Alright, Narnia fans. If you’ve seen Prince Caspian, please go and see it again. Now that you have seen it once, you know what’s been changed from the book to the screen, so there’s no surprise there anymore. You can now sit back and enjoy it as a film, and a great one.
I have seen it four times, and trust me on this, it never lost it’s luster. In fact, it maintained the excitement and I liked it more with each viewing. This is something that is very difficult to achieve, but when there is so much depth to the story, you notice more with each screening.
In all honesty, I am a pretty big movie fan. I have seen close to 700 movies that I know of, and my DVD collection is big enough that my friends constantly ask me if I have this movie or that for movie nights, and I usually do. I’ve seen Iron Man. I’ve also seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull twice. I’ve even seen Speed Racer.
Now, you can’t really compare Iron Man to Prince Caspian any more than you can Indiana Jones. I enjoyed Iron Man well enough. Thought it was good, but I wasn’t all that impressed with the effects. When comparing it to Transformers, Iron Man could have been more realistic looking. Giant transforming robots from another world were more realistic on screen, matching the world much better than some of the shots of Iron Man. Specifically the Mach One suit that Tony Stark built. There were times it looked awesome, and times it looked CG, pulling me out of the story.
Indiana Jones, I wasn’t planning on seeing a second time, but I wasn’t opposed when a few more friends wanted to see it. It was ridiculous fun. Ridiculous and fun, and that’s about all I asked from it, because all of the Indiana Jones movies are like that. I really enjoyed the cheesiness of it. It was part of it’s charm.
That being said, Prince Caspian has many moments that I love. It’s a fun movie to watch with a darkness to the story that aids in the building momentum. Arguably the weakest of the seven Narnia stories, it has become one incredible adventure.
For those that haven’t yet seen the film, you may want to stop reading now.
The castle raid, I thought, was a brilliant addition, and the end of it, when the remaining Narnians are caught by the gate, it heightens the emotional core of the film to a level that would not have been achieved otherwise. King Peter has a failure there, as does Caspian. Sure, it adds some tension between the two that isn’t in the books, but that tension also builds up their relationship with regard for one another. They later realize that they failed together before, and it makes it more important when they start to work together.
Another of those moments happens during the battle at Aslan’s How. The Narnian army is retreating, trying to get back into the How, when one of the trebuchets hits the doorway, blocking them off. Caspian and Peter turn around, watching the battle happening all over. It’s sinking in that it’s do or die time. There’s nothing left to do, now, but fight, because they cannot retreat. The others join them: Susan, Trumpkin and Edmund. And together they regroup and attack with their final push against the Telmarine armies.
Those scenes, I think, are two of my favorite scenes that aren’t necessarily in the book, but are a credit to the filmmakers for developing them, adding to the emotional core of the film.
If you’ve seen the movie and enjoyed it, if you loved it, see it again. If you haven’t seen it because you don’t want to see something different from the book: it’s not terribly different from the book anyway. It does, indeed, capture the spirit and the essence of the book, and even enhances some of the messages of the book that don’t really stand out when you read it.
If you hated the movie because you love the book and are unforgiving of it because it is different: realize that movies can never really be exactly like books. Take The Lord of the Rings. As a film, if they did it as the book was written, it would have been nearly 30 hours long. Perhaps longer. As it stands, it is a 12 hour epic that had to change things and make it their own. And it excels at it. Not only that, but if you want to read the Lord of the Rings, you still can. It’s almost like you’re reading the deleted scenes as well, which are fun to learn about.
Harry Potter is another book series that fans have had outcries about. I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books, and the only movies that I’ve liked in that series are Prisoner of Azkaban and Order of the Phoenix. (I did listen to the seventh book on CD, skipping book six entirely, ha!)
There are also books that make better movies. Big Fish, for example. I saw the movie and then I read the book. The movie is better. The Shawshank Redemption, I feel is better than the novella that it is based on, as well.
Now that you know that Prince Caspian is different from the book, understand that it is what it is. If you want the book to film version identical: watch the BBC version. There’s still that. Plus, you still have the book! Now that there is the movie, perhaps more will read the book, and I suggest that you do. Just understand that the movie is different with good reasons. No decision was made without much thought and consideration on part of the writers. I know this, as I have personally spoken to them about this. Check out my NYC series of articles for the interview with the writers, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. They’re awesome guys that really know their Narnia.
Plus, we want them to continue making Narnia films, do we not? We know they’re making Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and they’re looking for a director for The Silver Chair. But that’s as far as the BBC took their Narnia series. Let’s help this series go all the way to The Last Battle!