a result, Prince Caspian suffers ... as fiction.
Not so with the movie. The filmmakers have made the military struggle immediate and real. We understand what's at stake and we care about it. Aslan remains important -- as vital as ever -- but we spend very little time on him, which is right for the story: The point is that instead of trusting in Aslan, the characters trust in their military prowess and cleverness. They discover that all their plans come to nothing without the Lion's help, but in the movie, unlike the book, it doesn't feel inevitable. It comes as a genuine relief.
Ironically, then, even though the filmmakers spend less time on Aslan than Lewis does, the result is that the message of the book -- that we can't do anything important without God's help -- is far more effectively presented because we actually care about the characters far more.
Writers Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Andrew Adamson (who also directed) have done a superb job. Instead of trying to wow us with magical stuff, the creatures and effects are treated as part of the story -- what they concentrate on is making it feel real, and they did the job.
I was relieved to see that actors playing the children -- William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, and Georgie Henley -- have grown in skill and talent since the first movie. And the new cast members -- most notably Ben Barnes as the very hunkish Prince Caspian and Peter Dinklage as the heroic dwarf Trumpkin -- give strong performances.
The fact that we experience the reality of the battles does lead to a new problem: Lucy has a magical potion that restores dying people to health, but we only see her use it on two leading characters. In the book, she uses it on everyone, saving all the lives she can. I understand that there's hardly time in the movie to show all the healing, but we needed to know, for decency's sake, that it wasn't a special favor Lucy reserved for VIPs.
But that's hardly a quibble. The movie works as a movie, regardless of whether you already know and love the Narnia books. That was the primary requirement and it was achieved. Some will complain that the film is not pious enough -- to them I say, "Phooey." You can always reread the book. The film does not subtract one word from Lewis's version. And the heart and soul of the book are there in the film, better than ever.
Prince Caspian is a bright spot in an otherwise dreadful movie month. Yes, we had Iron Man -- but nothing else.
http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2008-05-18.shtml
How good is Prince Caspian, the second installment in the series of films adapted from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia?
For the second movie in a series to improve on the first is rare enough, but it's been done before -- Godfather II, for instance. It took the Harry Potter series until the third film before they started getting really good. Most of the time, though, it's like the sequels to Speed, Rocky, Die Hard, Beverly Hills Cop, and so many others: the path for a series is downhill, whether fast or slow.
But Prince Caspian isn't just better than the first film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe -- it's better than the book.
Prince Caspian is arguably the weakest of the Narnia books. The four children from the first book had a full lifetime in Narnia, growing to adulthood as kings in that magical land. But when they returned to England they were inexplicably children again, exactly at the ages they had been at when they first entered Narnia.
This had the effect of turning the whole Narnia experience into a dream. Their own bodies proved to the children that it didn't happen -- that even though they shared the dream, it wasn't real. Susan, the older girl, has accepted this and has mostly let it go. Lucy, the youngest, is the one who clings most tightly.
When they return to Narnia, they remain children; worse, they discover that it has been hundreds of years since their "disappearance." They are mere legends now, and a foreign nation has conquered Narnia and rules with such hostility to Aslan and the magical talking creatures that most of the conquering race believes that they never existed.
But the heir to the throne, Caspian, does believe. And when his uncle's new wife has a baby boy, Caspian has to flee the palace to save his life -- and finds that the original Narnians are still alive, though leaderless. He adopts their cause as his own, and vice versa.
In reading the book, however, the experience is one of disappointment. Didn't we end the previous book with our heroes triumphant? Now everything they had done before is ruined -- literally, for even the castle from which they reigned has crumbled from age and old wars. The land is less magical. And everything they try to do fails.
This is quite right, theologically speaking. Since the Narnia tales are meant to make allegorical points about Christianity, Protestant Lewis is making a point about a fallen Church. Strangers have taken over the land, people who never knew Aslan/Christ, and even those who remember Aslan's name aren't all that sure they believe in him except as a sort of nice idea. It's time for a revival, a reformation, a revolution.
But fictionally, the story is just one disappointment after another. Lewis has many gifts, but making battles seem real is not one of them. His focus is on the theological story, and as a result, Prince Caspian suffers ... as fiction.
Not so with the movie. The filmmakers have made the military struggle immediate and real. We understand what's at stake and we care about it. Aslan remains important -- as vital as ever -- but we spend very little time on him, which is right for the story: The point is that instead of trusting in Aslan, the characters trust in their military prowess and cleverness. They discover that all their plans come to nothing without the Lion's help, but in the movie, unlike the book, it doesn't feel inevitable. It comes as a genuine relief.
Ironically, then, even though the filmmakers spend less time on Aslan than Lewis does, the result is that the message of the book -- that we can't do anything important without God's help -- is far more effectively presented because we actually care about the characters far more.
Writers Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, and Andrew Adamson (who also directed) have done a superb job. Instead of trying to wow us with magical stuff, the creatures and effects are treated as part of the story -- what they concentrate on is making it feel real, and they did the job.
I was relieved to see that actors playing the children -- William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, and Georgie Henley -- have grown in skill and talent since the first movie. And the new cast members -- most notably Ben Barnes as the very hunkish Prince Caspian and Peter Dinklage as the heroic dwarf Trumpkin -- give strong performances.
The fact that we experience the reality of the battles does lead to a new problem: Lucy has a magical potion that restores dying people to health, but we only see her use it on two leading characters. In the book, she uses it on everyone, saving all the lives she can. I understand that there's hardly time in the movie to show all the healing, but we needed to know, for decency's sake, that it wasn't a special favor Lucy reserved for VIPs.
But that's hardly a quibble. The movie works as a movie, regardless of whether you already know and love the Narnia books. That was the primary requirement and it was achieved. Some will complain that the film is not pious enough -- to them I say, "Phooey." You can always reread the book. The film does not subtract one word from Lewis's version. And the heart and soul of the book are there in the film, better than ever.
Prince Caspian is a bright spot in an otherwise dreadful movie month. Yes, we had Iron Man -- but nothing else.