Sense and Adaptability

Posted on March 14, 2025 by stationmaster

Was I overly harsh when I called screenwriter Andrew Davies’s 2008 miniseries adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility “so-so?”

I admit it. I gave into the allure of alliteration, and I was trying to contrast it with his 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries, which is one of the best adapted Jane Austen adaptations out there. It’s not a huge favorite of mine since Pride and Prejudice isn’t my favorite Austen book and even if it were, Austen isn’t really my favorite author. But the writing really does a great job of replicating her style while still feeling like a TV series. The writing for Davies’s Sense and Sensibility doesn’t capture its source material anywhere near as well. In fact, I wouldn’t even say it does as good a job on that score as his Emma adaptation.[1]Though I should stress I feel Sense and Sensibility (2008) works much better as piece of entertainment. I doubt I’d ever have guessed they were written by the same person. But there’s a difference between not being as well written and faithful as the 1995 Pride and Prejudice and not being well written or faithful at all.

Sense and Sensibility is about the Dashwood sisters, Elinor and Marianne.[2]There’s also a third sister, Margaret (played by Lucy Boynton in the 2008 miniseries), but she’s not important. While the story is unquestionably romance-driven, it focuses on the relationship between those two gentlewomen to an unusual extent for Austen.[3]That’s not to say Jane Austen never wrote about relationships between women. Far from it. She just usually focused more on relationships between men and women. While the sisters are loyal and devoted to each other, they also frequently rag on each other’s different sensibilities. Swoony Marianne believes people should be ruled by emotion whereas practical Elinor believes emotions should be ruled by reason and morality. And the book champions Elinor’s philosophy over Marianne’s. That was not a universally accepted position back when it was first written[4]Austen lived during the Romantic era and the emotionalism of Victorian culture was on the horizon. and it’s become even less popular nowadays. Marianne begins the story believing that “to aim at the restraint of sentiments” to be “not merely an unnecessary effort but a disgraceful subjection of reason to commonplace and mistaken notions.” Modern therapy culture, which has been on the rise in the 2020s, goes even further, considering the suppression of emotions to be downright unhealthy. The average Disney or Pixar movie (cf. Frozen, Inside Out, Encanto, Turning Red) all but states that telling children to hide their feelings for the sake of the family-the very thing for which Sense and Sensibility heroizes Elinor and condemns Marianne for failing to do-as the worst thing a parent can do.[5]In fairness, most, if not all of those movies, also show unrestrained emotions, such as anger, having negative consequences. But few, if any of them, really seem to want viewers to notice that. It may sound strange, even silly, to cite children’s movies in this context. Wouldn’t it make more sense to contrast Sense and Sensibility with the latest romance novel? But I feel like citing children’s media shows just how early people these days are ingesting the suppressing-feelings-is-bad message. These are very earnest children’s movies. It’s not like telling kids to believe in Santa Claus.

Commentators are quick to assure us that Elinor and Marianne are really portrayed as having individual strengths and weaknesses and that what Austen is really advocating is a happy medium between sense and sensibility.[6]In her culture “sensibility” meant something like sensitivity. It’s a good thing she wasn’t writing today because Sense and Sensitivity would be a horrible title. There’s some truth in this[7]As the book nears its conclusion, we get more moments where Elinor visibly betrays her emotions, and they aren’t moments where we’re meant to dislike her. but it’s very different from the impression one gets from actually reading the book. The clear, overall message is “don’t be a Marianne; be an Elinor” and while it’s not always the main theme, this is also the overarching philosophy of Jane Austen’s oeuvre.[8]Persuasion, her last completed novel and probably her “girliest,” is something of an exception. The heroine’s biggest regret at the beginning is that she didn’t take a … Continue reading Honestly, that’s why I think it’s important in this age of self-expression for us to read Sense and Sensibility. It’s telling us something we don’t want or expect to hear. Another recurring theme in Austen is that the people who tell us those things are the one who helps us grow the most.[9]The book A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz comes highly recommended in this context. It recently occurred to me that Neil Postman’s comments on George Orwell vs. Aldous Huxley apply to Charles Dickens vs. Jane Austen. To use his phrasing, Dickens feared that what we fear will ruin us whereas Austen feared that what we desire will ruin us. I’m a much more enthusiastic fan of Dickens than I am of Austen, but I feel like her message is more what the modern world needs right now.

Of course, I’m one to talk! While I might admire Elinor in theory, in practice, I’m a Marianne. Anyway, let’s get going.

Ironically, just as the 2005 Pride and Prejudice movie had to compete with Davies’s acclaimed miniseries adaptation for the minds and hearts of fans, his Sense and Sensibility had to compete with the acclaimed 1995 movie adaptation. I actually read Emma Thompson’s academy award winning screenplay online before I either saw the film or read the book. I adored it, only to be rather disappointed by my first viewing of the movie itself. I don’t know if it was a problem with the sound mixing or the actors’ performances, but I found I had to constantly strain my ears to hear the dialogue and when you have to strain to hear jokes, they aren’t very funny-which is a real shame because they’re great on paper. Take this exchange between Marianne, her mother and Elinor over the dashing young man they’ve just met.

Marianne: He expressed himself well, did he not?
Mrs. Dashwood: With great decorum and honor.
Marianne: And spirit and wit and feeling.
Elinor: And economy-ten words at most.

But you’d never know from watching it that the movie is supposed to be a comedy. The quiet line deliveries of the main actors combined with the lack of music for much of the movie’s first half make it a struggle for me to follow or get invested in the story.[10]Of course, you could argue that keeping music to a minimum fits the message of “be less emotional.” I probably sound like Marianne with these criticisms. I know Ang Lee is a highly acclaimed director, and the movie is beloved. I wish I loved it too and I’ve tried to do so more than once. But I always find it a tastefully shot boor.

While the writing for the 2008 miniseries isn’t nearly as quotable, at least I don’t have to turn the volume up to the maximum level to understand it. And while film snobs doubtless find John Alexander’s directing inferior to Ang Lee’s, I find it much more engaging to watch. And while there are few actresses whom I consider more charismatic than Emma Thompson, who besides writing the 1995 screenplay also played Elinor, Hattie Morahan looks far closer to the heroine’s age, making her emotional maturity more impressive. Charity Wakefield is likewise a good Marianne.

Dan Stevens and David Morrisey are appealing as the heroines’ respective love interests

and Mark Gatiss, Claire Skinner and Anna Madeley shine as the hissable villains. Sense and Sensibility boasts some of the best of those character types that Austen ever created.[11]The most interesting of them is the Dashwood sisters’ greedy half-brother, John, since he’s the only one who regularly shows glimmers of a conscience.

There’s only one actor here who’s really miscast but I’ll get to him later since he’s the biggest problem with this miniseries.

As I mentioned, this adaptation doesn’t do the best job of making its original dialogue blend with Austen’s. In the first episode, Elinor’s love interest, Edward Ferrars, describes himself as “a ship without an anchor” after his father’s death, which sounds too poetic for an Austen character. (I also suspect the literary Marianne would condemn it for being “a commonplace phrase.”) Weirder is a line in the third episode comparing Marianne to a wild horse who needs to be tamed by her true love, Col. Brandon. Not only does that not sound like something Jane Austen would have written, isn’t it rather offensive to modern sensibilities? To its credit, the series takes plenty of its dialogue from the book though it doesn’t choose the funniest lines. This is probably the least funny of Andrew Davies’s Jane Austen adaptations.[12]His Emma just manages to be funnier in my opinion. That’s disappointing considering how hilarious the book’s biting sarcasm was. In particular, the various annoying social butterflies that plague the Dashwoods with their friendliness, such as Sir John Middleton (Mark Williams), Mrs. Jennings (Linda Bassett) and Mrs. Palmer (Tabitha Wady), aren’t nearly as entertaining as they are in the book or the 1995 movie. This is especially disappointing to me since as an introvert, I appreciate Austen’s skewering of annoyingly friendly people.

Lest that sound too contemptuous, one of the heartwarming things about the literary Sense and Sensibility was how the annoyingly friendly characters genuinely cared about the Dashwoods and rallied around them during the crises of the climax.[13]As did the bitterly caustic Mr. Palmer (Tim McMullan in the miniseries.) Except for Mrs. Jennings, we sadly don’t see any of that in this adaptation and even with her, we don’t see it much. I wish the miniseries had spent less of its time on montages of the main characters’ daily lives and more time developing the supporting cast. As it is, I’m ready for the series to be done well before the last episode is over. To be fair though, I also feel that the original book could have stood to be shorter, so I guess that’s just accurate adaptation. Still, I’d say the series could have made better use of its runtime than it does.

On the plus side, this adaptation includes the memorable characters of Edward Ferrars’s tyrannical mother (Jean Marsh) and the ditzy Anne Steele (entertaining Daisy Haggard), both of whom were cut from the 1995 film.[14]Technically, Mrs. Ferrars still existed but we never saw her onscreen.

There’s some beautiful scenery in this miniseries once the Dashwoods move to the seaside.

It also does a good job of making Marianne’s eyebrow raising actions, which don’t seem all that scandalous to us nowadays, like letting her suitor have a lock of her hair or being alone with him in his house, come across as sexy.[15]Well, the hair thing might still seem sexy to us if anyone ever did it anymore.

This brings us to that big casting blunder to which I darkly alluded earlier. Dominic Cooper is simply not appealing as Marianne’s romantic false lead, Mr. Willoughby. He doesn’t come across as a charming hero who turns out to be a villain. He comes across as, well, a villain. Mind you, it’s not super hard to guess his role in the original book which is why I’m not apologizing for spoiling it here. Nearly every Jane Austen book has a male character who seems like the perfect match for the heroine but who ends up being an antagonist to some extent.[16]A few of her books also have female characters like this. By contrast, another man, like Col. Brandon, will initially seem like a bad match for her but prove to be the real love interest in the end. Even ignoring that, Willoughby seems just too good to be true at the beginning of the story. He seems so perfect for the high maintenance Marianne and is introduced so early that the very structure of the story leads us to wait for the other shoe to drop. Still, even if we can easily guess he’ll be a villain, we should still be able to understand the other characters-even Elinor to an extent-being charmed by him.

Is this the face of a man who can be trusted?

This isn’t just a problem with the actor. The writing also spends too much time telegraphing that Willoughby is no good. The very first scene of the miniseries, before the opening credits, shows him seducing a vulnerable young woman (Caroline Hayes) as ominous music plays.[17]A snarky fan on the internet once described the opening thus. “SEX!!! And now a Jane Austen novel.” Since we never see his face in the scene, it’s likely we’re not supposed to guess his identity but it’s also likely that we do anyway. (We do hear his voice.) Ominous music also plays when Col. Brandon, whom we’ve already established as a sympathetic character, meets Willoughby at the end of the first episode. The colonel abruptly leaves. “How extraordinary,” says the girls’ mother (Janet McTeer.) “He’s an extraordinary man,” says Willoughby, a little too casually. This is the episode’s cliffhanger, so the series clearly expects us to find it dramatic. It’s also clear from the music that we’re not just supposed to pity Brandon, who now has a rival for Marianne and didn’t have much hope even before that, but to be suspicious of Willoughby. Towards the beginning of the next episode, Brandon takes him aside and asks him about his intentions towards Marianne. Willoughby responds by taunting him. It’s true that Willoughby mocked Brandon in the book, as did Marianne under his influence, and this was a bad sign. But there they mocked him behind his back and their mockery was witty, not just petty or childish. While the scene that is Willoughby’s final bid for sympathy in the last episode takes much of its dialogue from the book, Elinor is never tempted, as she is there and as Austen herself may have been tempted, to pity him despite her better judgement. It’s true that he probably doesn’t deserve pity but if nobody is even tempted to give it to him, what’s the point of including the scene?

Notwithstanding that major problem, this retelling of Sense and Sensibility works albeit not brilliantly. I was probably wrong to call it so-so. It’s more like…OK-ish. While this is hardly the best written of Andrew Davies’s adaptations of classic literature, it’s hardly the worst either.[18]Or if it is, that reflects well on him. I like Marianne’s insight in the final episode that Willoughby deceived not only her and her family but even himself. And while her summary of the story’s seemingly antiromantic message may have undertones of being embarrassed by it and wanting to explain it away, it’s also an accurate summary and I like it too.

It is not what we say or feel that makes us what we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do.

References

References
↑1 Though I should stress I feel Sense and Sensibility (2008) works much better as piece of entertainment.
↑2 There’s also a third sister, Margaret (played by Lucy Boynton in the 2008 miniseries), but she’s not important.
↑3 That’s not to say Jane Austen never wrote about relationships between women. Far from it. She just usually focused more on relationships between men and women.
↑4 Austen lived during the Romantic era and the emotionalism of Victorian culture was on the horizon.
↑5 In fairness, most, if not all of those movies, also show unrestrained emotions, such as anger, having negative consequences. But few, if any of them, really seem to want viewers to notice that.
↑6 In her culture “sensibility” meant something like sensitivity. It’s a good thing she wasn’t writing today because Sense and Sensitivity would be a horrible title.
↑7 As the book nears its conclusion, we get more moments where Elinor visibly betrays her emotions, and they aren’t moments where we’re meant to dislike her.
↑8 Persuasion, her last completed novel and probably her “girliest,” is something of an exception. The heroine’s biggest regret at the beginning is that she didn’t take a romantic risk in her youth and a sign that the romantic false lead is a phony is that he never shows “any burst of feeling and warmth of indignation or delight at the good or evil of others.” Even in Persuasion though, Austen gives the heroine a foil whose impetuosity and risk taking gets her in trouble. And while the book concludes with the “bad morality” that “When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor or ever so imprudent or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other’s comfort,” it stresses that with its romantic leads, that was far from the case.
↑9 The book A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz comes highly recommended in this context.
↑10 Of course, you could argue that keeping music to a minimum fits the message of “be less emotional.” I probably sound like Marianne with these criticisms.
↑11 The most interesting of them is the Dashwood sisters’ greedy half-brother, John, since he’s the only one who regularly shows glimmers of a conscience.
↑12 His Emma just manages to be funnier in my opinion.
↑13 As did the bitterly caustic Mr. Palmer (Tim McMullan in the miniseries.)
↑14 Technically, Mrs. Ferrars still existed but we never saw her onscreen.
↑15 Well, the hair thing might still seem sexy to us if anyone ever did it anymore.
↑16 A few of her books also have female characters like this.
↑17 A snarky fan on the internet once described the opening thus. “SEX!!! And now a Jane Austen novel.”
↑18 Or if it is, that reflects well on him.
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This Special Is a Mixed Bag, Charlie Brown

Posted on March 8, 2025 by stationmaster

The 2011 animated special Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown came at a strange crossroads in the history of the Peanuts franchise. It was made neither by Mendelson/Melendez productions nor by Apple TV but by Warner Bros television. Despite the lengths to which it goes to recreate the feel of classic Peanuts, there’s nothing quite like it.

There’s also a lot to love about the thing, starting with the premise. Linus Van Pelt’s blanket-hating grandmother will be visiting his family in a week and if he hasn’t given up his beloved “security blanket” by then, she’s threatened to make him give it up. This allows directors Andy Beall and Frank Molieri and writers Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Craig Schulz (The Peanuts Movie) to adapt some of the most memorable storylines from the comic strip about Linus either trying to kick his blanket habit or someone else forcibly taking it from him. I’m delighted by this since Linus’s relationship with his blanket has long been one of my favorite running gags in Peanuts, but it had never been the main subject of a special before this.[1]I’d be remiss though not to mention that two of the storylines here were previously adapted in a segment of the episodic 1983 special It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown. While that was very … Continue reading I am disappointed that Linus agreeing to give up his blanket if Grandma gave up smoking isn’t included here but I can see it wouldn’t have fit in with this special’s story.

Happiness Is a Warm Blanket was clearly made by ardent Peanuts fans. At one point, it even recreates the very first comic as part of a flashback montage. In another scene, Charlie Brown can be seen eating snicker snacks, his favorite cereal at one point in the comic’s history. Now that’s something hardly anyone would know!

Mark Mothersbaugh’s music does a great job of evoking Vince Guaraldi’s compositions for the classic Peanuts specials while still doing its own thing on occasion to good effect. The character designs are unusual in that they specifically evoke the look of the strip in the later 50s and early 60s. (The choices of which characters to use reflects this as well.) You see, the visual style of Peanuts evolved over time. Back when the comic strip was still running, the characters in the movies and specials would always be designed to look the way they currently did in the newspapers. After Peanuts creator Charles Schulz’s death, they would either look the way they did in the 90s or like the most recognizable versions of themselves. The specifically 50s-vibe of Happiness Is a Warm Blanket stands out and not in a bad way.

Unfortunately, the creators’ goal of having the child voice actors sound like the ones from the oldest Peanuts specials doesn’t work as well. The monotone line readings that sounded charmingly amateurish when coming from, well, amateurs just sound flat when they’re being imitated by actors who would probably have done better if they’d been allowed to make the characters their own. Trenton Rogers, who voices both Charlie Brown and Schroeder, particularly feels like a soulless carbon copy of their original voices. And it’s unfortunate that Grace Rolek is one of the least memorable Lucies, given that the character has a major role as antagonist in this special. The best vocal performance is easily that of Austin Lux as Linus, which is fortunate since he’s the protagonist and has a lot of dramatic lines to deliver. The second-best vocal performance is Amanda Pace’s adorable turn as Sally.

Despite its pains to evoke the oldest Peanuts specials, Happiness Is a Warm Blanket regularly employs camera angles that wouldn’t have been used in them. I don’t have a problem with this in theory. I’ve enjoyed seeing Peanuts animation be visually ambitious in the past. But what with the aggressively retro approach of every other aspect of this special, I find it odd and distracting.

While nearly all of the special’s jokes come from the comic strip, it often fiddles with them and expands on them, usually so that it can include more characters. Sometimes this works well, as in the aforementioned flashback montage, but other times it just ruins the comic timing. The worst example of this is how it adapts the hilarious comic where Charlie Brown manages to keep a kite in the air without it crashing or getting tangled up in anything, only for it to explode as if the laws of physics refused to let him fly a kite. In Happiness Is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown flying the kite is in the background during a conversation between Linus and Lucy rather than being the focus of the scene. This makes the punchline more confusing than funny.

This is going to sound odd coming from me since I’ve praised the slow pacing of old Peanuts movies in the past but this special feels a bit too slow. There are a lot of scenes with the supporting Peanuts characters that-on a first viewing-don’t seem to connect to the story of Linus and his blanket at all and-on a first viewing-come across as padding. Presumably, Stephan Pastis knew this was the only Peanuts special he was going to make and wanted to include his favorite characters but the choice of comics to adapt isn’t the best. Some of them like Lucy destroying Schroeder’s bust of Beethoven only for him to reveal he has a whole closetful of them, are ones that have appeared in previous Peanuts specials.

I will say this special does it with a flair that’s never been done before.

But that’s on the first viewing. In the end, all the seemingly irrelevant comedic business pays off as Linus gives a big speech defending his blanket addiction in one of the best dramatic moments in the history of Peanuts animation. Its greatness is especially notable in that it’s one of the few moments in this special that is entirely original and not just taking what Charles Schulz wrote/drew and giving it a little twist. Yet it feels as if it could have been written by him. That’s what I appreciate about Happiness Is a Warm Blanket now more than when it was first released. For all its flaws, you can tell the creators are trying to capture the spirit of Peanuts even as they do a bit of their own thing. By contrast, the modern Peanuts specials produced by Apple TV may have their gentle charms, but they seldom feel like Peanuts.[2]To understand what I mean, compare the classic special It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown to the recent It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown, which has a very similar premise but is infinitely … Continue reading

(My spoiler-averse readers should probably bail out now.) In the end, this special even finds a way to have Lucy come to terms with Linus’s blanket without flying in the face of her character. There’s no way to actually write dialogue for her saying she accepts the blanket, which is what Apple TV or The Peanuts Movie would do, without sounding wrong.[3]Even in the heartwarming A Charlie Brown Christmas, the nicest thing she says is “Charlie Brown is a blockhead but he did get a nice tree.” Happiness Is a Blanket has her show her support with the slightest of facial expressions. It’s an understated moment but a beautiful one in context.

