Narnia Fans » Pevensies

Welcome to Tumnus’s Book Shelf where we review any and all books related to Narnia and CS Lewis! For this weeks review, we will be looking at The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Fight For The Throne

Title: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: The Fight for the Throne.
Based on The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian by CS Lewis
Adapted by: JE Bright
Publisher: HarperEntertainment (April 1, 2008)

ISBN-10: 0061231584
ISBN-13: 978-0061231582

Summary of the book:

Late one night in the Telmarine castle in the land of Narnia, Prince Caspian was woken up by his mentor Dr. Cornelius. Caspian’s uncle Miraz had a son, and Caspian had to escape as his uncle was trying to kill him. Before leaving Cornelius gave Caspian a gift, the horn of Queen Susan Pevensie to use to summon the heroes of old.

Fleeing from his Uncle Miraz’s soldiers, Prince Caspian falls into the company of three of the Narnians, Trufflehunter the badger, along with Nikabrik and Trumpkin, two dwarves. Caspian blew the horn to summon the heroes. The three of them were pursued in the woods and Trumpkin was taken captive. Guided by Nikabrik and Trufflehunter, Caspian was led further into the woods where he then meet Reepicheep and other Narnians. They were afraid to trust him at first as they hated the Telmarines because they had stolen their land. He assured them that he would restore Narnia to them if they fought alongside him.

The Narnians agreed and training begun. Sometime during their training Trumpkin returned with the four Pevensies who were only children.SPOILERS! By the urgings of Peter, and despite the protests of Lucy, the Narnians engaged in a futile Night Raid, in which Caspian rescued Cornelius and learned that his uncle Miraz had killed Caspian’s father.

In the process of this night raid many Narnian lives were lost. Nikabrik and some companions of his attempted to convince him to resurrect the White Witch. With the help of the Pevensies he was able to defeat Nikabrik and his two friends.

They at last decided to do the right thing. After sending Lucy out to find Aslan, Peter decided to engage in a duel of single combat with Miraz to by time. Peter won the duel and was given the choice to kill Miraz he refused as it was not his job. To deal out justice He handed over the sword to Caspian who also refused as he would not sink to Miraz’s level. Miraz was then killed by two of his generals and they blamed his death on the Narnians.

A massive battle broke out. The Narnians routed the Telmarine forces to the river where they meet up with Lucy and Aslan. Aslan summoned up the River God and the forces of the Telmarines were defeated. Caspian was crowned king and the Pevensies returned home.END SPOILERS!

Review of the book:

Let’s see if you can follow this. This book, Prince Caspian: Fight for the Throne, is an adaptation of the movie, which is an adaptation of the book Prince Caspian pretty much like most tie-in books dealing with the Narnia books. It’s almost a given fact for a big movie release. With this book, however it does something different. It looks at Prince Caspian’s story through his perspective.

It is meant for readers who are in the early junior high stage. It is meant to be like it were Caspian’s journal so it is written in a very simple, strait forward manner, with no frills attatched to it, much like a journal entry. This, combined with the books choice on limiting the perspective, means that it does not try to be too challenging. The concept itself of telling the story from Caspian’s perspective is interesting and does intrigue a reader enough. However, it also means that many key plot points for the original novel are cut out as it is based on the film.

SPOILERS!Caspian and Peter do butt heads, but on the plus side Peter seems like less of a jerk in this book than he did in the film and more like he’s trying to help free Narnia. This book also does not have the apparition of Jadis appear in the ice or the “kiss that was heard around the world.” In many ways this book flows like a possible fan edit of the film would.END SPOILERS!

The battles are described in detail but they come off as very lethargic. While they are fun to watch on screen they are less enjoyable in print. One becomes grateful that CS Lewis did not focus on battles as much. Readers realize that he knew what he was doing. By not describing the battles in detail he left them for the readers to imagine and choreograph on their own, which when you are reading a book is much more fun than having it spoon feed to you.

