a disappointing movie

During my dad's last visit, we took the kids to go see the newly released Prince Caspian. I will say that visually, it was pretty stunning and impressive, but on the story level, I was deeply disappointed. I've spent the last few weeks turning over in my brain some reasons of why I feel like they so completely destroyed the story (because in the end I do think they destroyed Lewis' story) and I've come to a couple of conclusions.

For my first issue I'll pull from Lewis himself, from his essay "On Stories" (which is a wonderful read). He shares his extreme disappointment after seeing the movie version of a Rider Haggard novel. At the end of the book, the hero is trapped in a completely dark, silent underground tomb. At the end of the movie, the director "substituted a subterranean volcanic eruption, and then went one better by adding an earthquake." Lewis suggests that if Haggard's climax was not satisfactory for the movie, then the producer should have chosen a different story, and that substituting the wild excitement of one climax for the deathly stillness of the original is a cheat: "The one lays a hushing spell on the imagination; the other excites a rapid flutter of the nerves. In reading that chapter of the book curiosity or suspense about the escape of the heroes from their death-trap makes a very minor part of one's experience. The trap I remember for ever: how they got out I have long since forgotten." (emphasis mine) Ironically, I think that the makers of Prince Caspian have done much the same thing with this movie.

For whatever reason, Lewis' story was not deemed exciting enough for the big screen, so action sequences were added, motivations changed, and essentially the entire story was rewritten to satisfy... someone. I doubt it was Lewis' faithful readers. The producers did very similar things in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (think about that whole contrived confrontation between Peter and the Wolf on the ice of the river), but I think they went a few steps farther in Prince Caspian and created a new story.

As disappointed as I was with the plot changes, though, I think was distresses me the most is the destruction of the entire novel--the characters, the tone, the mood. For me, one of the defining elements of Prince Caspian has always been the clear-sightedness of all involved, the determination, the purposefulness behind the story and characters. All that is gone in the movie. Caspian escapes from his uncle, Trumpkin embarks on his quest, Peter plans his strategies, all in complete and total ignorance. Once the Pevensies arrive to help, conflict, tension, and lack of knowledge continues. Maybe it made the movie better, but somehow I'm not feeling it.

This has all struck closer to home with me as I've recently started reading Planet Narnia by Michael Ward. His thesis is that Lewis carefully crafted each book in the series to reflect one of the medieval planets (remember Lewis' field was medieval literature). Ward is presenting a pretty compelling case so far and what he has to say about Prince Caspian as a reflection of Mars makes complete sense, while at the same time, makes the movie presentation all the more tragic.

One of the key elements of the novel is militarism (after all, it's a war story), and Ward posits that Lewis is creating a story around the Martial virtue of chivalry, especially knightly chivalry: "Peter is the model knight.... This is that 'knightly behaviour, in which morality up to the highest self-sacrifice and manners down to the smallest gracefulness in etiquette were inextricably blended by the medieval ideal." I think the movie has stripped Peter and Caspian both of their knightliness, in addition to ripping out the anchor of purpose and direction from the story.

Prince Caspian is one of my favorite of the Narnia Chronicles. I was excited about the movies and hopeful that they would uphold the flavor and delight of the books. The changes to The Lion were not small, but not destructive enough to bother me. However, I think they really screwed up with Prince Caspian. I hope the next one is better.