the voyage of the WHAT?

[jazzfish]

I've been trying lately to suppress my outrage at stupid films made from decent books. It's not the book: it's an adaptation. It's a different thing entirely. It has different demands, different audience expectations and needs. It's okay that they change things.

And I thought that the film of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was about the best film they could have made of that book. Even the random chase sequence on a frozen river didn't detract from it. Plus, Tilda Swinton imbues everything she touches with a degree of awesome. Not always enough awesome to save it, mind you, but still, awesome. And they started with LWW instead of Magician's Nephew, which lends them a certain credibility.

(Of course, pondering LWW leads one inexorably to Aslan Shrugged, and from there to John Rogers's dictum:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Which in turn brings up thoughts of the LotR movies, and thus back to the topic at hand, or at least its environs. What was I talking about?)

Right, anyway. I never did see Prince Caspian, although it wasn't really much of a book to start with so I can't imagine I missed much. I confess to being somewhat curious as to how (and why) they brought back Tilda Swinton's White Witch, since I'm told she's in it. I was kind of interested in seeing the new Dawn Treader movie: that's always been one of my favorite of the books. Then I read the plot summary in Roger Ebert's Dawn Treader review:

"Lucy and Edmund, now in their mid-teens, seem uncommonly calm about being yanked from their everyday lives and put on a strange ship in uncharted seas, but these kids have pluck."

Fair enough.

"They're briefed on the situation: Narnia is threatened by evil forces from the mysterious Dark Island, which no one has seen but everyone has heard about."

What?

"There is a matter of seven missing magical swords representing the Lords of Telmar, which were given to Narnia by Aslan the Lion..."

WHAT?

"...and must be brought together again to break a spell that imprisons the lords."

I just what I don't even.

(I note with some bafflement that Tilda Swinton is once more listed in the credits as the White Witch. This is not nearly enough inducement to get me to see this trainwreck.)

On the other hand, TRON Legacy will be out in eight days, which will soothe some of the hurting.

Comments

[rebelsheart]

The White Witch tempted Caspian from beyond the grave for all of about 2 minutes in Prince Caspian. Her followers, now stuck allied with him for their safety, performed some sort of ritual that only he could complete, but he managed to be a good hero.

I don't recall the assault on the castle whilst riding gryphons in that book.

[jazzfish]

You know, I'm pretty much okay with that kind of appearance. It's gratuitous but not without precedent in the source material.

I don't recall the assault on the castle whilst riding gryphons in that book.

... You do have to read between the lines a bit to get that, though.

[jadelennox]

yes, that description of the plot summary contains pretty much all of the whiskeys, tangos, and foxtrots that were also in my mind.

And also agreed that Tron Legacy will fix a lot of the problem!

[jazzfish]

I was kind of curious as to how they were going to make the mostly-plotless Dawn Treader into a movie. And now I wish I didn't know.

(It would make a pretty awesome TV series, though.)

And I am so totally psyched about TRON I can barely sit still. I've mostly gotten used to new look and the Recognizers now look like the platonic ideal of Recognizers.

[thanate]

There was a trailer for that in the middle of some football game last week, which I happened to look up for & watched with some fascination (it was on mute) trying to figure out what it was for. I'd just about decided video game when they got to the text bit-- very pretty graphics, nothing resembling anything I identify with Narnia, and far more visually reminiscent of final fantasy than of the first Narnia movie. Um... now I'm sort of glad I didn't hear what they had to say. Although it almost sounds like it might be an interesting movie if they weren't trying to pass it off as something they didn't just make up.

(also, though I'd heard that one before, my brain is still trying to map Ayn Rand characters onto orcs, which is not much of a stretch, really...)

[jazzfish]

Against my better judgement I just watched the trailer and, wow. Yeah. Video game. Although it did have a lion! Clearly that says Narnia!

It /could/ be an interesting fantasy movie. Just... it's not Dawn Treader, by any stretch of the imagination.

Prince Caspian better than that

[selki.livejournal.com]

I'm puzzled. I saw the movie and don't remember that bit about the mysterious island or the swords at all. It seemed to line up pretty well with the book I remember (which I have read more than once), other than a few battle things like the gryphons. squishydish and I saw it together and we both thought it was even better than TLTWATW, for pacing and, um, eye appeal. There were unspoken bits acted out well (Caspian upon seeing Peter take over more and more). You might give it a try.

