Handling the changes they made to PC and their effects on Dawn Treader

It just makes Miraz's plans so... hard to understand. He kills King Caspian. He kills King Caspian's allies... Then he doesn't declare himself as King for years, bringing up Caspian's son to believe he will be King when he comes of age... Why? Why go through all that trouble of killing so many and stop at killing a boy?
 
That is one of the FEW things in the Caspian film which DID come from the book. At the time of taking over the combined realm of Narnia and Telmar, Miraz and Prunaprismia had no children who could have inherited the throne from them. Under these conditions--and as long as young Caspian DIDN'T know what had happened to his father--Miraz had nothing to lose by letting Caspian inherit after him. But once Prunaprismia had a successful pregnancy, the reason for keeping Caspian alive was cancelled.
 
"Then he doesn't declare himself as King for years, bringing up Caspian's son to believe he will be King when he comes of age... Why? Why go through all that trouble of killing so many and stop at killing a boy?"

moonie,

Why Miraz wasn't king in the movie is absolutely confusing. As Copper mentioned, he was simply holding the place for Caspian, but seeing as how Caspian was old enough, well, the movie writers were not thinking about that.

MrBob
 
What MrBob (and Copperfox) said. It looks like Miraz was acting as regent for Caspian--which means, essentially, that he ruled Narnia while Caspian was too young to do anything. In the book that makes sense, because Caspian is still like, twelve, but in the movie Miraz should have stepped down much earlier, or Caspian/Caspian's supporters should have firmly seized the throne. But as regent, there was no reason for Miraz to take the throne--he was in power until Caspian was "old enough" to rule. It was only the birth of Miraz's son that caused a problem--there was no way Miraz could have handed the crown to his son.

Of course, Miraz trying to kill Caspian THAT VERY NIGHT was a little silly. The smart thing would have been to wait a little and then have Caspian die in a hunting accident or something.

I do wonder why Caspian never tried to seize the throne and why he never seemed to think to himself "Why is it that my father was king, and I am thirty, and yet Uncle Miraz never lets me do anything?" OTOH, it's not like movie!Caspian was much good at politics or anything at any point in the movie, so maybe that's in character.
 
I think the problem with it is that the guy (yes, I know his name is Ben Barnes) who played the movie!Caspian just looked too old for what the movie!Caspian was intended to be aged at. I think they intended him to look about seventeen or possibly younger (note: they had Ben shave a bazillion times during the shooting to make him still look baby-faced).

I think they intended him to still look like he was in his mid/late-teens but it just did not work out that way. Thus, Miraz would still be lord regent until Caspian came of age. That was their biggest mistake, getting a twenty-six year-old to play a sixteen-seventeen year old (I am pretty convinced that is how they intended to age him based on how old Peter looked in LWW and the fact that Peter was still in a school uniform.)
 
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I don't think the changes in PC will have any effect on VotDT at all.

Susan and Caspian shared a farewell kiss, and she's not coming back. End of story.
Peter is not in VotDT, either. And his attitude changed for the better towards the end of PC, so it wouldn't have been a problem anyway.
Caspian is three years older in VotDT than in PC. So if Ben Barnes shaves a lot again, that should be ok. :D I don't hope they'll give Caspian a beard, he should still look quite young.

Sail on, Dawn Treader! Fingers crossed for a good film. :)
 
OK that makes more sense! Especially if Caspian was supposed to be younger than he actually appeared. The book has him as Peter's age but I really had no idea how old Ben Barnes was supposed to be. I guess he wasn't supposed to be that much older than the children otherwise Susan/Caspian would have been all kinds of creepy.

Of course, it still begs the question of what Miraz would have done if he never had a son and Caspian came of age and demanded to be crowned King. In the book, that's a moot point because Miraz is King already. But in the film, Miraz would have been faced with either stepping down (highly unlikely, you don't go all Macbeth to hand over the thrown to your nephew) or he would have killed Caspian and then gone hunting for his closest relation to raise as his heir and keep the ambitious Lords at bay (and then you wonder why he didn't do this from the beginning). :confused:
 
They already ruined the story by having the Suspian thing. Might as well change it more by using some ideas from our very own "Silly Changes" thread in this section!!
 
The discordant note of the Susan-Caspian attraction was nothing compared to the insults they gratuitously heaped on Peter. And the argument that Peter would "HAVE TO" lose all his maturity of character after the return to Earth at the end of "Wardrobe" is gross nonsense which can't hold water for three seconds....because they DIDN'T show any such degradation of EDMUND. Edmund was depicted as handling himself very well, ON EARTH as well as in Narnia....because it wasn't Edmund they were trying to tear down.

