Why I did not like Prince Caspian – An honest perspective
First let us begin with some background. For the last two years, I have been trying to avoid everything to do with this movie. After the first spy report from principle photography came in, I stopped following the movie completely. Reason: I didn't want to go into it with expectations. I felt that this was partially what had damaged my first experience with the first film. So, when the trailer preceded National Treasure 2, I closed my eyes and plugged my ears. I employed similar evasion tactics for the next six months, waiting for the release. I managed to do it. When we lined up for the midnight showing, I had no idea what to expect, other than a good time watching the movie.
First, we must establish that my dislike of the movie was not based on theater experience. The theater was the nicest in town. Incredibly comfortable seats. Digital 2k projection, excellent projectors, bulbs at full brightness, and properly calibrated. I am an absolute image nerd, and this theater has always more than lived up to my stringent requirements for a great experience. The rooms are also some of the best designed for sound that I have ever been in. In short, a fantastic theater (technically). The audience was also great. Far from a sellout crowd, but people didn't talk during the movie, etc. So on that score, I enjoyed the night.
Before diving in to the story itself, a few more things need to be made clear.
1.I have not read the books in more than five years, specifically because I did not want to ruin my movie experiences.
2.I am of the opinion that adaptations, in addition to being true to the source material must also be able to stand on their own as movies. We can complain all we like about faithfulness to the book, but is the movie itself any good?
3.I rather enjoy the first movie. It made a number of departures from the book, but it was consistent, and gave an excellent feel of the world. It felt like watching something in Narnia.
So the movie starts... a castle... night... the escape. The chase. Extremely well executed. I was enjoying myself immensely. Tree smacks Caspian in the face. Excellent! Caught me just as much by surprise as it did in the book. With the force of the hit, one would expect Caspian to black out immediately. He did not. Fine, we see him hit the ground, and the horse run off. Then the pacing issues that plague this movie begin. The scene keeps...on...going! It just doesn't stop. I was pulled out of the story, and wondering when the movie was going to get a move on.
Next we wind up in Britain. We witness a fight. Odd, and not at all in keeping with the book, but I expect it will be explained in time. Also note that the issues with sound design begin at this point (to be elaborated on later). Cue transition to Narnia. “It feels like magic! Hold hands!” A quote almost straight from the book. However, it didn't work at all. There was no visual setup. The direction was very poor in this segment. Wide shot with dialogue. Cut to closeup of wooden reaction. This scene felt very much like it wasn't well prepared for. It looked like standard coverage was shot, with no real attention paid to what is actually going on, what the actors should be feeling, and how it all fits into the story. It seems as if it was one of those situations in which “oh, we have to wrap in an hour, let's just shoot it, and figure it out later.” I do a poor job of explaining myself here, but it is very evident in the movie. One might disagree with me, but I have done exactly the same thing in my own work, and know what it looks/feels like.
The train station then begins to tear itself apart. This plays on for far too long, and I don't feel it a very good transition to a world of magic. This, however, is just my opinion.
We then arrive in Narnia. I love that the running on the beach and playing in the water bits were left in. Wreckage is then spotted on the cliff's. I understand this departure from the book. While it certainly isn't as dramatic as what occurred in the book, there wouldn't have been time to do justice to what happened in the book, and it would not have fit the pacing requirements of a 2.5 hour movie. So the kids go up to the wreckage, and here we run into another pacing issue. The kids find the treasure chamber far too quickly. There wasn't time allowed for the discovery of the ruins to fully develop. However, it must be noted that how Edmund's electric torch was introduced was fantastic.
So the kids enter the treasure chamber, and here we begin a disturbing trend. I call it the “rip-off-every-other-similar-popular-movie” trend. I refer, of course, the troughs filled with flammable material which are ignited by torch, etc.
Here I break from script procession to deal with further scenes in random order.
The rescue of Trumpkin. This is one of those scenes that was well scripted, but poorly executed (see my notes on the train station). So Susan kills one of the guys instead of sending an arrow bouncing off his helmet. No big deal. HOWEVER, I'm of the opinion that were the fear the Telmarines felt of the sea properly set up, the solution found in the book would have been far more entertaining. This is, after all, supposed to be a darker story. Obviously, this couldn't be done, as this fear of the sea hadn't been established with back story. I do not, however, believe that it would have hurt the pacing of the story to insert a flashback somewhere prior to this scene to explain it. This would have, in fact, offset some of the things prior to this that seemed rushed.
Trumpkin v. Edmund. I see what was attempted here. To my eye, it looked as if for the first half of the fight, Edmund was faking a lower level of skill to catch Trumpkin off his guard. This especially brought to mind the quote from the book regarding the effect that the Narnian air had on the children. Halfway through the fight, Edmund “improves” to handily disarm Trumpkin. The unfortunate part is that while I certainly understand the attempt, Edmund could just not convincingly handle the sword. It looked very fake.
