The movie is dumbed-down, and every single inaccuracy in the movie makes the story worse than the original. Without giving too much away, I'll just mention battles and other military operations that just didn't happen, mythical beasts that never appear on the "good" side in the books, and characters that are more hamfisted and one-dimensional than in the books. One would think that even Americans can appreciate a movie that isn't all battles and special effects, but maybe not.

KitchenGirl wrote:

"The Christian "agenda" (which seems like an overly-condemning word to use) only really present in the first and the last books, and in The Magician's Nephew at the very end during the creations story (the apple, etc.) The rest of the books are straight up adventure stories."

I agree that the word 'agenda' seems a bit too strong. C.S. Lewis was a late-convert and I don't think it's surprising that the intensity of his faith is heavily interwoven into his fiction. It is true to the author, and the way his imagination is colored and influenced by his beliefs and as a Buddhist, I certainly do not find the Christian allegory distasteful or an attempt at proselytizing. (Although it does make for a bit of trouble in terms of reaching the audience emotionally, and grabbing us, IMO.)

But I will part company with you on the idea that the Christian ...allegory isn't apparent in Prince Caspian. It's there and I think it's very, very strong.

The whole business of Reepicheep and his tail is very Christian, very Biblical - in that it was all a test of loyalty/willingness to sacrifice for his followers. Just because Reepicheep has lost his tail in battle, his followers have to show that they're willing to maim themselves and chop off their own tails, too before Aslan is willing to restore Reepicheep's tail. This is very much like the (near)sacrifice of Isaac-- Abraham had to be willing to kill his own son before God would spare him and basically tel Abraham that he'd passed his loyalty test.

As for the thrilling thing-- it's somewhat less thrilling when the reader or viewer realizes that there are no ultimate consequences to anything, be it accident or war, and that characters can be restored and revived from the dead--- it's the fear of loss that is taken away, and therefore, IMO, some of the excitement, when Aslan can merely use his omnipotence and restore/revive. I think I understand what C.S. Lewis is trying to represent, and yet, it does weaken the plot, and make it a lot harder for the director (of the movie.)

...but in context, it left me with an even greater appreciation for Peter Jackson's masterpiece trilogy adaptation of Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".

The trilogy is a primer on how to do right by an epic tale.

The first Narnia movie was an example of a good-faith attempt striving - but failing - to live up to the book.

Now that the 2nd Movie looks/sounds like a cheap "Gladiator" rip-off, I feel even more sympathy for Lewis and his fans...

It sucked so bad there is no way I would even consider seeing the second one, even if you throw in the price of admission and popcorn.

Peter Jackson fell into the same trap with LOTR. He must have fallen under the spell of the Ring.

I was curious if the movie ended with a lot of the weirdness that was in the book. Does Bacchus show up to go on a rampage with Aslan to destroy all Narnian infrastructure? Do they destroy the boarding school where the female students are liberated from their uniforms?

I've read these books many times since I was in grade school, and recently bought them again so that I would have the same covers that I remembered from the first set I was ever given. The first film was so clunky, so disneyfied, so damn pedestrian in spite of its rather good special effects. To my mind the only vaguely redeeming aspect was not Swinton, who hammed it up in high style but was never half so scary as she ought to have been. No, there was only one point in the entire film that matched the book for magic - and that is when Lucy first meets the faun Tumnus in the woods by the lamp post.

In order to portray an author's world, the film maker needs to do more than simply get the characters on the screen and have them do and say what they should - they need to grasp the indefinable feel of the author's world. C.S. Lewis' world, Narnia, is a child's dream of heraldic adventure, but it is rife with undertones of nostalgia, melencholy, loss. LWW missed the boat, and, evidently, this one does too.

I'll wait until someone does this series the right way. Until then, I can always peruse my ratty old softcovers with the beautiful colour pictures. Infinitely more magical.

I first devoured the Chronicles of Narnia in second grade, so to say I am a lifelong fan is not much of a stretch. I had guarded hopes that the movies would capture the magic that I so loved in those books. Instead, LWW was a travesty, trying to capitalize on the box office success of Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogy by imitating it: big villains, big heroes, big battles = big bucks. But Lewis' work was fundamentally different than that of his friend Tolkien's; LWW was not primarily about a great battle, but about a journey of discovery: of a world, of diety, and ultimately of self. By compressing the journey into a sensationalized necessary evil on the way to an overblown battle, Adamson destroyed the fabric of the novel and rendered his movie nearly unwatchable.

To hear that PC is not just more of the same but a whole lot more of the same confirms my suspicion: I have no desire to watch these movies by a director who ham-handedly distorts the elegant narratives of his source material in search of a big, loud box office smash. Know your material, and work to its strengths.

The Lewis movies had a chance to be something related to, but wonderfully different than, The Lord of the Rings. Instead, they're just inferior knock-offs.

Given Lewis's Christian agenda in Narnia, maybe it's appropriate that the human element is apparently so missing in this movie? In a reductive war of All-Good against All-Evil, those Christian standbys, poor little feckless Humanity is so easily lost in the mix.

The Christian "agenda" (which seems like an overly-condemning word to use) only really present in the first and the last books, and in The Magician's Nephew at the very end during the creations story (the apple, etc.) The rest of the books are straight up adventure stories. The 'lessons' that are written into the stories are fairly straightforward lessons about growing up, that miserable in-between existence as children start learning how to navigate through the world as adults.

Prince Caspian happens to be my favorite of the entire series, so I'm stupidly excited to see this. As to where all the people are -- they're not in Narnia at all. There are very few "people" in Narnia, being inhabited largely by talking animals, dwarves, tree nymphs, naiads, dryads, marsh-wiggles, retired stars (like the ones that shine in the sky, not the ones that get plastic surgery and show up on Celebrity Big Brother) and the like. Prince Caspian has the *most* people out of all of the books, and its pretty much just the Pevensie children, Prince Caspian, his uncle, and very briefly the uncle's two henchmen.