I'm surprised this didn't do better in theatres

Aravis Kenobi said:
Poor advertising? I saw more publicity on tv for VDT than I ever saw for PC. I saw tv spots at least 4 times a week, along with spotlights on Carrie Underwood performing "There's a Place for Us" at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, etc. There was no such thing as "poor advertising" for this film. What was poor was the quality of the acting/script/directing/story. Those are the only things poor about this film.

but you are right in one regard; most fans were wary to go to another film because of what happened with PC (though I will always enjoy PC over VDT any given day of the week).
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Maybe I was watching the wrong channels? I never saw but one tv spot. But then again I only see spots for newer movies (pooh for example) on certain channels.
 
QueenLucyTheValient said:
I dont think that Prince Caspian and The Dawn Treader were horrible..... And not everyone believes that they did as horribly As you believe they did.. Yes, some people didn't like them, but some did. It sounds as if you are saying that your way is the only way, and there were loads of people who liked the movie, as well as loads who don't....
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Actually, you are the one who is conflating your like of the movie with its performance. The box office numbers speak better for the films's respective performances than any opinion your or I might express. For example, I didn't care for LWW either but it would be ridiculous for me to argue that the film did not do well. Likewise, as much as you liked PC, there's no point arguing that it did so well if it was the movie that caused Disney to back out of the franchise.


Arvan said:
See, I think it has to do with being a Narnia fan. I really dislike VDT, but I want to like it (and I really love the ending). Other people who care little about Narnia seem to be less forgiving.
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So, by your argument... I care less about Narnia because I was not willing to over-look the point of C. S. Lewis's books and everything that made me fall in love with the story in the first place so that I could enjoy an adaptation that was made by people that, by their own omission, did not respect the books and wanted to change Narnia into the next Harry Potter or Star Wars?
 
Arvan, I hope you didn't mean that the way it sounded. You can care a lot about Narnia without wanting to accept a shoddy adaptation of it by people who don't understand what the books are about.
 
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Soldier of Aslan said:
Maybe I was watching the wrong channels? I never saw but one tv spot. But then again I only see spots for newer movies (pooh for example) on certain channels.
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I saw them all over the place. Hallmark, local news channels, abcfamily, etc. Though, once the film released, the number of spots aired dropped significantly, and I don't even remember if there were spots for the dvd release (Pretty sure there were...I just don't remember).
 
I saw loads of advertising, too, far more than for Prince Caspian. But how much can you blame advertising, anyway? Maybe for the opening weekend if people didn't know when the movie had come out. But after that? It was word of mouth more than anything that made Star Wars a blockbuster.
 
moonspinner said:
So, by your argument... I care less about Narnia because I was not willing to over-look the point of C. S. Lewis's books and everything that made me fall in love with the story in the first place so that I could enjoy an adaptation that was made by people that, by their own omission, did not respect the books and wanted to change Narnia into the next Harry Potter or Star Wars?
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katsullivan said:
Arvan, I hope you didn't mean that the way it sounded. You can care a lot about Narnia without wanting to accept a shoddy adaptation of it by people who don't understand what the books are about.
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Ouch. You people didn't understand. I said I disliked VDT for the same reasons as you! Personally, like many others, I want to like it. However, unlike a large population on this website, I do not like it (except the very end), and never say I do. Not everyone is like me. Some fans seem to want to hate anything about the movies (I'm serious). But a lot of people want to love these movies, and are willing to overlook a great deal in order to do so. Not so with non-fans. Why should they care? If they don't think much of it, they aren't even going to watch it again, much less try to like it! That's what I'm trying to say.
 
katsullivan said:
I saw loads of advertising, too, far more than for Prince Caspian. But how much can you blame advertising, anyway? Maybe for the opening weekend if people didn't know when the movie had come out. But after that? It was word of mouth more than anything that made Star Wars a blockbuster.
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But there were people who were saying, word-of-mouth, that the movie was terrible. I was one of them. My family thought the movie was good, but I don't because I saw it from the standpoint of someone who's read the book 5 times and I missed the story that Lewis wrote. There wasn't much of that story intact by the time it got to the big screen, and I don't believe I or Arvan were the only ones to notice.

Yes, the movie had some good points. The first 15 minutes or so up until the Lone Islands bit were done well. I thought they captured most of the essence of the book's opening chapters in those 15 minutes. The last 10-15 minutes were well done, and the Eustace/Reepicheep moments (for the most part) were done well. There was just the majority in-between all of that that was HORRIBLE. I just don't understand how people can call VDT close to the book any more than I could call Love Comes Softly a literal adaptation of the Janette Oke masterpiece!!! Are we sentimental because of the Aslan's country ending, or what? That's my biggest issue with the movie. It wasn't even well made, yet people still seem to think it was better than PC. PC at least had a narnian feel/flavor to it, what with the score, acting, and script (I'm not including the bits that people find so much fault with). Overall, I can parallel PC to its book much more easily than I can parallel VDT with its book. And I don't like either one of those books. They're the books, along with TLB, that I like the least.