References

References
↑1 I’d be remiss though not to mention that two of the storylines here were previously adapted in a segment of the episodic 1983 special It’s an Adventure, Charlie Brown. While that was very far from being the greatest piece of Peanuts animation, it did add a gloss to how Linus’s blanket is returned to him after one separation which was a great stand-up-and-cheer moment.
↑2 To understand what I mean, compare the classic special It’s Arbor Day, Charlie Brown to the recent It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown, which has a very similar premise but is infinitely more touchy-feely and less funny.
↑3 Even in the heartwarming A Charlie Brown Christmas, the nicest thing she says is “Charlie Brown is a blockhead but he did get a nice tree.”
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Ranting About Cyrano (2021)

Posted on February 14, 2025 by stationmaster

Cyrano (2021) is a movie adaptation of a 2018 stage musical which was itself based on Edmond Rostand’s 1897 tragic comedy-or comic tragedy-Cyrano de Bergerac. I’d better state upfront that this is going to be one of those blog posts where I can’t explain my opinions about the adaptation without giving away practically the entire plot of the original story, so anyone unfamiliar with Rostand’s masterpiece should really stop reading right now and go experience it first. I recommend the 1950 English-language movie starring Jose Ferrer, which was my introduction to the play.[1]Actually, my introduction was an episode of Wishbone, but I’d forgotten about that by the time I saw the 1950 movie. If you’d prefer to experience it in the original language, there’s the 1990 film starring Gerard Depardieu. Or you could always just read Edmond Rostand’s script itself. If, like me, you don’t speak French, the best English translation I’ve found is the one by Brian Hooker. Mind you, I can’t say if it’s the most accurate but if it’s not, it must have improved upon what it was translating.

You’ll notice I haven’t recommended watching Cyrano (2021) itself as an introduction to this story.

Yep. This is going to be one of those posts.

Cyrano starts by annoying me right off the bat. The scene is Paris circa 1640. The beautiful Roxanne (Haley Bennet) is getting ready to attend the theater with the villainous Duke de Guiche (Ben Mendelsohn.) Her servant/chaperone, Marie (Monica Dolan), urges her to marry him but she protests that she doesn’t even like him, let alone love him. Marie reminds her that she’s running out of money. “A clever marriage is your only option,” she says. Argh! Does every period piece have to include a version of this scene? I’m not saying none of them should do so. Both the 1995 Sense and Sensibility and the 2019 Little Women have the female characters lament that marriage is the only way they can get financial security in their culture and those are both wonderfully written adaptations.[2]As I’ve written before, I don’t find the movies themselves that fun to watch but their screenplays (by Emma Thompson and Greta Gerwig respectively) are great. One of my favorite movies/musicals, Fiddler on the Roof, has a whole song (Matchmaker) on the topic. But with each of those movies, the topic actually relates to the classic story being retold. By contrast, Roxanne’s financial status is never an issue throughout the rest of Cyrano.[3]To be fair, it was developed a bit more in the screenplay as written as was the character of Marie. But that was cut from the final film. The opening conversation serves no purpose but to make the movie needlessly cliche. Sure, feminists may appreciate the movie acknowledging the historical hardship faced by women, but you know what feminists might also appreciate, possibly more so? A period piece where the heroine is a powerful figure who can marry whatever man she chooses.[4]The 1950 movie made a better attempt to make the material more feminist by having Roxanne explain to Cyrano why she demands her lover be both handsome and eloquent thus: “You men own the world … Continue reading

At the theater, we meet our hero, master poet/swordsman Cyrano de Bergerac (Peter Dinklage, husband of Erica Schmidt, who wrote the movie and the stage musical.) The musical’s biggest twist on the original play is that instead of having a ridiculously big nose, Cyrano’s big physical defect is that he’s a little person. I’m sorry but I fail to see the appeal of this. It changes the tone of the story since dwarfism is a real reason a man would feel like a conventionally attractive woman could never love him. Nothing wrong with stories about serious real-world problems, of course, but what was wrong with the story being “a heroic comedy” as Rostand intended? Was it just so Dinklage could play the character? That’s not the worst reason since he’s the movie’s biggest asset. But why not have Cyrano be both a little person and have his traditional deformity?[5]Well, one reason might be that it’s arguably important that the thing keeping Cyrano from being handsome or at least not unhandsome is technically small. It’s his vanity more than his … Continue reading Is Dinklage just too big an actor to wear a gag nose?

Maybe I could respect the choice if this Cyrano really felt like it was trying to be a grittier, more realistic and grounded version of the story. But with its modern sounding dialogue[6]The mindsets of the characters are also, more or less, modern compared to those in the original play., the caricatured performances of most of the supporting cast and the cheesy musical numbers, this movie doesn’t really feel like it’s avoiding goofiness.

How can I complain about the musical numbers in this movie when I love the ones in Les Misérables (2012), another modern movie adaptation of a stage musical based on a classic work of French literature, especially since it’s one that’s darker and grittier than Cyrano de Bergerac? Shouldn’t they be more of a hindrance to taking that story seriously? Likely, it’s an innate advantage of a sung-through musical over a non-sung-through musical. Since (almost) every scene in Les Misérables is a song[7]This is not as true of the movie version as of the stage musical but it’s close to the truth., it’s easier to get used to it and accept that this is a world where people sing all the time instead of talking. With the characters in Cyrano and other such musicals alternating between singing and speaking, it’s more jarring.[8]I know this isn’t a universally held opinion and there are viewers who feel Les Misérables didn’t need to consist entirely of songs. What can I say? Those viewers aren’t writing … Continue reading I think it also might be because there’s lots of singing in Les Misérables but barely any dancing, so it doesn’t try to make bakers baking bread a metaphor for sexual desire or have a training session for a garrison of soldiers turn into a ballet or show characters rubbing love letters against their skin like they’re making out with them.

But I suspect the main reason is that Les Misérables‘s songs are just much better than the ones lyricists Matt Berninger and Carin Besser and composers Aaron and Bryce Dessner wrote for Cyrano. Maybe I was overly harsh to call them cheesy, but I can’t give any of them a more positive description than “pleasant.” The one that comes closest to being memorable is Heaven Is Wherever I Fall, in which various soldiers about die reminisce about their loved ones. It’s a problem when the most moving song in your musical is all about background characters.

The movie may not entirely dispense with the original play’s often whimsical tone, but it frequently bungles what made its comedy work-or its drama work for that matter. (This is the part of the blog post that will really spoil a first viewing experience, so if anyone newcomers haven’t bailed out yet, now is the time.) Early in Rostand’s version, Roxanne confides in Cyrano, her cousin,[9]The 2021 has them be old friends to reduce any squickiness. Remember what I mentioned about the characters being modernized. that she and a handsome new recruit in his regiment, Christian de Neuvillette (Kelvin Harrison Jr in this movie) are in love though they have never spoken. She asks him to protect the man, not realizing that Cyrano is secretly in love with her himself. Later, to impress the other cadets who are hazing him, Christian insults the infamously touchy Cyrano’s nose. Cyrano is about to literally kill him when he’s told his name and immediately restrains himself for Roxanne’s sake. But, as Cyrano is recounting a story, Christian keeps making nose puns. Finally, Cyrano explodes and orders everyone else out of the room. The audience and most of the characters expect the worst but once Cyrano is alone with Christian, he embraces him and says he’s glad the man Roxanne loves is so brave. The musical simplifies this scenario to the point that it’s only a fifth as funny and not a tenth as suspenseful. Later, while it keeps Cyrano being told to stall the predatory De Guiche until Christian and Roxanne have wed, the movie completely removes the sequence of him posing as a lunatic who claims to have been to the moon.[10]An allusion to the actual writing of the historical Cyrano. Why?!

In the original play, not only did Roxanne sneak past enemy lines to be with Christian on the battlefield and possibly die with him but she smuggled in a feast for the starving French troops. Like Anthony Burgess’s 1970 English translation, this movie dispenses with all that, presumably because it’s not realistic.[11]In his defense, Burgess did later revise his translation to be closer to the text. Again, with the realism thing? This story isn’t supposed to be realistic. It’s supposed to be fun. And when so many modern adaptations strain themselves trying to make the heroines more proactive, it’s bizarre to see this one make her less so, especially since it sometimes seems like it’s trying to offer a female perspective on the material. (When De Guiche admiringly says that only a woman could suggest a plan of revenge such as the one she, for secret purposes of her own, has given him, she retorts that “only a man could think so.”) Instead of having Roxanne being physically present to tell Christian she now loves him for his “soul,” not his looks, the musical has her tell him this in a letter. Since Cyrano has been the one ghostwriting all of Christian’s love letters and feeding him all his romantic lines, Christian realizes this means it’s truly Cyrano Roxanne loves, and he’s already realized Cyrano loves her. He insists Cyrano tell her the truth and that their unconsummated marriage be annulled if she wishes it. In Rostand’s version, this leads to Cyrano questioning Roxanne as to whether she’d really love Christian if he were ugly, hardly daring to believe this. When she insists it’s true, his hopes rise and he’s about to confess, when he’s informed that Christian is dying. Unwilling to let him die unmourned by Roxanne, he resolves to keep up the deception. Of course, in the movie, there is no Roxanne present so there are none of the rising and falling hopes that make the scene so dramatic. No sooner has Christian insisted that Roxanne be told the truth than he is killed. What’s more, Cyrano’s decision not to tell Roxanne, which was already hard to understand in the original, becomes completely baffling here. Since Christian’s last wishes were that Roxanne know all, not telling her seems disrespectful to him as well as brutally unfair to her. The whole ending becomes boring in its bleakness rather than satisfyingly tragic.[12]This excellent LiveJournal post about the Anthony Burgess translation makes many of the same points I am making.

Having said all that, I’m going to give this movie a mild recommendation. Why?

Well, the dialogue may not be Rostand, but it is generally fun and engaging and it retains enough of his ideas to be interesting. Director Joe Wright (Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice) makes the movie look good even if he doesn’t have the best taste in scripts. I love the staging of Christian’s one attempt to woo Roxanne with his own words with the two of them staring down from a great height in keeping with his feelings of panic. Bennet and Harrison are appealing in their roles. But it’s Dinklage who really saves the film. His tough, scrappy Cyrano vividly conveys having had to fight for people’s respect his entire life. Yet when he speaks with Roxanne-or even just speaks of her-the vulnerability in his eyes can break your heart.

Even burdened with a boring song, he shines in the classic scene of Cyrano impersonating Christian in the dark, expressing his real feelings for Roxanne for once.

I like the painted ceiling behind Roxanne, symbolizing how Cyrano and Christian equate her with Heaven.

I’ve claimed that the changes this adaptation makes to the climax ruin the ending, but Dinklage and company still manage to make the last scene a powerful tearjerker.

I’d still recommend any of the versions of this story I mentioned in this post’s first paragraph over this one. But if, after partaking of them, you become a fan, it wouldn’t hurt to check this Cyrano out too.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

References

References
↑1 Actually, my introduction was an episode of Wishbone, but I’d forgotten about that by the time I saw the 1950 movie.
↑2 As I’ve written before, I don’t find the movies themselves that fun to watch but their screenplays (by Emma Thompson and Greta Gerwig respectively) are great.
↑3 To be fair, it was developed a bit more in the screenplay as written as was the character of Marie. But that was cut from the final film.
↑4 The 1950 movie made a better attempt to make the material more feminist by having Roxanne explain to Cyrano why she demands her lover be both handsome and eloquent thus: “You men own the world and all that is in it. Woman is at best a prize, a property valued much the same as a horse or a dog…If I must be chattel, then the terms shall be mine and the price according to my own values.”
↑5 Well, one reason might be that it’s arguably important that the thing keeping Cyrano from being handsome or at least not unhandsome is technically small. It’s his vanity more than his actual appearance that hurts him.
↑6 The mindsets of the characters are also, more or less, modern compared to those in the original play.
↑7 This is not as true of the movie version as of the stage musical but it’s close to the truth.
↑8 I know this isn’t a universally held opinion and there are viewers who feel Les Misérables didn’t need to consist entirely of songs. What can I say? Those viewers aren’t writing this blog.
↑9 The 2021 has them be old friends to reduce any squickiness. Remember what I mentioned about the characters being modernized.
↑10 An allusion to the actual writing of the historical Cyrano.
↑11 In his defense, Burgess did later revise his translation to be closer to the text.
↑12 This excellent LiveJournal post about the Anthony Burgess translation makes many of the same points I am making.
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A Cinderella Musical That’s Not Rodgers and Hammerstein

Posted on January 17, 2025 by stationmaster

The Slipper and the Rose: The Story of Cinderella is a 1976 cinematic musical retelling of the famous story of the siege of Orleans.

Just kidding. It’s a retelling of Cinderella.

There’s plenty to love about this film, starting (literally) with the spectacular Austrian scenery in its opening credits.

Its greatest strength is highly witty dialogue courtesy of the screenplay by director Bryan Forbes and songwriters Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman.[1]I’ve mentioned them on this blog before. Much, if not all, of the humor is actually aimed more at adults than at kids as you would expect. It doesn’t always make me laugh out loud, but it’s always got personality. In one of the first scenes, the king of the fictional kingdom of Euphrania (Michael Hordern) is about to bestow a knighthood on his son, the prince (Richard Chamberlain), who protests he hasn’t earned it. “Nobody earns this,” his father retorts. “It’s given because I am the king, and I like it.” As part of the ceremony, the king kisses the newly minted knight on the cheek. “That’s the part I like best,” says the queen (an underused Lally Bowers) to her companion. “Sometimes I give medals to a whole regiment!”

Later in the movie, the king is told by his lord chamberlain (Kenneth More) that of the sixteen princesses he has invited to “a bride finding ball” for his son, only six will be coming. “Well, I think that’s a fair average, don’t you?” he says. To pay for the event, the king announces that he’ll put a tax on snobbery, something all his nobles will have to pay. In the next scene, Cinderella (Gemma Craven)’s stepmother (hilarious Margaret Lockwood) and stepsisters, Palatine (Sherrie Hewson) and Isobella (Rosalind Ayres), go to a dress shop to buy apparel for the ball, only to be told by the shopkeeper (Norman Bird) that he’s sold out. “Sold out?! What do you mean, you ridiculous man?” demands the outraged stepmother. “How can you be sold out when we have not purchased anything?”

It should be clear by now that the movie benefits from a great supporting cast. Not only a great cast of actors but a lot of fun roles for them to fill. In addition to those I’ve already mentioned there are Dame Edith Evans as the senile dowager queen, Julian Orchard as the prince’s mincing, sycophantic cousin, the duke of Montague, and, best of all, Annette Crosbie as Cinderella’s fairy godmother whom I can only describe as genteelly grumpy. This blog has covered several adaptations of this fairy tale and many of them have had fun takes on the fairy godmother, but this version might very well be my favorite. “I suppose I shall simply have to rise to the occasion again and do something spectacular,” she laments at one point, “and spectaculars always take so much out of me!” It doesn’t hurt that the fairy godmother sings Suddenly It Happens, the musical’s best attempt at a dramatic song.

The mention of the musical numbers brings me to the movie’s…less consistently strong points. A good rule of thumb for The Slipper and the Rose is that if a song is trying to be fun, like What Has Love Got to Do With Being Married? or What a Comforting Thing to Know, it’s fun but if it’s trying to be serious, like Once I Was Loved or I Can’t Forget the Melody, it’s painfully dull. There are exceptions to this rule, one of which I’ve already mentioned, but it generally holds true.[2]It’s also true, though not quite to the same extent, of the Sherman brothers’ 1973 musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer though thankfully that one has far fewer serious songs.

The movie’s biggest flaw is also, alas, the main thing that distinguishes it from other cinematic Cinderellas. It makes the prince the main character. Maybe there’s a way that could have been interesting and not just an arbitrary gimmick but if so, the film doesn’t find it. The prince doesn’t have a wicked stepfamily or a fairy godmother. There’s really no good reason he, rather than Cinderella, should be the center of the story. And his entire character pretty much consists of complaining about what a pain it is to be a prince and have to marry a princess. Nearly every line of dialogue he has is along those lines.[3]The fairy godmother’s dialogue also mostly consists of complaints, but we’re not necessarily meant to take them seriously and, anyway, they’re funnier. Even when his father’s royal ball to which he objected introduces him to Cinderella, he doesn’t apologize or rethink his earlier stance. Instead, he blames her mysterious disappearance on his father and continues to rant against him. If the writing weren’t so witty and Richard Chamberlain didn’t do his best to make the character likeable, he’d be downright insufferable. I’m not saying that having to make a politically advantageous marriage or even just endure the tedious formalities of royal life isn’t a real burden but there are others out there with worse problems like, I don’t know…Cinderella!

And the real shame is that Gemma Craven is so sweetly appealing as the famous heroine. I’d love it if she were the main focus of the movie.

All the prince’s talk about royal life not being as great as it’s cracked up to be might have seemed original back in 1976 but similar fictional prince and princesses since have made it conventional. And, honestly, I’d argue this take on Cinderella’s prince wasn’t even that unusual even back in the day. It’s pretty standard for retellings of this story to portray him as resenting his parents’ wishes for him to wed. While we’re told about the prince more than we actually see him in Disney’s 1950 animated Cinderella, what we hear of him and what we do see of him at the ball prior to Cinderella’s entrance suggest he’s a rebel, first refusing to marry and settle down and then refusing to marry any but one particular woman. All three movie versions of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, two of which came out before The Slipper and the Rose, despite their different scripts, have the prince view the ball as a dehumanizing contest with him as the prize. In Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998), not only does the prince not want to make a connubial alliance but he confides in the Cinderella character that he doesn’t want to become king at all and be perpetually “defined by (his) position.” She responds that countless lower-class people also suffer from being only seen as what they are, not who they are, and if he became king, he could help them. I wish The Slipper and the Rose went that route, but it doesn’t. To its credit though, it does have a subplot in which the prince bestows a knighthood on his companion-at-arms, John (Christopher Gable), allowing him to marry his sweetheart, Lady Caroline (Polly Williams.) That goes some way toward making the prince less of a whiner and more likeable.

However, the John-and-Caroline subplot also reflects the movie’s second biggest flaw. It’s two hours and twenty-six minutes and you really feel them. Even some of the more fun songs can drag. (The less said about the serious ones, the better.) To give you a really good idea of this, I’m going to have to spoil several scenes, so if you’re really interested in seeing the movie, skip to the last paragraph. In most Cinderella movies, this is how the prince finds Cinderella after the ball. We get a montage of the glass slipper being tried on all the single girls in the kingdom. It ends with the stepsisters’ turn. After they fail, Cinderella tries on the slipper, and it fits. She marries the prince and the movie is over. In The Slipper and the Rose, we get the standard montage including the stepsisters, but Cinderella strangely doesn’t even appear in the scene. Then three months pass! John and the prince talk about their love problems. We get a song and dance number, Position and Positioning. (To be fair, it’s pretty fun.) The prince knights John. Then the prince throws away the slipper in the despair. Cinderella’s dog-she has a dog in this version-brings it to her. She dances with it in a meadow where John and Caroline happen to be picnicking. They see her and go tell the prince. He rides up on his horse and kisses Cinderella. And the movie still isn’t wrapping up!

