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'The Narnia you remember is no more'
May. 16th, 2008 04:12 amMidnight movies are always fun...although work today is going to be sort of painful. Perhaps I'll call in...I need to pack anyway for graduation this weekend.
So I caved and went to a midnight release of Prince Caspian. I was excited to see it, even though the grumblings in the 'purist' fandom (see![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
narniasues, for example) was that it looked very much altered.
I tried to put my thoughts together all the way of the drive back (the showing was in a town about an hour and a half away--ah, central Maine) but it's late/early and I'm not totally coherent, so here are some semi-random thoughts about the movie. I'm trying to avoid movie spoilers, but there WILL be plot spoilers for those who haven't read the books.
( Things I Liked )
( Things I Wasn't So Crazy About )
My overall thoughts: It's a very enjoyable movie. And parts of it (specifically, Lucy's part of it) I felt stayed very true to the heart of the book. But I'm slightly depressed by the overall thrust of the story.
There's a whole lot of fighting, to which I take exception, and not only because it's not canon. The Chronicles, among other things, trace a gradually more complex understanding of morality and sin. In LWW, the story is very simply about good defeating evil, which is why a battlefield is a natural choice for where the story ends up. You have the two sides, and they fight.
In PC, the story is more complex. Narnians cannot always be assumed to be good; not everyone who is against your enemy is 'on your side'. And I don't think it's an accident that while there are several large battles during the time period spanned in PC, none of them really appear 'on-screen' for more than a moment or two in the books. I know that the beautiful insanity of the Romp would be difficult to film and present well, but surely they could have done something else besides fight scene after fight scene?
I sound negative...maybe it's just because it's really late/early. I really, honestly did enjoy the movie a LOT, and I think it's more than worth seeing. I just wish the director and screenwriters had thought a bit harder about how their mania for 'realism' could harmonize with, rather than drown out, the original themes of the book.
So I caved and went to a midnight release of Prince Caspian. I was excited to see it, even though the grumblings in the 'purist' fandom (see
narniasues, for example) was that it looked very much altered.I tried to put my thoughts together all the way of the drive back (the showing was in a town about an hour and a half away--ah, central Maine) but it's late/early and I'm not totally coherent, so here are some semi-random thoughts about the movie. I'm trying to avoid movie spoilers, but there WILL be plot spoilers for those who haven't read the books.
( Things I Liked )
( Things I Wasn't So Crazy About )
My overall thoughts: It's a very enjoyable movie. And parts of it (specifically, Lucy's part of it) I felt stayed very true to the heart of the book. But I'm slightly depressed by the overall thrust of the story.
There's a whole lot of fighting, to which I take exception, and not only because it's not canon. The Chronicles, among other things, trace a gradually more complex understanding of morality and sin. In LWW, the story is very simply about good defeating evil, which is why a battlefield is a natural choice for where the story ends up. You have the two sides, and they fight.
In PC, the story is more complex. Narnians cannot always be assumed to be good; not everyone who is against your enemy is 'on your side'. And I don't think it's an accident that while there are several large battles during the time period spanned in PC, none of them really appear 'on-screen' for more than a moment or two in the books. I know that the beautiful insanity of the Romp would be difficult to film and present well, but surely they could have done something else besides fight scene after fight scene?
I sound negative...maybe it's just because it's really late/early. I really, honestly did enjoy the movie a LOT, and I think it's more than worth seeing. I just wish the director and screenwriters had thought a bit harder about how their mania for 'realism' could harmonize with, rather than drown out, the original themes of the book.