and in other news
Jan. 2nd, 2011 06:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joiedecombatI managed to go out last night and see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Mom, and enjoyed it pretty well. I'm impressed by how little of the story they actually ended up changing, particularly as compared to Prince Caspian.
While I'm not convinced that the story could not have succeeded on its own terms - VDT is one of the most popular books in the series - I can understand why they felt the need to add a unifying plotline and more of a sense of urgency. They could probably have come up with a better excuse to hang the plot on than a nebulous mist which randomly abducts people and requires a collection of plot coupons to defeat; while the villains of the books aren't always exactly human (the White Witch, the Lady of the Green Kirtle, and Shift the Ape, to name examples), the conflict that drives the plots always comes from human flaws and flaws recognizable to humans, not some faceless force with unclear motivations. The theme of facing up to one's inner darkness runs along similar lines, I suppose, but it's still something of a departure.
In any case, I do like how well they blended the various episodes from the book into the plotline. Unlike the previous two movies, VDT doesn't really have any scenes invented from whole cloth. Some of the bits of adaptation work better than others, but everything originates from the book in some fashion.
Stuff I liked: The friendship developed between Reepicheep and Eustace was a really nice touch, especially since it would be more difficult to cover the couple of days spent on Dragon Island in the book and the ways Eustace found to make himself useful there. Reepicheep in general is enormously well-served by the movies, which make him more badass and less comical than he is in the books.
Extending Lucy's temptation regarding the spell of beauty also worked really well (overlooking, maybe, the heavy-handedness of her conversations with Gaelle about "growing up to be just like you"). Particularly since Lucy was kind of annoyingly too good to be true in the Prince Caspian movie, but maybe that was just me - in any case, it worked a lot better than the similar effort to make Peter more flawed in Prince Caspian, which I have complained about previously.
I was not honestly expecting them to keep in Aslan's lines about how he has another name in our world and Lucy and the others must learn to know him by it. I'm glad that they did.
Stuff I would have done differently: I have said from the beginning that Skandar Keynes had a terribly difficult job playing Edmund in the first movie, having to be so obnoxious in the first half and still redeem himself and become likable in the second half, and that whoever they got to play Eustace for this movie was going to have it just as hard. Poor Will Poulter does not pull it off as well as Keynes did in LWW. He does great at being a brat up until Dragon Island, but he doesn't get a lot of time to make himself sympathetic in the latter part of the film. I'm not really sure if it hurt or helped that he stays a dragon for longer; he might have been able to do more if he'd had more actual screen time to work with. I'll reserve final judgment until The Silver Chair, since the end of the movie so obviously teased it.
The climactic sequence at the Island Where Dreams Come True really had too much stuff going on. If it had been up to me, I think I would have tried to handle it a little more closely to the scenes from the book that the sequence is a composite of - have them find Lord Rhoop, keep the line about it being a place where dreams come true and why that's not a good thing. Then the sea serpent, let Eustace fend it off at first, but then have them push the serpent off the ship as in the book without killing it, and try to escape but not be able to find the way out until Eustace lays the sword on the table and breaks the spell. They tried to keep various elements of the original scenes in the composite, but they were jumbled up too haphazardly to be very effective.
And Reepicheep's departure should have come before the group met Aslan at the edge of the world. The thing about that scene in the book is that nobody really knows what's going to happen to Reepicheep when he paddles off up and over the giant wave; it's an act of faith, venturing past the point of no return into the unknown with no assurance as to what he'll find there or even if he'll survive. Having him know for sure that he's going into Aslan's country, and with Aslan's direct invitation, it kind of... loses something. At least for me.
Stuff that made no damn sense: Edmund and Caspian scoffing at Drinian's fears about sea serpents. THEY LIVE IN THE ORIGINAL FANTASY KITCHEN SINK, GUYS. I mean, really, these are people who know for a fact that things like griffons and dragons exist, because either they have met them personally or they know someone who has. Why would they not believe in sea serpents?