Also, George Lucas didn't write a movie based off a book. He was, in my opinion, worried about making a good film that people would enjoy (you can argue the finer points of that with the prequels all you want...I won't stop you). George Lucas wasn't adapting a book to the big screen. He wrote a movie and it ended up doing exceptionally well. People flocked to Star Wars because it was a) enjoyable, b)fun, and c) relatively decent considering the time period in which they were scripted. The cheesiness of SW is much more believable than what was delivered in VDT.
 
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well, I've read the book 20 plus times (not an exaggeration) and i still think VDT was fairly decent. sure they screwed with the order of things and added the sword thing and the mist but if you think about it the book isn't exactly cinematic. They needed a solid conflict, i.e. the mist, although I was sick of seeing the white witch, so they gave us one. the sword thing, annoying as it was, personal opinion, to be added in made sense since they were looking for knights.

And I saw quite a bit of of advertisement, although as previously stated Fox is, well, Fox. (I still haven't forgiven them for the disaster that was supposedly Eragon.) So yeah i liked it pretty well, better than PC (peter's attitudes fault. that ruined everything until after the white witch showed up... again.).

And for the person who was saying only kids, or mostly kids liked it, well I'm 19, was 18 at the time and liked it as well as my older brother who got me hooked on the books in the first place. (I'm not trying to be mean referring to the person as "the person" bad memory you know :eek: )
 
Aravis Kenobi said:
But there were people who were saying, word-of-mouth, that the movie was terrible. I was one of them. My family thought the movie was good, but I don't because I saw it from the standpoint of someone who's read the book 5 times and I missed the story that Lewis wrote. There wasn't much of that story intact by the time it got to the big screen, and I don't believe I or Arvan were the only ones to notice.

Yes, the movie had some good points. The first 15 minutes or so up until the Lone Islands bit were done well. I thought they captured most of the essence of the book's opening chapters in those 15 minutes. The last 10-15 minutes were well done, and the Eustace/Reepicheep moments (for the most part) were done well. There was just the majority in-between all of that that was HORRIBLE. I just don't understand how people can call VDT close to the book any more than I could call Love Comes Softly a literal adaptation of the Janette Oke masterpiece!!! Are we sentimental because of the Aslan's country ending, or what? That's my biggest issue with the movie. It wasn't even well made, yet people still seem to think it was better than PC. PC at least had a narnian feel/flavor to it, what with the score, acting, and script (I'm not including the bits that people find so much fault with). Overall, I can parallel PC to its book much more easily than I can parallel VDT with its book. And I don't like either one of those books. They're the books, along with TLB, that I like the least.

Also, George Lucas didn't write a movie based off a book. He was, in my opinion, worried about making a good film that people would enjoy (you can argue the finer points of that with the prequels all you want...I won't stop you). George Lucas wasn't adapting a book to the big screen. He wrote a movie and it ended up doing exceptionally well. People flocked to Star Wars because it was a) enjoyable, b)fun, and c) relatively decent considering the time period in which they were scripted. The cheesiness of SW is much more believable than what was delivered in VDT.
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Plus lets not forget in circa 1977 sci-fi was not that "big". A lot of the sci-fi films that were release prior to SW were more of "cult classics", but Star Wars was part of a one-two punch ( along with Jaws the year before ) that created the "Blockbuster." Look at all the other high quality sci-fi films that have come out since ( Ok, you can argue Transformers isn't that deep, but well, what do you expect when your source matrial is a line of 1980's action figures?)

Contrast this with Narnia. Prior to Narnia what did we have for fantasy films? Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Now my personal feelings about HP aside, the filmmakers of LOTR and HP continualy bring their A-game. If Narnia wants to play with them, it has to bring it's A-Game as well. LWW was arguably that A-game for the franchise, and they need to bring that to the court each time.
 
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Sven-El said:
the filmmakers of LOTR and HP continualy bring their A-game. If Narnia wants to play with them, it has to bring it's A-Game as well. LWW was arguably that A-game for the franchise, and they need to bring that to the court each time.
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THAT is a very true statement, and I only wish filmmakers saw that point of view. I think Andrew Adamson did, but as for the others... I'm not so sure. Also, I think that a true top quality film requires a respect for the source material, and many filmmakers lack such a respect, particularly for old books with Christian messages.
 
I don't see why anyone is still surprised that the movie didn't do as well. The movie, as fantasy story, was very generic. Only us Narnians are still talking about it but notice no one else is. If you were not a fan of Narnia, would this movie be on your list to watch? somewhere in the top 5 to watch? top 10? 20? 50?

