Prince Caspian (2008) Part 12: Do You See Him Now?

Finally, we’re back to Lucy. She’s still riding through the forest and now another Telmarine soldier is chasing her. Suddenly, there’s a lion running beside her too. Is it Aslan or is it some random lion who’s going to kill her? OK, it’s obviously going to be Aslan but let’s bear with the movie and pretend that, like Lucy, we’re not sure yet. (To be fair, this at the tail-end of a rather overindulgent action scene so it doesn’t feel so a random lion attacking doesn’t feel so unlikely in context.) The lion roars, frightening her horse who rears back, knocking Lucy off.

For a moment, it looks like the snarling lion is going to pounce on the fallen girl, but it leaps right over her and attacks her pursuer, knocking him off his horse. Lucy crawls to her feet in time to see the soldier running off. The lion turns to face her and, yes, it really is Aslan![1]As long we’re making the story grittier, I wouldn’t have minded Aslan killing the Telmarine. After all, he’s not like a tame lion. Lucy runs over and hugs him. The interaction between the flesh and blood actress and the CG lion is very impressive and I think Liam Neeson kicked his game up a notch as Aslan’s voice in this sequel. While saving Lucy from an attacker wasn’t from the book, I enjoy this reimagined reunion.

“I knew it was you!” Lucy declares ecstatically. “The whole time, I knew it! But the others didn’t believe me” to which Alsan replies, “And why would that stop you from coming to me?” Lucy’s smile fades. It’s a very nicely acted moment on Henley’s part.

Lucy: I’m sorry. I was too scared to come alone. Why wouldn’t you show yourself? Why wouldn’t you come roaring in and save us like last time?
Aslan: Things never happen the same way twice, dear one.

You may remember that Aslan said that exact same thing in his last scene with Lucy. Is the repeated line to demonstrate that that encounter wasn’t just a dream? Or did the screenwriters just forget they’d already used it? I prefer the believe the first possibility but there are enough clumsy things in these scripts that I can’t entirely discount the second one. I’ve got to say it’s a pretty ironic line to repeat if it was an accident.

Lucy: If I’d come earlier, would everyone have died? Could I have stopped that?
Aslan: We can never know what would have happened, Lucy.

Now some fans of the Narnia books, particularly Christian fans, take justifiable issue with the way that line has been adapted. In the book, Aslan says, “To know what would have happened, child? No. Nobody is ever told that.” It isn’t that Aslan himself doesn’t know; he’s just not telling. Since Aslan is meant to be God, having him say, “we can never know” is problematic from a Christian perspective. To be fair, the book doesn’t describe Aslan as omniscient outright though the longer the series goes on, the more strongly it’s implied. I believe the adaptation changed the line unthinkingly, not out of a conscious goal of keeping Aslan from being all knowing.[2]If that really was a conscious goal on their part, I’m mystified as to how they were planning to adapt The Silver Chair. Anyway, in both the book and the movie, Lucy is informed that she should have followed after Aslan despite being the only one to see him. But in the book, the Pevensies and Trumpkin still hadn’t found their way back to Aslan’s How at that point and Aslan commanded her to lead them to him. This allowed Lucy to redeem her earlier mistake though it never actually came to her leaving the others to follow Aslan by herself since they, more or less, listened to her that time. I generally approve of the way the movie restructures the book’s plot and think it makes a lot of sense but the fact that Lucy isn’t given that opportunity to redeem herself is a negative side effect of it. Still, I love that they kept Aslan calling her out on not having enough faith too, even if it no longer goes anywhere. It makes the conflict much more interesting than Lucy being totally right and her siblings being totally wrong.[3]In the book, Lucy is actually rather self-righteous when she complains to Aslan about the others not believing her and he reprimands her with a growl. The movie makes him much less stern.

Aslan: But what will happen is another matter entirely.
Lucy: Then you’ll help?
Aslan: Of course. As will you.
Lucy: Oh, I wish I was braver.
Aslan: If you were any braver, you’d be a lioness.

This is similar to the dialogue between Lucy and Aslan in the book but less dramatic. There she actually breaks down crying but after burying her face in Aslan’s mane, she feels stronger, and he calls her a lioness. It’s a bit sad that the movie couldn’t have had that more dramatic version but since Lucy now doesn’t need to wake up four people older than her and tell them to follow someone they can’t see into the dark, it wouldn’t have felt warranted. Like I said, negative side effect of restructuring.

“Now I think your friends have slept long enough, don’t you?” says Alsan. He raises his head and roars, and the camera pans up into the tree branches. But before we can see what happens, we cut back to the battle. (Despite what you might think from my last post, I don’t mean that as a criticism.) Trumpkin, Caspian, Susan, Edmund and Peter are killing everyone who tries to kill them though it’s ambiguous how Reepicheep is faring. We see him charge under the enemy’s feet and don’t see him again for quite a while. Still, things aren’t going that well for the good guys. Caspian tumbles on his back into the pit and Glozelle points his battle axe at him. But then in the heat of battle, he hesitates. He admired the way Caspian chose to establish his kingship by rule of law rather than by killing the current occupant of the throne in the Telmarine tradition. He doesn’t feel good about killing him now. It’s a very well-acted moment for Favino.

Glozelle starts to lower his weapon but before he can figure out what to do next, a giant root shoots out the ground above him, wraps itself around his waist, bangs his body around and drops it. In earlier versions of the script, this would have killed Glozelle but the filmmakers realized that having him die because he hesitated to kill our hero felt horrible wrong.[4]In the book, it’s implied that Glozelle dies at some point during this scene, but it isn’t described as is Sopespian’s death.

Peter helps an amazed Caspian out of the pit, and we see that the Narnians have been joined by an army of trees who walk above the ground with their giant roots acting as tentacles. One of the trees is felled by a stone from one of the catapults but another tree crushes the catapult with its roots. Peter leads the reinforced Narnians with a cry of “For Aslan!” and the terrified Telmarines turn and run. Now I know that there are critics out there who dismiss the Narnia movies, particularly this one, for ripping off The Lord of the Rings and, in this case anyway, they have a point. The climax of The Two Towers (2002) also features an army of treelike creatures defeating the technologically advanced villains. (Both stories probably owe something to Macbeth.) It doesn’t help that these trees look relatively more like the ents than the dryads in the previous Narnia film did. Still, if this is a rip-off, it’s a well done one and since The Lord of the Rings doesn’t hold the same place in my heart that it does in the hearts of many, including many Narnia fans, I’m not too bothered. In fact, I really enjoy the visual.

Another Telmarine tells Sopespian they can still defeat the Narnians if they draw them to the river. He orders his troops to regroup at Beruna. But there’s another surprise awaiting them. The Telmarines, pursued by the Narnians, surge toward their bridge but halt in confusion when they see Lucy, a little girl, on the other side, fearlessly walking toward them. If you’re quick-eyed, you can see Edmund smile upon seeing her even as her other siblings and the Narnians look concerned. This is very much in keeping with the book in which Edmund is the first to believe Lucy’s claims of seeing Aslan and the first besides her to gain the ability to see the lion.

To the Telmarines’ further bafflement, Lucy smiles smugly at them and draws her dagger.

I love it!

Then Aslan calmly walks into view and stands by Lucy’s side. Sopespian leads a charge across the bridge. Other Telmarines lead their horses right into the water. Aslan roars, sending ripples across the river. Sopespian stops halfway across the bridge. Something is happening to the water. He turns to see what at first appears to be a huge wave heading towards him. Sopespian turns his horse around but it’s too late. The wave takes the form a giant man who glides across the land.[5]It’s rather reminiscent of the nature spirits from The Firebird Suite in Fantasia 2000.

Some of the Telmarines on the bridge just scream and jump off it into the river. The towering water giant, whom the book describes as the river god, looks to Aslan who gives him a little nod. Then he lifts the bridge, with several Telmarines still on it, into the air. They all fall of except for Sopespian.

The giant glares at him. Sopespian flails his sword at him and yells in a pathetic attempt at defiance. Then the river god simply swallows him and the bridge-that’s what it looks like anyway-before collapsing into water.

The remaining Telmarines simply hand their weapons over to the Narnians as they haul themselves out of the river. Now in the book, the river god simply asked Aslan to remove his “chains” before the Telmarines even arrived and Aslan magically made ivy destroy the bridge. The Telmarines surrendered when they found it gone. The river god never fought anyone, let alone drowned one of the story’s main villains.[6]I assume when a creature made of water devours you, you drown. I know I’m expected, as a fan of the book, to roll my eyes and complain about Hollywood making everything over the top and ridiculous but that’s not what I’m going to do. I love this reimagining of the scene and I feel it’s very true to the spirit of the book’s climax in that it’s awe-inspiring, funny and just a little bit creepy. I do think it would have worked if, as I’ve suggested before, the last movie had established this location. Then removing the bridge made by the bad guys and restoring the ford to the way it was in Narnia’s golden age would have been more emotionally resonant. But, hey, it’s still a cool scene even without that.

Another thing I’ve mentioned before is that in the book, there’s a Telmarine township near the bridge. Aslan summons Bacchus, the classical god of wine and revelry, Silenus, his mentor, and the maenads, his crazy followers. He leads them on a romp through the town, magically destroying it with greenery, and beyond. Throughout this scene, various unlikeable Telmarines flee in terror or suffer worse fates[7]This is in keeping with the myths about Bacchus punishing uptight people who refuse to join in his worship though it’s much more G-rated. while various likeable, downtrodden Telmarines (a bored schoolgirl, a weary schoolteacher, a boy being beaten by a man) happily join the merrymaking. This all culminates in a surprisingly heartwarming scene which I’m not going to spoil for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. Not everyone likes this surreal scene, but I love it.[8]Keep in mind that I probably didn’t come to the Narnia books with the same expectations as many young readers did. You see, I was a big fan of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through … Continue reading However, I’m not as upset about the movie cutting it as you’d expect though because of how much I love the reimagined river god scene. I do think cutting the unconventional conquering of Beruna and the other Telmarines towns has a negative impact on the story, but I’ll get to that in the next post.[9]I understand that nobody knows about Bacchus these days, but they could still have done the scene with just Aslan and Lucy. If nothing else, you’d think they’d have wanted to include that … Continue reading At least the movie’s version of Prince Caspian‘s climax is better than that of the 1989 BBC miniseries adaptation which omitted not only Bacchus and Silenus but the dryads and the river god. That was easily the lamest of the BBC’s Narnia adaptations.

Back to the movie. Edmund, Caspian, Peter and Susan wade across the ford and kneel before Aslan. This could just be my interpretation, not what the filmmakers intended, but they all look a little penitent. I hope it’s what the filmmakers intended because it makes sense. “Rise, Kings and Queens of Narnia,” says Aslan. Peter, Susan and Edmund do so. “All of you,” the lion adds. Caspian looks up uncertainly. “I do not think I am ready,” he says. “It’s for that very reason, I know you are,” says Aslan. In the book, what he says is “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been a proof that you were not.” Personally, I think that makes more sense than the movie’s version. It’s not like a lack of confidence qualifies someone to be a good king. It’s just that overconfidence disqualifies them. But maybe I’m being too nitpicky. I really am glad the movie includes that moment from the book. Ben Barnes acts it very well and since we’ve seen the cinematic Caspian be a little cocky before, the contrast now arguably makes this an even more interesting moment than it was in the source material.