We’ve now reached The Slipper and the Rose‘s biggest addition to the traditional fairy tale. After she’s been presented to the court, the lord chamberlain privately and gently explains to Cinderella that if the prince doesn’t make a politically advantageous marriage, the kingdom will be consumed by war. Tearfully, she agrees to give him up. This scene features some beautiful acting from both Kenneth More and Gemma Craven. I especially like the moment where Cinderella briefly appears bitter (“You have forgotten nothing then.”) but then sees the chamberlain’s regret and implicitly apologizes. (“I thank you for bringing such tidings with tact and understanding.”) It also leads to the movie’s second-best attempt at a dramatic song, Tell Him Anything (But Not That I Love Him.)[4]By the way, if you’re wondering about the rose in the film’s title, at the beginning of the song, Cinderella stares at a bouquet of roses from one of which a petal dramatically drops. … Continue reading

But I almost feel like the scene makes too good a case against the marriage between the lovers. Sure, it’s sad if they don’t end up together, but isn’t the well-being of a whole nation of citizens more important than the happiness of just two?[5]The position the movie itself takes is a little hard to interpret. During the scene itself of Cinderella agreeing to give up the prince, it feels like we’re supposed to admire her, but the … Continue reading Maybe the problem is that the romance between this Cinderella and her prince, which mostly involves staring into each other’s faces, just isn’t moving enough for us to forget about all the realistic problems with the match. Having established that either the couple can be together, or their kingdom must be ravaged by war, the movie then resolves this seemingly insurmountable dilemma with a deus ex machina.[6]What happens to absolve the prince of his responsibilities is arguably kind of creepy if you think about it. But in all fairness, if you have a problem with a deus ex machina, you’re probably not the target audience for Cinderella.

If you’re not interested in Cinderella adaptations and don’t appreciate these lengthy, old school movie musicals, this one probably won’t make you a convert.[7]Unless maybe your problem with Cinderella is that it doesn’t have enough court intrigue or political satire. But if you are part of the target audience, give it a chance. Its charms may reward you and even the things I’ve described as flaws at least help it stand out as interesting.

References

References
↑1 I’ve mentioned them on this blog before.
↑2 It’s also true, though not quite to the same extent, of the Sherman brothers’ 1973 musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer though thankfully that one has far fewer serious songs.
↑3 The fairy godmother’s dialogue also mostly consists of complaints, but we’re not necessarily meant to take them seriously and, anyway, they’re funnier.
↑4 By the way, if you’re wondering about the rose in the film’s title, at the beginning of the song, Cinderella stares at a bouquet of roses from one of which a petal dramatically drops. That’s the only justification for the title I can remember. I don’t get it either.
↑5 The position the movie itself takes is a little hard to interpret. During the scene itself of Cinderella agreeing to give up the prince, it feels like we’re supposed to admire her, but the fairy godmother scolds her for it later.
↑6 What happens to absolve the prince of his responsibilities is arguably kind of creepy if you think about it.
↑7 Unless maybe your problem with Cinderella is that it doesn’t have enough court intrigue or political satire.
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Is Return to Oz Really the Better Oz Adaptation?

Posted on January 3, 2025 by stationmaster

Whenever anyone does a parody or an homage to The Wizard of Oz, you can bet they’re really doing one to the 1939 MGM movie, not the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.[1]From what I understand, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire is a partial exception, taking some cues from the book and some from the movie. Understandably, this can bug fans of the original book. A film that some recommend as a superior alternative to MGM’s The Wizard of Oz is Return to Oz, the 1985 sequel (of sorts) from Disney which combines the stories The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, L. Frank Baum’s first two literary follow-ups to The Wonderful Wizard. Return to Oz was bombed with critics and audiences upon its initial release but has since gained a cult following. It’s relatively common to read people online say they prefer it to MGM’s The Wizard of Oz because it has a darker tone and is truer to the original Oz books.

I disagree with that last claim.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

I agree that in several ways Return to Oz is closer to its source material than your average Oz adaptation. But being darker is not one of them. In his introduction to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Baum wrote that he intended it to be “a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained, and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.” That may seem like an odd description of a story about a girl being carried miles away from her home by a terrible cyclone, attacked by various animals and monsters and enslaved by a tyrannical witch. But there’s truth in it too. However terrible the villains or the peril in the Oz books, Baum’s prose style keeps them from ever being really intense reads. For example, Ozma of Oz begins with Dorothy Gale being swept overboard, clinging to a chicken coop, in a terrible storm at sea. Sounds scary, right? But here’s the book’s description.

Dorothy had a good ducking, you may be sure, but she didn’t lose her presence of mind even for a second… “Why, I’ve got a ship of my own!” she thought, more amused than frightened at her sudden change of condition; and then, as the coop climbed up to the top of a big wave, she looked eagerly around for the ship from which she had been blown. It was far, far away, by this time. Perhaps no one on board had yet missed her, or knew of her strange adventure. Down into a valley between the waves the coop swept her, and when she climbed another crest the ship looked like a toy boat, it was such a long way off. Soon it had entirely disappeared in the gloom, and then Dorothy gave a sigh of regret at parting with Uncle Henry and began to wonder what was going to happen to her next.

Just now she was tossing on the bosom of a big ocean, with nothing to keep her afloat but a miserable wooden hen-coop that had a plank bottom and slatted sides, through which the water constantly splashed and wetted her through to the skin! And there was nothing to eat when she became hungry—as she was sure to do before long—and no fresh water to drink and no dry clothes to put on.

“Well, I declare!” she exclaimed, with a laugh. “You’re in a pretty fix, Dorothy Gale, I can tell you! and I haven’t the least idea how you’re going to get out of it!”

Not exactly spine tingling, is it? Return to Oz by comparison is next door to a horror movie. I don’t mean that as an insult. Horror movies-or movies next door to horror-have their place. I just question whether this is really true to the spirit of the Oz books.

Here’s the setup. It’s been six months since the cyclone and Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) still keeps talking about the Scarecrow (Justin Case), the Tin Woodman (Deep Roy of The Neverending Story and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and the Cowardly Lion (voiced by John Alexander.) Thinking she’s crazy, Aunt Em (Piper Laurie) and Uncle Henry (Matt Clark) send her to the deceptively friendly Doctor Worley (Nicol Williamson) for his new shock therapy treatment. Director Walter Murch and his co-screenwriter Gill Dennis do a great job making the hospital scary with its narrow hallways, tall windows, squeaky gurneys and the stern Nurse Wilson (Jean Marsh.) Just as Dorothy is hooked up to Worley’s machine one stormy night, the electricity goes off. The adults leave to check on this, leaving her strapped to the gurney. Another patient, a girl (Emma Ridley), frees her and tells her they’ve got to escape. The offscreen screams Dorothy can hear, she explains, are patients who have been damaged by the machine and imprisoned in the cellar. The girls flee into the storm with Nurse Wilson pursuing them. They get separated and Dorothy is swept away by a turbulent river.

Horrifying, right? And except for the part about Dorothy being swept away, absolutely none of that is from the books.[2]Though, credit where credit is due, Dr. Worley sounds like the name of an L. Frank Baum character. What’s more, this Oz adaptation is actually copying one of the changes The Wizard of Oz movie made to its source material that book fans tend to find most irritating: having everyone and everything in Kansas correspond to someone and something in Oz. It even has Dorothy fall unconscious prior to waking up in that country and then when she returns home, reawaken in the same place she left without too much time passing. To be fair, the main thing that bothers fans is the implication that Oz is a dream of Dorothy’s and the ending of Return to Oz makes clear that isn’t so.[3]To be fair, to the MGM movie, I’ve heard that it was going to end with a shot of the magic slippers, revealing Oz was real after all but this was dropped for distracting from the main business … Continue reading And, hey, I can’t really blame Return for following in The Wizard of Oz‘s footsteps there because it is fun in both films to play spot-the-actor and hunt-the-parallel especially for kids. Still, this does suggest to me that this adaptation isn’t as free from MGM’s influence as some make it out to be.

In fact, in many ways, it takes a similar approach to adapting the books. It simplifies the story by combining supporting characters and eliminating episodes. Actually, it does even more simplifying since it’s taking two Oz stories and turning them into one.[4]I can’t really blame it for doing that since The Marvelous Land of Oz made the mistake of not featuring Dorothy and who wants a Wizard of Oz sequel without her? You could even argue making the story darker was also something the MGM Wizard of Oz did though you could just as easily argue it wasn’t.[5]On the one hand, the 1939 movie cut the more violent parts of the book, mostly involving the Tin Woodman’s axe. On the other hand, it made the winged monkeys creepier and the Wicked Witch of … Continue reading But make no mistake. In many other ways, Return to Oz does make its own path. There are no musical numbers and more action scenes. Dorothy is played by a child, not a teenager. Both Kansas and Oz are in color.[6]Actually, Kansas being in black and white was sort of from the book. L. Frank Baum described everyone and everything there as being gray. The movie just took him really literally. The sets and locations aren’t just matte paintings. The characters all look more like the illustrations by W. W. Denslow and John. R. Neill. And all that is to generally good effect.

Back to the story. Dorothy finds herself at the outskirts of Oz along with her family’s hen, Billina[7]I wish the movie could have included the story behind her name from Ozma of Oz. who can now talk (and is voiced by Denise Bryer.)[8]Why does Billina get the ability to speak when she arrives in Oz, but Toto didn’t? Well, continuity wasn’t one of Baum’s strengths. Dorothy is delighted to be back but horrified to discover that the Yellow Brick Road has been torn up, the Emerald City is practically a ruin and its denizens, including her old friends, have been reduced to statues.

Again, this is pretty disturbing stuff and again, it’s not true to the books. The Emerald City does get conquered and stripped of its jewels in The Marvelous Land of Oz. But it’s by an army of frustrated housewives armed with knitting needles. They win because the City’s army consists of one soldier whose gun isn’t loaded for fear of accidents. The conquerors’ tyranny consists of making the men do housework and take care of the children and their leader, General Jinjur, just wants to sit on a throne and eat chocolates all day. What I’m saying is it’s played more for laughs. In Return to Oz, creatures called Wheelers[9]Remember those hospital gurneys with squeaky wheels back in Kansas? prowl the Emerald City and menace Dorothy. These come from Ozma of Oz, but I feel the movie makes them creepier than Baum did.

The Wheelers eventually conduct Dorothy to Mombi (Jean Marsh), the sorceress who has declared herself Princess of Oz.[10]What I wonder is what happened to all the good witches? There were two in the book version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and one in the movie. Return to Oz can’t quite make up its mind which … Continue reading Mombi is a combination of three characters from the books: the previously described General Jinjur, an old sorceress from The Marvelous Land of Oz who actually named Mombi and Princess Langwidere from Ozma of Oz who had one neck but kept thirty beautiful heads in a cabinet and wore a different one every day.

The head in this image is played by Fiona Victory

Like Mombi in Return to Oz, Langwidere wanted Dorothy’s head for herself and imprisoned the girl when she refused but she offered to trade Dorothy another head for it. There was no implication that losing her head would kill Dorothy as there is in Return. Langwidere was spoiled and selfish, but she wasn’t much of a villain. According to Baum, the head she happened to be wearing when she met Dorothy had a temper that “was fiery, harsh and haughty in the extreme, and it often led the Princess to do unpleasant things which she regretted when she came to wear her other heads.” When Dorothy’s comrades showed up and demanded her release in Ozma of Oz, Langwidere readily gave it. There was nothing like Return to Oz’s chilling scene of Dorothy sneaking out of Mombi’s room with all the heads in the cabinet coming to life and calling her name and the headless Mombi rising from bed to pursue her.

Dorothy winds up in the underground lair of the Nome King (Nicol Williamson)[11]I prefer the spelling “Gnome King” but Baum felt differently. along with a posse of friends she’s collected along the way. (More on them later.) The Nome King has transformed the Scarecrow into an ornament and agrees to turn him back if any of the heroes can pick him out of a vast collection of ornaments. But if they fail three times, they will become ornaments themselves. This terrible guessing game comes from Ozma of Oz but, as with Mombi and the Wheelers, this adaptation makes the Nome King creepier and in his case, more physically intimidating.[12]It also adds the detail that with each wrong guess the heroes make, he becomes more human though why that should be or why he would want to be human is anyone’s guess. There also isn’t any scene where the King tries to devour any of Dorothy’s friends in Ozma.

Neither does he undergo anything like the disturbing demise he does in Return to Oz.[13]After the Wicked Witch of the West melted, it became rare for villains in the Oz books to die.

For the record, I’m not saying that to bash this movie. I’m cynical about this actually being true to Baum’s vision but that doesn’t mean I disapprove of it on its own terms. After all, while many kids don’t enjoy being scared, many also do enjoy it. And there’s plenty to love about Return to Oz. The Nome King and Mombi are unforgettable villains. The casting is all great. So are the action scenes, the visuals, apart from some bad bluescreen, and the overall direction and sense of atmosphere. A big part of me wants to give this movie a hearty recommendation. Yet…I can’t honestly call this an improvement on The Wizard of Oz (1939) or even its equal. Here’s where I’m really going to alienate fans of the books because I believe this movie’s main problems come not from infidelity to Baum but from following him too closely.

Well, that’s not totally fair. It’s more like the movie glosses over Baum’s storytelling strengths, other than his visual imagination, which was admittedly his main one, while maximizing his weaknesses.

Besides Billina, Dorothy’s comrades in Return to Oz include a mechanical man called TikTok (voiced by Sean Barrett), Jack Pumpkinhead (voiced by Brian Henson), a wooden man with a jack o’ lantern for a head and the Gump (voiced by Lyle Conway), an amalgamation of furniture brought to life by Mombi’s magic powder.[14]Why do the Gump and Jack Pumpkinhead need the magic powder, but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were automatically alive? Like I said, continuity was not one of Baum’s strengths. Regrettably, we don’t get the Wogglebug, the highly magnified and thoroughly educated insect who was the funniest character in The Marvelous Land of Oz. Neither do we get the army with twenty-six officers and one private from Ozma of Oz or that book’s Hungry Tiger who was cursed with both a ravenous appetite and a conscience that kept him from eating anybody. To be fair though, I can’t really think how Return to Oz could have contrived to include any of them. Anyway, Dorothy’s allies that we do get are great fun visually, but they don’t have much in the way of personality. L. Frank Baum was great at ideas for characters-or, perhaps more accurately, he was great at character designs, but he wasn’t great at making them individuals. All their dialogue tended to sound the same. The script for The Wizard of Oz by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf actually improved on the literary characters a little by making Dorothy more vulnerable and conflicted, the Scarecrow a bit more irritable, the Cowardly Lion funnier and the Wizard more silver tongued. Return to Oz, on the other hand, actually makes the characters even less endearing than they were in the source material. The pacing is so fast that we barely get to know them. Billina gets some good funny lines, TikTok has a bit of an arrogant streak, the Gump is grumpy and gets one great pun (“I should have quit when I was a head”) and I honestly can’t remember anything else about their characters.

Something nice that both the book and the movie versions of The Wizard of Oz had that neither The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, nor Return to Oz has is that the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion each had a personal goal of their own. Mind you, I don’t think the story would have become a classic if it had just been about them without Dorothy the lynchpin but the fact that she was helping them as much as they were helping her made the bond between them all feel more real. By contrast, Billina, TikTok, Jack Pumpkinhead and the Gump pretty much exist just to assist Dorothy. I guess that makes sense in TikTok’s case, him being a robot, but it doesn’t make for a great relationship. Jack does have a yearning to find his creator, but this isn’t developed. Perhaps it’s telling that while the villains in Oz have counterpart characters in Kansas, the good guys only have objects if that.[15]There is one big exception, but I don’t want to spoil it.

L. Frank Baum was a genius in some ways. The Oz books are full of creative ideas, exciting plots and fun worldbuilding.[16]Not consistent worldbuilding, mind you, but fun. But he didn’t have a great writing style.[17]Not when writing for children anyway. Much children’s literature at the beginning of the 19th century had a condescending tone. It’s been trying to get away from that for a long time. The prose in the Oz books has a flat, stiff, tone weirdly devoid of human emotion and everyone’s dialogue sounds the same. Sometimes this comes across as hilarious deadpan humor as in the Scarecrow’s nonreaction to learning that his city has been conquered in The Marvelous Land of Oz.[18]One way Baum’s sequels to The Wonderful Wizard improved on it is by having more humor. It also might have come from Baum’s desire to keep from distressing his young readers. But I can’t help feeling it reflects his limitations as an artist. Even as a kid, while I enjoyed the Oz stories quite a bit, I realized they weren’t as well written as, say, the Narnia books or Peter Pan. Not helping was that as the series went on, Oz lost the relative edge of earlier books, becoming so utopian that eventually its denizens were literally not allowed to die.[19]To be fair, this rule did eliminate questions about why the bad guys didn’t just kill the good guys. It crossed the line between charmingly innocent and saccharine and never looked back. I’ve never finished the series and probably never will.

What do I mean by “weirdly devoid of human emotion?” Well, remember that scene from both Ozma of Oz in which Dorothy is imprisoned by someone who wants to take her head? Well, TikTok tries to defend her, but can’t because his machinery has run down. “Well, it can’t be helped,” says Dorothy with a sigh. That’s a ridiculously calm reaction under those circumstances but it comes across as even more so in Return to Oz, which, as I’ve described above, makes Dorothy’s enemy in that scene much scarier. An even worse instance and one that I should stress doesn’t come from the books is when Dorothy, trying to rescue Jack Pumpkinhead, ends up falling out of the sky. He calls out an apology. “That’s all right, Jack,” she calls back as she tumbles seemingly to her doom, “It can’t be helped.” Fairuza Balk is great in this movie but even she can’t sell that dialogue. And the script’s insistence on keeping Baum’s, shall we say, innocent tone clashes bizarrely with its aspirations of being dark and thrilling. I actually think the best written scenes are the ones in Kansas since they don’t try at all to sound like the Oz books.

What both the literary and cinematic versions of The Wizard of Oz had that The Marvelous Land, Ozma of Oz and Return to Oz all lack is a heart. While Baum’s subsequent Oz books had more humor and arguably even more creativity, none of them is considered the classic that is The Wonderful Wizard, and I believe that is because of the emotional resonance of Dorothy’s goal. She can see Oz is infinitely more colorful than her humdrum home but, like Odysseus preferring Penelope to Calypso, that’s what she wants. And MGM’s The Wizard of Oz made this theme even more compelling by making Dorothy’s relationship with her aunt and uncle more complicated, having her initially want to leave Kansas and giving her more of a character arc while still maintaining her most important personality traits from the source material. Theoretically, Return to Oz also has an emotionally compelling theme in that Dorothy’s goal is to save her friends. But as mentioned above, the movie is too fast paced to develop a bond between her and her new friends and it’s hard to worry too much about her old ones when we’ve never met them in this continuity.[20]Presumably, we’re supposed to project our memories of either the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or the movie but it’s hard to say which. On the one hand, Return to Oz includes details … Continue reading I almost wish the filmmakers could have just adapted The Wonderful Wizard. I know I’ve just described the movie as improving upon it, but there are also memorable images and ideas exclusive to the book. Even if it didn’t end up being as iconic as the MGM version, a Wizard of Oz movie in the style of Return could have had its own charms. But I can also sympathize with Baum fans who are tired of the first Oz book being the only to be adapted. As it is, less familiar source material does give this sequel a special appeal.

Rather than improve on the original story, Return to Oz actually makes the resolution depend more on luck than it does in Ozma of Oz. To be fair, the happy endings of Oz books, including that of The Wonderful Wizard-especially that one in fact-depend on coincidences and convenience. But at least the Nome King’s defeat in Ozma was accomplished more through the heroes’ cleverness and quick acting, not just lucky guesses and good luck. This, combined with the lack of an uplifting theme, makes Return to Oz‘s happy ending feel less cathartic and more tacked on than it should. My problem with the movie isn’t that it indulges in, to use Baum’s terminology, “heartaches and nightmares.” Those are fine. My problem is that it lacks “wonderment and joy.”

