I read it again

Josh said:
The spiritual lesson in Prince Caspian was to go to God for help, instead of trying to do everything in your own strength.
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But what about "Aslan and the girls (that's Queen Susan and Queen Lucy, Caspian) are somewhere close. We don't know when he will act. In his time, no doubt, not ours. In the meantime he would like us to do what we can on our own." (PC Chapter 13)? That's one of the biggest lessons I got from the book, and I think it was very much lessened by the movie--that is, the book Pevensies already know that Aslan will act and do what they can in the meantime. Whereas in the movie it was just...a lot of drama.

And on the romp! Oh, the romp! That's one of my favorite parts of the book and always has been, and I was thinking about why last night. It's not just that it's brilliant and wonderful and fun; it's also that we have so few happy!Narnia scenes--there are Tumnus's stories in LWW/HHB, but we never see Narnia in that book; there is the very end scene in LWW; there's the romp in PC and the snowball fight in SC. Everything else is either not in Narnia or not particularly, you know, brilliant and awesome. And when I think of Narnia I don't think of a war-torn nation in desperate need of other-worldly help; I think of a beautiful place with valleys and forests and rivers and wild, happy dances outdoors. And the romp is one of the only places we see that directly, so I thought it was a bit distressing not to see it in the movie.
 
Animus said:
Everything else is either not in Narnia or not particularly, you know, brilliant and awesome. And when I think of Narnia I don't think of a war-torn nation in desperate need of other-worldly help; I think of a beautiful place with valleys and forests and rivers and wild, happy dances outdoors. And the romp is one of the only places we see that directly, so I thought it was a bit distressing not to see it in the movie.
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Completely agree! The Romp was one of the best parts of the book, as was Aslan's freeing people from the chains of Telmarine life and the discovery of the old Nurse dying and her reunion with Caspian ... that who sequence is so sweet and so full of life ... and we lost all of it in the movie. Bah. :(
 
Yeah, but the romp would have looked a little weird on film. Also people would be like "Why is Aslan and the girls partying while everyone else is in the middle of a battle!!!!"

Yes the nurse's reuinion with Caspian was touching, but they seemed to merge the nurse and Dr. Corneilus into one.

Also, the problem in PC is that the kids were thinking they don't need Aslan. It wasnt "We will try to do what Aslan would want us to do untill he returns." There attitude was "Aslan isnt there or if he is we won't waste our time waiting for him. We can stop the bad guys with our own strength."

So I'm still right.
 
You're still right about ....?

And when you say, "the problem in PC is that the kids were thinking they don't need Aslan," do you mean in the film or in the book? Because in the book, they never thought there was a time when they didn't need Aslan.
 
FunkyFawn said:
It's been several years since I've read the chronicles - but after buying the DVD and seeing it again, I just had to read the book again.

There was just way way way too many differences for me not to.

And unfortunately, instead of making me enjoy the movie more, it caused me to like it even less. They would have had a better movie if they hadn't radically altered it.

Ah well.
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PCC????? They did change more. The kiss??? most deffinately not in the book! UGH!!
 
Miss.SunFlower said:
If people have to tweak it that much to make it an exciting movie for audiences I'd be happier if it never had been a movie at all.
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I notice the differences between the book and the movie, but I wouldn't go this far. I liked some of the changes they made in making the movie. Even Lewis once remarked that Prince Caspian was the least popular of the CoN. I think you can still talk about spiritual applications after seeing the movie. Plus an added one would be Peter's struggle with pride and wanting to do things in his own stregth instead of waiting on Aslan. While this wasn't in the book, the truth of this comes out more clear than the line from the book that was mentioned. I do understand why this change isn't always liked though. Overall, I think they did a good job with the movie, save the PC/Susan pairing up. That really aggravated me, for the pure "disneyishness" of it, but especially when I remembered that Caspian ends up marrying Ramandu's daughter in the next book. I'm pretty confident that as long as Walden gets a new partner (which is looking very promising) then the rest of the movies will follow more close to the book. I think they did an excellent job with LWW. But even if they're all like Prince Caspian, I still look forward to seeing them. It introduces Narnia to new audiences and hopefully they will be interested enough to read the books because of the new movies coming out.
 
But it still winds up radically changing the spiritual message--and changing the characters in order to do that. A film screaming "Faith is better than action, trust in God, don't be too proud to need God!" is much different from a book that says, "Hey--you already know that God will act, so do what you can now to further his wishes."
 
I go both ways. They're both very true, very spiritual messages, but it's harder in the world today to show that we know we need God and should do what we can for His kingdom now. A lot of people don't understand that.

But people seem to understand a bit better the idea that being overly proud or reliant on ourselves can ruin everything.

But I absolutely hated PC/Susan, especially after my friend started whispering, "He marries a star, he marries a star" through the whole movie. If there wasn't a storyline already for him, it would have been kind of interesting, but because of Ramandu's daughter, it kind of destroyed it for some fans of the books.
 
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