Caspian rises and the others look at him encouragingly. They are interrupted by the sound of mournful bagpipe music. The mice have brought a gravely injured Reepicheep on a stretcher and-OK, whose idea was it too play bagpipes for this bit? I know that C. S. Lewis wrote that one mouse here “piped on his slender pipe a melancholy tune” but did it have to be a bagpipe? They sound so comical, and this is supposed to be a serious moment.

Speaking of music, this last section of the movie is one of those which mostly reuses musical theme’s from the last Narnia film’s soundtrack. It’s a bit creatively lazy on the composer’s part but I can’t complain too much since all the themes work so well in this context. Anyway, Lucy runs over and heals Reepicheep with her cordial. After a little suspense, he thanks her and rises. “Hail, Aslan,” he says, “it is a great honor to be in-” But when he tries to bow, he topples over and it’s revealed that he’s lost his tail in battle. In my experience, this is the scene that gets the biggest laughs from viewers. The animators do a great job with Reepicheep’s embarrassed body language.

Reepicheep: I am completely out of countenance! I must crave your indulgence for appearing in this unseemly fashion! (to Lucy) Perhaps a drop more?
Lucy: I don’t think it does that.
Reepicheep: We could have a go.
Aslan (chuckling): It becomes you well, Small One.
Reepicheep (offering up his sword): All the same, great king, I regret that I must withdraw for a tail is the honor and glory of a mouse.
Aslan (a little sternly): Perhaps you think too much of your honor, friend.
[10]In the book, this line is “I have sometimes wondered, friend, if you do not think too much about your honor,” implying Aslan has known Reepicheep for a while, so maybe it really was a … Continue reading
Reepicheep: Well, it’s not just the honor. It’s also great for balance and climbing and grabbing things…

Much of this is close to the book but I’m really disappointed how they changed that last line of Reepicheep’s. Here’s what C. S. Lewis wrote for him.

“Highest of all High Kings,” said Reepicheep, “permit me to remind you that a very small size has been bestowed on us Mice, and if we did not guard our dignity, some (who weigh worth by inches) would allow themselves very unsuitable pleasantries at our expense. That is why I have been at some pains to make it known that no one who does not wish to feel this sword as near his heart as I can reach shall talk in my presence about Traps or Toasted Cheese or Candles: no, Sir— not the tallest fool in Narnia!” Here he glared very fiercely up at Wimbleweather, but the Giant, who was always a stage behind everyone else, had not yet discovered what was being talked about down at his feet, and so missed the point.

That explanation for why Reepicheep is so touchy about his honor would have added a nice bit of depth to (what is in this movie) a comic relief character.[11]In the next Narnia story, Reepicheep will play a more dramatic role. And it’s not like it wouldn’t have fit with the film’s characterization. Granted it would need to be shortened a little for pacing purposes, but I can hear Eddie Izzard’s Reepicheep saying that line in my head!

Reepicheep’s second-in-command, Peepiceek (editor Sim Evan-Jones), draws his sword and says, “May it please, Your High Majesty, we will not bear the shame of wearing an honor denied to our chief.” The other mice follow suit and make ready to cut their own tails off. This does not get laughs from viewers in my experience and nor should it get them since this a serious and rather heartwarming moment.

“Not for the sake of your dignity but for the love of your people,” says Aslan and Reepicheep’s tail grows back in an instant. (In the book, Aslan gave another reason for restoring the tail. I’d have loved it if that had been kept but I guess I can live without it. It serves as a nice surprise for people who read the book after watching the film, I imagine.) “Thank you! Thank you, my liege!” says Reepicheep. “I will treasure it always! From this day forward, it will serve as a great reminder of my huge humility!” Did the movie have to add that last bit? I do consider Reepicheep an amusing character[12]If you don’t believe me, check out Lewis’s description of him realizing his tail is missing or read about his chess skills-or lack thereof-in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. but he’s far from just a caricature and even putting that aside, jokes about people being proud of being humble are so old.[13]To be fair, they’re probably old because taking pride in one’s humility is depressingly common in real life. We didn’t need another one. However, I’m making it sound like I love this little vignette in the movie much less than I do. I’m really grateful to the adaptation for including it when it’s not necessary to the story[14]I imagine they were motivated by knowing the large role Reepicheep would play in their series’ next installment. and while it’s not as great as in the book, it’s still pretty great.

“Now where is this ‘dear little friend’ you’ve told me so much about?” Aslan asks Lucy. Everyone looks at Trumpkin who is supervising the surrendering Telmarines nearby. He’s also keeping one very wary eye on Aslan. Seeing that he’s wanted, he nervously approaches him and kneels. Aslan gives a great roar which makes the dwarf shudder. If all this sounds scary, I’m doing a bad job with the description. It’s actually quite funny. “Do you see him now?” asks Lucy. Trumpkin manages a weak smile. When I first saw this scene, I was disappointed that Aslan didn’t pick Trumpkin up in his mouth, shake him, toss him in the air and then gently set him down as in the book. But I understand that would have been hard from a technical standpoint and I’ve come to appreciate this quieter version. Peter Dinklage’s little smile is perfect, conveying that Trumpkin now has a healthy fear of Aslan but that they’re also friends now.

Aslan roars so often in this finale that I had to include one image of him doing it. This is the least significant of his roars, but the others would have come in places that already had a lot images.

Next Week: Aslan Makes a Door in the Air

References

References
1 As long we’re making the story grittier, I wouldn’t have minded Aslan killing the Telmarine. After all, he’s not like a tame lion.
2 If that really was a conscious goal on their part, I’m mystified as to how they were planning to adapt The Silver Chair.
3 In the book, Lucy is actually rather self-righteous when she complains to Aslan about the others not believing her and he reprimands her with a growl. The movie makes him much less stern.
4 In the book, it’s implied that Glozelle dies at some point during this scene, but it isn’t described as is Sopespian’s death.
5 It’s rather reminiscent of the nature spirits from The Firebird Suite in Fantasia 2000.
6 I assume when a creature made of water devours you, you drown.
7 This is in keeping with the myths about Bacchus punishing uptight people who refuse to join in his worship though it’s much more G-rated.
8 Keep in mind that I probably didn’t come to the Narnia books with the same expectations as many young readers did. You see, I was a big fan of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll growing up. To a lesser extent, I was a fan of the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar. I went to fantasy for surreal silliness more than I went to it for stories about epic clashes between good and evil. I was also a fan of Greek mythology. All of which means the scene at Beruna in Prince Caspian probably plays better for me than it does for the average Narnia fan.
9 I understand that nobody knows about Bacchus these days, but they could still have done the scene with just Aslan and Lucy. If nothing else, you’d think they’d have wanted to include that heartwarming climax I mentioned!
10 In the book, this line is “I have sometimes wondered, friend, if you do not think too much about your honor,” implying Aslan has known Reepicheep for a while, so maybe it really was a conscious goal of the screenwriters to avoid Aslan being all-knowing.
11 In the next Narnia story, Reepicheep will play a more dramatic role.
12 If you don’t believe me, check out Lewis’s description of him realizing his tail is missing or read about his chess skills-or lack thereof-in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
13 To be fair, they’re probably old because taking pride in one’s humility is depressingly common in real life.
14 I imagine they were motivated by knowing the large role Reepicheep would play in their series’ next installment.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 11: Treachery!

Were you annoyed by the way my last post, after all the buildup to the duel between Peter and Miraz, ended just as it was beginning? Probably not because I’m not that gripping of a writer. But if you were, you know how I feel when the movie cuts from the beginning of the fight to Susan and Lucy galloping through the forest. (Well, technically, the horse is the one galloping.) Suddenly, some Telmarine soldiers are pursuing them. Once there’s a good distance between the pursuers and the pursued, Susan dismounts and tells Lucy to go on without her. The soundtrack plays a great melancholy variation of the Pevensies’ heroic theme as Lucy just before she’s ridden out of sight, stops and turns back for what might be a last look at her sister.

As soon as Lucy’s gone, the soldiers ride into view but by this time, Susan has drawn her bow. She takes them down one by one (she’s really good at nocking those arrows quickly) until a horse coming from an unexpected direction knocks her down and her weapon out of her hand. Things look bad when all of a sudden, Caspian, who apparently has been stalking Susan, rides onto the scene and slays her attacker. “Are you sure you don’t need that horn?” he asks playfully, holding out his hand. Susan beams and accepts it.

So, the whole reason the movie had Susan accompany Lucy was that they wanted a scene of Caspian rescuing her and (almost literally) sweeping her off her feet? Argh! I know some readers are probably annoyed that I keep carping about that added romance, but the film was asking for it there. And the funny thing is this adaptation tries so hard to make Susan’s character more feminist friendly. You know what many feminists would like to see? The leading lady not needing to be rescued by her male love interest!

All right. Back to Peter and Miraz. Although I wrote that I was annoyed that the movie cut away from their duel just as it was beginning, I don’t have much to say about it. That’s better than having bad things to say about it. Still, considering this is the beginning of the movie’s big climax, I wish I had really good things to say about it. Probably, the problem is that Peter has been such an unpleasant character for so much of the film prior to this so I’m not as invested in him as might be wished. I’m not horribly uninvested though. After all, the Narnians don’t deserve to lose to the Telmarines just because their champion is hard to like. And Peter has had some sympathetic aspects to his character, such as his guilt over not being there when Narnia was conquered. Still, this scene would, I believe, be more gripping if we really liked him.

As in the book, Peter and Miraz seem pretty well matched at first with Peter even being the one to draw the first blood. But before long, it starts to look bad for the Narnians. At one point, when Peter falls on his back, Miraz stamps on his hand[1]Actually, it looks like he just steps on his shield but the way Peter roars, it makes more sense for him to have stepped on his hand so that’s what I imagine., an act more brutal than anything I can think in the book’s description of the duel.[2]There is some violence in the battle after the duel in the book that I’d describe as brutal. The Bulgy Bear gasps and puts his paw in his mouth, which would work better if they had kept that deleted scene that I discussed in the last post but is still funny as it is.

Peter recovers quickly and Miraz is soon the one knocked off his feet. Not for long though. As Miraz rises, Peter sees Caspian and Susan returning to the How.

Miraz (panting): Does his highness need a respite?
Peter: Five minutes?
Miraz: Three!

I’m glad they kept this respite from the book when it could easily have been cut for fear of breaking up the tension. It’s a good emotional beat in both versions. The movie has given a reason for it besides Peter’s shoulder being dislocated. He now wants to ask about Lucy. The other reason is still clearly a thing though.[3]In the book, by the way, Peter describes his shoulder as sprained, not dislocated.

Susan tells Peter that Lucy “got through. With a little help.” She indicates Caspian as she says the last bit. “Thanks,” Peter says to Caspian. “Well, you were busy,” he replies. You know, maybe I was too hard on the movie when I said it only created that scene of Caspian rescuing Susan to add pointless romance. Maybe the idea was to create a moment of Peter thanking Caspian to make up for the earlier unpleasantness between them. It doesn’t really register that way onscreen though. William Moseley’s Peter doesn’t look like he’s reevaluating Caspian. He just looks exhausted as well he might. Anyway, Peter warns Susan that she’d better get to higher ground. “I don’t expect the Telmarines will keep their word.” She gives him a farewell hug, which unfortunately hurts his shoulder, and tells him to be careful. Like I said, this would be more effective if we really liked Peter but as it is, it’s certainly not ineffective.

Edmund notices the Narnians looking worried and urges Peter to “keep smiling.” Peter turns to his army, puts on a forced smile for their benefit and salutes them with his sword. They cheer, either because they appreciate the effort or because they’re genuinely convinced by his bravado.