I’m sorry to end on such a negative note. There really is a lot to love about Return to Oz. In the past, I’ve defined a cult classic as something that really isn’t good enough to be a classic but is too good or at least too interesting to be dismissed and forgotten. I think that summarizes this movie very well.

References

References
↑1 From what I understand, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire is a partial exception, taking some cues from the book and some from the movie.
↑2 Though, credit where credit is due, Dr. Worley sounds like the name of an L. Frank Baum character.
↑3 To be fair, to the MGM movie, I’ve heard that it was going to end with a shot of the magic slippers, revealing Oz was real after all but this was dropped for distracting from the main business of the ending.
↑4 I can’t really blame it for doing that since The Marvelous Land of Oz made the mistake of not featuring Dorothy and who wants a Wizard of Oz sequel without her?
↑5 On the one hand, the 1939 movie cut the more violent parts of the book, mostly involving the Tin Woodman’s axe. On the other hand, it made the winged monkeys creepier and the Wicked Witch of the West more of a threat to Dorothy. In the book, the Good Witch of the North’s kiss on her forehead magically prevented anyone from harming her.
↑6 Actually, Kansas being in black and white was sort of from the book. L. Frank Baum described everyone and everything there as being gray. The movie just took him really literally.
↑7 I wish the movie could have included the story behind her name from Ozma of Oz.
↑8 Why does Billina get the ability to speak when she arrives in Oz, but Toto didn’t? Well, continuity wasn’t one of Baum’s strengths.
↑9 Remember those hospital gurneys with squeaky wheels back in Kansas?
↑10 What I wonder is what happened to all the good witches? There were two in the book version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and one in the movie. Return to Oz can’t quite make up its mind which continuity it’s using.
↑11 I prefer the spelling “Gnome King” but Baum felt differently.
↑12 It also adds the detail that with each wrong guess the heroes make, he becomes more human though why that should be or why he would want to be human is anyone’s guess.
↑13 After the Wicked Witch of the West melted, it became rare for villains in the Oz books to die.
↑14 Why do the Gump and Jack Pumpkinhead need the magic powder, but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were automatically alive? Like I said, continuity was not one of Baum’s strengths.
↑15 There is one big exception, but I don’t want to spoil it.
↑16 Not consistent worldbuilding, mind you, but fun.
↑17 Not when writing for children anyway. Much children’s literature at the beginning of the 19th century had a condescending tone. It’s been trying to get away from that for a long time.
↑18 One way Baum’s sequels to The Wonderful Wizard improved on it is by having more humor.
↑19 To be fair, this rule did eliminate questions about why the bad guys didn’t just kill the good guys.
↑20 Presumably, we’re supposed to project our memories of either the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or the movie but it’s hard to say which. On the one hand, Return to Oz includes details like the Tin Woodman’s origin story and a Deadly Desert cutting Oz off from the rest of civilization. On the other hand, it does things like have the magic slippers be made of rubies rather than silver. Disney actually had to pay MGM to do that so I don’t know why they couldn’t have just followed the books and made things less confusing.
Posted in Comparing Different Adaptations | Tagged | Comments Off on Is Return to Oz Really the Better Oz Adaptation?

The Best Christmas Pageant Adaptation Ever

Posted on December 13, 2024 by stationmaster

I was delighted to hear that there would be a new movie adaptation of Barbara Robinson’s 1972 novel The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It’s a book that resonates greatly with those of us who have grown up in the American Midwest where mothers force their kids to be in church Christmas pageants every year and force their husbands to attend. The marketing for the movie looked fairly promising though I had some reservations. Mainly, I was worried that it would sentimentalize the six Herdman kids, ruthless-or seemingly ruthless-juvenile delinquents more likely to fly than to find favor with God or anyone north of the Devil, who go to Sunday School in search of snacks one fateful day and bully their ways into the biggest roles in the annual Christmas pageant. Commercials and interviews made it sound like the movie would portray them too much as misunderstood victims of society which would be quite the exaggeration. Having seen it, I’m overjoyed to say that this adaptation completely won me over. My concern wasn’t exactly unwarranted, but the film was so good it reconciled me to any changes of emphasis. While the 1983 made-for-TV movie written by Barbara Robinson herself technically stuck closer to the book, it suffered from subpar line deliveries from its child actors.[1]Robinson also wrote a play version of her book, and she expressed regret that she couldn’t include certain incidents. I’m sure she’d be tickled to know those made it into this new … Continue reading The 2024 Best Christmas Pageant, on the other hand, has some of the best acting from children I’ve ever seen, and the adults are all perfectly cast too.

And, hey, it’s not like the new movie doesn’t stick to the book at all! Far from it. The opening narration comes almost straight from the first chapter. The screenplay by Platte F. Clark, Darin McDaniel and Ryan Swanson makes great use of cutaway gags that captures Robinson’s meandering, digressive style.[2]I’d call it gossipy, but that word has negative connotations. Nearly all of the book’s funniest moments are here and even though I knew the punchlines, the movie’s comedic is so great that it made me laugh at them anyway. What’s more, the script features some hilarious lines and moments of its own. As someone who considers director Dallas Jenkins’s hit show The Chosen to be basically good but overhyped by some, I was surprised by how much I love his directing of this movie. He and others involved in the production have talked about creating a nostalgic atmosphere. This made me raise my eyebrows since the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever never struck me as nostalgic for anything. So much of it is concerned with things like the Herdmans’ reign of terror at school or even how just how boring the church kids generally find the Christmas pageant.[3]To be sure, reading the book now, many parents may feel nostalgic for a time when librarians refused to let kids read dirty books. On the other hand, reading about the Herdmans, some may be grateful … Continue reading But what reconciled me was the filmmakers’ reference to Norman Rockwell. While people think of Rockwell’s art as being nostalgic, much of it mines the inconvenient realities of everyday life for humorous effect.[4]And that’s not even getting into his more political art. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever‘s handsome production design and art direction likewise create a warm and cozy depiction of small-town America while still putting its warts front and center.[5]The filmmakers have also mentioned A Christmas Story (1983) with its blend of nostalgia and cynicism as a point of reference.

Did Barbara Robinson intend The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to be a Christian story? None of her other books have to do with Christianity but Robinson’s daughter, Margie Pinto-Leite, has praised the 2024 movie for capturing (among other things) “the deeper meaning of (her) mother’s story” and it explicitly proclaims a Christian message. I think that’s a perfectly fair take since the book’s thoughtful finale emphasizes the humanity of Christ, a major Christian doctrine, and, whether intentionally or not, many plot points are reminiscent of things from the gospels.[6]I thought of listing some, but this blog post will give away enough as it is, and I’d rather encourage readers to connect the dots for themselves. And I really do think The Best Christmas Pageant Ever‘s Christian themes or at least its church setting are what have given it the staying power that Robinson’s followups, The Best School Year Ever and The Best Halloween Ever haven’t had. It’s certainly not a case of the sequels being less engagingly written![7]Weirdly, I feel that due to its emotional finale, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever works better as the last book in the series even though it was written first. As I’ve discussed before, the best screenplay adaptations are like duets between the original author and the screenwriter. Sometimes even the most respectful of them are guilty of putting their own spin on the material. It’s hardly something unique to Christians. However, I can’t help but wonder if by emphasizing a Christian message, this adaptation actually removes a big part of the book’s appeal for American Evangelicals. They’re typically portrayed either as long-suffering heroes (in stories they tell about themselves) or as villainous bigots (in stories about them from secular perspectives.) In the literary Best Christmas Pageant Ever, Grace Bradley (Judy Greer in the movie), the mother who ends up directing the titular tableau, leans toward the former extreme, compared to other characters anyway, and Alice Wendleken (Lorelei Olivia Mote), the pharisaical girl who normally plays Mary, and her equally insufferable mother (Danielle Hoetmer) come close to being the latter[8]There’s also Helen Armstrong (Mariam Bernstein), the domineering woman who typically directs the pageant but she’s more officious than malicious. but for the most part, the book’s Christians are neither particular saintly nor particularly evil. They’re just ordinary everyday people. I like that. The 2024 film though wants to tell a story about good Christians vs bad Christians.

In the book, Alice’s mother bluntly tells the Ladies’ Aid that Imogene Herdman (Beatrice Schneider in the movie) portraying Mary would be a sacrilege but the negative reaction from others is less over the top. Some hide their distaste for the Herdmans behind the excuse that it’s unfair for one family who don’t even go to the church to take over the pageant. One woman suggests the compromise of having the Herdmans hand out programs at the door. They don’t seem to want to say “you can’t be in our pageant because you’re horrible people” even though that’s obviously what they think. In the movie, on the other hand, Grace is confronted by a mob of evil church ladies who bluntly tell her to throw the Herdmans out.

I might have preferred a more nuanced, less caricatured take on these characters. I actually think how the book handles them is funnier. But they’re certainly not unfunny in the movie and the book’s dynamic is still preserved in the characters of the church’s pastor and his wife (Kirk B. R. Woller and Daina Leitold, both very funny) who squeamishly try to welcome the Herdmans and restrain their instinctive desire to beat them off with sticks.

Grace can definitely be described as the hero of the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, but she wasn’t exactly meant to be a Christian role model. Her motivations were less showing Christian charity to the Herdmans, though there’s a good case to be made that’s what she ended up doing, than proving herself to those church ladies who questioned her judgement in casting them in the pageant. In the movie, her motives arguably start out as even more prideful. The whole reason she volunteers to direct the pageant when the usual director breaks her leg is to put Mrs. Wendleken in her place. (In the book, she did it because nobody else wanted the job with or without Herdmans.) But as she gets to know them better, she starts to sympathize with the Herdmans, even becoming something of a parental figure to them. This actually isn’t too much of a stretch. In the book, the fair-minded Grace is quick to point out whenever the Herdmans show any good instincts, which is seldom, and to defend them on the rare occasions they’re accused of something they didn’t do. She still handles her tough situation with a mixture of admirable patience and understandable exasperation in the movie. In one scene, she explains to the kids for the umpteenth time that they’re supposed to create a beautiful picture to inspire the congregation to contemplate what Christmas means. “What does it mean?” demands Ralph Herdman (Mason Nelligan.) Convention would dictate that Grace give a big speech here but instead she wearily sighs and says she can’t remember. The most interesting way in which the movie makes her more idealized than the book does comes after a particularly calamitous dress rehearsal when the whole church is in an uproar and the pastor suggests canceling the pageant.

“Certainly not!” Mother said. By that time, she was mad too. “Why, it’s going to be the best Christmas Pageant we’ve ever had!”
Of all the lies she’d told so far, that was the biggest, but you had to admire her. It was like General Custer saying, “Bring on the Indians!”

In the movie, the pastor tells her if she says everything is fine, he believes her. After hesitating, Grace sighs and admits that she can’t promise everything is fine, but she also believes the church shouldn’t cancel the pageant. I find the big lie in the book endearingly human but what the movie does is a great dramatic moment. Did the movie need the ensuing scene in which she explains to her daughter, Beth the narrator (Molly Belle Wright), why she believes those calling for the Herdmans to be kicked out are wrong?[9]Actually, the movie is narrated by Lauren Graham as Beth’s adult self. In the books, I always imagined the narrator as still a kid. Much of the humor comes from her being like the child in The … Continue reading Not necessarily. I think Christian viewers could infer the message for themselves. But it’s a beautifully acted, beautifully lit, beautifully scored scene and very much what such a mother would say to her child under these circumstances.[10]When people complain about Christian movies having unrealistic dialogue and being too preachy, I wonder if they realize that Christians talking about their beliefs is actually realistic, especially … Continue reading I especially love the moment where Grace admits that this will probably end badly for her, but she still believes persevering with it is the right thing to do.

Early in the book, Beth’s brother, Charlie (scene stealing Sebastian Billingsley-Rodgriguez in the film)[11]In the original book, Charlie was actually the only member of his family to be named. Barbara Robinson gave the rest of them names in sequels and adaptations., announces that his favorite thing about Sunday School is the absence of Herdmans. “Not a very Christian sentiment,” opines his father, Bob (Pete Holmes), but his mother rejoins that it’s a very practical sentiment. It’s important to the story that the Herdmans-Ralph, Imogene, Leroy (Ewan Matthys-Wood), Claude (Matthew Lamb), Ollie (Essek Moore) and Gladys (Kynlee Heiman)-are genuinely awful. They don’t just do things to which only Christians would object like taking the Lord’s name in vain. They’re also physically violent arsonists, thieves and vandals. You can’t blame the church or anyone for not rolling out the welcome wagon for them. Even the insufferable Alice has an understandable reason to resent Imogene-especially Alice in fact! I’m pleased to report the movie doesn’t chicken out on any of this. The Herdmans smoking is actually edgier now than it was in 1972.[12]The movie has other characters rebuke Imogene for both the Lord’s name thing and the smoking, either to pacify concerned parents or as a reflection of the screenwriters’ own concerns. I … Continue reading The movie doesn’t show Imogene blackmailing her peers by threatening to reveal their weight, which may be a nod to delicate modern sensibilities, or it may just be a case of the movie not having time to include every detail from the book. (It’s amazing how many they do include!) We still see her extorting things from them though. No, the movie doesn’t pull many punches with the Herdmans but it does provide medical attention to wounds quicker than the book does. The literary Imogene is a mysterious character whose motivations are often left for readers to guess. The movie all but states that the reason she wants to star in the pageant is so she can be the center of community approval for once. When she volunteers for the part of Mary, Grace nervously hedges, saying they need to give everyone a chance. “Everyone’s had their chance!” Imogene protests. “They’ve had all kinds of chances!” This line invites us to see the Herdmans not just as bullies who eliminate their competition through threats, though it doesn’t deny they’re that, but also as underdogs and therefore sympathetic. It is also all but stated that Imogene is genuinely hurt by the hostility the church shows to her. If she ever cared about what people thought of her in the book, that was a deeply buried subtext.[13]Though she and Ralph were described as hesitating before they made their entrances during the pageant, perhaps suggesting stage fright on their part.

I will say the 1983 movie did a better job of making the Herdmans’ faces look dirty.

If you haven’t seen the movie or read the book yet, I beg you to skip the following two paragraphs. If you haven’t seen the movie but have read the book, just skip the first paragraph. The book’s narrator tells us in the first chapter that her strategy for dealing with Imogene is to stay out of her way. Beth begins the movie with the same mindset. In fact, the adaptation emphasizes this by having her consider helping her mother by volunteering to play Mary and keeping at least one Herdman out of the pageant but refrain out of fear of Imogene’s wrath. But late in the movie, it looks like Imogene is backing out of the pageant of her own accord and Beth, inspired by her mother’s example, goes right up to the Herdmans’ house and insists that Imogene go through with it. Theoretically, I’m not a fan of this reimagined climax. The vulnerability Imogene shows in it makes the vulnerability she later shows in the pageant much less of a shock. Watching the confrontation between Beth and Imogene, we just know the latter is going to pull through in a way we don’t in the book.[14]Not that the happy ending was a complete surprise in the source material. I mean, the very title gives it away. But I loved cheering for Beth here. It’s great seeing her stand up to, as well as encourage, Imogene this way after being so scared of her the whole movie and it adds a welcome bit of nuance to the film’s message about Christians needing to welcome sinners, showing they can challenge them at the same time. The story has gained as well as lost by the addition. And it helps that Beatrice Schneider and Molly Belle Wright give such great performances. Much of the movie rests on the two young actresses’ shoulders and, boy, do they ever carry it.

As much as I love the original book and as excited as I was when I first heard about this new movie, a part of me wondered whether The Best Christmas Pageant Ever could have the impact now that it had in the 70s. Only last year there was a Superbowl ad comparing the Holy Family to refugees, the same comparison that occurs to Beth as she watches Ralph and Imogene’s takes on Joseph and Mary. The Nativity Story (2007) takes a fairly gritty approach to the material, visually emphasizing the arduous trek to Bethlehem and the inconvenience of birth in a stable as does Dallas Jenkins’s own portrayal in Christmas with the Chosen.[15]Then again, other recent portrayals of the Nativity have been an animated comedy about talking animals (2017’s The Star) and a glitzy musical-comedy (2023’s Journey to Bethlehem) so … Continue reading Pastors and Christian speakers are more likely nowadays to remind listeners that the birth of Christ, as depicted in the Bible, was not as picturesque as traditional nativity scenes would have them believe and believers are more likely to imagine Mary as being, in this movie’s words, tough as well as sweet.[16]It’s true that I don’t think we’ve ever had a depiction of Mary burping the Baby Jesus. I keep waiting for a director with vision to come along. Would the message of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever just be white noise, I wondered. Happily, in its portrayal of church culture, the movie does such a good job of establishing that traditional picturesque conception of the Nativity that the Herdmans’ version really does feel like a revelation even if it really isn’t. The music, acting and overall direction all come together superbly in that scene. I don’t normally cry over movies but the finale to this one brought me as close as I’ve ever been.

I’ve suggested in this post that an emphatically Christian version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever may not be the best idea. But after analyzing the 2010 movie adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which clearly wanted to appeal to the Christian section of the book’s fanbase but didn’t know how, it was so refreshing to watch this adaptation which really understands why the source material resonates with Christians. Even to the extent that the story represents a critique of the Church, it critiques it along lines any serious Christian will understand. It makes even secular filmmakers’ best attempts at making something for “faith-based audiences” feel clumsy by comparison.

Now that I’ve written that, I fear I’ve steered secular viewers away from the movie. That would be a great disservice to them because the comedy really is hilarious for everybody[17]Though it does probably help if you grew up in the American Midwest and attended church there. and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the emotional moments don’t transcend a Christian audience too. After all, while I’ve described the story’s themes as Christian, it could also be interpreted as humanist, showing even the worst of people as being capable of goodness. And both Christians and non-Christians can appreciate The Best Christmas Pageant Ever‘s reminder of the plight of the impoverished.

But why am I worrying about people not going to see this movie? It’s already a hit. There’s not always a lot of overlap between movies I love and movies the public loves. There also aren’t many book adaptations I consider just as great as their source material in their own very-similar-but-slightly-different ways. So I’d like to thank the makers of this Best Christmas Pageant Ever for giving me such a wonderful early Christmas gift.

