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🦋 Another Narnia movie

Sylvia and I saw Prince Caspian tonight -- we enjoyed it and I would recommend it to people who are fans of the books. I don't think I'd recommend it as a movie to somebody who is not predisposed to like it; I guess my reaction to it was a little bit like Ebert's reaction to the latest Indiana Jones movie.

Good things: the talking animals, great; Trumpkin, great; the beautiful scenery and handsome actors were candy for my eyes. The camera work in the opening sequence was really startlingly good. Not so good: There wasn't really anything to distinguish this movie as a different film from the previous one -- where the two books are quite distinct from one another. A lot of the battle footage in particular, which made up a huge proporiton of the film, seemed like it could easily just have been lifted out of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Sylvia had a good time identifying the differences between the movie and the book, which I guess means the movie was faithful enough to the book, for them to stand out.

posted evening of Sunday, May 25th, 2008
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My girlfriend was spitting mad about the changes made to the story, which is one of her favorites; having reread the book (it is short) I think I agree. All the characters are much coarser than in the book. And the book includes a (very decorous) Bacchanal--this got entirely lost in the film. On the other hand, I think the animators did a great job with Reepicheep, who I think is as well realized as any of the Warner Brothers golden age characters.

posted evening of May 25th, 2008 by Randolph Fritz

the characters are much coarser than in the book

But this is equally true of the previous film, right? I mean Disney can generally be counted on to turn novels into cartoons. I guess I went in expecting this so did not find it disappointing.

(very decorous) Bacchanal

Hm, this has escaped my memory.

posted morning of May 26th, 2008 by Jeremy

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