And speaking of the sea serpent, would it have been so hard to have it conjured up by the fears of Drinian and the other sailors, who are established to be afraid of sea serpents from the start? Having it come from Edmund of all people is especially ridiculous - the movie itself shows that Edmund's fears are likely to take an even more dangerous form, hi Jadis - but as it was, all I could think was "Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man?" Which is not really what that scene should have been going for.
The albatross. See above my comments about the climactic sequence being kind of a mess; since they were too busy fighting the sea serpent the whole time to really make it clear that they could not find the way out of the dark, the presence of the albatross served no purpose; it didn't lead them anywhere or accomplish anything, it just showed up for a second before they fought the sea serpent some more and Eustace got the sword onto the table to finish things up. People who read the book will know what it's about, but I wouldn't be surprised if newcomers were just confused.
Along the same lines, the reference at the end to Jill Pole, which is an obvious sequel hook but makes no damn sense since Eustace and Jill don't have any reason to be friendly to each other at this point. It's not like Aslan practically telling Eustace he'll be back wasn't enough of a hint. (This one, admittedly, I mostly just found funny. I'm glad they're clearly planning on doing The Silver Chair, at any rate.)
Stuff I missed: In LWW it was Aslan coaching Peter on how to direct his armies and Peter asking "but you'll be there, won't you?" In Prince Caspian it was Peter kneeling before Aslan and apologizing for leading everyone wrong. In this one, it's Edmund telling Eustace that, all things considered, he didn't do as badly as Edmund's first trip to Narnia: "You were only an ass, but I was a traitor." It really needed to be in there, in some fashion.
While I'm not convinced that the story could not have succeeded on its own terms - VDT is one of the most popular books in the series - I can understand why they felt the need to add a unifying plotline and more of a sense of urgency. They could probably have come up with a better excuse to hang the plot on than a nebulous mist which randomly abducts people and requires a collection of plot coupons to defeat; while the villains of the books aren't always exactly human (the White Witch, the Lady of the Green Kirtle, and Shift the Ape, to name examples), the conflict that drives the plots always comes from human flaws and flaws recognizable to humans, not some faceless force with unclear motivations. The theme of facing up to one's inner darkness runs along similar lines, I suppose, but it's still something of a departure.
In any case, I do like how well they blended the various episodes from the book into the plotline. Unlike the previous two movies, VDT doesn't really have any scenes invented from whole cloth. Some of the bits of adaptation work better than others, but everything originates from the book in some fashion.
Stuff I liked: The friendship developed between Reepicheep and Eustace was a really nice touch, especially since it would be more difficult to cover the couple of days spent on Dragon Island in the book and the ways Eustace found to make himself useful there. Reepicheep in general is enormously well-served by the movies, which make him more badass and less comical than he is in the books.
Extending Lucy's temptation regarding the spell of beauty also worked really well (overlooking, maybe, the heavy-handedness of her conversations with Gaelle about "growing up to be just like you"). Particularly since Lucy was kind of annoyingly too good to be true in the Prince Caspian movie, but maybe that was just me - in any case, it worked a lot better than the similar effort to make Peter more flawed in Prince Caspian, which I have complained about previously.
I was not honestly expecting them to keep in Aslan's lines about how he has another name in our world and Lucy and the others must learn to know him by it. I'm glad that they did.
Stuff I would have done differently: I have said from the beginning that Skandar Keynes had a terribly difficult job playing Edmund in the first movie, having to be so obnoxious in the first half and still redeem himself and become likable in the second half, and that whoever they got to play Eustace for this movie was going to have it just as hard. Poor Will Poulter does not pull it off as well as Keynes did in LWW. He does great at being a brat up until Dragon Island, but he doesn't get a lot of time to make himself sympathetic in the latter part of the film. I'm not really sure if it hurt or helped that he stays a dragon for longer; he might have been able to do more if he'd had more actual screen time to work with. I'll reserve final judgment until The Silver Chair, since the end of the movie so obviously teased it.
