There are a lot of things to say about the film adaptation of
Prince Caspian, and I won’t remember to say all of them, but… Let’s start with the things I loved--and also a
spoiler warning (for the film, book, and later books in the series--mostly in my discussion of Susan).
Regina Spektor doing the closing credits song! And it was good. I love Regina.
Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep. Perfect. That’s all there is to it.
Anna Popplewell is now at least eighteen, so I don’t have to feel dirty for finding her so exquisitely lovely as Susan.
All the visual stuff is magnificent. The ruins of Cair Paravel, Miraz’s castle, Aslan’s Howe (which is so much bigger than I imagined it—and than Lewis described it, I’m pretty sure, but it’s fantastic anyway), the scene where the Hag and the Werewolf almost call the White Witch back, played much more dramatically than it was written in the novel, but still brilliant.
Georgie Henley might as well change her name to Lucy Pevensie, for serious. I am convinced no one else on earth could play that part, and I cannot wait to see
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which remains my favorite of
The Chronicles of Narnia novels.
Skandar Keynes, who was really good at playing outcast Edmund, was also really good at playing part of the family Edmund, which I was vaguely concerned about. Really, all four of the children were perfectly cast.
There’s also a fair bit of sweet sibling humor in the movie that is completely absent from the book. In fact, almost all of the books lack humor, and it is a very welcome addition to the movies. These four kids actually feel like a family on screen.
Poor Will Mosely, though, because Peter is an absolute pill in this movie. In the book, it’s Susan who won’t believe in Aslan and is generally a stick in the mud, but in the movie, that’s all on Peter, as he decides it’s his job alone to fix what’s wrong with Narnia. He will neither wait for help from Aslan, nor listen to advice from Caspian. The bickering between the two of them was one of my least favorite things about the movie—but I will say that how they just meet up and instantly get along in the novel is far too neat and tidy to be interesting. Also, I mean, I got behind Peter's message, which was something along the lines of “we can’t expect Aslan to fix things for us,” but he was just a turd about it. That’s all.
Because of the fact that the movie is structured completely differently from the novel, there has to be tension somewhere. Most of the tension in the novel comes from the Pevensies arguing about the best way to get to Caspian and whether or not Lucy has actually seen the lion. The movie creates tension in multiple ways—among the Pevensies, between Caspian and Peter, between Miraz and his men, between Miraz and Caspian—it’s all very interesting, but it’s almost nothing like the book.
I still don’t understand why the Telmarines were portrayed as a swarthy, Mediterranean race of people—because they’re originally descended from pirates? What the eff ever. Caspian’s accent drove me crazy, and Ben Barnes is TOO OLD. And kind of dull. Hopefully, he’s more interesting in the next film.
Okay, so I could probably go on about the differences between the novel and the film, but I won’t. I’ll just say the only thing I hated was the romance between Susan and Caspian. I…still say it’s not necessary, even though… Oy, there’s so much going on in my head here, but let’s say this: It's at least somewhat in accordance with her character, because Susan is the only one of the eight children who visit Narnia from our world to experience a sexual awakening (implied only), and it is (also implied only) her downfall, but since she’s been portrayed much more sympathetically in the films, I really wonder how they’re going to deal with her absence in
The Last Battle, which, truth be told, is my biggest problem with these books, but whatever. Let’s get back to how she is in
Prince Caspian.
The novel sees her as more annoyingly practical than ever, insisting that the children put their shoes back on after frolicking in the ocean (the things I remember...) and that Lucy couldn’t possibly have seen Aslan if the others didn’t. Also, she does a lot of whining. There’s really none of that in the movie—she won’t believe that Lucy has seen Aslan, but she’s not an ass about it—and Peter doesn’t believe her either. Only Edmund sticks up for her, because Edmund’s betrayal and redemption have made him wiser than his older siblings. But once Lucy finds the way across the gorge, she asks her little sister why she couldn’t see Aslan, instead of going on insisting that he was never there in the first place. Susan mostly keeps to herself in the film, which is different for her, but I like it a lot. She’s trying to reconcile her life in Narnia with the life she must go back to in England, and it’s hardest for her and Peter—hardest of all for Peter, as far as the movie goes—and I think, really, it’s ultimately that that causes her downfall. She struggles to leave her old life behind and accept her new one, and the only way she can find do that—later, of course—is to pretend the old life was just a game. Which is very sad for Susan. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
Anyway, the other thing I really wanted to discuss was how much ass she kicks in the film. In the novel, she and Lucy stay out of the way of the battle, just as in
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, riding in on Aslan’s back so he can finish things off, and they can watch. The movie puts Susan right in the thick of things, commanding the archers at the top of the How and fighting right alongside her brothers. I do love this, Susan getting to be part of the action, because, honestly, what is the point of being awesome at archery if you don’t get to use the skill? And Susan is the best archer in Narnia, which we get proof of in the book, but it’s not so obvious in the movie. Oh. The other part I loved was when she rode out with Lucy to see if they could find the lion, and the Telmarine soldiers caught up with them, and she jumped off the horse and stayed behind to kill the bad guys while her little sister galloped for help. Of course, she ends up being rescued by a big, strong man in the end—blech—but this is, like, light years ahead of her portrayal in the book in terms of awesomeness.