Attack of the random bear. This scene was extremely well done, enough said. I am disappointed, though, that we didn't get the payoff for Trumpkin beginning to skin the bear. We never see the steaks being consumed later. A minor quibble, but that would have been cool.
The dream and the dancing trees. This series of scenes was one of the few where I felt the sound design was stellar. Other than that, I recall there being something about these scenes that really irked me (aside from the cheesy trees bowing effect, which looked like 2D sprites). Can't recall specifically what it was, though.
Werewolves and Hags. I've seen that hag somewhere before. Several have commented that she was really scary. I found her cringe worth/laughable. Completely overacted, doing a horrible impression of what similar characters do in other movies. The werewolf, on the other hand, was completely terrifying. Well done on that count. When the magic begins, though, the awesomeness of that scene was completely destroyed. What happened to the green fire? The fight in the dark (or in the case of practically filming it for a mainstream audience, with very little light)? That's a scene that is supposed to amp up the level of fear. Instead we get a wall of ice, and brightly lit, horribly shot fight, that is quite boring, and one can't tell what is going on, but not in an exciting and scary way.
Flying by night, or rather the invasion of a Telmarine castle. This scene is for me what the return to Osgiliath was in LOTR (Trent, I take issue with you on the changes made to the character of Faramir, and can defend my point of view, but this is not that thread, so I shall refrain
). Not at all keeping in the spirit of the book, and completely unnecessary to the plot. Parts of it were entertaining, but the whole sequence was completely out of place. As this had absolutely no presence in the books, the film makers have absolutely no excuse for blatantly ripping off Gandalf jumping from the top of Orthanc. Also pay close attention to what happened to Edmund's torch moments before this. I'll be coming back to it. This scene was such a travesty that I don't wish to dwell on it. Suffice to say that there are plenty of things that could have been substituted that are alluded to in the book that would have been far more effective. Moving on...
But before I can move on completely, I feel this is a good place to make a note of the Centaurs, since they were so heavily involved with the sequence. In PC, there was a significant change from the first movie. The Centaurs (or at least some of them) are HUGE now. This is a wonderful change. It makes them so much more regal and majestic. The first time we saw one in the night scene in the woods, chills went down my spine. Amazing choice in production design. If only they could have kept that size consistent throughout the movie. In some scenes centaurs that had already been established as huge, managed to shrink back to normal size, which was distracting.
A challenge delivered. The challenge to single combat which Edmund delivers to Miraz. Wonderful scene. Brilliantly written and executed.
The combat itself. Why, oh why? The choreography was weak, and the shot selection was even worse. I can honestly say that this is the most poorly photographed single combat I have ever seen on film. Shot selection was very indeterminate. Editing was poor. One bit of the book that I particularly missed was Peter “using Miraz's arm as a ladder.” Had the choreography been better, I wouldn't have minded at all, but Miraz had Peter on the ground so many times. At least one of them would have been perfect for this nod to the fans.
Treachery is committed, and battle is about to be joined. Here occurs my favorite moment from the book. I feared that due to rating issues it might be cut, but thankfully, it was not. Hint: it involves using a sword to remove someones legs and head. I'm so glad that this moment made the movie. But here is where I really felt the issue that Catspaw talked about (pulling back certain aspects of violence for the rating). The moment was actually distracting because of the way it had to be photographed for the rating. Just make a PG-13 movie already. At least this time around we didn't have a slow motion disemboweling with the sword somehow remaining spotless as our hero charges up the hill, waving it in front of the camera.
Armies charge. But somehow they aren't big, they aren't ready to kill... here is the culmination of the sound design issues which plagued this movie. One of the keys to big battle scenes is the sound. When armies roar, they need to ROAR. But here, the armies sound small, muffled, and far off. The scene instantly loses it's epic and heroic nature.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the forest, we FINALLY see Aslan again. And this time, he's so much more like he was in the books. Loveable, but terrifying. Wonderful execution of this scene.
Eventually, we end up at the Fords of Beruna. But wait, there's a giant bridge... No problem, we'll just have a re-enactment of Rivendell before the elves decided horses would look cool. This scene was so incredibly cheesy. I find the version in the book (where the river god asks to be freed of his chains (the bridge)) far more powerful. Had the back story I mentioned earlier been included, this bridge, and the scene, could have been made so much better.
After the bridge fiasco, we get some of the best scenes in the whole movie. Bowing before Aslan, him roaring at Trumpkin, and the tail of Reepicheep. Lifted almost directly from the book, and absolutely wonderful. These scenes were so well done. So was the scene where people return to Earth. Up until the time that people start to go through the “portal,” that is. I find the idea of a free standing door post much more attractive, and it's an idea that returns in The Last Battle. The shot selection as people start to go through and disappear was also poor.