References

References
↑1 Robinson also wrote a play version of her book, and she expressed regret that she couldn’t include certain incidents. I’m sure she’d be tickled to know those made it into this new adaptation.
↑2 I’d call it gossipy, but that word has negative connotations.
↑3 To be sure, reading the book now, many parents may feel nostalgic for a time when librarians refused to let kids read dirty books. On the other hand, reading about the Herdmans, some may be grateful for all the antibullying programs we have now. Then again, the fact that the Herdmans don’t engage in cyberbullying or pull guns or knives on their victims may make readers feel perversely nostalgic these days.
↑4 And that’s not even getting into his more political art.
↑5 The filmmakers have also mentioned A Christmas Story (1983) with its blend of nostalgia and cynicism as a point of reference.
↑6 I thought of listing some, but this blog post will give away enough as it is, and I’d rather encourage readers to connect the dots for themselves.
↑7 Weirdly, I feel that due to its emotional finale, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever works better as the last book in the series even though it was written first.
↑8 There’s also Helen Armstrong (Mariam Bernstein), the domineering woman who typically directs the pageant but she’s more officious than malicious.
↑9 Actually, the movie is narrated by Lauren Graham as Beth’s adult self. In the books, I always imagined the narrator as still a kid. Much of the humor comes from her being like the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes who bluntly states what all the adults are too discreet to say aloud. But I don’t mind what the movie does. It emphasizes what a long-lasting impact this Christmas pageant had on Beth.
↑10 When people complain about Christian movies having unrealistic dialogue and being too preachy, I wonder if they realize that Christians talking about their beliefs is actually realistic, especially if they’re talking to their children. Of course, that doesn’t mean such discussions always make for entertaining movie dialogue.
↑11 In the original book, Charlie was actually the only member of his family to be named. Barbara Robinson gave the rest of them names in sequels and adaptations.
↑12 The movie has other characters rebuke Imogene for both the Lord’s name thing and the smoking, either to pacify concerned parents or as a reflection of the screenwriters’ own concerns. I don’t mean that as a criticism by the way. The rebukes mostly make sense coming from the characters that give them.
↑13 Though she and Ralph were described as hesitating before they made their entrances during the pageant, perhaps suggesting stage fright on their part.
↑14 Not that the happy ending was a complete surprise in the source material. I mean, the very title gives it away.
↑15 Then again, other recent portrayals of the Nativity have been an animated comedy about talking animals (2017’s The Star) and a glitzy musical-comedy (2023’s Journey to Bethlehem) so there’s that.
↑16 It’s true that I don’t think we’ve ever had a depiction of Mary burping the Baby Jesus. I keep waiting for a director with vision to come along.
↑17 Though it does probably help if you grew up in the American Midwest and attended church there.
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Animation Station: A Wrapping Menace, an Exercising Cat and a Talking Christmas Tree

Posted on December 7, 2024 by stationmaster

I first came up with the Animation Station series because I realized there were movies and shows about which I wanted to blog, but which weren’t adaptations. Well, that’s not quite true. Many of them were adaptations of preexisting material but I didn’t want that to be the main focus of my blog posts about them. What they did have in common was being animated. Now I’m really stretching that label to write about what I wish. The…thing described in this post is barely animated at all. But I love reading about fascinatingly weird and silly pieces of media online and wanted to try my hand at describing one and this little obscurity called out to me.

How did I learn of it? Well, one of my favorite web pages is The Island of Misfit Christmas Specials which covers a couple of rarely broadcast Christmas specials or movies every year. I enjoy reading about them but only occasionally does one of them sound so interesting that I get the urge to watch it for myself. One such “Misfit” was The Talking Christmas Tree which Peter Paltridge (the writer for the site) claims to have found on VHS at Goodwill. I’m glad I found it on YouTube because Paltridge’s entertaining but brief writeup hardly does this thing justice. The Talking Christmas Tree[1]or The Talking Christmas Tree Bedtime Stories as it’s called by its credits. was made by a chain of department stores for a local TV channel in Portland, Oregon and seems to be a series of five episodes which would air on the nights leading up to Christmas. Yet strangely the host refers to stickers coming with the video box, implying it was made specifically for the VHS format. I guess kids were just supposed to stop the tape after each episode and start it again the next night. Who knows?

Anyway, each episode begins with an annoying theme song that rips off When I See an Elephant Fly from Dumbo. (“If you’ve ever seen a house fly or a kitchen sink/or a door jam or a camera wink, etc.”) These lyrics were written by Bob O’ Donnell, who was the mastermind behind this whole thing, writing, producing and directing every episode. The music was by Jon Newton who also did the entire background score. The singer is the titular Christmas Tree, a rather freaky looking fellow who appears in (barely) animated form at this point.

We then see the Tree as a costumed actor in Santa Claus’s living room. It still looks freaky.

Santa is played by a very…enthusiastic actor. Note that I didn’t say a good actor, just an enthusiastic one. I assumed that this was the man who played Santa for the department store or maybe some random guy they pulled off the streets but no, if Dallas McKennon is the same as Dal McKennon[2]The credits don’t actually list him as playing Santa but they say “special thanks to Dallas McKennon.”, he’s actually had a career stretching back all the way to 1940 even though he mostly appeared in bit parts. His biggest role seems to have been the voice of Gumby.[3]Well, that or his role on the old TV series, Daniel Boone but I imagine modern audiences are more likely to recognize Gumby. It’s possible McKennon also voices the Talking Christmas Tree itself since I can’t find anyone else credited.

At the beginning of the first episode, Santa explains that the Talking Tree is “a colorful, laughable once-a-year slapstick-al, magical talking tree!” This description gets repeated in subsequent episodes. Allegedly, all the Christmas decorations in this world are magically created by the Talking Tree. It makes a new one with every kind thought someone has. “Santa! Get ready!” cries the Tree as it spins in a circle. “It’s that special wonderful holiday feeling!” Sure enough, a cardboard wreath materializes above Santa’s cardboard fireplace. Hearing the chiming of a clock, Santa says to the camera, “It’s seven snowflakes past an icicle(?) and we’d better get started cause you have to get to bed!” It turns out the Tree can make ornaments out of stories too with the help of young viewers, he stresses, and Santa is going to read one a night out of a “special storybook.” Each story is accompanied by artwork that sometimes gets a trifle animated. I’d have assumed these were from picture books ala Reading Rainbow but, no, apparently the stories and the images were specifically created for this by Bob O’ Donnell. Well, the stories were written by him. The first one is called Too Much Wrapping Paper and it’s my favorite of them, but it should really be titled The Mad Wrapper.

Matt and Jenny loved the Christmas season because that meant all of their friends and relatives would come to visit and they had lots of friends and a big, wonderful family.

Despite that being the opening sentence, Matt and Jenny hardly figure in the story at all. The real main characters are their Uncle Henry and Aunt Hannah who live “not too far” from them. I can’t say much for the artwork by Mary Rinaurd on display here but at least the writing shows some wit.

If Uncle Henry had a fault in the world, it was that he believed mirrors tell lies. “When I was a young man, mirrors didn’t leave hair off the top of my head the way they do today!” he liked to tell Aunt Hannah.

Aunt Hannah’s one fault meanwhile is hoarding wrapping paper and bows. In fact, whenever her family opens presents, she’s there “with a busy grin on her face to collect the wrappings sometimes before they even got all the way off the package.”

See a fanatical gleam in her eye yet?

One fateful night[4]“Right about now,” says the Talking Christmas Tree. What’s that supposed to mean? she wraps all the Christmas presents for her family in the blink of an eye but her appetite for wrapping is still not sated, so she wraps her husband’s slippers, toothbrush and toothpaste and puts “Do Not Open till Christmas” stickers on them. But her lust for parceling only grows and she then wraps up a chair and the TV and the garbage cans! Uncle Henry returns from work to find everything in his house wrapped including his supper and the dog, Pepper. Somebody, call the PETA!

He finds Aunt Hannah sleeping peacefully upstairs and reasons that at least she’s got that crazy urge out of her system. But this proves to be wishful thinking. The next day at work, he gets a call telling him his wife has brought traffic to a standstill by wrapping a stop sign. She’s even taken to wrapping up people like the mayor and at the moment, is working on every ketchup bottle at Ferguson’s Market. You’d think the police would put a stop to all this but (a) she’s wrapped up what seems to be their only motorcycle and (b) she’s also put “Do Not Open till Christmas” stickers on everything and the people in this community really respect those signs, so much so that they’ll apparently let the mayor suffocate and allow any number of traffic accidents rather than unwrap anything with one of those stickers. (Thankfully, she neglected to put one on Pepper.) Uncle Henry solves the problem by wrapping up Hannah’s tape and scissors and putting “Do Not Open till Christmas” stickers on them. Whatever else can be said against her, Aunt Hannah really respects those stickers, much more than she respects stop signs apparently.

Uncle Henry expects an angry mob but, no, on Christmas Day the townspeople have a wonderful time unwrapping everything. (“But they didn’t unwrap the mayor,” we’re told, “because he might have made a speech.”) We end on an ominous note as Aunt Hannah privately murmurs that next year she’d better get started early on her wrapping.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

“I liked Aunt Hannah,” declares Santa with his usual enthusiasm. “She’s the sort of person who can’t do enough for people!” Excuse me, is that what we were supposed to take away from that insanity?! Aunt Hannah was clearly putting her own depraved desires over everyone else’s convenience and safety. In any case, the sound of canned clapping is heard which Santa tells us means everybody else liked the story too. The Tree gets that “special, wonderful holiday feeling” again and an Aunt Hannah-shaped ornament appears. Santa hangs it on the Talking Christmas Tree.

The next episode begins with Santa looking over some letters. One is from a girl who says a classmate doesn’t believe in Christmas because her dad is out of work and can’t afford any gifts, so the letter writer would like all her own gifts to go to her instead. This kind thought causes the Tree to create a star ornament. “Thank you to whoever wrote that letter,” says Santa. Did he forget her name already? Or is he just trying to protect her privacy by not mentioning it on the air? I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a real letter. Anyway, the title of this night’s story, which features artwork by Mike Black, is The Magic Elevator. It begins with four kids, Marie, Janet, Will and Eddie, decorating a nontalking Christmas tree at their daycare center for an upcoming party. All is not well. “Decorating for Christmas isn’t work,” insists the narrator[5]Yeah, about that…, “but to these kids, it was an awful chore.” It turns out the kids are sad because their parents have to miss the party due to work. In fact, their parents have to work so much they’ve missed all their (the kids’) last birthdays. “I hate elevators!” shouts Will. “It’s all the fault of elevators!” That…is a sentence. “Every time my mom leaves me to go to work in the morning, she goes up and up in an elevator and then when she comes down at the end of the day, she’s tired and worried and doesn’t even smile at me! Elevators keep taking our parents away!”

Will’s mom: elevator victim

After the way the last story went, I’m wondering if this will lead to the kids going on a rampage and vandalizing elevators all over town. Instead, with “a happy sound(?) and a twinkle of light,” the partially decorated tree transforms into a smiling man in a green uniform, one with a tiny Christmas tree on his cap. “Did someone call for the magic elevator?” he asks. Unlike those ordinary elevators that take you where you want to go, he explains, the magic one he operates take them where it’s fun to go.

The kids barely have time to process this before they realize their daycare is flying over the city. Apparently, the magic elevator is just whichever room in which the operator, Ted, happens to be. The elevator lands and the walls of the daycare center open to reveal Marie’s mother in a room full of gray-suited businesspeople talking about money and charts. The horror! Ted grabs Marie’s mother and takes her into the elevator. It travels across town, doing the same to everyone’s parents. Now they have no choice but to attend “the silliest, happiest Christmas party ever.”

I kind of hate that people will find these images if they Google this blog, but I feel like I have to include them, so you know I’m not making up this stuff.

Everyone has a great time partying as they fly over “people in gray clothes who ride in elevators that only go up and down.” Losers! Eventually, the elevator returns the parents to work, the daycare goes back to its usual location and Ted reverts to being a Christmas tree. Although Marie, Janet, Will and Eddie hadn’t finished decorating him, the job has been completed by those kind thoughts they had for their overworked mothers and fathers. This is good since other kids have now shown up for the party as originally scheduled. Later that day, Will’s mother tells him “All of a sudden this afternoon, I got the happiest, silliest Christmas spirit. For a while, I felt like I was flying in the sky like Santa.” So… does that mean the magic elevator didn’t physically take the parents from their jobs? That was all a metaphor? It just lifted their spirits? Is that why their employers aren’t angry about it? Or did he really kidnap them and then alter their memories? Whatever makes sense to you, I guess. This great work is clearly open to many interpretations.

The Magic Elevator receives even more canned applause than Too Much Wrapping Paper and creates another ornament, this one depicting the elevator/daycare center. The following episode begins with the Talking Tree getting “that special wonderful holiday feeling” and creating a menorah. Santa explains its significance. Whenever a Christmas special does something like this, I wonder about the intent. Do the creators seriously think that Jewish families are going to watch this every year because they talk about Hannukah for roughly a minute?[6]Of course, not all Jews are practicing Jews. Maybe the idea is supposed to be to educate kids about other cultures. But the episode ends with the Tree sending “a special message of holiday cheer to our Jewish friends,” which seems weird if they’re not watching. “Good wishes can be expressed all sorts of ways,” Santa rhapsodizes, “which brings us to tonight’s story.” That story being Jingles the Christmas Cat featuring illustrations by Chris Powers. We’re told Jingles’s owner, a girl called Ellen, gave him his name because he seemed to love the song Jingle Bells. He also loves food to the extent that Ellen’s father is insisting he lose weight. He says this just as Jingles is settling down for his evening nap, “the one he took to give him energy to go to bed.” “If he doesn’t slim down in a couple weeks,” says Dad, “I’m going to send him out to Uncle Leo’s farm. He can live with the barn cats until he gets into shape.” Hey, if you didn’t want your daughter to have a pet who just eats, sleeps and gains weight, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten her a cat.

Ellen gathers all her friends for a meeting to discuss how to save Jingles. One girl, Lois, says her mother teaches an aerobics class, so the kids sneak Jingles in for some exercise, but he refuses to comply. But then he notices a small exercise outfit in the window of a giftshop. Jingles rubs against the glass and purrs. This provides Ellen with the perfect way to motivate the cat. She buys the outfit and tries to squeeze Jingles into it to no avail. “See?” Ellen tells him. “If you’d go to exercise class, you’d become a skinny mini and this outfit would fit you just right.”

Jingles runs back into the class. Who knew cats were so interested in snazzy clothing?

For the next few days, he was the best exerciser you ever saw. He did the Jamming Jump. He did the Frantic Footwork (with the Funky Finger-snap of course.) Finally, Lois’s mother gave him a special diploma, like you get in high school, for being the best cat in the class.

My guess is she just wanted to get Jingles out of there so he wouldn’t make the humans feel bad about themselves. The cat’s weight loss impresses Dad but as he happily dreams of aerobics class at night, he keeps everyone else in the house awake by purring “in a jazzy rhythm.” Before this, his flab kept the noise down. (Is that how it works?) Jingles is in danger of being sent to the farm after all, but Ellen saves the day by giving him an early Christmas present. It’s that exercise outfit which insulates his purring. On Christmas morning, Ellen unwraps a matching outfit of her own. It comes with a note, ostensibly from Jingles, thanking her for her care. Did he really write that or was it her parents? Normally, I’d assume the latter but with these wacky stories, who knows?

The ornament for this story, interestingly enough, portrays Jingles eating, not Jingles exercising. I guess that wouldn’t have felt Christmassy. The next episode begins with Santa freaking out because the Tree has a jack-o-lantern with valentine hearts carved into it and a birthday cake that looks like an Easter egg.

Santa: Everybody knows that you give eggs at Eastertime and for a birthday you bake-
Tree: A pumpkin pie filled with turkey.
Santa: No, no, no, no! You cook a turkey for Thanksgiving and for Halloween-
Tree: You dress up like a ghost and slide down the chimney and go “ho ho ho!”

Santa fears the Tree has “had too many corndog fudge sundaes” but it turns out the Tree is just messing with him to introduce the fourth story, Have a Happy Whatever illustrated by Nancy Ramsay.[7]I wonder if all these people appreciate me crediting them. It begins with two prankish young brothers, Reggie and Tyrone, whose parents send them to visit their neighbor, Mr. Walls, who’s “so out of touch he cooks a Labor Day turkey and puts flags on the drumsticks.” Ed Lumley, who normally plays a wise man in the town’s annual Christmas pageant, is sick this year and Mr. Walls is going to take his place. Reggie and Tyrone’s parents want them to catch him up on what a wise man in a Christmas pageant should be like.

His outfit and decor do not bode well.

Mr. Walls’s first question is “isn’t Wise Men’s Day in February?” He’s thinking of Presidents’ Day. “But I thought Presidents’ Day was December twenty-fifth,” says Mr. Walls when they tell him this. “No, that’s presents day,” explains Tyrone, “the day when you give presents.” Feeling mischievous, the boys con Mr. Walls into wearing his sparkly Uncle Sam costume for the fourth of July to be a wise man. (He calls it his “Thanksgiving party outfit.”) At the pageant, Mr. Walls enter from the west instead of the east like the other wise men, wearing that red, white and blue costume and carrying sparklers. Didn’t they rehearse this at all? The audience’s laughter awakens the baby playing Jesus who cries. But the sight of Mr. Walls quiets it for some reason. He’s a hero and plays a wise man in the pageant every year afterwards in the same outfit. “As everybody says, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without Mr. Walls.”

“Reggie and Tyrone saw that playing tricks on someone could hurt their feelings,” Santa concludes. Um, that’s a good message but when did they see it? Giving Mr. Walls bad advice actually led to him being the hero. Then again, the pageant might not have needed a hero if it hadn’t been for his misguided wardrobe in the first place. As the Talking Tree says, “Everything turned out all right in the long run.” The ornament for this story depicts Mr. Walls with his sparklers.

The Talking Christmas Tree actually performs most of the host duties for the final episode. Santa bails out towards the beginning since it’s Christmas Eve and he’s got a lot to do. As for the Tree, “Tomorrow morning, I go back to the forest,” it says, “because the whole world will be decorated for Christmas and my work will be over too.” Santa compliments the Tree, saying, “the world’s never been this beautiful, thanks to you!” I find that hard to believe when half the ornaments we’ve seen this Tree create have been paper cutouts of what look like uninspired picture book illustrations. It isn’t actually delivering presents that takes Santa away from the episode. “Candy canes! Candy canes! We haven’t got enough candy canes!” he cries as he runs offscreen. The Tree reads the final story in his absence. For once, it’s not an original. Instead, it’s Clement C. Moore’s famous poem, A Visit from St. Nicholas better known as The Night Before Christmas.[8]Well, some claim it’s actually Henry Livingston Jr.’s poem but that’s controversial. The visual accompaniment largely consists of still images of Dallas McKennon’s Santa Claus superimposed on illustrations.

We also get some pictures from previous stories. When the poem mentions “the children… nestled all snug in their beds,” Ellen is shown sleeping with Jingles and for “mamma in her ‘kerchief,” we get Aunt Hannah asleep after a long night of wrapping. The Tree reiterates that it’ll be back in the forest tomorrow. “But I’ll be thinking of you,” it promises, “and waiting for next year when Santa will come get me and you and we can decorate another Christmas season with bright happy wishes!” The last ornament it makes is an image of itself, not anything to do with the story we just heard. What a narcissist!

Well, that was The Talking Christmas Tree. I can’t really say it was good, but it was entertainingly weird. You can’t say there was no creativity on display in some of those stories. Hopefully, my recap was both good and entertainingly weird. If not, well, I’ll settle for the last one. Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah (I suppose.)

Next Week: Mr. Walls as a Wise Man Wasn’t the Biggest Example of Miscasting in a Christmas Pageant

References

References
↑1 or The Talking Christmas Tree Bedtime Stories as it’s called by its credits.
↑2 The credits don’t actually list him as playing Santa but they say “special thanks to Dallas McKennon.”
↑3 Well, that or his role on the old TV series, Daniel Boone but I imagine modern audiences are more likely to recognize Gumby.
↑4 “Right about now,” says the Talking Christmas Tree. What’s that supposed to mean?
↑5 Yeah, about that…
↑6 Of course, not all Jews are practicing Jews.
↑7 I wonder if all these people appreciate me crediting them.
↑8 Well, some claim it’s actually Henry Livingston Jr.’s poem but that’s controversial.
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) Part 11: This Is Our Last Time Here, Isn’t It?

Posted on November 30, 2024 by stationmaster

Remember that vast stretch of whiteness at the end of the last scene? It turns out to be a sea with lilies[1]Or lily-like flowers as Eustace the stickler for scientific accuracy insists. growing in it like a giant garden pool. In the book, C. S. Lewis describes the wonders of the Last Sea before the End of the World at some length. How the sun is so bright the sailors can’t bear it until they drink the sweet water. How the water is so clear they can see the shadow of the Dawn Treader at the bottom of the sea. The strange, dreamy state into which it puts everyone. Here all we get are lilies but to be fair, they’re nice as far as this movie’s visuals go. Caspian, Reepicheep, Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace sail through the Silver Sea, as it’s called in the source material, in a longboat. Now in the book, Caspian parts way with the others before this. I prefer that since a scene with Aslan will shortly ensue that strikes me as making much more sense as a private conversation between him, Edmund, Lucy and Eustace without any Narnians present. But, hey, this isn’t the dumbest change the movie could make.