The climactic sequence at the Island Where Dreams Come True really had too much stuff going on. If it had been up to me, I think I would have tried to handle it a little more closely to the scenes from the book that the sequence is a composite of - have them find Lord Rhoop, keep the line about it being a place where dreams come true and why that's not a good thing. Then the sea serpent, let Eustace fend it off at first, but then have them push the serpent off the ship as in the book without killing it, and try to escape but not be able to find the way out until Eustace lays the sword on the table and breaks the spell. They tried to keep various elements of the original scenes in the composite, but they were jumbled up too haphazardly to be very effective.
And Reepicheep's departure should have come before the group met Aslan at the edge of the world. The thing about that scene in the book is that nobody really knows what's going to happen to Reepicheep when he paddles off up and over the giant wave; it's an act of faith, venturing past the point of no return into the unknown with no assurance as to what he'll find there or even if he'll survive. Having him know for sure that he's going into Aslan's country, and with Aslan's direct invitation, it kind of... loses something. At least for me.
Stuff that made no damn sense: Edmund and Caspian scoffing at Drinian's fears about sea serpents. THEY LIVE IN THE ORIGINAL FANTASY KITCHEN SINK, GUYS. I mean, really, these are people who know for a fact that things like griffons and dragons exist, because either they have met them personally or they know someone who has. Why would they not believe in sea serpents?
And speaking of the sea serpent, would it have been so hard to have it conjured up by the fears of Drinian and the other sailors, who are established to be afraid of sea serpents from the start? Having it come from Edmund of all people is especially ridiculous - the movie itself shows that Edmund's fears are likely to take an even more dangerous form, hi Jadis - but as it was, all I could think was "Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man?" Which is not really what that scene should have been going for.
The albatross. See above my comments about the climactic sequence being kind of a mess; since they were too busy fighting the sea serpent the whole time to really make it clear that they could not find the way out of the dark, the presence of the albatross served no purpose; it didn't lead them anywhere or accomplish anything, it just showed up for a second before they fought the sea serpent some more and Eustace got the sword onto the table to finish things up. People who read the book will know what it's about, but I wouldn't be surprised if newcomers were just confused.
Along the same lines, the reference at the end to Jill Pole, which is an obvious sequel hook but makes no damn sense since Eustace and Jill don't have any reason to be friendly to each other at this point. It's not like Aslan practically telling Eustace he'll be back wasn't enough of a hint. (This one, admittedly, I mostly just found funny. I'm glad they're clearly planning on doing The Silver Chair, at any rate.)
Stuff I missed: In LWW it was Aslan coaching Peter on how to direct his armies and Peter asking "but you'll be there, won't you?" In Prince Caspian it was Peter kneeling before Aslan and apologizing for leading everyone wrong. In this one, it's Edmund telling Eustace that, all things considered, he didn't do as badly as Edmund's first trip to Narnia: "You were only an ass, but I was a traitor." It really needed to be in there, in some fashion.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 12:21 am (UTC)Yeah. I went to see it with a group and, at that point,
The sea serpent was majorly creepy itself--hello, giant cockroach thing--but also...okay, Edmund had the thing where Jadis shows up, which is cool, but the bit where she was all "I can make you a maaaaan, O Pubescent Boy" and then he stabbed the gellid many-tentacled mouth thing with a glowy blue sword....kind of activated my English Major Curse a little.
I liked it, in general. And I agree with you about Eustace. It doesn't help that CGI is advanced enough to make the dragon cute, but Will Poulter...well, I'm sure he's a sweet kid and loves his mom and all, but he's kind of an unfortunate looking child. Hope he grows out of that.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 12:50 am (UTC)And man, poor Edmund. I guess I can kind of see why they'd choose to have visions of the White Witch keep stalking him throughout the series, but it seems a bit overboard. You'd think stabbing her in the back in the Prince Caspian movie would have given him some closure there.
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Date: 2011-01-03 02:03 am (UTC)I'm holding out hope that Poulter improves by Silver Chair. I mean, there's no concrete filming schedule yet, AFAIK, and a couple years can make a big difference at that age. As could a less buzz-cutty hairstyle. Poor kid.