There is also much less of Lewis’s symbolism in this book.SPOILERS!The limited perspective features Aslan only briefly at the end and we have no idea what else is going on in the other parts of story, such as with the Pevensies.END SPOILERS!In a small way, the original book’s beauty is taken away and in it’s place is a quick adventure story for adolescent boys to read in between rounds of playing Nintendo Wii. But in another way there is more mystery about Aslan and the Pevensies as no one sees them until they come.

There are no pictures as this is not meant to be a children’s story book. This is a young readers novel. The advantage of this is that it does give the reader more room to imagine what the characters may look like, even though their versions of the Pevensies in their minds may be the ones played by William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, and Georgie Henley.

Readers may enjoy this book just for the virtue it looks at a favorite story from one characters perspective. However, in reading it there is one thing that must be kept in mind: this book is not a supplemental book, a replacement, or even an introduction to the story. It’s a companion story. It should only be read if readers have first read ( or heard) the original novel by CS Lewis and then seen the movie, other wise there will be huge blanks left to fill.

Prince Caspian: Fight for the Throne has an interesting premise behind it and does make for a good read for a few times. Next to the original book however, this book is merely the Shadowlands: a good reflection for readers of the wondrous world of Narnia.

3 ½ out of 5 shields.

There are three very cool posters that have just started floating around. The King Miraz one that we posted, without logos, has been released WITH logos. These posters are international posters, as evidenced by the logos found on them. The first features the Pevensie children. The second, Prince Caspian. The third is the one we saw yesterday, with King Miraz.

Prince Caspian Poster 4

Prince Caspian Poster 5

Prince Caspian Poster 6

Quint, from AICN, has five pictures from the set of Prince Caspian, taken by a spy that somehow managed to find his way to the set. Here’s what he has to say:

The codeeater from Germany (translated from German to English through babelfish) says that they were shooting some long shots from the boat of the kids arriving at the beach and some close shots from behind the kids at they walked onto the shore. These could be doubles… the little girl doesn’t much look like Lucy from the first movie, nor does the older guy much look like Peter.

To see the pics, go to Aint It Cool News. You can also find them in our Gallery.

Buena Vista went straight to the leader in young adult titles – Traveller’s Tales – to create The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which is scheduled for release on November 14th. We were fortunate enough to grab a few minutes with Andy Burrows, who is both the designer and associate producer at Traveller’s.

In what ways (if any) will The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe appeal to gamers outside of its younger, core demographic?

Andy Burrows: The film and the books have a broad appeal and that was our aim for the game, as well. We love the Narnia stories and we feel as though we’ve created a game which can be enjoyed by players of any age. In fact, The Chronicles of Narnia books have sold more than 90 million copies to date so there’s a massive audience that is eager for the film and games.

There are a number of features that should appeal to gamers that are teens and older. The battles are massive and intense! Some of the battles in the game feature wave after wave after wave of enemies. They are gargantuan struggles where the stakes are continually raised. A couple of weeks ago we watched two grown men play through one of the later levels in the game called “The Great Battle.” Their excitement and enthusiasm drew a crowd in the Traveller’s Tales offices and their noise level kept rising. There were shouts of “switch to Lucy and heal us” and “just one more Minotaur.” Numerous times they were certain that they were on the brink of success only to be presented with another wave of enemies. When they finally won the battle and completed the level, they had a great sense of relief and accomplishment.

Even though the game, like the original C.S. Lewis source material and the upcoming film, features four children as the protagonists, we see The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe game as more Frodo-ish and less Muggle-like. The game is rated Teen with a descriptor of Fantasy Violence by the ESRB.

There are also six bonus level battles that increase in difficulty and up the ante for combat. These aren’t required to complete the game, but they are required to unlock all of the bonus content.