I'm going to see Dawn Treader, and probably TRON Legacy.

Re: Prince Caspian better than that

[jazzfish]

Unclarity in an attempt to get the post out before I left work: the review's for Dawn Treader, not Prince Caspian.

I'd believe that the Caspian movie lined up with the book: it /does/ have half a plot. Dawn Treader has... a bunch of isolated incidents. Which make for awesome reading, and would make for an awesome six-episode TV series, but not so much for a movie.

Re: Prince Caspian better than that

[(Anonymous)]

Oh! I think I've only read DT once, so didn't recognize that review as being about DT, though apparently having read it more than once wouldn't have helped with that recognition.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Haven't read the Narnia Chronicles in something like 20 years, and I'm not sure if I ever read Dawn Treader, so.. I'm looking forward to it. :D

[jazzfish]

I can say with some degree of certainty that with a plot summary like that it's not going to make much difference whether you've read the original.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

I'm sure we'll see it, and I'm sure it will be beautiful and tolerably cohesive. :D

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

I read all of the Narnia books at some point, but I think it was sixth grade. I don't remember them very well, except a line about how a place where "dreams come true" is actually a terrifying thing.

[jazzfish]

That passage is one of my favorites, and is almost certainly where the filmmakers got their inspiration. And it /is/ a creepy and terrifying thing, and something to be avoided! Making it the Big Bad in an epic fantasy... meh.

(Even the trainwreck-watcher in me is terrified of seeing them do The Last Battle, with its thinly-veiled message of "Muslims worship Satan lol.")

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

WHAT.

And here I was all excited from seeing the poster.

I'm not going to watch that. I can't. DT is my favorite Narnia book and if they're going to butcher it that badly they shouldn't even bother making it.

[jazzfish]

Yeah. That's pretty much my thought, all around.

Stupid movies.

[salzara-tirwen.livejournal.com]

I was already a little annoyed by the completely bloodless battle in the first one.

[sea-sky-stone.livejournal.com]

Oh, goody you just saved me two wasted hours.

It's such a shame, though; that was my favorite book in the series.

[jazzfish]

Happy to be of assistance. :)

I used to be torn between Dawn Treader and Horse & His Boy (Aravis was 99 44/100 % pure awesome, plus the exchange "The bolt of Tash falls from above!" "Does it ever get caught on a hook halfway?"). Dawn Treader finally won out when I realised (belatedly) just how bad Lewis's racial politics were regarding Calormenes.

[(Anonymous)]

Man, I re-read all of the books before the first movie came out, and I was shocked at how distasteful I found the religious stuff and "isms" were reading it as an adult (though still not as shocked at "squeaking bedsprings" in The Phantom Tollbooth). However issues aside, I still liked Horse & His Boy the best. That may be just because it was my favorite as a kid though.

I may have to reconsider seeing DT now though...

[vond.net]

... damn. That was me.

[rbandrews]

Squeaking bedsprings? Huh?

[vond.net]

"Now remember, they're not for eating, but for listening, because you'll often be hungry for sounds as well as food. Here are street noises at night, train whistles a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bedsprings, and, of course, all kinds of laughter. There's a little of each, and in far-off lonely places I think you'll be glad to have them."

So, "creaking" not "squeaking", my mistake. Either way, reading it as an adult I can't help but take that in a naughty direction.

[rbandrews]

Sorry, misunderstood, I thought you meant there was something distasteful in Tollbooth, like the Narnia racism thing.

[jazzfish]

Oh, awesome. And it's almost certainly meant to be taken like that, the book's full of things that you totally miss as a kid. "Most people can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and come out dry as a bone," that sort of thing.

[sea-sky-stone.livejournal.com]

The racial politics that just got worse and worse and worse in those books are SO heartbreaking.

I remember as a child, The Last Battle made me nauseated, and I didn't know why. As an adult, of course, I saw why. Ugh.

It made the books worse, too. I mean, on a narrative level. I feel that leaning on racial stereotypes is, essentially, lazy writing. The books could have been even more wonderful, had he been able to look past his prejudices.