We get some dialogue that pays lip service to C. S. Lewis’s depiction of Eustace being “undragoned.” Lip service is better than nothing, I suppose, and I’ve got to praise Will Poulter’s performance. He’s just as great here as the penitent Eustace as he was as the arrogant Eustace earlier even though that role was more fun. I love that the movie got an actor who could be both comedic and dramatic. It bugs me a bit that the dialogue eventually goes back to how awesome it was for Eustace to be a dragon. We had enough of that before.

Edmund: So what was it like? When Aslan changed you back?
Eustace: No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t do it myself. Then he came towards me. It sort of hurt[2]That’s pretty weak compared to “it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt” which Eustace says in the book but I feel like I’ve carped enough about this part. but…it was a good pain. You know, like when you pull a thorn from your foot. Being a dragon wasn’t all bad. I mean, I think I was a better dragon than I was a boy really. I’m so sorry for being such a sop!
Edmund: It’s OK, Eustace. You were a pretty good dragon.

“My friends, we have arrived,” Reepicheep announces as the longboat pulls up to a shore from which a giant wave rises. Not a wave that’s going to crush them but a sort of permanent wave. This is a bit of a change from the book where the shore is sort off to the side of the wave. There are also initially visions behind it in the book.

…now they saw something not only behind the wave but behind the sun. They could not have seen even the sun if their eyes had not been strengthened by the water of the Last Sea. But now they could look at the rising sun and see it clearly and see things beyond it. What they saw — east ward, beyond the sun — was a range of mountains. It was so high that either they never saw the top of it or they forgot it. None of them remembers seeing any sky in that direction. And the mountains must really have been outside the world. For any mountains even a quarter or a twentieth of that height ought to have had ice and snow on them. But these were warm and green and full of forests and waterfalls however high you looked. And suddenly there came a breeze from the east, tossing the top of the wave into foamy shapes and ruffling the smooth water all round them. It lasted only a second or so but what it brought them in that second none of those three children will ever forget. It brought both a smell and a sound, a musical sound. Edmund and Eustace would never talk about it afterwards. Lucy could only say, “It would break your heart.” “Why,” said I, “was it so sad?” “Sad!! No,” said Lucy.

There are no mountains or forests or mountains or waterfalls even faintly visible behind the wave in the movie. Maybe they were too expensive. Maybe the filmmakers worried all that about blocking out the sky would come across as more intimidating than appealing. Still, the wave is pretty impressive by itself.

The voyagers disembark and walk alongside the wave. In a fairly cool reveal, the camera pans along their shadows before arriving at Aslan’s.[3]In the book, Aslan initially appears as a lamb and gives the heroes a breakfast of roasted fish. There wasn’t really a point to that except to hammer home that Aslan is really Jesus (Christ … Continue reading “Welcome, children,” he says, “You have done well. Very well indeed. You have come far and now your journey is at its end.” Lucy asks if this place is Aslan’s country. “No, my country lies beyond,” Aslan replies, indicating the wave. “Is my father in your country?” asks Caspian. “You can only find that out for yourself, my son,” says Aslan, “but you should know if you continue, there is no return.”

As the others watch solemnly, Caspian walks over to the wave and even wistfully touches it with his hand. But then he turns back. “You’re not going?” Edmund says in surprise. “I can’t imagine my father would be very proud that I gave up what he died for,” says Caspian. Um, the last movie stated that Caspian’s father was assassinated in his sleep. He didn’t die for some noble cause. It’s bad enough these screenwriters can’t remember stuff from the books. Now they can’t even remember the continuity they themselves created! Maybe Caspian means that his father died because he wouldn’t give up the crown to Miraz. But taken out of context, that sounds petty rather than noble. This really could have been worded better. “I’ve spent too long wanting what was taken from me and not what was given,” continues Caspian, “I was given a kingdom. People. I promise to be a better king,” he says to Aslan. “You already are,” replies the lion.

Now there’s nothing about Caspian’s father in the book, apart from the seven lords being his friends. Interestingly, in another book, The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis wrote that a person’s longing for Heaven should be primarily a longing for God, not dead loved ones. But it seems like that’s the only way these screenwriters could relate to wanting to go to Heaven. As I wrote earlier though, wanting to reunite with dead loved ones is still a potent theme. However…well, I’d better get into more differences between the book and the movie first. In the book, Caspian actually goes kind of crazy insisting that he’s going to go with Reepicheep to the End of the World while he’s still on the Dawn Treader. The crew objects, reminding him of his duties to Narnia. Then Caspian gets angry and insists that no one, not even Reepicheep, will go even though that means the last three lords will never awaken. Then Aslan gives him a stern reprimand in private and a tearful Caspian tells Edmund, Lucy and Eustace that they must accompany Reepicheep without him. I think that’s all more interesting than what the film does but it probably wouldn’t have worked without the siren-like atmosphere that Lewis created for the Last Sea in the book, something in which the movie shows little interest. I do think the idea of a scene where Caspian is given the opportunity to go to Aslan’s country and search for his father but declines out of a sense of duty to his kingdom is interesting even if it’s not as dramatic as what the book does. But it feels weird to me in context since the movie only established Caspian having this wish in one brief scene half an hour ago. It’s hard to muster up an emotional reaction greater than “oh, that’s nice, I guess.” It’s like the idea only occurred to the writers when they were almost done writing the script and they never did subsequent drafts to further develop it. Even Caspian’s line about promising to be a better king doesn’t make that much sense. How has he been a bad king recently?

Aslan turns to the other humans. Edmund tells Lucy he actually thinks it’s time they went home. “But I thought you loved it here,” she says. “I do,” he says, “but I love home and our family as well. They need us.” I’m not sure what happened to give Edmund that particular revelation. He hasn’t ever mentioned their family since the beginning of the movie. But that’s arguably realistic. There isn’t always a big moment of realization in real life as there is in a story. Sometimes you find your priorities have changed and you can’t pinpoint when that happened or what changed them. Reepicheep speaks up and bows to Aslan. “Your Eminence,” he says, “ever since I can remember, I have dreamt of seeing your country. I’ve had many great adventures in this world, but nothing has dampened that yearning. I know I am hardly worthy but with your permission, I would lay down my sword for the joy of seeing your country with my own eyes.” Reepicheep never asks Aslan’s permission like this in the book, mainly because I don’t think he ever meets him in that story[4]You’ll recall he met him in Prince Caspian., but this speech feels exactly like something he would say, and Simon Pegg delivers it well.

“My country was made for noble hearts such as yours,” Aslan says, “no matter how small their bearers be.” Reepicheep beams and bows again. I could nitpick this dialogue from a Christian standpoint, but I won’t since this blog isn’t aimed at specifically Christian readers. I don’t want to bore secular fans so I’m just going to ignore-

Caspian: No one could be more deserving.
Reepicheep: Well, now.
Edmund: It’s true.

Twitch.

You know what? I am going to get into this! Christians believe that sinful human beings are unworthy of Heaven, but that God allows (some of them) there out of grace. There’s some nuance here[5]Catholics and Protestant differ as to how much salvation is a matter of grace and how much a matter of good works. But it’s not like Catholics don’t believe in grace at all. but no serious Christian talks about Heaven as something someone deserves. To be fair though, it’s not like that’s a theme of the Narnia books. The only characters we see enter Aslan’s country there are heroes or at least misguided but well-meaning antagonists. It’s not much of a stretch for someone to read the books and conclude that Aslan’s country is for those with “noble hearts.”[6]Also, to really get into Christian theology, Reepicheep’s fate in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader corresponds to those of the biblical figures of Enoch and Elijah who were taken to Heaven … Continue reading Still, it’s another example of the adaptation wanting to appeal to the Christian section of the book’s fanbase but not really understanding what would please them.

Anyway, Edmund and Reepicheep bow to each other. Then Lucy finally gets to indulge her wish to cuddle Reep. “Goodbye, Lucy,” he whispers. It’s a heartwarming moment.

Now it’s Eustace’s turn to bid the mouse farewell. “I don’t understand,” he sobs, “Will I not see you again? Ever?” See, if the filmmakers really knew how to pander to Christian audiences, they might have Reepicheep tell Eustace he can indeed see him again eventually. To be fair though, the pandering might cross over into annoying in that case. What Reepicheep does say is “What a magnificent puzzle you are!” Ugh, even this, easily one of the best scenes in the movie, has some clunky lines! “And a true hero. It has been my honor to fight beside such a brave warrior and a great friend.” With that, Reepicheep runs over to wave where a little coracle awaits him.[7]In the book, Reepicheep picked up the coracle on Burnt Island, a location cut from the movie. I don’t blame the adaptation for cutting it since nothing else happened on that island, but I like … Continue reading “I won’t be needing this,” he says, plunging his sword in the wet sand. In the book, he flings it into the lilies which strikes me as a much more dramatic visual but oh well. With a smile on his face, Reepicheep paddles the coracle over the crest of the wave into the unknown. This is a really nice sendoff to the character. The music that plays in this scene is easily some of the soundtrack’s best. And the fact that Eustace’s relationship with Reepicheep was one of the most well developed in the movie, even if I didn’t always love it, really helps.

Yet it still suffers from not having been set up well. Unlike with Caspian, the movie thought to introduce Reepicheep’s yearning for Aslan’s country towards the beginning, not when the story was halfway through. But the problem with that is by the time, we get to the end, I’d forgotten about it. It’s not like the book brings up Reepicheep’s desire that often either. But in the book, there were no seven swords or evil Mist to overwhelm it. Again, it’s hard to muster up an emotional reaction greater than “oh, that’s nice, I guess.” All of which frustrates me since, taken out of context, this is a great, if imperfect, scene that captures the heart of the book while still doing a bit of its own thing.

Lucy: This is our last time here, isn’t it?
Aslan: Yes. You have grown up, my dear one, just like Peter and Susan.
Lucy (tearfully): Will you visit us in our world?
Aslan: I shall be watching you always.
Lucy: How?
Aslan: In your world, I have another name. You must learn to know me by it. That was the very reason you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.
Lucy: Will we meet again?
Aslan: Yes, dear one. One day.

This dialogue is quite close to the book, and I appreciate that. But I feel like some Christian fans give the movie more credit deserves for keeping the spiritual message here. What makes the parts about Aslan having another name in the characters’ own world-the same world as the readers-and them needing to know him by it Christian is the larger context of the series. But apart from his country being the afterlife[8]And, technically, the movie doesn’t even affirm that. Aslan tells Caspian he can only learn if his deceased father is there by going there himself. That’s not exactly Christian assurance., there’s nothing in this movie to indicate Aslan is any god, let alone the Christian God. We certainly don’t get the impression that he’s whole point of existence. It’d be far more in keeping with the movie’s overall spirit if he told Edmund and Lucy they didn’t need him anymore. As a fan of the books, I’m grateful they didn’t do that, and I can enjoy the scene by ignoring the rest of the movie and recalling the source material. But citing this scene by itself as evidence that the movie keeps the book’s Christian themes strikes me as shallow.

Aslan roars, creating a sort of passageway through the giant wave. In the book, it was more like he tore apart the sky to send Lucy, Edmund and Eustace home but I guess that was too hard to visualize. Still, I do like the visual we get.

“You’re the closest thing I have to family,” says Caspian, “and that includes you, Eustace.” Of course, Eustace is like family. Who else could be such a pain? The dialogue is a bit cliche but it’s a fair description of Caspian’s relationship to the characters in the book. They hug. Then Edmund and Lucy hug Aslan. Ben Barnes and Will Poulter are excellent as ever. Georgie Henley has some of her best moments in this movie.[9]Not her best moments in any movie, mind you, or even in any Narnia movie. But still. Skandar Keynes…well, he isn’t enough of a focus for his performance to be too distracting. And the music for this whole scene truly is beautiful. It feels like this an ending to a totally different movie, one much better and truer to the book, that somehow got edited onto the tail end of this one! I sure wish I could find the rest of that movie. Still, my affection for the first two Narnia films and for Edmund and Lucy’s characters there, even if I haven’t been that interested in them here, helps make this farewell moving for me.

The fact that the series started developing the bond between Lucy and Aslan beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe also helps.

Eustace asks Aslan if he’ll ever come back. “Narnia may yet have need of you,” says Aslan. In the book, when Lucy asked if Eustace would ever return, Aslan simply refrained from answering which I prefer. The movie makes the sequel hook more obvious which is ironic considering that, unlike with the literary version, there would be no sequel. Oh well. Eustace nods gratefully. He and his cousins step into the tunnel of water then turn around. Their last glimpse of Caspian and Aslan is obscured as the opening closes behind them. They find themselves swimming up the surface. Suddenly, Edmund’s hands grip a bedframe. He and the others are back in Lucy’s bedroom at Cambridge. All the water drains into the painting of the Dawn Treader on the floor. Before long, everything is as dry as if the room had never been flooded. Man, I feel like throughout that climax at Dark Island, I was sick of the movie and begging for it to finish and now that it is finishing, I find myself calling, “Wait! Come back! You’re just starting to get really good!”

From downstairs, comes the (uncredited) voice of Aunt Alberta. “Eustace! Eustace! What are you going up there? Jill Pole’s dropped in for a visit.” Jill Pole is the name of the protagonist of The Silver Chair, the next Narnia story chronologically. Although Walden Media would never get to adapt that particular book, it gives me great joy to think she still exists in their Narnia universe and some version of her story will happen though I never see it myself. We get some closing voiceover narration from Eustace which is weird since neither this movie nor any of the other Narnia movies have had narration. Maybe it’s supposed to be another of Eustace’s diary entries, but it doesn’t feel like one. Anyway, the sentiments in the voiceover are pretty obvious but I don’t hate it or anything. “We spoke of Narnia often in the days that followed and when my cousins left after the war ended, I missed them with all my heart as I know all Narnians will miss them till the end of time.” Reverently, Eustace hangs the painting back on the wall.

As he and his cousins have a last look at the room before they exit, the water in the painting briefly comes to life again as if waving goodbye to them.[10]Heh. Waves. Waving. Just as in the first Narnia movie, our last image is of a door closing. I love the symbolism of that, perhaps even more than in that first movie since now the door is not just closing for the viewer. Edmund and Lucy won’t be returning either until…well, read The Last Battle. This is the only Narnia movie that doesn’t end with the sound of Aslan’s roar. I wouldn’t have minded hearing it one more time, but I don’t really mind its absence either.

This movie only has one end credits song: There’s a Place for Us by Carrie Underwood. It’s kind of awkward transitioning from that quiet somber ending to this somewhat bombastic anthem. I prefer how with the other Narnia films the score for the last scene blended into the first credits song.[11]Man, everything about this series was starting go downhill! And some of this song’s lyrics make me roll my eyes. (“We can be the kings and queens/of anything if we believe…exactly who we are is just enough.”) But I do appreciate that it’s about being made for something beyond this visible world. (“When these broken hands are whole again/we’ll find what we’ve been waiting for/We were made for so much more!”) A famous quote by C. S. Lewis is “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” Whether a reader agrees with that idea or not, it’s a big part of Narnia’s poetic appeal, one I wish the movie itself had emphasized. In a fun touch, the credits feature Pauline Baynes’s illustrations for the original book though viewers unfamiliar with it may be confused as to why Edmund and Eustace have swapped their hair.

The movie is dedicated to the memory of Peter Apted.

Concluding Thoughts

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) was less of a box office disappointment the Prince Caspian movie but that was largely because less money was spent on both the movie itself and its marketing. And with fantasy movies being so costly, there would be no fourth Narnia movie.[12]I’ve also heard reasons to believe that relations between Walden Media and the C. S. Lewis estate had been crumbling for a while, but I wouldn’t want to gossip. Prince Caspian‘s box office I can regard as tragic and argue that it would have been more successful with a different release date or a shrewder marketing campaign or even that it could have been made differently so that a larger audience could have been drawn to it while still keeping the things that I personally find attractive about it. But with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I feel like it got what it deserved. It didn’t deserve to be a colossal box office failure that got stinky reviews and was an embarrassment to Walden Media and it wasn’t that. Neither did it deserve to be a cultural phenomenon that got rave reviews and saved the Narnia franchise, and it wasn’t that either. This movie has some of the greatest things in any Narnia movie (the design of the magician’s book, the ending, most of the stuff with Eustace) and the some of the cheesiest things in any Narnia movie (nearly everything with the glowing swords and the Green Mist.) I must say I don’t have to make much of a distinction between a good adaptation and a good movie with this one. The things I just called great I’d also call well adapted and the things I called cheesy I’d also call poorly adapted. But what really stands out compared to the other Narnia movies is how large stretches of this one are just…meh. Not really bad and not really good either. If you’re someone who enjoys this movie’s genre or if you’re someone who liked the first two films and doesn’t mind seeing a sequel that’s not quite up to snuff or if you’re someone who likes the book and doesn’t mind seeing an adaptation that’s not quite up to snuff, then I’d recommend you rent the movie on DVD but not buy it.[13]I date myself with such terminology but I think it’s nicely expressive, don’t you? That’s a lot of qualifiers for a recommendation but better than no recommendation. Looking at in detail, as this blog has done, makes it sound worse than if you’re casually watching it to pass the time. I should say that I probably wouldn’t get as angry with the movie as I occasionally do if I weren’t a fan of the source material. But in that case, I probably wouldn’t have bothered to rewatch it as many times as I have either.

To me, this feels like an adaptation that was made out of contractual obligation. While screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely may not have been the biggest fans of the first two Narnia books they adapted, I felt they could see the appeal of adventure stories about good armies vs. evil armies, dethroning tyrants and crowning rightful rulers. Faced with the task of adapting an adventure story about a spiritual quest, I get the impression they just couldn’t relate to it and the resulting script feels labored to me. Yet I hesitate to say they should never have worked on the movie since I love a lot of what they wrote for Eustace. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were their favorite character from the book. Maybe they should have just written dialogue for him and other screenwriters should have written the rest of the script.

On the one hand, it really saddens me that this series of Narnia adaptations never got any further. I really love the world Walden Media created in the first two movies and I’d love to see locations in that world like Tashbaan, Harfang, Charn, Underland, Anvard, Ettinsmoor, Stable Hill and the Wood Between the Worlds. On the other hand, even if put aside things like writing and acting and just focus on visuals, I wasn’t so impressed by the world this third movie created. Maybe if the Narnia movies had continued, they’d have eventually gotten so bad nobody could stand them, and I’d regret even those first two existed. And for what it’s worth, if they couldn’t adapt all seven books in the series, this was the most logical place to stop.[14]Lewis went on record as writing The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with the intention of it being the last Narnia book. He was likely exaggerating though, given how quickly he wrote another one … Continue reading On a third hand, the obvious sequel to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is The Silver Chair which was relatively closer to the screenwriters’ modus operandi. Maybe they would have done a better job with that and if the film also had a better director than Michael Apted, who knows? As it is, I can at least say this series of adaptations ended on a high note in the sense that the very last scene was beautiful. That may sound like damning with faint praise but when I imagine how I’d feel if the very last scene were a disaster, I really do feel grateful. And I feel even more grateful when I remember highlights from those first two movies.

I hope anyone who’s followed this entire series about the Narnia movies from the beginning, all thirty-six posts of it, has highlights to remember too. Thank you.