Also, the way the characters progress over the course of the game and the game’s skill system which allows players to make choices about character abilities add depth to the game play. As new abilities are unlocked you have to determine which ones suit your style of play or would have the greatest immediate impact. Or you can choose to replay an earlier level to acquire the required coins to buy as much as possible. By the way, make sure you buy and use Lucy’s creature tames at some point. These are great fun to play and they also look cool.

Also, the drop-in/drop-out multi-player system is great for accommodating a friend, significant other or parent joining a game in-progress at any time.

We still enjoy playing the game as we are completing all of the localizations – and as much as we hate to admit it, we are slightly older than the core demographic.

How does The Chronicles of Narnia, the game, expand the storyline that will be featured in the movie?

Andy Burrows: The game follows the storyline of the movie very closely. Each level has an introductory FMV to establish the area and the plot of the level, and each is concluded with another piece of FMV that helps to tie the level in with the overall story.

Each level expands upon the storyline of the movie in some way. For example, the opening of the movie is set in London during World War II. This explosive introduction focuses on a scene from the film with a German air raid during the blitz, showing the bombers swooping over London and delivering heavy bombs. Our game takes this scene, shows the Pevensie children and allows the player to take control of the four heroes as they try to escape their war-torn house and get to the air raid shelter before it’s too late.

We used blueprints from the film studio to create an exact virtual replica of the Pevensie’s house. We also used assets that the studio provided us to re-create the interior of the house precisely, right down to the last wall painting. There were several rooms that were on the blueprints but which were not seen at all in the movie, so we had to design these from scratch. As we’d already built exact replicas of the rooms that could be seen in the movie, we knew exactly how these rooms should look in order for them to fit seamlessly with the overall theme of the level – The last thing that we wanted was for any of the rooms to look completely out of place. Plus, being able to design parts of the house from scratch gave us a degree of freedom to play around with neat game ideas that may not have fit into the game otherwise.

Having regular feedback from the C.S. Lewis Estate on the current state of the game was an invaluable tool. Their guidance meant that we never strayed into “non-Narnia” territory.

Also on hand to help was Andrew Adamson, director for Disney/Walden Media’s The Chronicles of Narnia film. One part of the film that we expanded upon in our game is the flight of the children through a network of underground tunnels, with the White Witch’s Wolves in hot pursuit. Our first vision of this level was to create a large underground cavern, effectively building something that the Badger or some other underground creature could have fashioned for themselves. However, to Andrew Adamson’s eye, the level didn’t resemble anything you would see in Narnia. Our artist went back to the drawing board and redesigned the level and what we ended up with was even more visually spectacular than the original version.

So, in short, our game follows the storyline of the movie closely while also expanding upon it where appropriate. From the outset of the project, our goal had been to make the game of the movie and I feel that we have achieved exactly that.

[Visit TeamXbox for the rest]

Hot on the heels of the Father Christmas and Mr. Tumnus images, comes a new image of Aslan, as well as a new image of Peter, Lucy and Susan climbing the side of a mountain, with the moon behind them.

Coming from the Dutch tvguide and lifestyle magazine ‘Veronica Magazine’, only this week available in Dutch stores.

Georgie Henley turned 9 while playing Lucy in “The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” so nobody needed to teach her about wonderment.

The movie, of course, is the first in a potential franchise based on C. S. Lewis’s fantasy classic.

In case you don’t remember the books’ making you levitate with joy when you were a kid, “Lion” concerns British siblings who pass through an armoire into Narnia, where they battle the White Witch in the name of the noble lion Aslan.
“We built the set for Narnia and we took Georgie up there blindfolded,” says director Andrew Adamson (“Shrek”). “Then we just let her go.

What we got was not ‘acting.’ She was literally trembling with excitement.” That’s Georgie to your lower left, part of an exclusive first look at the cast.

“Lion” opens Dec. 9. Expect a PG smash that neither enhances nor ignores the book’s Christian overtones and is light on gore. Disney, teaming with Walden Media, will air a TV teaser simultaneously in more than 30 countries on May 7.
Narnia, here we come.

-Jeff Giles
Photos: Phil Bray