The movie also shows us the respite from Miraz’s perspective, something the book doesn’t. First, he berates Glozelle for letting Peter get so close. Then while Glozelle is tending to his wound, he asks his marshals how Peter looks to them. “Young,” Sopespian says tauntingly. “But His Majesty is doing extremely well,” says Glozelle, “for his age.” As he says that, he tightens Miraz’s bandage and makes him scream, no doubt on purpose.

Meanwhile, Edmund tends to Peter’s shoulder and Peter asks him, “What do you think happens back home if we die here?” That question isn’t asked in the book, Prince Caspian, but it is asked by the characters in the last and darkest Narnia story, The Last Battle. Since no movie adaptation of The Last Battle has been made, I’m glad the moment was worked into this film. In spite of the ominousness of its inclusion, the respite ends on a more humorous note than it does in the book. There Peter told Edmund to give his love to everyone at home if he died and to “say something specially nice to Trumpkin,” and Edmund was too upset to speak. In the movie, Peter starts to say, “You know, you’ve always been there and I never really-” He’s cut off by his own cries of pain as Edmund finishes adjusting his shoulder. “Just save it for later,” Edmund says.

Susan and Trumpkin exchange worried looks. Glozelle offers Miraz his helmet back and he refuses it out of bravado. (Peter lost his helmet earlier since the movie wants us to be able to see his face.) Then it’s back into the fray. At first, an increasingly desperate Miraz looks like he might overpower Peter. But if that happens, Peter is going to make him work for it. At one point, Miraz actually loses his sword and can only hold up his shield against the blows Peter rains down. Then he punches him, which I’m pretty sure is against the rules, and then he sort of tries to crush Peter with his shield and then Peter twists it away from him. I’m afraid this part of the scene comes across as rather silly.

Eventually, Miraz gets his sword back but Peter wounds him in his already sore knee and Miraz is on his knees, begging for another respite. “Now’s not the time for chivalry, Peter!” Edmund calls. This is actually inspired by an inner monologue of Edmund’s in the book when Miraz trips and Peter pauses for him to rise.

“Oh bother, bother, bother,” said Edmund to himself. “Need he be as gentlemanly as all that? I suppose he must. Comes of being a Knight and a High King. I suppose it is what Aslan would like. But that brute will be up again in a minute and then —”

I feel like the book’s version is funnier, but I can understand why it would need to be shortened. Then something happens that doesn’t in the book. As Peter turns away, Miraz, snarling, leaps to feet and tries to swipe Peter’s head off from behind. Peter turns just in time and stabs his treacherous opponent under the arm. Miraz is on his knees again and this time, it looks like Peter really will take the opportunity to finish him off. But no.

Miraz: What’s the matter, boy? Too cowardly to take a life?
Peter: It’s not mine to take.

Peter offers his sword to Caspian who steps up to the metaphorical plate. Is this normal in these war-determining duels?[4]For what it’s worth, in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, which depicts a similar dramatic situation, the antagonistic king says he will disarm the main character, Queen Orual, and then … Continue reading Caspian raises the sword. “Perhaps I was wrong,” says Miraz, “Maybe you do have the makings of a Telmarine king after all.”

Caspian roars and brings down the sword but instead of stabbing Miraz, he just stabs a conveniently placed patch of grass.

“Not one like you,” he says, “Keep your life but I am giving the Narnians back their kingdom.” Caspian turns and heads back to the How. The Narnians cheer him. Sopespian, who doesn’t want the Narnians to take over but very much wants Miraz dead, is disappointed. Glozelle, on the other hand, looks impressed.

Susan also looks impressed, and can I carp about the romance thing one more time? Part of what annoys me about it is that in the book, Susan’s storyline was all about her relationships with Aslan and Lucy. Those are still definitely there in the movie but most of the emphasis falls on her relationship with Caspian. Even the scene of her protecting Lucy as they go to find Aslan ultimately ended up being about Caspian saving her.

Still, I will say this for the movie. While it does add romance to the book’s story, at least it doesn’t add a love triangle. The love triangle is one of my least favorite dramatic devices. Not that it can’t be done well. One of my favorite plays, Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, is all about a love triangle. But too often they just feel like easy ways to get the story’s fandom warring against itself. Even in my beloved Les Misérables, the love triangle is the most dramatically flawed and potentially annoying part.[5]I am referring to the musical version, not the literary one in which Eponine is a villain albeit an interesting one and very few readers root for her to end up with Marius.

Let’s talk about the whole Caspian-sparing-Miraz thing. I’m glad that the adaptation didn’t make the duel between Caspian and Miraz even though that would be the conventional thing to do. I believe it’s thematically important that it be a showdown between Peter, the champion of Old Narnia, and Miraz, the Telmarine who’s been most dismissive of Old Narnia. At the same time…I can understand feeling that it should have been between Caspian and Miraz. Despite having his name in the title, Caspian has practically nothing to do in the last third of the book. The movie is arguably trying to fix a real dramatic problem with the source material. But the compromise they found strikes me as awkward with Peter doing all the work and then suddenly saying Caspian should kill Miraz. And then there’s what come next.

In the book, nobody has a problem with Caspian wanting to avenge his murdered father. Peter just objects because he’s been wounded by the werewolf and his uncle wouldn’t take a challenge from him seriously anyway. In two other Narnia books, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair, wanting to avenge someone’s death is portrayed sympathetically. C. S. Lewis was coming from a more medieval morality whereas the movie takes a more modern view. I don’t necessarily think that that medieval view was right and the modern one wrong. (Not on this subject anyway.) But I do feel that the whole if-you-kill-him-you’ll-be-just-like-him thing comes across as cliche, especially that bit where Caspian looks like he’s going to kill Miraz but then stabs something else. I admit I’m not enough of a cinephile to give examples of this from other films, but it really smells rote and boring to me, making this sadly the first example in a Narnia movie of an arc that I simply do not like as opposed to one that I just think could have been executed better. I really wish the movie could have focused instead on Caspian’s dissatisfaction with the world into which he was born and his longing for the Narnia of his bedtime stories. That was arguably the heart of the book. And, yeah, I know the book isn’t the most beloved entry in The Chronicles of Narnia but that was in spite of that theme, not because of it.

Back to the movie. Sopespian helps the humiliated Miraz to his feet. “I’ll deal with you when this is over,” Miraz snarls, desperately trying to regain his dignity. “It is over,” says Sopespian with a grin and stabs Miraz to death with a Narnian arrow, Susan’s arrow that Miraz showed him earlier, I believe. It’s a great creepy moment.

Then Sopespian points at Aslan’s How and yells “Treachery! They shot him! They murdered our king!” Peter, seeing that the Telmarines are now about to attack commands the Narnians to be ready.

Now I enjoy the book’s surprise of Glozelle and Sopespian being the ones to kill Miraz when convention would dictate that Peter or Caspian would do so-or maybe Aslan given the precedent set by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And I’m glad the movie kept it, but it makes less sense because of that whole Caspian sparing Miraz thing and their (understandable) desire to make Miraz’s death a bigger moment. Here’s the relevant part of the source material. Miraz has tripped and Peter is waiting for him to get up.

The Lords Glozelle and Sopespian had their own plans ready. As soon as they saw their King down, they leaped into the lists crying, “Treachery! Treachery! The Narnian traitor has stabbed him in the back while he lay helpless. To arms! To arms, Telmar!”
Peter hardly understood what was happening. He saw two big men running towards him with drawn swords. Then the third Telmarine had leaped over the ropes on his; left. “To arms, Narnia! Treachery!” Peter shouted. If all three had set upon him at once he would never have spoken again. But Glozelle stopped to stab his own King dead where he lay: “That’s for your insult, this morning,” he whispered as the blade went home.[6]You’ll notice that it’s Glozelle who kills Miraz here, not Sopespian. I don’t blame the screenwriters for mixing them up as the book gives them no individual personalities.

Of course, doing the scene that way would require making it clear that the Telmarine army was chomping at the bit, eager for any excuse to start slaying Narnians.[7]In the book, they heckle Peter during the duel. Maybe the movie should have kept that. Even as it is, it feels a bit odd that the ones near the front with good views wouldn’t be able to tell that Sopespian was the one to kill Miraz. And even they probably wouldn’t be able to see that the arrow that killed Miraz was a Narnian one so what was the point of that?

Anyway, Caspian calls out a warning to Peter who turns around to see the unnamed Telmarine marshal coming for him with a drawn sword.[8]Well, he’s unnamed in the dialogue. According to the credits and presumably the official screenplay, which is sadly unavailable to read online, he’s Lord Gregoire but in these recaps, I … Continue reading They fight and Peter wins. The movie pauses to show his helmet lying on the ground. From what I understand, this was to assure viewers that it was the helmet they just saw Peter knock off, not his head as it was in the book,[9]In which Peter also cuts off the man’s legs. I told you there was some brutal violence after the duel in the literary version. preserving the PG rating. I actually think focusing on the empty helmet makes the moment creepier. Without that little pause, I would have forgotten about the guy, being so caught up in the scene. With it, I think about what a gruesome fate the poor man just suffered. Shows how much the MPAA and I agree.

In the book, it’s actually Sopespian whom Peter beheads at that point but since he’s now made himself the main villain, the movie wants to keep alive a tad longer. Not that I’m complaining. Damian Alcazar earns it. Glozelle rallies the Telmarine cavalry[10]I appreciate that the movie keeps the line, “To arms, Telmar!” and the catapults start heaving boulders at the How. Caspian and Glenstorm rush inside it to rally the Narnians within while Susan commands the archers. I’ll be honest. I’m really not a fan of the battle scene that ensues. Of course, I’m not interested in epic battle scenes in general and you’ll remember I resented the one at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) for taking time away from what I consider some of the book’s most memorable material. But I still felt that scene worked on its own terms. This battle just drags on and on and on and I keep wondering what Lucy is doing. The pacing on this part is so off! First, they cut to Lucy when I was all set to focus on Peter and now, they stay with him and his army when I want to go back to her. I’ll try to get through describing the scene as quickly as possible without leaving out any highlights.

Caspian leads the Narnians he’s rallied racing underground, chopping down pillars as they go. This causes the ground beneath the charging Telmarines’ horses to collapse. Only then does Susan order the archers to fire and Peter and Edmund lead their foot soldiers in a charge.

Another part of the ground turns out to be a trapdoor that the Narnians lower, allowing Caspian and his troops to back above ground and surround the enemy.

We get to see Wimbleweather hurl an enemy soldier across the field. Since I mentioned that his already minor role in the book is reduced by the movie, I feel like I should also mention it when it gives him something to do.

We also see Trufflehunter in battle. (Well, him or another badger.) As one Telmarine (animation supervisor Adam Valdez) crawls out of the pit the Narnians created, he sees Reepicheep standing above him with a sword. “You’re a… mouse?” he says, unable to believe his fate. “You people have no imagination!” Reepicheep cries in exasperation before (it’s implied) finishing him off. I love that line! It’s not something C. S. Lewis’s Reepicheep would have said but it makes me laugh.

On the other side of the pit, the massive Telmarine army keeps advancing. Gryphons fly Narnian archers over them, but they’re taken down by the Telmarines’ giant war machines. Peter orders the Narnians to retreat into the How. Susan gets what is easily the movie’s cheesiest line. As the walls of Aslan’s How are bombarded by the catapults, she yells, “brace yourselves!” in slow motion to the archers. When are filmmakers going to learn that yelling things in slow motion always sounds dumb? I feel sorry for poor Anna Popplewell whose performance did not deserve that. Anyway, the onslaught accomplishes its purpose of blocking the entrance to the How for the Narnians. “Crush them all!” Sopespian says gleefully. Peter, Caspian, Susan, Edmund and their followers have no choice but to meet the enemy head-on.