The movie ends on my favorite line of dialogue from the book. “Bother, I've left my new torch in Narnia.” Great line, but it didn't work at all. Why? Because Edmund didn't so much just leave his torch behind in Narnia because he forgot it. It was destroyed when some guy smashed through a door and tried to kill him. It saved his life. It's not something he just accidentally left behind. The line is no longer funny.
So where does this leave us as far as plot points? Rushed. The first film suffered from this, but not nearly to the degree that PC does. Pacing is horrible. There is, however, something that makes this a larger problem than it otherwise would have been; to wit, character development, and the complete destruction of characters from the book (worse than the Faramir debacle).
Peter and Caspian have both had their characters drastically altered. Why? I'm not at all certain, but it's deeply upsetting. It tells me that the writers did not truly understand the focus of the book. I am at a complete loss to discuss this further in the abstract. In the finished product, one can see the horrible aftermath of it. It creates pacing issues, generates problems with character development, and just isn't convincing.
Also, where was Aslan? One of the huge complaints I noticed people had about the first movie was that there wasn't enough Aslan in it (or at least definitely not enough reference to him). I disagreed with this. However, in this movie, I haven't really heard that complaint that much. But here I found the problem to be rather pronounced. When he's there, he's bigger (as per the books!), but for the huge role he played in PC, he hardly shows up at all in the movie. Very disappointing.
On the other hand, we have Miraz, Glozelle, and Sopespian. These characters were handled incredibly well. I especially enjoyed the way the transformation of Glozelle and Sopespian was shown. Fantastic work here. Dr. Cornelius was also exceptionally strong. I wish he had had more screen time. Reepicheep was also fantastic. I enjoyed the inside the grass POV shots.
On to the technical. As previously mentioned, I feel the sound design was very weak in this film (for the most part). Or perhaps not so much the design as the mix. Sound, however, was hardly the only technical issue.
Let us first deal with the shot selection. In some areas, we see an improvement over Adamson's previous work. He has finally, it seems, learned the value and utility of the closeup. The problem is that he doesn't use it consistently. This makes for a very uneven experience. On a more positive note, however, he makes excellent use of the extreme long shot. A much needed addition to his visual style. Again on the negative side, though, he uses in several places, something I like to call the “medium-wide.” You'll recognize it when you see it. It's not quite wide enough to be classified as a wide shot, but not close enough to be anything else. In these shots, due either to composition, camera movement, blocking, lighting, or a combination thereof, the shots are distracting, and very hard to follow. Personally, I choose to blame it on his overuse of the technocrane. Others may be of different opinion, though.
I must also take issue with the lighting of many of the exterior closeups and medium shots. Contrary to the lighting situation in the background, there is often no contrast on the extremely high-key faces. The movie may take place in a magical fantasy land, but last time I checked, it also took place largely in natural settings. With the sun or your 18k's as backlight (American Cinematographer, June 2008), the faces would not look like that under almost any situation I can imagine in a dense forest.
There are many problems I had with this film which I have skipped over. Suffice to say, I did not come out of this movie with a smile on my face. Very discouraging experience. I'm very glad that Adamson will not be in the director's chair for a third outing. Even if the script for Dawn Treader is just as heinous, I'm confident that I'll have a better experience. Apted has proven himself to be an excellent director. Even if he ends up with a bad script, I have every confidence that he will be able to execute it well.
Some will doubtless read my thoughts on the film, and in response to my comments about story say, “but that's the only way it could have been done! It's the hardest one to adapt! The book is boring!” I completely disagree. I did not find Prince Caspian (the book) boring, nor do I believe it to be the hardest to adapt. It may be the most difficult to arrange a cohesive and cinematic timeline for, but hardly the hardest to adapt in general. As for the necessity of certain of the changes, I again disagree. The LOTR EE director commentaries are an excellent guide to what changes are and are not necessary to adapt a book. A lot of changes were made here for some other reason than making an adaptation work.
All in all, I can sum up the movie in a few short sentences. The scenes that were lifted directly from the book are almost without exception, wonderful examples of quality film making. The further away from the source material the script travels, the more trouble the movie seems to get itself in (the exception being the beginning and end of the castle attack sequence, which were strong as pieces of film making, but had no place in the movie, as far as I'm concerned).
If you actually read this entire thing, I congratulate you. Go get some ice cream. You've earned it.
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They were able to make the movie seem like "Prince Caspain" instead of "The Pevensie Children return to Narnia" (though the origional title was "Return To Narnia"). I thought that it was excellent.
*gets out the largest bowl in the cupboard and starts scooping*
You notice a lot of those technical film-making things that a lot of us don't notice very much.
, the movie was pretty cool 
. And yes, I do agree that Edmund was the coolest in the movie 
*scoffs at Chandler* Good call, though! I'm sure that you would have preferred to be wrong, but whatever.