See? as a fantasy story it was very generic. And I think it's just us Narnians who understand the true meaning of Aslan's words at the end.
 
BarbarianKing said:
I don't see why anyone is still surprised that the movie didn't do as well. The movie, as fantasy story, was very generic. Only us Narnians are still talking about it but notice no one else is. If you were not a fan of Narnia, would this movie be on your list to watch? somewhere in the top 5 to watch? top 10? 20? 50?

See? as a fantasy story it was very generic. And I think it's just us Narnians who understand the true meaning of Aslan's words at the end.
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Oh, I'd have LOVED it as a generic fantasy story. But then, I'm just weird that way.
 
Arvan said:
Ouch. You people didn't understand. I said I disliked VDT for the same reasons as you! Personally, like many others, I want to like it. However, unlike a large population on this website, I do not like it (except the very end), and never say I do. Not everyone is like me. Some fans seem to want to hate anything about the movies (I'm serious). But a lot of people want to love these movies, and are willing to overlook a great deal in order to do so. Not so with non-fans. Why should they care? If they don't think much of it, they aren't even going to watch it again, much less try to like it! That's what I'm trying to say.
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I'm sorry. I completely misunderstood you. :eek: Please forgive my rant.


Aravis Kenobi said:
But there were people who were saying, word-of-mouth, that the movie was terrible.
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Exactly. Word of mouth works both ways. There are a lot of films that open "slow" but with word of mouth, they pick up. On the other hand... there are a lot of films that open "big" but with word of mouth, crash and burn.

Sven-El said:
Contrast this with Narnia. Prior to Narnia what did we have for fantasy films? Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Now my personal feelings about HP aside, the filmmakers of LOTR and HP continualy bring their A-game. If Narnia wants to play with them, it has to bring it's A-Game as well. LWW was arguably that A-game for the franchise, and they need to bring that to the court each time.
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THIS! They do not bring their A-game to the Narnia movies at all. I am one person who had never even heard of the Lord of the Rings before the movies but the movies were so well-done, that I got into Tolkien big time. I know a lot of people who started hearing about Harry Potter because of the films. And - this will probably hurt a lot of people - the same thing can be said about the Twilight movies. Like Arvan said (if I understand him properly now :) ) non-fans don't care whether the films do well or not. If you make a crappy film that is just Erase-the-Serial-Numbers generic fantasy film Type 3, the fans of the source material might be torn between defending the films for the hopes of getting more movies or hating the films with the hope that no more crap will be made. Most of them will go and see the movie a second time to make sure "it wasn't as bad as I remembered." But the non-fans, who are usually the majority of the audience, are not even going to give it a second thought.




BarbarianKing said:
I don't see why anyone is still surprised that the movie didn't do as well. The movie, as fantasy story, was very generic. Only us Narnians are still talking about it but notice no one else is.
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Very true. Say what you want about the Twilight films but at least, it is still being talked about. People talk about the Hobbit; Transformers; the Avengers; the upcoming Avatar TV show etc. Nobody talks about the Narnia franchise. io9 doesn't even cover it.
 
moonspinner said:
THIS! They do not bring their A-game to the Narnia movies at all.
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Disagreed. LWW was the only exception in this whole sorry franchise that stood out to the people who helped it make over $750 million while it was in theaters, and this figure doesn't even take into account the money made in rentals and dvd sales, along with what I'm sure was a good haul for merchandise. PC made less, but it still did better than VDT could ever hope to do. What I've always puzzled at between PC and LWW is that the same people were in charge of production on both films, yet they're so drastically different in how they were adapted. (Off-topic, I know).

Even PC and VDT are drastically different in how they were adapted. At least with PC, I can pinpoint various story elements. VDT, I can't even hardly begin to find them.
 
Aravis Kenobi said:
Disagreed. LWW was the only exception in this whole sorry franchise that stood out to the people who helped it make over $750 million while it was in theaters, and this figure doesn't even take into account the money made in rentals and dvd sales, along with what I'm sure was a good haul for merchandise. PC made less, but it still did better than VDT could ever hope to do. What I've always puzzled at between PC and LWW is that the same people were in charge of production on both films, yet they're so drastically different in how they were adapted. (Off-topic, I know).

Even PC and VDT are drastically different in how they were adapted. At least with PC, I can pinpoint various story elements. VDT, I can't even hardly begin to find them.
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True. I was thinking the other day that LWW and PC are leagues ahead of VDT and maybe the best the series will see. As much as we thrash PC it is better put together than VDT. I really wonder how much it would have raked in had Disney stayed on a bit longer.
They are still making some limited Merch. based on LWW art, so it must be still a bit of interest to them.
 
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