Maybe the reason I’m not as much on the edge of my seat as I should be for this scene is that I’ve read the book, so I already know that nobody about whom I really care is going to die. I suppose that’s inevitable. Then again, in the aforementioned adaptation of Les Misérables, I’m still invested in the characters knowing which ones are going to die.[11]Spoiler: Most of them. Honestly, even if I weren’t familiar with the original book, I don’t think I’d be worried about my favorite characters dying because I’d still be able to tell that this isn’t that kind of movie. Sure, they’re trying to give this one a darker, more dangerous feel than its predecessor. But apart from Nikabrik, who deserved his death, the closest they’ve come to killing off a good guy we know well was Glenstorm’s son and we arguably don’t even know Glenstorm that well. (The dialogue didn’t even specify their relationship. I just picked up on it because I know the book.) Since I’m not really in suspense here, I wish the movie would stop pretending this was suspenseful and move on to stuff that really interests me.

Next Week: Stuff That Really Interests Me!

References

References
1 Actually, it looks like he just steps on his shield but the way Peter roars, it makes more sense for him to have stepped on his hand so that’s what I imagine.
2 There is some violence in the battle after the duel in the book that I’d describe as brutal.
3 In the book, by the way, Peter describes his shoulder as sprained, not dislocated.
4 For what it’s worth, in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, which depicts a similar dramatic situation, the antagonistic king says he will disarm the main character, Queen Orual, and then have her hung since “his sword should not be stained with woman’s blood.” Her taunting response is kind of awesome.
5 I am referring to the musical version, not the literary one in which Eponine is a villain albeit an interesting one and very few readers root for her to end up with Marius.
6 You’ll notice that it’s Glozelle who kills Miraz here, not Sopespian. I don’t blame the screenwriters for mixing them up as the book gives them no individual personalities.
7 In the book, they heckle Peter during the duel. Maybe the movie should have kept that.
8 Well, he’s unnamed in the dialogue. According to the credits and presumably the official screenplay, which is sadly unavailable to read online, he’s Lord Gregoire but in these recaps, I usually only use the characters’ names if they’re in the dialogue to replicate the experience of watching the movies.
9 In which Peter also cuts off the man’s legs. I told you there was some brutal violence after the duel in the literary version.
10 I appreciate that the movie keeps the line, “To arms, Telmar!”
11 Spoiler: Most of them.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 10: The Telmarine Who Saved Narnia

The morning after the White Witch fiasco-or maybe later that day-Caspian sits atop the entrance to Aslan’s How, staring at the misty landscape below. Honestly, I wish this were a real place so that I could sit there and do the same. But enough of me praising the art direction.

Dr. Cornelius comes out of the How and wordlessly sits next to him.

Caspian: Why did you never tell me about my father?
Cornelius: My mother was a black dwarf from the northern mountains. I risked my life all these years that someday you might be a better king than those before you.
Caspian: Then I have failed you.
Cornelius: Everything I told you, everything I didn’t, it was only because I believe in you. You have the chance to become the most noble contradiction in history. The Telmarine who saved Narnia.

I don’t really see the connection between Caspian’s initial question and the revelation about Dr. Cornelius’s heritage. And the bit about “everything I told you, everything I didn’t” is a bit weak too. How would telling Caspian the truth about his father’s death be a bad influence on him? But other than that, this is a lovely scene and not just because of the acting though Ben Barnes and Vincent Grass give beautiful performances. The line about “the most noble contradiction in history” is one of the best quotes from a Narnia movie that isn’t taken from the books.

Within the How, Peter is also staring wistfully at something. Rather than staring down at something though, he’s staring up at the image of Aslan in the Stone Table room. Lucy, like Dr. Cornelius, wordlessly approaches and sits by him. There’s some nice acting from William Moseley as he thinks about what he’s going to say to her before he says it. “You’re lucky, you know,” is what he says, “To have seen him. I wish he’d just given me some sort of proof.” Peter’s voice sounds less bitter towards Aslan now and more desperate. There still might be a little bit of bitterness but that serves to make the scene more interesting. “Maybe we’re the ones who need to prove ourselves to him,” Lucy suggests, massaging Peter’s arm to comfort him.

Now there are some people out there, mainly fans of the Narnia books,[1]Not every fan of the books of course. who condemn this movie as being nothing but empty action scenes. I was prepared to defend it against those charges, using these two quiet dialogue scenes. However, I realized with a start that these scenes are both very short whereas the movie’s action scenes are quite lengthy. Still, I’m going to stick to my defense since these two scenes are still very emotional and even a little thoughtful. Also, while we’ll be getting a major action scene soon, there will be a handful of dialogue/action scenes leading up to it. And, hey, action scenes aren’t enemies to character development and good storytelling. Both the attack on the castle and the White Witch scene were action scenes which were also very concerned with furthering character arcs. Mind you, I didn’t love everything about how they furthered character arcs since I think the arc the movie gives Peter needed some ironing and the arc it gives Caspian is dull but it’s slander to say the movie isn’t interested in story and character. I’m going to quote from An Experiment in Criticism, a nonfiction work of C. S. Lewis. In it, he partly defends the “unliterary,” by which he means those who just read books for exciting plots and wish fulfillment, not to appreciate the style.

Let us be quite clear that the unliterary are unliterary not because they enjoy stories in these ways, but because they enjoy them in no other. Not what they have but what they lack cuts them off from the fulness of literary experience. These things ought they to have done and not left others undone. For all these enjoyments are shared by good readers reading good books. We hold our breath with anxiety while the Cyclops gropes over the ram that bears Odysseus, while we wonder how Phèdre (and Hippolyte) will react to the unexpected return of Thésée, or how the disgrace of the Bennet family will affect Darcy’s love for Elizabeth. Our inquisitiveness is strongly excited by the first part of The Confessions of a Justified Sinner or the change in General Tilney’s behaviour. We long to discover Pip’s unknown benefactor in Great Expectations. In Spenser’s House of Busirane every stanza whets our curiosity. As for the vicarious enjoyment of imagined happiness, the mere existence of the Pastoral gives it a respectable place in literature. And elsewhere too, though we do not demand a happy ending to every story, yet when such an ending occurs and is fitting and well executed, we certainly enjoy the happiness of the characters. We are even prepared to enjoy vicariously the fulfilment of utterly impossible wishes, as in the statue scene from the Winter’s Tale; for what wish is so impossible as the wish that the dead to whom we have been cruel and unjust should live again and forgive us and ‘all be as before’? Those who seek only vicarious happiness in their reading are unliterary; but those who pretend that it can never be an ingredient in good reading are wrong.

C. S. Lewis also criticized movie adaptations of literature for adding action scenes, so he’d doubtless dislike the 2008 Prince Caspian. But I think the argument he makes could very well be used in the film’s defense. Action scenes shouldn’t be the raison d’etre of a movie-or not of a Narnia movie anyway. But they can still be an ingredient in it.

Speaking of movies, let’s get back to the plot. Edmund enters and tells Peter he’d better come quickly. The Pevensies rush out of one of the How’s many entrances to stand beside Caspian. The Telmarine army, led by Miraz, emerge from the trees. And they’ve got catapults.

OK, as much as I love the overall look of the movie, I’ve got to say those metal masks look silly with their eyebrows and mustaches.

In better news, I was wrong when I claimed that “Beards and bedsteads” was the only one of Trumpkin’s characteristic exclamations from the book to make into the movie. We cut to another of the Narnians and hear him say, “Cakes and Kettledrums![2]Actually, in the book, it was “Cobbles and kettledrums” but never mind. That’s your next big plan?! Sending a little girl off into the darkest parts of the forest alone?!” “It’s our only chance,” insists Peter. “And she won’t be alone,” adds Susan. The little girl is obviously Lucy but why is their only chance sending her into the darkest parts of the forest? The scene doesn’t really explain. You sort of have to watch the movie twice to figure it out. As I wrote before, this would make so much more sense if Aslan had told Lucy in her dream to come meet him somewhere. “Haven’t enough of us died already?” Trumpkin asks with an uncharacteristic stutter in his voice, looking like he might very well break down crying.

“Nikabrik was my friend too,” says Trufflehunter, “but he lost hope. Queen Lucy hasn’t. And neither have I.” Reepicheep draws his sword in a salute. “For Aslan,” he says solemnly. “For Aslan,” intones a nearby talking bear (voiced by David Walliams.) In the book, the Bulgy Bear is a major source of comic relief. I imagine the filmmakers trimmed his part because they wanted this to be a serious action movie with no comedic talking bears in it. Humph, I say! But that makes it rather odd that they’d give the character this one line in a big dramatic scene.[3]It may strike some as even odder that they’d bother to hire Walliams, a professional actor, rather than give one of the crew a vocal cameo as they did for, say, Pattertwig, another minor … Continue reading

Back to the scene. “Then I’m going with you,” says Trumpkin to Lucy. “No, we need you here,” she replies, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We have to hold them off until Lucy and Susan get back,” says Peter. “If I may…,” says Caspian. Instead of getting told off by Peter, Caspian receives everybody’s attention. “Miraz may be a tyrant and a murderer but as king, he is still subject to the traditions and expectations of his people. There is one in particular that may buy as some time.”

Later, Miraz and Glozelle watch from afar as Edmund and two Narnians approach with green branches, the equivalent of olive branches or white flags in this culture. “Perhaps they have come to surrender,” Glozelle suggests. “No. They are much too noble for that,” says Miraz. The two Narnians are the same ones that accompany Edmund in the book, Glozelle and Wimbleweather the giant (Jan Filipensky.) Wimbleweather is another major source of comic relief in the book who is sadly reduced to a cameo here. Perhaps this is partly because giants are expensive. If so, I wonder how the filmmakers intended to adapt The Silver Chair, a Narnia book in which giants play a big role. Still, this cameo is better than nothing.

We cut to Edmund reading a challenge to Miraz and other Telmarine bigshots. The language of the challenge, I’m pleased to relate, is close to the book though it’s much shorter and easier for people not versed in this kind of culture to understand. “I, Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election and by conquest High King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of the Lone Islands, in order to prevent the abominable effusion of blood do hereby challenge the usurper Miraz to single combat upon the field of battle. The fight shall be to the death. The reward shall be total surrender.”

“Tell me, Prince Edmund-” begins Miraz, sounding unimpressed, before Edmund interrupts to clarify that he’s actually King Edmund. “Just king though. Peter’s the high king. I know, it’s confusing.” Some fans might reasonably object that that moment of humor has undertones of criticizing the source material. For what it is though, it can be enjoyed. The movie’s comedic timing is very good.

Miraz: Why would we risk such a proposal when our armies could wipe you out by nightfall?
Edmund: Haven’t you already underestimated our numbers? I mean, only a week ago Narnians were extinct.
Miraz (grimly): And so you will be again.
Edmund: Then you should have little to fear.

Miraz laughs at this, not a stereotypically evil sounding laugh, a genuinely amused one. “This is not a question of bravery,” he says. “So you’re bravely refusing to fight a swordsman half your age?” says Edmund. Miraz’s smile freezes. He leans forward and says in a much less relaxed tone of voice, “I didn’t say I refused.” Sergio Castellitto is so great in this role!