However, that was the one positive thing Susan had going for her, as I’ve said before: she doesn’t like to kill things. She does, however, hesitate to shoot the bear just like in the book, and Trumpkin is forced to kill it. The movies have made her much more likable than she ever was in the books, though, so I’ll take this version of Susan happily. Queen Susan the Gentle totally no longer fits her at all, though. I shall redub her Queen Susan the Fearless.
The only other difference between the movie and the book that I really wanted to discuss was the scene in which the White Witch almost comes back. Now, for most of the book, the Pevensies are not with Caspian—for most of the movie, they are. In the book, Caspian almost gets duped into calling on the White Witch, because he has already deliberately (with Susan’s horn) called upon Aslan and the four king and queens, but they have not come yet, and so Nikabrik tries to get him to go the Dark Arts way. In the movie, the Pevensies are there, but they’ve failed to bring any help to the Narnians—in fact, Peter’s first battle plan ended in, basically, the slaughter of a fair number of Narnian soldiers. Thus, Caspian is losing faith in the kings of old—and there’s another element: during this first battle, he learns that Miraz killed his father (why he doesn’t know that already I’m really not sure), so he gets a little bloodlusty in addition to being let down by the High King. So he succumbs kind of easily to the Hag’s plan, but when he realizes what’ll happen, that Jadis will once again be unleashed upon Narnia, he tries to stop it, and Peter comes in to stop it, but he gets caught in her snare as well, so that Edmund, the only one who really knows the Witch, has to save them from her. Again. This is a big chunk of the reason that Edmund was always my favorite in the books. After his fall, he’s learned something, and he knows what to trust to. The others, not having experienced anything like what he did, don’t have the same kind of wisdom. "Edmund [became] a graver and quieter man than Peter," after all. Anyway.
Now let’s talk about Peter. Both here and in the film version of
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he’s much more complex than he is in the books. In both books, he’s basically do-gooder Peter, without internal conflicts or any real flaws. In the first film, he is the reluctant hero, which was an interesting angle, and in
Prince Caspian, there is much more going on in Peter’s own brain than there ever is in any of the books.
He’s having such a hard time readjusting to life in England after being a king that he’s getting into fights with other boys. When he returns to Narnia, it’s not his Narnia, but he will only rely on himself to put it to rights, because he is High King Peter. He fights with Caspian; he argues with Edmund; he almost falls prey to the White Witch, and he puts almost no faith in Aslan, something the Peter of the novels never would have done. As uncomfortable as it is to watch—and as little similarity as it bears to the Peter I know—this version is ultimately more interesting, because it makes Peter a flawed, human character. He is the least developed in the novels of all the siblings, and I like that the films are giving him some depth. Susan, too, gets layers instead of just one-note nagging, but even she gets to experience a mini-redemption in the novel of
Prince Caspian—hard-headed and blind at first, but brought around at the end. Peter’s just always good, maybe a little misdirected at times, but always upright and true. A real wooden-headed doofus, like the princes in early Disney movies. In the movies, he’s much more than that.
And now I have just realized something. This is the first case in my entire life of the movies besting books I cherished. CHERISHED. I have to curl into a ball now and rethink my entire sense of self.
Goodnight!
Or
Allison suggested Scar when I couldn't find a print of Jafar, and I would agree with her, except Simba is ruining this print for me. And while Snow White's Wicked Queen has the worst motive of any Disney villain ever (she's jealous that her step-daughter is hotter than her--and that's it), she looks pretty effing evil in that picture. So I like it.
Who doesn't love that shared spaghetti strand moment in Lady and the Tramp? Aw.
What do you think, internet?
