Prince Caspian reduced to five panels

[vakkotaur]

A while ago I saw the movie Prince Caspian and enjoyed it for the most part. There were some bits that I didn't care for, and some that didn't quite make sense. Perhaps I forgave a lot since it portrayed centaurs in a good light rather than as evil or base creature with one bright exception amongst them. Since then I've seen a few reviews. One said it did well to jettison much of the book, but most claimed that too much was tossed. Some was clearly in the script and cut, which resulted in the parts that really seem not to fit.

However you look at it, it was rather simplistic and I'm not sure if that was due the children's book source or due to the moviemakers. I suspect the moviemaking process is responsible as the book's author said that the one to never do in a children's book is to talk down to your audience. The movie did seem to follow the plot summed up in this Shortpacked comic.

Comments

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I take it you had never read the book. Even though Caspian is probably the weakest of the seven in Lewis' series, the book is infinitely superior to the movie, which suffers from all the Hollywood clichés they could cram into it and chopped so much of the book that the entire point is missing. As usual, Hollywood's philosophy seems to be that it doesn't have to make sense as long as you blow stuff up, have lots of special effects, and some kind of romantic entanglement (even if the original book had none.)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

You got it right. While I had read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a couple times well before seeing the recent film so I could spot the differences somewhat, I had not read Prince Caspian. I had given some thought to doing so, but decided to see the movie "cold" to see how it worked that way. It worked in the 'popcorn film' sense but that was about all. Even not seeing the book I had some issues. For example, just where were the supply lines (and power sources!) for the big war engines? And the "Now can you see me?" line stuck out from not having been set up.

Differing from the book doesn't surprise me. Differing badly from the book also doesn't surprise me, alas. I think the first time I encountered that and knew it was comparing The Mouse That Roared book with the movie (on TV). Much was close, but someone thought it would be funny if the Duchess was a doddering old fool. It wasn't. She was much funnier knowing exactly what was going on and being able to act on that and even stun some others with her ideas.

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

Bleh, what ever happened to faithful adaptations? Prince Caspian was a short book, they could have kept almost all of it and still had some room to toss in a massive CGI war scene or two. The movie studios always have to run the story through the meat grinder first. :p