“You shall have our support, Your Majesty, whatever your decision,” one of the Telmarine lords (David Bowles) says. “Sire,” says Lord Sopespian smoothly, “our military advantage alone provides the perfect excuse to avoid what might otherwise be-” Miraz jumps to his feet, drawing his sword. “I am not avoiding anything!” he snarls. It’s as fun to see him nettled as it was not fun to see Caspian and Peter nettled earlier. “I am merely pointing out that my lord is well within his rights to refuse,” says Sopespian innocently. “His Majesty would never refuse,” puts in Glozelle. “He relishes the chance to show the people the courage of their new king.” This is a minor change from the book’s story that I think arguably improves upon it. As C. S. Lewis wrote the scene, Glozelle and Sopespian manipulate Miraz into accepting Peter’s challenge for purposes of their own in the exact same way. Having one of them act like of course he wouldn’t accept and the other act like of course he wouldn’t decline makes the scene interesting.

Miraz’s eyes dart around as he realizes he’s trapped but he manages to keep from looking too helpless. “You,” he says, pointing his sword at Edmund[4]You’ll notice it trembles a bit., “you should hope your brother’s sword is sharper than his pen.” Fortunately, Edmund has a great poker face.

Now I’m going to write about a deleted scene in some detail[5]I’m actually not sure whether it would have come here or after the next scene. because in my opinion, it most definitely should not have been deleted! And I’m not just saying that because much of it is from the book. OK, I’m mostly saying it because of that. But even with the story the filmmakers were telling, the scene would have improved the storytelling. It would have begun with Caspian respectfully arguing that he, not Peter, should be the one to fight Miraz and Peter disagreeing.

Peter (kindly): Look, if there’s ever going to be peace with the Telmarines, you have to be the one who brings it.
Caspian: How can I if you won’t let me?
Peter: Not like this. If I don’t make it, well, Narnia’s future’s in your hands.
Caspian: And what about your own future?
Peter: I was thinking about a career in medicine.

As it is, the idea that Caspian’s goal should be uniting the Telmarines and the Old Narnians comes rather out of nowhere at the climax of the story. This dialogue would have served to set it up.[6]OK, it would be setting it up right before the climax but that’s still better than not setting it up at all. This also would have made Peter and Caspian’s relationship less unpleasant. Peter would have given Caspian good advice and acknowledged him as his successor. Caspian would have expressed concern for Peter’s safety. These strike me as important beats for their character arcs without which the movie suffers dramatically. The scene would have gone on to show Peter picking his marshals of the list for the duel. The Bulgy Bear would have invoked his species’ ancient right to provide one of them and Trumpkin objecting that he’d end up sucking his paws and embarrassing the Narnians. Reepicheep would have also volunteered, and Peter would have come up with a diplomatic reason for declining the offer rather than saying, “The enemy would have laugh at you because you’re so small.” These humorous moments from the book weren’t important character beats but come on! It’s classic stuff! Earlier in this post, I defended the movie against charges it favored action above all else, using this talky section as a counterargument. But the fact that the scene I just described was deleted while the climactic battle, to which we’ll get in the next post, drags on and on weakens my case.

Back at the How, Caspian helps Susan and Lucy mount his horse. “Destrier has always served me well,” he says, “You are in good hands.” “Or hooves,” jokes Lucy. (Not one of the movie’s better jokes but it feels like something someone would say in real life.) “Good luck,” says Caspian, trying to meet Susan’s eye. She says, “Thanks,” but coldly turns her face away. Caspian apologetically hands her the enchanted horn, saying maybe it’s time she had it back. Now Susan manages a small smile. “Why don’t you hold on to it?” she says. “You might need to call me again.” She gallops off. “You might need to call me again?!” Lucy repeats incredulously. “Oh, shut up!” says Susan. I’m with Lucy here. Was that a cell phone joke? That makes no sense! Neither Susan nor Caspian comes from a world with cell phones. What were the writers thinking?!

Look, even he’s like, “what did she just say?”

We cut to Peter emerging from Aslan’s How for the duel. The Narnians cheer for him while the Telmarines cheer for Miraz. In a nice touch, Peter wears armor nearly identical to what he wore in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005.) This is appropriate since he’s one of Old Narnia’s greatest heroes, if not the greatest, come from the ancient past to do battle for it but the gambeson(?)[7]I googled “cloth part of armor” and that’s the word that came up though the images I found weren’t a perfect fit. is a darker shade of red than the one in the first movie, indicating that this is a sadder, wiser Peter.

The Narnian marshals of the list are Edmund, Glenstorm and the Bulgy Bear. The Telmarine marshals are Glozelle, Sopespian and that guy who told Miraz he would have their full support whatever they decided.

“It should appear to be going badly,” Miraz says in an undertone to Glozelle who holds a crossbow. “Understood, Your Majesty,” says Glozelle. Does this mean that Glozelle is supposed to shoot Peter if it looks like he’s winning? I can’t think what else the implication could be, but I don’t quite get the line. Shouldn’t it be “if it should appear to be going badly?” Adding that one word to the beginning of the sentence would have made it so much clearer.

Anyway, unlike in the book, Miraz has no misimpression that Sopespian didn’t really want him to accept this challenge. As he takes his helmet from him, he says, “I hope you won’t be too disappointed when I survive.”[8]Speaking of weapons, here’s something readers will hopefully find funny. The beloved modern fantasy series, His Dark Materials, was intended by its author, Philip Pullman, to be sort of an … Continue reading Peter and Miraz circle each other as both armies watch with bated breath. Then the kings engage in a little trash talk.

Miraz: There is still time to surrender.
Peter: Feel free.
Miraz: How many more must die for the throne?
Peter: Just one.

And they fight.

Notice the Bulgy Bear about to suck his paw.

Next Week: Who Will Win?

References

References
1 Not every fan of the books of course.
2 Actually, in the book, it was “Cobbles and kettledrums” but never mind.
3 It may strike some as even odder that they’d bother to hire Walliams, a professional actor, rather than give one of the crew a vocal cameo as they did for, say, Pattertwig, another minor Narnian speaking part. As I’ll explain in a bit, the bear was originally going to have more lines that were cut, making it a bit more explicable. But even if those had been kept, waiting this long to introduce his character would have been weird.
4 You’ll notice it trembles a bit.
5 I’m actually not sure whether it would have come here or after the next scene.
6 OK, it would be setting it up right before the climax but that’s still better than not setting it up at all.
7 I googled “cloth part of armor” and that’s the word that came up though the images I found weren’t a perfect fit.
8 Speaking of weapons, here’s something readers will hopefully find funny. The beloved modern fantasy series, His Dark Materials, was intended by its author, Philip Pullman, to be sort of an anti-Narnia series since he found those books highly offensive. A year before the cinematic Prince Caspian‘s release, there came a movie adaptation of the first Dark Materials book, The Golden Compass. (Actually, it was only titled The Golden Compass in America, I guess, because that matched the titles of the other books in the series better. In the UK, it was titled Northern Lights.) Some of the villainous Telmarines have what looks like a compass design on their shields. It’s amusing to imagine that this was intended by the filmmakers as a little Take That at their competition though I’m sure that wasn’t the case.
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Animation Station: Were the 70s Really a Dark Age for Disney Animation?

Note: Originally, this post wasn’t going to be published for quite some time. But with the passing of Bob Newhart, who memorably lent his voice to a main character in one of the movies under discussion, I decided to go ahead with it now as a tribute to him.

Animation critics and historians generally regard the 1970s as the beginning of a dark age for Walt Disney animation that last until roughly 1989.[1]Actually, some critics would say this dark age started with the 60s and even pickier ones would say it actually began right after the release of Bambi. This, they’d say, coincides with the death of Walt Disney himself. Now I don’t buy the idea that the Disney company needed its namesake to make great animated movies. From what I understand, he’d already begun to pay more attention to live action cinema and theme parks during the 50s and I’d say they were still going strong then though that opinion isn’t universally shared by critics. And even when he’d been the guiding force behind the animation studio, he wasn’t the only one with ideas. Neither were his ideas always great. The man wanted to cut the iconic spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp for crying out loud! That being said, if you wanted to make the argument that Disney animation couldn’t survive without Walt Disney, The Aristocats (1970) would strongly support your case, much as it pains me to say so as a cat person.[2]Actually, I’m not really a pet person but if I were, I’d be a cat person.

Based on a story by Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe, the movie begins with a Parisian millionaire (voiced by Hermione Baddeley)[3]Disney fans may be interested to note that she also played the maid in Mary Poppins. As a Dickens fan, I remember her for playing Mrs. Cratchit in Scrooge (1951) and Mrs. Bardell in The Pickwick … Continue reading) leaving her entire fortune to her beloved cat, Duchess (Eva Gabor), and her three kittens, Toulouse (Gary Dubin), Marie (Liz English) and Berlioz (Dean Clark.) A second beneficiary is her butler and the cats’ caretaker, Edgar (Roddy Maude-Roxby.) Not taking this well, Edgar drugs the cats and leaves them in the middle of nowhere at night. Not understanding what has happened, they journey back to Paris with the help of stray cat, Thomas O’ Malley (Phil Harris.)

The Aristocats really feels like a fusion of three Disney movies that had recently done well, only not as good as any of them. Most obviously and shamelessly, the romance between Duchess and O’ Malley is straight from Lady and the Tramp. Again, we have a sheltered, ladylike female pet, loyal to her human owner but separated from them, helped by a worldly wise, roguish but ultimately goodhearted male stray who thinks of humans as either enemies or beings to be exploited. Again, we have a scene where the male invites the female to share a life with him, but she regretfully declines out of loyalty to her owner. Again, the male proves his mettle in the end by saving the day and the female’s owner adopts him. Even the names of the leading ladies aren’t that far removed from each other! Still, the addition of three kids, even if they’re not very memorable themselves, does shake up the dynamic a bit. So does the fact that Duchess is less naive than Lady and responds to O’ Malley’s flirting in kind. All in all, the Lady and the Tramp parts of the Aristocats are probably the parts that work best, dramatically speaking.

Less obviously but unmistakably once you notice it, the movie follows in the pawprints of 101 Dalmatians with a family of pet characters, including kids, living in a European capital, abducted by a villain, and journeying across the countryside back to their owner. But The Aristocats, unlike Dalmatians, seldom plays the material for suspense. Instead, it takes its tonal cues from The Jungle Book (1967), being a road trip comedy, whose plot is largely an excuse for encounters with comedic talking animals, many of them modeled on the most famous personas of the celebrities voicing them. We even get a group of jazz playing animals (swinging apes in The Jungle Book, hep alley cats in The Aristocats), the leader of whom, Scat Cat (Scatman Crothers), is, like Louis Prima’s King Louie of the Apes, modeled on the musician providing his voice[4]Actually, he was supposed to be voiced by Louis Armstrong but that didn’t work out., and who also give a show stopping musical number in a long abandoned human dwelling they end up damaging. Said musical number is even about wanting to be someone. Credit where credit is due though: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat is the only song from this movie most people remember. (Personally, my favorite of the songs is Thomas O’ Malley Cat.)

