Prince Caspian Flops

When I was a child, starting around when I was seven or so, my great grandparents began giving me a book at Christmas and on my birthday. They began with the Chronicles of Narnia. I was so excited to get the next book each time. I loved reading them with my wife again a couple years ago. There is something precious about the old yellowed and weathered pages and bindings, traveling the same lines again with my sweetheart. 

C.S. Lewis's work on this series is a beautiful depiction of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and His interactions with us, His children. I'll post about that later...

Now, I'm a sucker for a good movie. In fact, I'm not even that picky about them (considerthat I like Transformers, Iron Man, Labyrinth). I was so very excited when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came out in 2005. They strayed from the book a bit, but not too much. Their additions were at least in line (fit in) with the original story. I was excited again to watch Prince Caspian when we got it from Netflix last night. 

My mistake. In the first half hour, they tore through the first 100 pages of the book (it's only 200 pages long), and until the last 15 minutes of the movie, they made up stuff. So, let me enumerate a partial list of crimes against Lewis:

• Peter became more of a pretty boy
• Butchering of Lucy's encounter with Aslan
• Adding of romance between Susan and Caspian
• Reintroducing Jadis (the White Witch) more than was done in the book - she was only mentioned in the book, not nearly reconstituted.
• Leading/leaving of the people to die in the castle (did I just forget this part in the book?)
• Susan is annoying! She was made of sterner, more devoted stuff in the books (until The Last Battle, but that's another story entirely)
• Susan was powerful for a moment, but women always have to be saved, so Prince Caspian comes and saves the day when she suddenly loses her archery skills in the heat of battle, protecting Lucy from pursuers. And Caspian does a crummy job of it, one gets away and keeps chasing Lucy.

Well, that's enough of a tirade about that... I'll keep the book series, but I will certainly not buy the newest incarnation of the live-action Chronicles of Narnia. My wife says it feels like we were used. They took the good name made by Lewis and duped us into watching a mediocre movie made terrible by the false association with a great book. Imitation is supposed to be the most sincere form of flattery - well, I guess they just don't know how to flatter, because a good imitation this was not.