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May. 26th, 2025 11:13 amWhere to start with this...
I am an unabashed CS Lewis fan. I know his problematic aspects, I acknowledge them, but he still wrote good stuff and his Chronicles of Narnia are part of the bedrock of my childhood, my imagination, and even my faith. I know them very, very well; when the reprints were issued in the 1990s, with the changed order, I was able to identify the changed scenes without having my older copies to compare. This is important below.
When The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe came out in 2005, the Walden Media film, I was pleasantly surprised. For the most part, it's an excellent adaptation. There are bits that rang false to me, but on the whole it works, and there are parts that work extremely well - the Stone Table scene is spot-on, for example.
And I approve of the opening scenes, which are not in the book at all. Kids outside of Britain are not likely to know what the Blitz was, or why the Pevensies were shipped off to the countryside. The special effects are spectacular. Aslan is entirely believable and it looks like they hired centaurs for the cast.
So, having seen that in the theater, I was anticipating Prince Caspian a good deal. In fact, I took my mother to see it, which took some doing since she doesn't often go to films (actually, I think that was the last time she went). She'd read the books years before and liked them, and I'd shown her the first film on DVD.
We settle in, the movie begins. About two-thirds of the way through, my mother turns to whisper to me. Where are those characters going?
And I had to reply I have no idea.
That's how bad that film was.
I've tried to block a lot of it out, but from what I can remember, the most egregious thing was that they made Caspian an adult and then tried to pair him with Susan. It didn't come off, thankfully, but - !!
Caspian is a child. This is a plot point in the book! It is underscored! There was no reason to make him an adult!
Then there's the whole thing with the White Witch. >_<
I mean, I get that the actor was probably under contract and they didn't want to waste her. But raising her from the dead is mentioned as a possibility in the book and firmly squashed - they do not go on to raise her, and she certainly does not start sexually harassing Peter! It was appalling and completely unnecessary. And gross. He's a teenager.
They screwed with the plot so much that, as mentioned, I had no clue what was happening at one point, in a storyline I could have probably recited beat for beat from the book.
Don't get me started on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The trailer alone had so much wrong with it - including the Witch again - that I didn't even consider going to see the film. Not ever going to touch that one, dear heavens.
Now, the thing about all this is that it has bugged me ever since. An irritation. My mind can't just shrug and move on; whenever the topic comes up, I want to rant about it. And because I'm slow, it finally dawned on me.
I'm angry. I'm still angry.
Not only were the second and third films a distortion of a beloved classic series - distorted for what?? - they were a betrayal of the promise of the first one. I think that's what bothers me the most. They did such a good job with TLTWATW, and then burned it all up in an effort to...make it more trendy? Relatable somehow? Here, movie for kids, let's make the hero an adult instead, and have him perv on a teenage girl who's actually technically his boss. Let's bring back the villain from the first film and go all Freudian, again on a teenager. Let's add World War II to the third book even though it was several years over by then, and have Edmund try to join up underage even though he would never be that stupid, and why on earth are we doing that since 98 percent of the book takes place in the Narnian world?
It would have been so easy to stick to the story - which is a good one! Lewis knew what he was doing. Instead they went to a lot of effort to make it worse.
It was a betrayal. I'm still wondering why Douglas Gresham allowed it. He seemed such a careful caretaker of Lewis' legacy.
It was a slap in the face to fans, and my cheek still stings.
I am an unabashed CS Lewis fan. I know his problematic aspects, I acknowledge them, but he still wrote good stuff and his Chronicles of Narnia are part of the bedrock of my childhood, my imagination, and even my faith. I know them very, very well; when the reprints were issued in the 1990s, with the changed order, I was able to identify the changed scenes without having my older copies to compare. This is important below.
When The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe came out in 2005, the Walden Media film, I was pleasantly surprised. For the most part, it's an excellent adaptation. There are bits that rang false to me, but on the whole it works, and there are parts that work extremely well - the Stone Table scene is spot-on, for example.
And I approve of the opening scenes, which are not in the book at all. Kids outside of Britain are not likely to know what the Blitz was, or why the Pevensies were shipped off to the countryside. The special effects are spectacular. Aslan is entirely believable and it looks like they hired centaurs for the cast.
So, having seen that in the theater, I was anticipating Prince Caspian a good deal. In fact, I took my mother to see it, which took some doing since she doesn't often go to films (actually, I think that was the last time she went). She'd read the books years before and liked them, and I'd shown her the first film on DVD.
We settle in, the movie begins. About two-thirds of the way through, my mother turns to whisper to me. Where are those characters going?
And I had to reply I have no idea.
That's how bad that film was.
I've tried to block a lot of it out, but from what I can remember, the most egregious thing was that they made Caspian an adult and then tried to pair him with Susan. It didn't come off, thankfully, but - !!
Caspian is a child. This is a plot point in the book! It is underscored! There was no reason to make him an adult!
Then there's the whole thing with the White Witch. >_<
I mean, I get that the actor was probably under contract and they didn't want to waste her. But raising her from the dead is mentioned as a possibility in the book and firmly squashed - they do not go on to raise her, and she certainly does not start sexually harassing Peter! It was appalling and completely unnecessary. And gross. He's a teenager.
They screwed with the plot so much that, as mentioned, I had no clue what was happening at one point, in a storyline I could have probably recited beat for beat from the book.
Don't get me started on The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The trailer alone had so much wrong with it - including the Witch again - that I didn't even consider going to see the film. Not ever going to touch that one, dear heavens.
Now, the thing about all this is that it has bugged me ever since. An irritation. My mind can't just shrug and move on; whenever the topic comes up, I want to rant about it. And because I'm slow, it finally dawned on me.
I'm angry. I'm still angry.
Not only were the second and third films a distortion of a beloved classic series - distorted for what?? - they were a betrayal of the promise of the first one. I think that's what bothers me the most. They did such a good job with TLTWATW, and then burned it all up in an effort to...make it more trendy? Relatable somehow? Here, movie for kids, let's make the hero an adult instead, and have him perv on a teenage girl who's actually technically his boss. Let's bring back the villain from the first film and go all Freudian, again on a teenager. Let's add World War II to the third book even though it was several years over by then, and have Edmund try to join up underage even though he would never be that stupid, and why on earth are we doing that since 98 percent of the book takes place in the Narnian world?
It would have been so easy to stick to the story - which is a good one! Lewis knew what he was doing. Instead they went to a lot of effort to make it worse.
It was a betrayal. I'm still wondering why Douglas Gresham allowed it. He seemed such a careful caretaker of Lewis' legacy.
It was a slap in the face to fans, and my cheek still stings.