The character animation for The Aristocats is fine but lacks the great comedic timing of The Jungle Book.[5]I wouldn’t say either film has a lot of great verbal humor, but The Jungle Book‘s character animation makes it more entertaining (for kids anyway) than it has a right to be. The fact that the animals it features are considerably less exotic doesn’t help. And the story just isn’t as dramatic as that of 101 Dalmatians. We’re told that the cats’ journey is arduous more than we’re shown it and honestly, we’re not even told that it’s arduous that often. The story structure precludes the villainous Edgar from threatening the heroes until they finally reach their destination in the last act. To keep viewers from forgetting about him, the movie indulges in a pointless subplot. The implied reason Edgar abandons the pets rather than drowning them is that he gets chased by a couple of overzealous farm dogs, Napoleon (Pat Buttram) and Lafayette (George Lindsey.)[6]Why give such obviously French names to characters with rural American accents? Your guess is as good as mine. He later realizes that he left his motorcycle’s sidecar, his bowler hat and his umbrella at the farm and has to go retrieve them lest the police trace the items back to him. The cats’ friend, Roquefort the mouse (Disney veteran Sterling Holloway)[7]Yes, the cats are friends with a mouse, tries to hitch a ride with Edgar back to the scene of the crime to find Duchess and her kittens. He doesn’t succeed and even if he did, we know the cats have already left, so who cares? The first chase scene with the dogs is more painful than funny.

Did I mention I’m not a dog person?

But the second scene is a comedic highlight of the movie. Weirdly though, it makes more sense if we’re supposed to root for Edgar the bad guy.

Fortunately, once the cats reach their destination, the story finally becomes exciting as Edgar stuffs Duchess and her kittens in a sack and O’ Malley, Roquefort and the alley cats have to rescue them. The movie’s humor also picks up at the climax with some laugh-out-loud visual gags. The final minute even contains a great variation on a running joke with the dogs. (“Wait a minute! I’m the leader! I’ll say when…”) Even more fortunately, Disney’s next animated movie, the 1973 Robin Hood, a retelling (sort of) of the familiar English legend with anthropomorphic animals as the characters, would be a big step up from The Aristocats.

If Fantasia, as I’ve written before, is an animated Disney movie that’s enjoyed by analytical critics but not by your average moviegoer, Robin Hood is the opposite. Historically, it’s been dismissed, if not savaged, by film critics and liked, nay, loved by “normal” people. The movie is primarily a comedy, and I can’t really explain why fans find it hilarious and others don’t, humor being so subjective. But maybe I can illuminate some other things. The film’s visuals tend to be serviceable at best. The backgrounds are fine but undistinguished. We’re a long way from Gustaf Tenggren, Mary Blair or Eyvind Earle.

The character animation is likewise fine, but it lacks the extra artistry and wit that make Disney animation at its best appealing to the analytical eye.[8]This movie also has an unusually high number of bits where the animators clearly just traced over animation from the company’s other movies. One would assume this was to save money but, … Continue reading The only character who is really fun to watch is the villainous Sir Hiss (Terry Thomas.)

For critics interested in story structure, the movie doesn’t have much to offer either. It (sort of) builds to a climax and a pretty fun one too, involving a massive jailbreak/heist and a burning castle, but it only builds to it in the loosest sense of the term. Most of the film is just a meandering series of scenes, each of which naturally leads into the next but not without really building much momentum. The story’s main problem is resolved entirely offscreen. Some of the scenes don’t even try that hard to be funny. But I’ve never really had a problem with episodic storytelling. I’d argue it makes sense for Robin Hood, considering the source material, even if episode storytelling can be done better. I’d also argue that those less humorous scenes serve the purpose of endearing us to the characters.

That’s the movie’s real strength. It has a fun, likeable cast of characters and a lot of great vocal performances, starting with Brian Bedford’s as Robin Hood himself. Not only is he fun and charming when the character is speaking normally but he also shows an impressive range as the various alter egos he adopts. I like that the movie has Robin Hood genuinely be a master of disguise when it would have been easier to just have his enemies be ridiculously gullible. Phil Harris as Little John doesn’t even try to alter his voice when his character goes undercover but he’s great fun anyway and the animators do their best to disguise the distinctive character design.[9]Speaking of range, I’ve read some call Little John a recycled version of Baloo from Disney’s The Jungle Book, but I’d argue that while both characters are bears voiced by Phil … Continue reading

I also like that, effective as Robin’s disguises are, Prince John (Peter Ustinov) sees through one in a big scene, making him a somewhat formidable villain and not just a pathetic dupe. Instead, he’s 98% a pathetic dupe and a hilarious one. Ustinov’s vocal performance is the funniest in the movie and that’s saying something. As long as Prince John and his aforementioned sidekick, Sir Hiss, are onscreen together, and especially when they’re mad at each other, the movie is a hoot.

Other fun characters are the gleefully sadistic sheriff of Nottingham (Pat Buttram),[10]In olde England, a sheriff was the king’s representative in a county but the movie to avoid taxing American audiences (see what I did there?), portrays him as a sheriff from a western, complete … Continue reading, the jolly when not angered Friar Tuck (Andy Devine) and the pugnacious Lady Kluck (Carole Shelley), sidekick to Maid Marian (Monica Evans.)[11]Yes, foxes are friends with chickens in this movie and with rabbits. You’ve just got to go with it.

Something else I like is that the movie devotes a fairly lengthy scene to Robin Hood helping the oppressed poor of Nottingham. It isn’t as fun to watch as the scenes of him robbing Prince John but it’s a big part of his previously mentioned likability. This movie also boasts one of the best Disney soundtracks from the 70s. Not all of the songs by Roger Miller, who also voices Allan-a-Dale the minstrel, are great but all of them are pleasant and one of them, The Phony King of England, is one of the best songs to come from a Disney movie of any decade. Why don’t you give it a listen right now?

Ultimately, I agree with the mainstream audiences that Robin Hood is a very fun movie. However, I can’t resist mentioning that twenty-one years prior to this take on the Robin Hood legend, Disney released what I consider a better one, The Story of Robin Hood and his Merrie Men, and too few people have seen that in my opinion.

1977 saw the release of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, a truly delightful movie but one which was mainly composed of three preexisting featurettes, two of which had been made in the 60s. Thus, it’s not particularly indicative of 1970s Disney animation.[12]Well, you could argue there wasn’t much stylistic difference between the animated content Disney made in the two decades, but I feel like there was a kind of ambition in their 60s output you … Continue reading It’s also adapted from two great books, so I’d prefer to devote a whole blog post to it as part of The Adaptation Station and not one of these Animation Station bonus thingies. Moving on…

It’s rather jarring to go from either Robin Hood or The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh to The Rescuers (1977.) It opens with one of the darkest, most ominous openings to any animated Disney film. Before the credits begin, we see a rickety old riverboat at night in a bayou somewhere in Louisiana. A little girl backs out of the boat’s interior and onto the deck as if she’s terrified of being seen. Two fearsome looking crocodiles on chains[13]They’re referred to as “crocs” in one line of dialogue, but from what I understand the designs are inconsistent as to whether they’re those or alligators. watch her. Furtively, the girl drops a bottle with a message in it into the water.

“Who will rescue me?” Shelby Flint hauntingly sings in the first of the movie’s pleasant 70s-style pop songs. We follow the bottle’s tumultuous journey to New York harbor where it is found by mice, the least likely creatures to be able to help. Or are they?[14]OK, technically, bugs would be less likely rescuers. I consider this one of the most gripping openings, if not the most gripping, to any Disney movie though I admit it would probably be even better if the bottle’s journey was fully animated instead of shown to us through a series of paintings by Mel Shaw. But, hey, they’re good paintings.

Beneath the United Nations building, the bottle is brought before a meeting of the Rescue Aid Society, an international organization of mice dedicated to rescuing people. The message tells them that Penny, its writer, is in terrible trouble and needs help but the part that would have told her location has been rendered illegible by water. Miss Bianca (Eva Gabor), a glamorous member of the society who appears to lead a rather cushy life, is moved by the letter and to everyone’s surprise, volunteers to go on the rescue mission. When the chairman (Bernard Fox) suggests she take someone with her, every male agent eagerly raises their hand but Miss Bianca further surprises by choosing the humble, scruffy janitor, Bernard (Bob Newhart.) (The implication is that she’s attracted to him by the way, not that she’s worried about one of her fellow agents harassing her.)

Does the idea of an international organization of mice dedicated to rescuing people sound a bit random to you? Well, it made more sense in the children’s books by Margery Sharp that inspired this movie. There it was called the Mouse Prisoners Aid Society, and it played on the literary convention of prisoners befriending mice in their cells and taking comfort from them. That was the service the society had always provided at the beginning of the first book, published in 1959, but it quickly evolved into a society for busting prisoners out. The movie takes its title from that first book, but its story has much more in common with the second book, Miss Bianca (1962), with an orphan girl whose name begins with a P being held captive by an evil woman with a pathetic male sidekick and two guard animals. It’s really only an adaptation in the loosest sense of the word though. But while I prefer the book series[15]Well, the first three or four books in it anyway. Margery Sharp was forced to continue writing the series long after it should have ended, and the stories became increasingly dumb., but the movie benefits from following its formula. As in your average Miss Bianca book, we see the heroes track down the prisoner they need to liberate, make contact with them, devise an escape plan, put the plan into action, experience some setbacks and ultimately triumph.[16]Sorry if that’s spoiling anything. I assume everyone knows children’s stories usually have happy endings.

The movie also benefits from keeping the characters of Bernard and Bianca close to their literary versions. Well, they’re pretty close. Bernard is a bit more bumbling and fearful, but he still proves invaluable in a real crisis. Miss Bianca doesn’t get the character arc she had in the first book in which she had to be convinced to go on a dangerous mission and was initially uncomfortable talking to members of the lower classes. But that character arc was really finished in one book. The movie’s selfless, risk-taking Miss Bianca who can talk to anyone is pretty much the character we get in every other book in the series. She and Bernard are actually some of my favorite animated lead characters. Something about The Rescuers that was unique for the time was the way that their relationship was portrayed. They were attracted to each other from their first scene, but this was handled as a subtext. And they clearly bonded with each other over the course of the movie, it was never a love story with wedding bells explicitly ringing at the end. The focus was on their mission, not their romance.[17]A beef I have with the later sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, is that the entire middle section consists of repetitive scenes of Bernard and Bianca traveling across the Australian outback to find the … Continue reading

This movie has a much more threatening villain than any other Disney animated movie from the 70s. True, Madame Medusa (Geraldine Page), looks like a comical figure at first glance. But while she’s definitely over-the-top and caricatured, she can be quite disturbing in the way that dangerously unhinged, obsessive people willing to endanger children to get what they want are disturbing.

Her crocodiles, Brutus and Nero, are also very intimidating and the movie makes great use of their size during action scenes.

They can also be quite funny, most notably in a scene where Bernard and Bianca take refuge from them in a pipe organ and the crocs try to flush them out by playing it.

The Rescuers has less in common with the lighthearted cartoon comedies Disney typically made the 70s than it has with the animated films the studio would make in the 80s featuring more intense villains, darker visuals, occasional morbid humor and violent action climaxes.[18]The Little Mermaid (1989) is generally seen as the prototype for 90s Disney animated features rather than the culmination of the 80s ones but everything I’ve just written about them applies to … Continue reading

But there are still some elements that cross over. (I don’t mean that as a bad thing by the way.) Pat Buttram and George Lindsey, who were in both The Aristocats and Robin Hood, voice supporting characters. So does John Fiedler who was in both Robin Hood and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Orville (famed radio performer Jim Jordan) the clumsy yet naively confident albatross who gives Bernard and Bianca a ride on his back feels like he could have come from any of the Disney movies had come recently. So does Evinrude the long-suffering dragonfly ferryman.[19]Ferrydragonfly? Perhaps neither is as memorable as the Robin Hood sidekicks but they’re better than those in The Aristocats.