References

References
↑1 Or lily-like flowers as Eustace the stickler for scientific accuracy insists.
↑2 That’s pretty weak compared to “it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt” which Eustace says in the book but I feel like I’ve carped enough about this part.
↑3 In the book, Aslan initially appears as a lamb and gives the heroes a breakfast of roasted fish. There wasn’t really a point to that except to hammer home that Aslan is really Jesus (Christ being the lamb of God and in the end of the gospel of John, roasting fish for his disciples) so I don’t mind that it was cut. Then again, given how little this movie has done with Aslan, maybe it should have stayed.
↑4 You’ll recall he met him in Prince Caspian.
↑5 Catholics and Protestant differ as to how much salvation is a matter of grace and how much a matter of good works. But it’s not like Catholics don’t believe in grace at all.
↑6 Also, to really get into Christian theology, Reepicheep’s fate in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader corresponds to those of the biblical figures of Enoch and Elijah who were taken to Heaven without having to die. It’s not a picture of normal Christian salvation and could be regarded as something earned by heroism.
↑7 In the book, Reepicheep picked up the coracle on Burnt Island, a location cut from the movie. I don’t blame the adaptation for cutting it since nothing else happened on that island, but I like it in the book. It makes the story feel more realistic for there to be one island on which nothing happens.
↑8 And, technically, the movie doesn’t even affirm that. Aslan tells Caspian he can only learn if his deceased father is there by going there himself. That’s not exactly Christian assurance.
↑9 Not her best moments in any movie, mind you, or even in any Narnia movie. But still.
↑10 Heh. Waves. Waving.
↑11 Man, everything about this series was starting go downhill!
↑12 I’ve also heard reasons to believe that relations between Walden Media and the C. S. Lewis estate had been crumbling for a while, but I wouldn’t want to gossip.
↑13 I date myself with such terminology but I think it’s nicely expressive, don’t you?
↑14 Lewis went on record as writing The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with the intention of it being the last Narnia book. He was likely exaggerating though, given how quickly he wrote another one afterwards.
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) Part 10: Worst Nightmares

Posted on November 23, 2024 by stationmaster

It’s a gray, chilly morning and the Dawn Treader is sailing towards Dark Island.

Minotaur: So what do you think is out there?
Edmund: Our worst nightmares.
Caspian: Our darkest wishes.
Drinian: Pure evil.

The dry way Gary Sweet delivers that last line almost makes it sound like he’s sarcastically mocking the others. I’d almost like to believe that was the intent because the dialogue is so cheesy. I don’t hold much hope for the possibility though. Drinian orders everyone to arm themselves for whatever dangers they’re about to encounter and we get a series of brief scenes to demonstrate that they’ve Learned Their Lessons. In their cabin, MLG tells Lucy she wants to be just like her when she grows up. “When you grow up, you should be just like you,” Lucy tells her. This is the lesson that feels the most disconnected from the main plot and even the movie’s themes in general. To be fair, the whole thing with Lucy and the magician’s book in the source material was fairly disconnected from the book’s main plot and themes too[1]Some have argued that just as Eustace, Caspian and Edmund are tempted by the power that comes from money, Lucy is tempted by the power that comes from beauty and knowledge. but that’s why C. S. Lewis didn’t have a scene right before the climax to remind us of it. Meanwhile in the stern cabin, Caspian and Edmund have this conversation.

Caspian: In case we don’t get through…whatever this, I want you to know I think of you as my brother, Ed.
Edmund: Me too.[2]I assume he means “likewise” and doesn’t think of himself as his brother. That’s a joke, not a serious criticism by the way.
Caspian: You gave up your sword.
Edmund: It wasn’t mine to keep.
Caspian (handing him Peter’s sword): Use this.
Edmund: But it’s-
Caspian: Peter would want you to have it.

This scene is fine. It’s not that memorable but we’ve reached my least favorite section of the film by a long shot, so I want to emphasize when anything is fine.

Reepicheep is riding on Eustace the dragon’s head. “Our battle awaits,” he says as they come in sight of Dark Island. Amusingly, Eustace then turns around and starts to fly away. Reepicheep has to pull on his horns and get in his face to turn him around. “I will not accept surrender,” he says, “A noble warrior does not run from fear. Look at me! Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Eustace’s growl and begrudging obedience here are pretty hilarious.

“I am a mouse!” Reepicheep continues. “You, you’re a dragon! You’ve got skin like chainmail! You breathe fire! Come on! Let’s meet our destiny!” OK, let me stop this movie right there. Reepicheep would never imply that being a mouse was a reason not to be brave! You could argue that since this is a very private conversation, Reepicheep is admitting something he never normally would because it’s the only way to get through to Eustace. But Simon Pegg doesn’t play it like it’s a super personal confession or anything. Reepicheep seems totally nonchalant. And I’m again tired of the movie emphasizing the awesomeness of Eustace’s dragon form. Are they implying that the only reason he should be brave is that he’s a dragon? It’d be better character development if he had to be brave as a human-which is actually what he has to do in the book in which he transforms back much earlier. To be fair, he’ll sort of have to be brave as a human in the movie’s climax too but, well, it’s going to be a weird scene.

Anyway, right outside Dark Island, Caspian gives a pep talk to the crew. It broadly corresponds to one he gives them on Ramandu’s Island in the book when it seems that many of them wish to return home and might well refuse to keep sailing east. Given the movie’s track record, you can bet its version of the speech won’t be as eloquent as the book’s.[3]In a deleted scene from the movie, they would have briefly threatened mutiny. Maybe if that had been kept, the context would have given this speech more of an impact. But the aborted mutiny was also … Continue reading “No matter what happens here,” Caspian says, “every soul who stands before me has earned their place on the crew of the Dawn Treader. Together we have traveled far. Together we have faced adversity. Together we can do it again. So now is not the time to fall into fear’s temptations,” he says, awkwardly tying the movie’s two themes together. “Be strong! Never give in! Our world, our Narnian lives depend on it. Think of the lost souls we’re here to save. Think of Aslan. Think of Narnia.” Everyone cheers, “For Narnia!” You’d think somebody might cry “For Aslan” too-especially Lucy-but no. Caspian actually looks a little startled and surprised his words worked so well. Can’t say I blame him.

The Dawn Treader sails into the darkness. It’s not as creepy as I imagine from the book but it’s not bad.

Green Mist washes over the deck. It seems to hypnotize everyone even the rowers below. Rhince sees a vision of his wife running toward him, but it evaporates as soon as they meet. Caspian hears his father (Nathaniel Parker)’s voice[4]Longtime fans of my blog may remember Parker as Harold Skimpole from Bleak House. saying, “You are a great disappointment to me. You call yourself my son? Then act like a king.” Edmund sees the White Witch again. Instead of just being a fear like the other visions[5]I’m assuming the thing with Rhince represents his fear of losing his wife forever., she also represents a temptation. “Come with me,” she says. “Be my king. I’ll let you rule.”

White Witch: Come with me. Be my king. I’ll let you rule.
Edmund: Go away. You’re dead.
White Witch: You can never kill me! I’ll always be alive in your mind, silly boy!
Edmund: No!

Lucy snaps Edmund out of his trance. “Are you alright?” she asks. He answers, “yeah,” but not very convincingly. They hear a strange, mournful cry from somewhere out in the darkness. In the book, this moment happens in total stillness. I feel like having it come when characters are talking lessens the impact but oh well. The voice comes from a rock protruding from the water. It warns the ship to keep away. “We do not fear you,” calls Caspian. “Nor I you,” says the voice. Edmund shines his torch on the rock, illuminating a bedraggled man (Bruce Spence) brandishing a sword. “You will not defeat me!” he hollers. “Caspian, his sword!” cries Edmund. Caspian identifies this man as Lord Rhoop. Spence is fine as this traumatized character by the way. He’s not as intense as I imagine him from the book, but I suppose the movie could only go so far if it didn’t want a rating higher than PG.

Eustace plucks Rhoop from the rock and sets him on deck. This is hardly a good way to quiet the man’s fears, but it is efficient. “Be calm, my lord,” says Caspian as he tries to keep Rhoop from attacking his rescuers. “We are not here to hurt you. I am your king, Caspian.” Rhoop turns his wide eyes to him and strokes his face as is afraid it will vanish. “You should not have come!” he cries. “There’s no way out of here! Quickly! Turn this ship about before it’s too late!” Edmund agrees with the sentiment. “We have the sword,” he says, “let’s go!” Caspian orders Drinian to turn the ship around. “Do not think!” says Lord Rhoop. “Do not let it know your fears, or it will become them!” Edmund cringes.

Edmund: Oh no!
Lucy: Edmund? What did you just think of?!
Edmund: Oh, I’m sorry!

I’m told this little moment closely resembles one from Ghostbusters (unseen by me.) I doubt it was a deliberate homage since the Ghostbusters moment is comedic and the one in this movie is (meant to be) dramatic. Maybe the screenwriters were influenced by it subconsciously. Who knows? Anyway, Edmund looks over the side of the deck and sees what appear to be more rocks sticking out of the water but are actually giant scaly coils-coils that are slithering towards the ship.

“It’s too late! It’s too late!” screams Rhoop. MLG backs away from the railing all the way to the other side of the ship just in time for the head of a giant sea serpent to rise out of the water behind her!

The whole situation with Dark Island is different and, if you ask me, more interesting in the book. The crew sails in, not having any idea of the island’s nature but guessing it’s something bad. They find the traumatized Rhoop who explains it’s the Island Where Dreams Come True. The sailors think that sounds pretty wonderful until he clarifies that it makes actual dreams you have in your sleep come true, not wishes or daydreams. At once, everyone but the fearless Reepicheep panics and turns the ship around but however hard they row, they can’t seem to make progress. We don’t see any nightmares, but everyone hears-or thinks they hear-something different.

“Do you hear a noise like… like a huge pair of scissors opening and shutting… over there?” Eustace asked Rynelf.
“Hush!” said Rynelf. “I can hear them crawling up the sides of the ship.”
“It’s just going to settle on the mast,” said Caspian.
“Ugh!” said a sailor. “There are the gongs beginning. I knew they would.”

There is a sea serpent that attacks the ship in the middle of the book but it’s just an ordinary animal. Now I prefer having everyone’s bad dreams being undefined as it allows the reader to insert their own most horrible nightmare. But it’s true that this might not have worked as well in a movie[6]If I were adapting the story to film, I’d have point-of-view shots slinking along the sides of the ship or flying overhead as the crew panicked, implying that something was sneaking towards … Continue reading and if they had to show one, I have to say I prefer making the sea serpent the nightmare to having it be things like Caspian disappointing his father or Edmund giving into the White Witch’s whiles. I know there are fans out there who find those things fascinating but to me, they make the worst fears boring because they’re so…understandable. Watching them we go, “Oh, of course, he wishes he could have had a good relationship with the parent he never knew” and “Oh, he feels guilty for betraying his siblings in the first movie.” Real nightmares aren’t so easily interpreted which is what makes them so terrifying. And to the movie’s credit, it does make the sea serpent quite scary. It might actually be one of the scariest things in any of the three Narnia movies.

MLG runs to Lucy for protection. Eustace swoops down and grabs onto the serpent. Reepicheep climbs off Eustace’s head and onto the serpent’s, stabbing it with his sword. The beast shakes the mouse off its head and onto the ship. Then it throws off Eustace, smashing him against a rock. He recovers though and lights the serpent’s head on fire. It douses it in the water. Panicking, Rhoop hurls his special Narnian sword that the crew came to collect at Eustace. It sticks into him, and he howls and flies away despite Lucy’s protests. Is it terrible that this made me laugh? “We are doomed, doomed!” rants Rhoop. “Turn this ship about!” He actually shoves away the helmsman and grabs the wheel himself. I believe I’m supposed to laugh at that. Drinian knocks him out and orders the crew to their rowing positions. “Oars at double speed,” he says. We hear voiceover of Lucy’s thoughts. “Aslan, please help us.” This is similar to what she prays in the book though there her wording is “Aslan, Aslan, if you ever loved us at all, send us help now.” Not sure why they made the wording less dramatic, but whatever.

At this point in the book, a beam of lights cuts through the darkness. An albatross appears in it and leads the ship out of Dark Island. First though, it whispers to Lucy, “Courage, dear heart,” implying that the bird is really Aslan. My brief summary may not sound that exciting but this is a wonderful passage from the book, one I’d resigned myself to not having in the movie since it had clearly made the story be about the heroes destroying it with the seven swords, not escaping it. So I was surprised and delighted to see and hear the albatross here and wondered what part it would play in this reimagined version of the scene.

Then we cut to the rowers below deck working as hard as they can. Then we cut to the wounded Eustace emerging from Dark Island and dropping on a convenient stretch of sand nearby. Then we cut to the sea serpent looping itself around the Dawn Treader, much as the book describes. Lucy hurries MLG below deck and I wonder when we’re going to get back to the albatross. Then it dawns on me we’re not getting back to the albatross at all. You know, as a fan of the Narnia books, there had been moments before in this series of adaptations that made me wince (like Mr. Beaver referring to Aslan as “the top geezer”) or even groan (like Susan becoming Caspian’s love interest) but this is the first time I’ve ever felt insulted by a Narnia movie. Did they really think they could totally change this scene and then keep fans happy by randomly showing the albatross for a few seconds like that? Do they really think we’re that easily pleased? And how on earth does this play for viewers who haven’t read the book? In the middle of intense action scene, we pause for Lucy to stare at a bird as happy music plays? It’s just so clumsy that I’m ready to give up on the whole movie!

Oh well. I’ve come this far. Caspian plans to use the ship to smash the sea serpent against the rocks. Seems like that would also destroy the Dawn Treader but what do I know? “I’ll keep it on the prow!” yells Edmund. Sitting in the mouth of the dragon’s head prow, he uses his torch to get the serpent’s attention. It bites off the prow and for a moment, it looks like Edmund has been swallowed but no, he’s still there.

The space between the sea serpent and the rock is diminishing but its coils are also tightening around the ship. Lucy fires an arrow at it which finds its mark but doesn’t do much against the beast. The ship succeeds in smashing the serpent against the rock. Edmund is thrown to the deck. Green mist emerges from the part of the serpent’s body that the ship hit but nothing else.

We cut back to Eustace on the sand. Aslan approaches him. Eustace randomly scratches his belly. This is another reference to the book that just confuses newcomers and insults fans by being so undercooked. In the book, Eustace the dragon meets Aslan in a scene that may be a dream, but which certainly has real effects. (We only hear about it from Eustace afterwards.) Aslan wordlessly tells Eustace to undress himself. Eustace is confused at first but then realizes he’s supposed to shed his dragon skin the way snakes’ shed theirs. He tears it off with his claws easily and painlessly, only to find there’s another dragon skin underneath just as ugly. He tears off layer after layer, never feeling any pain but never making any progress either. Presumably, Eustace scratching himself in the movie is supposed to be the equivalent of that but there’s no way anyone unfamiliar with the book would guess the idea. Sheesh, I’m familiar with the book and I didn’t understand it at first. Maybe they should have had a scene before this of Eustace tearing at his scales. “What is he doing?” someone could have asked. “He’s trying to take his dragon skin off,” another character could have said. “He wants to be human again.” Without Eustace easily removing a layer of skin only to find it did no good, this still would have lost a big part of the book’s symbolism, but it would have been something.

In the book, Aslan tells Eustace he must let him undress him. A frightened but desperate Eustace consents. Aslan’s claws tear into his body and only then does Eustace emerge as a boy. “It hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt,” he reports. “The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.” In the movie, Aslan scratches the sand with his claws and glowing…scratches, I guess, appear on Eustace’s body. Then Aslan roars and the dragon’s body sort of explodes in a shower of sparks. (I can’t describe it better than that.) Eustace lands on the beach of Ramandu’s Island, a boy again. This totally misses the point of the scene’s imagery in the book! From what I’ve gathered, the filmmakers didn’t want Aslan’s claws to physically touch Eustace as that would give the movie too high a rating. I can sympathize with that as I don’t think a PG-13 rating would reflect the book’s content, but would it really have been so disturbing? In the first Narnia movie, the White Witch killed Aslan by stabbing him and that got a PG. (Keep in mind both Aslan and the dragon are animated creatures, not people.) It’s not like the book describes guts spilling out of Eustace’s sides. The analogies it uses are of scabs coming off and snakes shedding their skins. A movie wouldn’t even need to show Aslan’s claws penetrating the skin. The moment they started to do so, it could have cut to Eustace’s pained expression. As it is, we don’t get the idea that Eustace is surrendering to Aslan, admitting he can’t become a better person without him and neither do we get much impression that this was a painful process for Eustace since the whole transformation is so brief and generic.[7]For what it’s worth, I don’t hate this scene as much as some Narnia fans I’ve encountered who describe it as looking like the climactic transformation from Dreamworks’s Shrek … Continue reading I guess if you look closely at the dragon’s face, it looks somewhat pained and it does roar but by that point, you’re just making excuses for the movie. The scene doesn’t feel painful to watch except maybe if you’re a fan who wanted to see a good adaptation of it.

To be fair, the movie will later have Eustace describe the scene to the other characters similarly to how the book describes it. I appreciate that but I wish you could get some of the book’s message about mankind being unable to improve itself without God, painful as God’s assistance may be, just from watching the scene itself.

Back to Dark Island. The sea serpent is really mad now. As it rises over the Dawn Treader, it pulls back a hood like a cobra’s, revealing dozens of tendrils that rattle menacingly. This makes it more over-the-top than the book’s sea serpent but by making it one of Dark Island’s nightmares, I think the movie needed for it be more over-the-top.

The serpent makes a dive for Edmund. Caspian shoves him out of the way and chops off one of the beast’s tendrils with his sword. It dissipates into smoke which encourages Caspian to believe they can beat it. Meanwhile, Eustace wakes up and realizes that not only is he human, but Rhoop’s sword is no longer sticking into his side. There’s not even a wound. The sword lies nearby. Eustace picks it up and runs to Aslan’s table, realizing what he must do. While this goes on, the sea serpent chews on the Dawn Treader’s flag.

The crew throw harpoons with ropes attached at it while Edmund climbs up the rigging. At Aslan’s table, the six swords that have been laid there are rattling and glowing blue. (It looks silly.) Eustace’s is glowing blue too but before he can set it down and unleash the blades’ full power, Green Mist billows behind him. It actually grabs Eustace from behind rather than just enveloping him. We’ve never seen it do that before, but I suppose so near the Dark Island, it would be powerful. Eustace actually uses the last sword like some kind of flyswatter to beat off the Mist. It looks about as silly as that description sounds.

Just as Edmund reaches the level of the sea serpent’s face, the White Witch appears beside him again. “What do you want to prove?” she demands. “That you’re a man? I can make you that. I can make you my king. Just take my hand.” I am so tired of her schtick. Some of the harpoons have stuck into the sea serpent by now and the crew try to use the ropes to pull it down but they’re the ones who end up being yanked around by it. Eustace manages to toss the final sword on the pile. A giant beam of blue light shoots from the swords into the sky. Peter’s sword in Edmund’s hand starts to glow too. When the sea serpent tries to devour him again, he uses the sword to stab it. The Witch dissolves and lightning shoots out of the serpent’s mouth. I guess when Coriakin said that the heroes needed to lay all seven swords at Aslan’s table, he meant “because that will make the eighth sword glow and destroy the monster of which the Mist will have taken the form.” I guess I can’t blame him for simplifying things. This all looks very silly if you ask me.

But I do like the imagery of the serpent’s body dissolving into mist as it sinks to the bottom of the sea. I like the imagery of the sunbeams cutting through the Mist as it all disappears even better. While it’s obviously different from the way C. S. Lewis depicted the destruction of Dark Island[8]In the book, the characters just looked around after they’d gotten out of it and saw that it was gone., it feels like something he would describe. There really is the feeling that the character are waking up from a bad dream. I could have done without Lucy saying, “The spell, it’s lifting!” Thanks, we got that.