As for "Dawn Treader," I will NOT go to see it at all, unless and until someone who has seen it reports to me that they have not ruined the vitally important scene at voyage's end where Aslan indicates His real identity.
 
Copperfox said:
The discordant note of the Susan-Caspian attraction was nothing compared to the insults they gratuitously heaped on Peter.
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Agreed!

Copperfox said:
And the argument that Peter would "HAVE TO" lose all his maturity of character after the return to Earth at the end of "Wardrobe" is gross nonsense which can't hold water for three seconds....because they DIDN'T show any such degradation of EDMUND. Edmund was depicted as handling himself very well, ON EARTH as well as in Narnia....because it wasn't Edmund they were trying to tear down.
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Edmund is a Gary Stu in the films and this is a shock for me to say because I adore the character in the books. But the person I saw on the screen was not the same person at all. And I’ve said it elsewhere but it bears repeating that the filmmakers did Susan’s character a big disservice by reducing her role to a love-interest (and not even a very good one) because this is literally the last time we will ever see her in Narnia. I can’t help feeling that it’s pure sexism to give Peter a manufactured controversial personality and take Susan’s own angst from her; because it’s rooted on the chauvinistic idea that women don’t have issues outside romance and boys; while men have issues about faith and responsibility and power.


Copperfox said:
As for "Dawn Treader," I will NOT go to see it at all, unless and until someone who has seen it reports to me that they have not ruined the vitally important scene at voyage's end where Aslan indicates His real identity.
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Oh goodness! However will they handle that? They’ve been doing their best to play down the Christian aspects of the books.
 
moonspinner, I agree with you that the re-casting of Susan's character in PC did not do her any favors. It was just less egregious than what happened to Peter. I am glad you are honest enough to say you disliked Edmund because he retained his loyalty to Aslan and his royal bearing -- a lot of people who favor the terrible things done to Peter's character in the film insist that he had to be that way to be interesting, yet at the same time, they do not complain about Edmund's remaining wise and mature -- in fact, most people I've noticed seemed to really love Ed's movie character and Skandar's performance ... and yet insist that had Peter remained noble, it would have been unrealistic. Weird.
 
Frankly I think we're puttin the cart before the horse on this subject, since we don't know anything of what will be in Dawn Treader. Michael Apted doesn't have to answer to anything or for anything that Adamson did in PC. This is a new crew, with new screenwriters and a new director, and to an extent, a new cast, so Apted should only focus on HIS job as the director, and on what the fans would like to see in Dawn Treader. I do see a scene possibly having Susan and PEter in it, telling why they weren't with Edmund and Lucy. I don't see a big need for the film to explain the mistakes (in some people's eyes) of the previous movie. I don't think we should worry about it. It's 18 months or so before the film will even be released.
 
Mistakes in SOME people's eyes? Try, in Mr. Lewis' eyes! Mr. Lewis intended Peter to be an essentially noble character, with his shortcomings not DEFINING his whole being; but Adamson intentionally reversed that in "Prince NON-Caspian," making Peter such a loser that his doing anything RIGHT was the exception!
 
I just think that people need to get over themselves b ecause it's done with. People are turning this into a big deal. Gee whiz, I don't hear this kind of trash talk for Twilight OR Harry Potter, both of which I think are more popular than either Lord of the Rings or Narnia.

The reason I left the forum? See post above me.
 
I asked this in the Harry Potter topic (or at least a cariant of this question), are the movies of book series intended to be, like the books, looked at as a continual story or are they semi-independent projects that are not dependent on the past movies?

If the former, the issues can come back to haunt the filmmakers, but if the latter, then there is no problem with what happened in PC.

MrBob
 
MrBob said:
I asked this in the Harry Potter topic (or at least a cariant of this question), are the movies of book series intended to be, like the books, looked at as a continual story or are they semi-independent projects that are not dependent on the past movies?
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I think they're meant to be a continual story--both HP and Narnia have been marketed as sequels, with the same actors, music, title fonts, all that. The movies (and the trailers, come to think of it) rely on the audience having already seen the previous movie(s)--they don't bother to explain most of it.

So I think you have to look at them as continual stories. I think I've seen books get turned into movies that are more independent, but of course I can't think of what they are now.

In that case, I think they'll have to stick to the 'verse changes made in the LWW and PC movies, although since most of those changes involved characters who won't be around (Peter, Susan) or who have had time to grow up (Caspian), they could probably handwave them and do a more faithful adaptation, if they wanted to.
 
The changes in PC were NOT mistakes. They wanted to do it like that. It was on purpose that they ruined the character of Peter. And why should anyone get over it? The portrayed a Peter that doesn't exist. People who haven't read the books now think Peter was exactly that jerk.
 
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