The movie kind of has two climaxes. First, a rather dark and intense one with Penny and her rescuers trapped in an underground cave that fills up water.[20]Yes, there’s apparently a strong tide in this bayou. Then there’s a more comical, slapstick climax that sees the bad guys get their comeuppance. Even that one throws more than a few unexpected obstacles in our heroes’ way, making it more genuinely suspenseful than the similar climaxes of The Aristocats and Robin Hood.[21]Well, I’d argue that last one was a little suspenseful. Both scenes are great in their own ways.

Not everything about The Rescuers works brilliantly and it’s not a movie for everyone. But it is a movie for some people, and I am one of them.

So, were the 1970s a dark age for Disney animation? I can’t really say that since I like all but one of these movies and I don’t hate the one I don’t like. And not discussing The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh really does make the decade sound less impressive for Disney than it was.[22]To be fair, when critics speak of “the dark of age of (mainstream American) animation,” they’re usually referring to both the 70s and the 80s. But it was a very unambitious age. I remember when I was blogging my way through the various movies the studio made during the 1940s that were compilations of short cartoons. Pretty much any Disney animated film from the 70s has a bigger fanbase than those and there are reasons for that. Yet I can still tell that, for all their budget limitations, the creators of those compilation movies were still trying take viewers to strange and fantastical worlds, the likes of which they’d never seen before. By contrast, except for The Rescuers, none of these 70s movies aims for anything more than getting some laughs and creating some endearing characters. And on bad days, they can’t even accomplish that. Even if you’re just looking for a fun Disney animated comedy, I’d say The Sword in the Stone from 1963 is funnier and more interesting than all but their best from the 70s. Maybe we should call the decade the Dim Age of Disney Animation.

Eh, that sounds way too harsh. Like I said, there’s far more good than bad here. If what you (or your kids) seek from Disney animation is fun turn-off-your-brain Saturday morning entertainment, this is the decade for you.

References

References
1 Actually, some critics would say this dark age started with the 60s and even pickier ones would say it actually began right after the release of Bambi.
2 Actually, I’m not really a pet person but if I were, I’d be a cat person.
3 Disney fans may be interested to note that she also played the maid in Mary Poppins. As a Dickens fan, I remember her for playing Mrs. Cratchit in Scrooge (1951) and Mrs. Bardell in The Pickwick Papers (1952.
4 Actually, he was supposed to be voiced by Louis Armstrong but that didn’t work out.
5 I wouldn’t say either film has a lot of great verbal humor, but The Jungle Book‘s character animation makes it more entertaining (for kids anyway) than it has a right to be.
6 Why give such obviously French names to characters with rural American accents? Your guess is as good as mine.
7 Yes, the cats are friends with a mouse,
8 This movie also has an unusually high number of bits where the animators clearly just traced over animation from the company’s other movies. One would assume this was to save money but, according to some animators, it didn’t actually accomplish that. I don’t really mind myself though it does mean there’s an entire dance scene where none of the choreography particularly matches the music.
9 Speaking of range, I’ve read some call Little John a recycled version of Baloo from Disney’s The Jungle Book, but I’d argue that while both characters are bears voiced by Phil Harris, they have opposite personalities.
10 In olde England, a sheriff was the king’s representative in a county but the movie to avoid taxing American audiences (see what I did there?), portrays him as a sheriff from a western, complete with badge.
11 Yes, foxes are friends with chickens in this movie and with rabbits. You’ve just got to go with it.
12 Well, you could argue there wasn’t much stylistic difference between the animated content Disney made in the two decades, but I feel like there was a kind of ambition in their 60s output you don’t get in the 70s stuff.
13 They’re referred to as “crocs” in one line of dialogue, but from what I understand the designs are inconsistent as to whether they’re those or alligators.
14 OK, technically, bugs would be less likely rescuers.
15 Well, the first three or four books in it anyway. Margery Sharp was forced to continue writing the series long after it should have ended, and the stories became increasingly dumb.
16 Sorry if that’s spoiling anything. I assume everyone knows children’s stories usually have happy endings.
17 A beef I have with the later sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, is that the entire middle section consists of repetitive scenes of Bernard and Bianca traveling across the Australian outback to find the prisoner they hope to rescue and Bernard fretting about his relationship with Bianca. They only meet the child they’ve come to help when the movie is almost over and never forge anything like the bond they built with Penny. Neither do we see them planning the escape. But I know there are people out there who consider The Rescuers Down Under an improvement on the original so don’t take my word for it.
18 The Little Mermaid (1989) is generally seen as the prototype for 90s Disney animated features rather than the culmination of the 80s ones but everything I’ve just written about them applies to it too. Pay attention to some of the lyrics Under the Sea sometime. They’re pretty dark.
19 Ferrydragonfly?
20 Yes, there’s apparently a strong tide in this bayou.
21 Well, I’d argue that last one was a little suspenseful.
22 To be fair, when critics speak of “the dark of age of (mainstream American) animation,” they’re usually referring to both the 70s and the 80s.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 9: This Isn’t What I Wanted

Lucy sits next to the Stone Table, fiddling with her bottle of cordial. She hears something from outside and runs out of the How. This may not be a widely shared taste, but I love looking at the misty mornings in this movie. But this isn’t time to take in the movie’s beauty as the weary remnants of the Narnian’s army trudge back to their fortress.

Peter and Caspian aren’t speaking to each other. I wish they could keep that up for the whole scene.

Lucy: What happened?
Peter (re: Caspian): Ask him.
Susan: Peter!
Caspian: Me? You could have called it off; There was still time!
Peter: There wasn’t, thanks to you! If you’d kept to the plan, those soldiers might be alive right now.
Caspian: And if you’d just stayed here like I suggested, they definitely would be!
Peter: You called us! Remember?
Caspian: My first mistake.
Peter: No! Your first mistake was thinking you could lead these people.
Caspian: Hey! I am not the one who abandoned Narnia!
Peter: You invaded Narnia. You have no more right to be here than Miraz does! You, him, your father…Narnia’s better off without the lot of you!

Yikes! I’ve been offering defenses of the way this movie adapts the character of Peter, but this nasty conversation is extremely hard for a book fan to take. It’s such a 180 from Caspian and Peter’s relationship in the text. The way each character goes for the other weakest spot (Caspian by accusing Peter of abandoning Narnia and Peter by badmouthing Caspian’s dead father) is especially brutal. Also, from a purely neutral perspective, putting aside the book, the way Caspian screams at Peter and draws his sword after this is silly. I get that they’re outraged but aren’t they also supposed to be exhausted after the battle?

Anyway, Edmund interrupts the fight by yelling, “Stop it!” Glenstorm comes forward with a wounded and evidently unconscious Trumpkin. Lucy runs over and applies her healing cordial to him. (This was likely inspired by a less dramatic scene from the book where she uses the cordial to heal a war wound of Trumpkin’s. This follows Edmund beating him at fencing and Susan beating him at archery and is another thing that convinces him to take the Pevensies seriously.) Caspian sheathes his sword and marches into the How. Nikabrik follows with an interesting expression on his face.

While all this is happening, Glenstorm’s wife meets his eyes, and she breaks down crying as she realizes that one of their children is lost. It’s a well-acted moment from Lejla Abassova though its impact is somewhat lessened by the fact that we haven’t really established that’s she Glenstorm’s wife.[1]There was going to be a scene of her wordlessly bidding her menfolk farewell before they left for battle which would have helped. But the director was probably right to cut it for pacing reasons.

Our focus returns to Trumpkin as Lucy’s cordial revives him. “What are you all standing around for?” he grumbles. “Telmarines ‘ll be here soon enough.” Lucy smiles affectionately and rises to go. Before she does so, Trumpkin says, “Thank you, my dear little friend.” It’s a nice moment.

Back at the castle, we see Miraz being crowned. Since it’s now apparent that Caspian is working with the enemy, the Telmarines who might otherwise have supported him feel they have no choice but to accept his uncle as king.[2]Making Peter’s plan even more disastrous in retrospect. No one at court besides Miraz looks happy[3]And, technically, even he hides his emotions well., especially not Glozelle and Sopespian. But they all bow to him anyway. We then see Miraz and Prunaprismia looking down from a balcony as their subjects below cheer “Long live the King!” I wish the movie should have shown Prunaprismia’s face to make it clear she’s no longer comfortable with her evil husband and also done something to clarify that the peasants are cheering because that’s the safe thing to do, not because they actually like Miraz. That would have been better storytelling.

Intercut with all this, we see the Telmarines completing the bridge at Beruna and an intimidating army marching across it. We also hear Telmarine lords shouting, “Beruna pledges it troops! Galma pledges its troops! Tashbaan pledges its troops! Ettinsmoor pledges its troops!” All of those are locations from the Narnia books and I appreciate the attempt to please fans. However, their choices also indicate the screenwriters weren’t particular fans themselves, not ones with great memories anyway. In the books, Galma is an island that isn’t part of Narnia. Tashbaan is the capital of an enemy country and Ettinsmoor is a wasteland populated by barbaric giants. You know, giants, the kind of fantasy creatures the Telmarines would be against. Oh well, like I said, nice try.[4]It’s not impossible that Galma and Tashbaan could be allied with the Telmarines but there’s nothing about Miraz’s forces to indicate they’re made up of armies from different … Continue reading

Back at the How, Caspian stands by himself, staring bitterly at the wall carvings of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. Well, not quite by himself.

Nikabrik: Are you so glad of that magic horn now, boy? The Kings and Queens have failed us. Your army’s half dead. Those that aren’t will be soon enough.
Caspian: What do you want? Congratulations?
Nikabrik: You want your uncle’s blood? So do we. You want his throne? We can get it for you.

With a rather unsettling grin, Nikabrik leads Caspian into the Stone Table room. Caspian follows after one more glance at the image of the Pevensies on the wall. “You’ve tried one ancient power,” says Nikabrik, “It failed. But there is another power greater still, one that kept even Aslan at bay for near a hundred years.” In the book, Caspian immediately guesses from Nikabrik’s words what ancient power he means and that was before he said anything about “a hundred years.” The movie makes him slower so that…well, we’ll see. Something stirs and growls in the shadows of the seemingly empty room. Caspian draws his sword. “Who’s there?” he asks. A cloaked figure (played by Shane Rangi and, according to the Internet Movie Database, voiced by Tim Hands)[5]Tim Hands is a sound/dialogue editor but, weirdly, IMDB does not credit him with performing that role on this movie.steps out from behind a pillar. From under his hood, we can see a hairy snout, full of teeth. “I am hunger,” he says, “I am thirst. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies!” With that, he pulls back his hood, revealing himself to be a snarling werewolf. By this time, another figure has emerged, this one a Hag (Klara Issova.) “What you hate so will we,” she tells Caspian, “No one hates better than us.” Both actors are fantastically creepy in their roles and their dialogue is quite close to the book. The Hag’s line about hatred has a thematic significance here that it doesn’t in the book since Caspian’s hatred of Miraz is presented as his big flaw.[6]He also wanted to avenge his father’s murder in the book but that wasn’t presented as a bad thing. More on this in a later post. Actually, on reflection, the line was thematically significant in the book too. It was just about Nikabrik’s hatred of Telmarines, not Caspian’s. As wonderfully creepy as the movie makes this scene, I feel like it can’t be as creepy as in the book since there we didn’t actually see the Hag and the Werewolf while they were making these speeches. The scene was portrayed from the points of view of Peter, Edmund and Trumpkin who were listening from behind a door. It’s just not the same with the characters clearly visible in a shadowy but basically well-lit room. This was inevitable though with the change of medium.