At Ramandu’s Island, the three lords are also freed from their enchanted sleep and the roots that had grown around them disappear. From the deck of the Dawn Treader, the longboats full of sacrificed Lone Islanders, all of them alive and well, can be seen. Rhince and MLG recognize their wife and mother (respectively) in one of them. They dive overboard and swim to her. Edmund and Lucy tearfully watch the reunion, doubtless thinking of their own family, and I still don’t really care about Rhince and MLG.

“We did it,” Lucy says to Edmund and Caspian, “I knew we would.” That’s the kind of line that can only work if the actor delivers it ecstatically. Instead, Georgie Henley delivers the first part calmly and the second part almost like it’s supposed to be a humorous moment, as if Lucy had been really terrified and were now trying to cover it. I’m guessing Henley was trying to do something interesting with the boring material she was given but she accidentally made it worse instead. “Wasn’t just us though,” says Edmund. Now in the book, when Lord Rhoop credits the sailors with destroying Dark Island, Lucy says, “I don’t think it was us,” the implication being that it was Aslan. I was pleased for a moment, thinking the movie might be honoring the text. But no, they seem to be talking about Eustace who apparently decided to swim all the way from Ramandu’s Island to the ship and could do so. Either that or the screenwriters just forgot where he was.

“I see your wings have been clipped” says Reepicheep and jumps into the water because why not?[9]In the book, Reepicheep dives into the sea to fight one of the sea people, so this is a rare instance of the movie forgoing an action scene. He starts to sing his song about the waves being sweet where the sky meets the water and realizes that the water in which he swims does in fact taste sweet. I’d honestly forgotten that was supposed to be a thing in this story by now and I had read the book. I imagine a viewer who hadn’t would be even less likely to remember or be interested in that.

Reepicheep directs the others’ attention to a vast stretch of whiteness in the sea ahead of the ship.

Caspian: Aslan’s country. We must be close.
Edmund: Well, we’ve come this far.

Some fans have objected that that flippant line undermines the amazingness of sailing to Aslan’s country, making it something the characters might as well do since why not? To be fair, I’m guessing Edmund’s words were intended as humorous understatement and that’s there’s really no question of passing up on this opportunity. But because the movie itself has treated Aslan’s country as an afterthought, that’s sadly how it ends up coming across.

Next Week: Well, Once We’ve Gotten Through the Worst of the Movie, It Happily Ends on a Highnote

References

References
↑1 Some have argued that just as Eustace, Caspian and Edmund are tempted by the power that comes from money, Lucy is tempted by the power that comes from beauty and knowledge.
↑2 I assume he means “likewise” and doesn’t think of himself as his brother. That’s a joke, not a serious criticism by the way.
↑3 In a deleted scene from the movie, they would have briefly threatened mutiny. Maybe if that had been kept, the context would have given this speech more of an impact. But the aborted mutiny was also pretty random, and I can’t say I mind it getting the ax too much.
↑4 Longtime fans of my blog may remember Parker as Harold Skimpole from Bleak House.
↑5 I’m assuming the thing with Rhince represents his fear of losing his wife forever.
↑6 If I were adapting the story to film, I’d have point-of-view shots slinking along the sides of the ship or flying overhead as the crew panicked, implying that something was sneaking towards them but not revealing what.
↑7 For what it’s worth, I don’t hate this scene as much as some Narnia fans I’ve encountered who describe it as looking like the climactic transformation from Dreamworks’s Shrek and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast where the transforming character rises into the air and shines. Eustace’s glow doesn’t really remind me of their glow though. It’s more like sparks or flames in keeping with him being a dragon. And unlike those other transformations, there are no closeup of specific body parts changing. The whole thing happens so quickly, it doesn’t feel like a big moment. Sheesh, on reflection, I almost wish it were like Shrek and Beauty and the Beast‘s transformations! (Not so crazy, I guess. Beauty and the Beast might actually be one of my favorite movies though I concede that transformation sounds cheesy on paper.) It would have been easier for the movie to convey that it was slow, painful process for Eustace. Man, writing about this scene is depressing.
↑8 In the book, the characters just looked around after they’d gotten out of it and saw that it was gone.
↑9 In the book, Reepicheep dives into the sea to fight one of the sea people, so this is a rare instance of the movie forgoing an action scene.
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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010) Part 9: You’re a Star

Posted on November 16, 2024 by stationmaster

As the sun rises over the shore, MLG stirs from her sleep and sees something. She eagerly awakens Lucy and points out to her the elusive Blue Star hanging just above the horizon.

The Dawn Treader sets sail in the star’s direction as Eustace the dragon flies by its side. Yeah, this is something that irritates me. In the book, the crew is unable to leave Dragon Island, as they name it, until Eustace has been returned to his human form since there’s no way he could fit on board, and they can’t expect him to follow them by flying as they have no idea when-or if-they’ll reach land again. The biggest question for them, according to C. S. Lewis, is “how are we to feed him?” The movie just ignores all those realistic considerations. To be fair, I understand that Dragon Island is far from the most interesting location in the story, and I don’t blame the filmmakers for wanting to move on from it as swiftly as possible. Still, the book’s depiction feels “real” to me in a way the movie’s doesn’t.[1]I know some would say it’s silly to expect any depiction of a dragon to feel real. Those people aren’t this blog’s target audience. I guess Eustace is just drinking some magical Narnian coffee that enables him to fly all day and all night without rest.

Anyway, as the ship departs, Lucy notices a sea nymph and smiles at her. She’s disturbed to see that the nymph doesn’t return her smile but gestures for the Dawn Treader to come back with a rather anxious expression on her face.

Cut to some days later when the oarsmen are straining and sweating to get the Dawn Treader to move. “The wind has left us,” Drinian tells the kings. “So how do we get to Ramandu’s Island now then?” asks Edmund. “My guess is something doesn’t want us to get there,” says Drinian ominously. So now the Mist can control the wind? That doesn’t really fit in with its other powers. To be fair though, the ship is getting increasingly near to the Mist’s source so it makes sense that it would be at its most powerful. Still, why does everything bad that happens in this story have to be blamed on the Mist? It’s one of those signs that the filmmakers are taking a story that wasn’t supposed to have an overarching villain and desperately try to force one on it. The crew are getting irritable. “If I get any hungrier, I’m going to eat that dragon!” one of them snarls. Eustace, flying above, glowers. “Don’t worry, Eustace,” says Reepicheep who’s riding atop his head, “They’ll have to deal with me first.” “If we don’t find land by tonight, they may well eat him,” Drinian says to Caspian or rather starts to say before the ship jolts, toppling everyone off their feet. Once Edmund sees what’s happened, he beams. “Eustace! That’s brilliant!” Eustace has wrapped his dragon tail around the prow of the ship and is now towing it across the sea. So not only can he fly all day and all night without dropping but he can also pull the ship around. That magical Narnian coffee sure is something!

The entire crew cheers for Eustace and he smiles proudly. OK, I have a criticism here that’s hard to make because it’s a complicated issue. It’s true that Eustace is a big help to the Dawn Treader’s crew as a dragon. He helps them explore Dragon Island by giving them rides on his back. He keeps them warm. He kills goats for food. He tears up a big pine tree to replace the ship’s mast which had been destroyed by a storm. This makes sense, given the situation, and is a big part of his positive character development, so it’s good that the movie is showing something similar. But the thing is all we’re seeing are benefits to being a dragon and no drawbacks. Eustace isn’t particularly ugly as a dragon. He doesn’t have many problems of communication. He doesn’t hold the ship back from its voyage. He doesn’t have that arm band digging into his foreleg. There’s barely any reason for us to want the enchantment upon him to be broken.[2]Well, unless you count the fact that Will Poulter is the actor giving the best performance in this movie and we won’t see him until Eustace is back to normal. That’s why even though I initially liked the idea of the viewers not knowing the dragon’s identity when they first saw it, I wonder if it might not have served Eustace’s character arc better if it were otherwise. If we knew that Eustace was desperately seeking help from the crew and their response was to attack him, it might have really made being a dragon seem like a curse and brought home to Eustace, who hadn’t desired any fellowship with the crew before, that, in the book’s words, “he was a monster cut off from the whole human race.” I guess that is the implication of the movie’s scene in retrospect but I’m not sure how many viewers are likely to look back on it that way since the film generally doesn’t encourage contemplation.

We get a very brief bit of Caspian in his cabin, staring at the swords he’s collected so far. “We can’t be sure the other lords even made it to Ramandu’s Island,” he says to Edmund. Originally, this was part of a longer scene in which Edmund gave Caspian a pep talk about following the Blue Star and not giving in to temptation, etc. It wasn’t that eloquent and I don’t blame the director for cutting it. You could argue though that it would have demonstrated Edmund’s character growth.

As the sun sets, the Dawn Treader arrives at the mysterious shores of Ramandu’s Island. “You got us there! What did I tell you, Eustace?” crows Reepicheep. “Extraordinary! Extraordinary!” Again, with the overemphasis on how awesome it is that Eustace is a dragon. Still, this island is one of the more visually appealing locations in the movie.

As our heroes explore some overgrown ruins on it though, I regret to say that they look simply creepy. At this point in the book, Ramandu’s Island could be described as creepy but also as beautiful and enticing. Indeed, that was part of its (initial) ambiguity as the story had taught readers to distrust things that seem beautiful and appealing like caves full of treasure and water that creates gold. Part of the issue is that in the book, the heroes find this location when the sun is still out, making it relatively less creepy, and then stay as night falls, making it increasingly so. The fact that Eustace stayed with them during this was an example of his character development. Here it’s dark right from the start as the crew (understandably minus Eustace and less understandably minus Reepicheep) find a table with a feast mysteriously spread upon it just waiting from them.

The minotaur is eager to eat but Drinian orders him to wait. At the far end of the table, sit three unconscious men (uncredited despite their importance to the plot) who have evidently remained in the same position so long that not only are their beards overgrown but the underbrush has grown around them. This reveal is a pretty great creepy moment.

From the rings on their fingers, Caspian deduces that these are Lord Revilian, Lord Mavramorn[3]One of my favorite Narnian names by the way. It’s so much fun to say out loud. and Lord Argoz. He’s startled to find that they’re all still breathing. “They’re under a spell,” Edmund says. “It’s the food!” Caspian cries just in time to save the minotaur from eating an apple. Edmund notices something else on the table. “Hey! It’s the Stone Knife. This is Aslan’s table,” he says. The Stone Knife was what the White Witch used to kill Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but I’m not sure how many people who have watched the movie but not read the book remember that. This moment is probably confusing for them. Then again, maybe I’m just being a book snob and not giving movie fans enough credit. Still, the knife was never referred to as being made of stone in the film and I feel like you’d need sharp eyes to make the connection.

Caspian and Edmund retrieve the three sleeping lords’ swords from the brush and lay them, along with the others, on the table. “That’s six,” says Edmund. “Still missing one,” says Caspian. Nonetheless, the swords glow blue, which looks regrettably silly in my opinion, and something else magical happens. The Blue Star actually lowers itself to the ground and transforms into a beautiful young woman (Laura Brent) in a simple white dress. Everyone except Edmund kneels before her. “Travelers of Narnia, welcome,” she says. “Rise. Are you not hungry?” Edmund suspiciously asks her identity. “I am Liliandil, daughter of Ramandu,” she says. “I am your guide.” There’s a lot to unpack here. First, while Narnian stars are creatures in the books, they don’t beam down from the skies whenever they feel like it. They…well, I’ll explain. In the book, we see Ramandu as well as his daughter. Since the main plot function of both is to provide exposition and Ramandu’s daughter ends up marrying Caspian[4]Her death is also a big part of another Narnia book, The Silver Chair., I can understand the filmmakers wanting to simplify things by only keeping her. But her father’s story is so cool in the book!

…the old man came on without speaking to the travellers and stood on the other side of the table opposite to his daughter. Then both of them held up their arms before them and turned to face the east. In that position they began to sing.[5]This is the only example of a religious ritual we see in Narnia. I wish I could write down the song, but no one who was present could remember it. Lucy said afterwards that it was high, almost shrill, but very beautiful, “A cold kind of song, an early morning kind of song.” And as they sang, the grey clouds lifted from the eastern sky and the white patches grew bigger and bigger till it was all white, and the sea began to shine like silver. And long afterwards (but those two sang all the time) the east began to turn red and at last, unclouded, the sun came up out of the sea and its long level ray shot down the length of the table on the gold and silver and on the Stone Knife.

Once or twice before, the Narnians had wondered whether the sun at its rising did not look bigger in these seas than it had looked at home. This time they were certain. There was no mistaking it. And the brightness of its ray on the dew and on the table was far beyond any morning brightness they had ever seen. And as Edmund said afterwards, “Though lots of things happened on that trip which sound more exciting, that moment was really the most exciting.” For now they knew that they had truly come to the beginning of the End of the World.

Then something seemed to be flying at them out of the very centre of the rising sun: but of course one couldn’t look steadily in that direction to make sure. But presently the air became full of voices — voices which took up the same song that the Lady and her Father were singing, but in far wilder tones and in a language which no one knew. And soon after that the owners of these voices could be seen. They were birds, large and white, and they came by hundreds and thousands and alighted on everything; on the grass, and the pavement, on the table, on your shoulders, your hands, and your head, till it looked as if heavy snow had fallen. For, like snow, they not only made every thing white but blurred and blunted all shapes. But Lucy, looking out from between the wings of the birds that covered her, saw one bird fly to the Old Man with something in its beak that looked like a little fruit, unless it was a little live coal, which it might have been, for it was too bright to look at. And the bird laid it in the Old Man’s mouth.

Naturally, none of that makes it into the movie. Ramandu afterwards explains that he’s “a star at rest” and that the coal-like fruit the birds brought him is a fire berry from the valleys in the sun. He gets one every morning and it takes away a little of his age so eventually he’ll be young enough to return to the sky. Isn’t all that much more interesting than what the movie did?

While the book describes light as coming from Ramandu, I object to his daughter glowing so much in this movie. Laura Brent is a lovely woman but it’s hard to buy Caspian being attracted to her when she looks like this.

I’ve been pretty negative for a while, so let me praise this adaptation for giving Ramandu’s daughter a name. I don’t necessarily think every unnamed character in the Narnia books needs one[6]For example, the Lady of the Green Kirtle in The Silver Chair is meant to be mysterious, so not having a name fits in with that. But considering that she marries a major character and gives birth to another, I think it’s weird that C. S. Lewis never named Ramandu’s daughter. And Liliandil even sounds like it’s from the same language as Ramandu without sounding obvious like Ramandua and Ramanduette or something. I’m impressed!

You know who else is impressed right now? Caspian. “You’re a star,” he says to Liliandil.[7]Ramandu’s daughter isn’t necessarily a star herself in the books by the way. We’re just told “the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.” Her absent mother could have … Continue reading “You are most beautiful!” She’s a little taken aback by this and who can blame her? Talk about heavy-handed writing! The movie’s lucky Ben Barnes is such a good actor. “If it is a distraction for you,” says Liliandil, “I can change form.” Both Edmund and Caspian blurt out “No!” then give each other awkward looks. This arguably makes it seem like the movie is setting up a love triangle. Thankfully, it isn’t. Maybe the movie should have avoided that impression by having every man yell, “No!” Or maybe that would have just made the joke come across as dumber. Anyway, Liliandil politely ignores the awkwardness. “Please,” she says, “the food is for you.” She gestures with her hands and the candles on the table are lit. “There is enough for all who are welcome at Aslan’s table. Always. Help yourselves!” A word here about Laura Brent’s performance. It’s good on its own terms, probably one of the more memorable performances in this movie. But it’s really not how I imagine Ramandu’s daughter from the books. She certainly didn’t have much in the way of personality there, but she gave the impression of a stately, dignified lady. Here she seems like a perky tour guide or airline stewardess. Since I don’t love the way the character looks or sounds in this movie, how would I have portrayed her? Well, some are going to hate me for this, but I would have modeled her after the Elven women in The Lord of the Rings movies. I know detractors tend to call the Narnia movies rip-offs of those and here I’m asking them to rip off more. But what can I say? Watching the characters of Arwen and Galadriel in those films, my first thought was “yep, that’s Ramandu’s daughter.”

Many of the sailors tentatively reach for food or silverware. “Wait! What happened to them?” asks Edmund, shining his torch on the three sleepers. “These poor men were half mad by the time they reached our shores,” says Liliandil. “They were threatening violence upon each other. Violence is forbidden at the table of Aslan. So they were sent to sleep.” In the book, the explanation was a tad more complicated. One of the violent lords grabbed the Stone Knife which was “a thing not right for him to touch” and that was what set off the spell. The change is kind of ironic since this adaptation tends solve problems, like the slave trade on the Lone Islands, with violence that the book solved nonviolently. Still, violence being forbidden at Aslan’s table is still within the spirit of the book’s depiction. “When all is put right,” says Liliandil. In the book, the way to break the spell was for the Dawn Treader to sail to the World’s End and leave a crewmember behind, which fit in perfectly with Reepicheep’s goals, but the movie is much less interested in the world’s end. I’m sorry if I’m making this scene sound bad. It’s fine. It’s just that, having read the original or even just seen the first two Narnia movies, I know it could have been more than fine.

While everybody else gets to eat, Liliandil leads Caspian, Lucy and Edmund to a promontory overlooking the sea. “The magician Coriakin told you of Dark Island,” she says. There it is, within sight of Ramandu’s Island. According to Lewis, looking at the island from the outside was “looking into the mouth of a railway tunnel — a tunnel either so long or so twisty that you cannot see the light at the far end.” The movie’s version looks more like a huge cloud and, rather than being totally dark, there is a green light glowing within because of course there’s a green light.

Liliandil: Before long, the evil will be unstoppable.
Caspian: Coriakin said to break its spell we lay the seven swords at Aslan’s table.
Liliandil: He speaks the truth.
Edmund: But we only found six. Do you know where the seventh is?
Liliandil (pointing at Dark Island): In there. You will need great courage. Now waste no time.
Caspian: I hope we meet again.

She smiles warmly at him before reverting to her star form and then rocketing back up into the sky. That’s all we get of their relationship. Not a huge change from the book, I guess, since the love-at-first-sight romance between Caspian and Ramandu’s daughter was implied rather than shown there.[8]And even played somewhat for humor. Still, I feel like there was a little more than that! Here Caspian doesn’t even mention Liliandil after this scene.[9]In the book, Lucy reminding him of her was something that convinced him to return to Ramandu’s Island rather than keeping sailing to Aslan’s country. It feels scandalous that Caspian’s noncanonical romance in the Prince Caspian movie was more developed than his canonical one in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Next Week: The Dawn Treader Enters the Dark Island and I Discuss My Least Favorite Part of the Movie

References

References
↑1 I know some would say it’s silly to expect any depiction of a dragon to feel real. Those people aren’t this blog’s target audience.
↑2 Well, unless you count the fact that Will Poulter is the actor giving the best performance in this movie and we won’t see him until Eustace is back to normal.
↑3 One of my favorite Narnian names by the way. It’s so much fun to say out loud.
↑4 Her death is also a big part of another Narnia book, The Silver Chair.
↑5 This is the only example of a religious ritual we see in Narnia.
↑6 For example, the Lady of the Green Kirtle in The Silver Chair is meant to be mysterious, so not having a name fits in with that.
↑7 Ramandu’s daughter isn’t necessarily a star herself in the books by the way. We’re just told “the blood of the stars flowed in her veins.” Her absent mother could have been a human. Alternatively, it could be she never had a mother and Narnian stars reproduce asexually somehow. It’s a testament to the book’s quality that I find these unanswered questions pleasantly intriguing rather than irritating.
↑8 And even played somewhat for humor.
↑9 In the book, Lucy reminding him of her was something that convinced him to return to Ramandu’s Island rather than keeping sailing to Aslan’s country.
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