“And you can guarantee Miraz’s death?” asks Caspian. “And more,” says the Hag. Caspian still looks suspicious, rightly so, but he sheathes his sword. “Let the circle be drawn,” says the Hag. She and the werewolf scratch a circle on the floor around Caspian as she chants. Caspian, weirded out, looks to Nikabrik for clarification. Why doesn’t he just ask what they’re doing? Because the movie, unlike the book, doesn’t want Caspian to stop this little ritual. But it knows that if Caspian knew its purpose, there’s no way he could do so without losing the viewers’ respect. (Needless to say, in the book, Nikabrik and his compatriots explain their whole plan and Caspian immediately puts a stop to it. The implied reason why he listens to the Hag and the werewolf at all after their creepy introductions is respect for Nikabrik.) Anyway, Nikabrik just grins evilly at the bewildered Caspian. Warwick Davis is great at evil grins. Because the vast majority of the goods guys in the movie have been grumpy and sarcastic, Nikabrik hasn’t really stood out as sinister before this as he had in the book. You could say that’s a bad thing and that this scene hasn’t been set up as well. But you could also say that’s an improvement on the book as Nikabrik’s villainy is a bigger plot twist.

As the Hag’s chant reaches its climax, she pulls out the end of the White Witch’s wand-don’t ask me where she got it-and stabs it into the floor. Ice magically emanates from the wand. It crawls up the wall blocking the giant image of Aslan from view in a nice bit of visual symbolism. Within the ice, a ghostly figure appears.

It’s the White Witch (Tilda Swinton)’s ghost! I’ve got to say I actually like the way she looks here better than in the last movie. Her white skin color is much more “like snow or paper or icing-sugar.”

“Wait! This isn’t what I wanted!” Caspian protests. He starts to back away in horror, but the werewolf grabs hold of him. More specifically, he grabs hold of his wrist and holds it out while the Hag draws a knife. The Witch speaks. (I don’t know much of this is due to Swinton and how much due to the sound mixing but her voice sounds nicely ethereal otherworldly.) One drop of Adam’s blood and you free me,” she says. This is actually a good addition to the book’s story, explaining why none of the White Witch’s followers have tried calling up her spirit before. OK, it’s not an amazing explanation since they could have captured any random human and don’t need specifically need Caspian’s blood, but I still like it. It’s a bit weird that the line concludes with her saying, “Then I am yours, my king.” It almost sounds like she’s flirting with him. Was that the idea? Anyway, despite Caspian’s protests, the Hag cuts his hand, drawing blood.[7]Don’t ask me why the movie couldn’t have a PG rating if the battle scenes showed blood but this is OK. The MPAA is weird. The Witch kisses her spectral fingertips and then extends her hand-physically breaking through the ice! It’s very creepy.

As she does so, the fight goes out Caspian. He seems to be falling under her (literal) spell. Just when it looks like he’s going to let her use his blood, we hear Peter yell “Stop!” He rushes into the room along with Edmund and Trumpkin. (Don’t ask how they knew what was happening. I guess, as in the book, they were just eavesdropping.) The werewolf throws off its cloak and leaps upon them. Edmund fights the wolf, Peter fights the Hag and Trumpkin fights Nikabrik. It looks as if Nikabrik is going to overpower the other dwarf but then Lucy appears and grabs him from behind. Nikabrik twists her arm and shoves her hard against the floor. On the plus side, Peter also throws the Hag hard against the wall and it’s implied that Edmund slays the werewolf. Nikabrik is about to kill Lucy when Trumpkin stabs him from behind. While the movie’s plot structure has kept it from developing their relationship, we know Trumpkin and Nikabrik have shared a home for some time and it’s sad to see one forced to kill the other. (In the book, the light is knocked out during this fight and it’s left ambiguous which of the good guys killed Nikabrik.)

Seeing all her allies falling, the Witch becomes desperate. “Come on!” she hisses, holding out her hand. Caspian, hypnotized, is about to obey but Peter shoves him aside, holding out his sword. “Get away from him!” he cries. The Witch quickly withdraws her hand but just as quickly holds it out again. “Peter dear!” she says, smiling. “I’ve missed you!”

OK, what?!

Now it definitely sounds like she’s flirting. And why should Peter believe she’s missed him? Pretty much their only interactions were trying to kill each other. Yet it seems like he’s falling for her words. The idea seems to be that standing in the circle makes you susceptible to the Witch. “Come,” she coaxes, “Just one drop. You know you can’t do this alone.” Peter starts to lower his sword. But before he can do anything, a sword pierces through the center of the wall of ice.

It shatters, revealing the sword’s wielder, Edmund, behind it. “I know,” he tells Peter, “You had it sorted.” Caspian and Peter stare at the image of Aslan, appalled at what they almost did. Then they turn to see Susan. She glares at Caspian in disgust, then turns and storms off, leaving him looking even guiltier. Yes, apparently, the filmmakers felt that almost bringing back the White Witch wasn’t a big enough reason for Caspian to feel terrible. He also needs to be upset because Susan doesn’t like him anymore. Spare me.

This is easily the craziest scene in the movie. Maybe in any of the Narnia movies. I don’t necessarily hate the addition of having Nikabrik’s crew partially complete their evil ritual and the heroes stopping it just in time. It’s a stereotypically Hollywood-esque change to make to the story but, hey, sometimes I enjoy the stereotypically Hollywood-esque. And there are some aspects of the scene I really admire but there are also plenty I find ridiculous. As something of a writer myself, I can see what the screenwriters’ goal was. Since Caspian and Peter entirely blamed each other for the failure of the last battle, they wanted a situation where they would be equally at fault and have no choice but to acknowledge their own failings, even to bond over their mutual guilt.[8]Of course, the screenwriters wouldn’t have needed that if they’d stuck closer to the book. The problem is that there’s no way either Peter or Caspian would be idiotic enough to even consider trusting the White Witch. To get around that, the movie implied that she had them under a spell. But in that case, assuming they really had no free will, why should they feel guilty?[9]Well, I guess Caspian should for not insisting on the Hag and the werewolf explaining themselves. Sometimes understanding the thought process behind ridiculous, contrived scenes like this inclines me to forgive them. At other times, it just makes me despise them more. It depends on how much I enjoy the movies (or books or plays) on the whole. I enjoy this one, so I’ll forgive it though I understand why other viewers might not do so.

Next Week: That Telmarine Army Is Still Coming. What Will Our Heroes Do?

But First Another Animation Station Post as a Tribute to the Late Bob Newhart

References

References
1 There was going to be a scene of her wordlessly bidding her menfolk farewell before they left for battle which would have helped. But the director was probably right to cut it for pacing reasons.
2 Making Peter’s plan even more disastrous in retrospect.
3 And, technically, even he hides his emotions well.
4 It’s not impossible that Galma and Tashbaan could be allied with the Telmarines but there’s nothing about Miraz’s forces to indicate they’re made up of armies from different nations.
5 Tim Hands is a sound/dialogue editor but, weirdly, IMDB does not credit him with performing that role on this movie.
6 He also wanted to avenge his father’s murder in the book but that wasn’t presented as a bad thing. More on this in a later post.
7 Don’t ask me why the movie couldn’t have a PG rating if the battle scenes showed blood but this is OK. The MPAA is weird.
8 Of course, the screenwriters wouldn’t have needed that if they’d stuck closer to the book.
9 Well, I guess Caspian should for not insisting on the Hag and the werewolf explaining themselves.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 8: You’re Supposed to Be at the Gatehouse!

We get a nice aerial view of the Telmarine castle at night. The music in this bit is subtle but very effective. A gryphon swoops down carrying Edmund and hides on the roof of a tower. The sentry there hears something but can’t see them. Suddenly, the gryphon’s claws snatch him away and Edmund drops down in his place. Cautiously, he looks over the edge of the tower, then sends a signal with his electric torch. I love the use of Edmund’s torch in this way. It’s one of the cleverest ideas in any Narnia adaptation that’s not from the books.[1]C. S. Lewis was a big fan of the medieval aesthetic and might have considered using a flashlight in medieval style battle to be “soiling it.” But I don’t watch movies because C. S. … Continue reading

More gryphons fly down towards the castle. The subtle music becomes more pronounced and distinctly suspenseful. From faraway, the rest of the Narnian army sees the signals and emerges from the wood. Well, not quite all the rest of the army. Inside the courtyard, Reepicheep and two more mice pop up from what appears to be a sewer vent. We see the gryphons are carrying Peter, Susan and Caspian as they fly over the ramparts, the two kings and the queen kill more sentries.

I suppose I have to note something here. I’m reluctant to do so since it requires getting into some inflammatory subjects, but I feel like it’s necessary to do a comprehensive analysis of this adaptation. Susan in this scene and throughout the film kills enemies just as efficiently as the other main characters whereas in the book, she hated killing even a nontalking bear. Now Susan isn’t my favorite character from the book, though I do like her, so I’m not too bothered by this, and I can admire her cinematic counterpart’s fighting skills in the book just as I do Edmund’s or Caspian’s. I am a bit cynical about the reasoning behind the change to the character though. From what I remember of the interviews with the director[2]Which I am too lazy to look up now., there was a fear that portraying Susan as being stereotypically feminine and refraining from warfare would send the message that girls can’t be warriors. This logic would lead to the movie’s Susan needing to be a master chef, a mechanical genius, a budding poet, and who knows what else lest impressionable viewers get the idea that girls can’t be those things either. Everyone assumes these days that if a generally male dominated story has one female character or for that matter, if a generally female dominated story has one male character, then they must be the representative of their entire sex. Doesn’t it occur to anyone that sometimes in real life, there will be a solitary woman in a group of men or vice versa and the stories are simply reflecting that?[3]Of course, in some cases, the token girl or token guy is supposed to represent their entire sex. If the storytellers want gender to be a theme, I interpret them that way, but that doesn’t seem … Continue reading

And what’s really annoying from a book fan’s perspective is that Susan is not the only heroine in the story! There’s also Lucy whose personality is much more that of an action heroine and whom in another Narnia book, The Horse and his Boy, goes to battle while Susan stays home though she only serves as an archer. She’s not called Queen Lucy the Valiant for nothing after all.[4]Critics who condemn the Narnia books as misogynistic tend to focus, maybe a little obsessively, on Susan. That’s reasonable enough since she’s very stereotypically feminine both in her … Continue reading But in this adaptation, Susan takes part in all the action scenes and her sister only takes part in one in which she ends up needing to be a rescued by one of the male characters. Way to add female empowerment to the story, enlightened ones. Still, I guess that makes sense with the situation. The movie has set it up that this attack on the castle is against Aslan’s will and Lucy is the only one really trying to follow his wishes. Also, Georgie Henley’s age and stature at the time of filming would have made it hard to believe in her as action heroine. Oh well.

A Telmarine soldier sees a minotaur and draws his sword, but Nikabrik knocks him out from behind. Meanwhile Reepicheep and his band scurry up the ropes of the drawbridge and into the gatehouse. I love the comical theme that plays for them on the soundtrack. I also love that the first obstacle they encounter there is a sleeping housecat.

Caspian, Peter, Susan and Trumpkin climb down the walls of the castle via rope and Caspian breaks into the window of Dr. Cornelius’s study, wanting to get the man to safety before the raid commences. Caspian finds his spectacles lying on the table and his hourglass tipped over. Apparently, Cornelius would never leave the room that way unless he had no choice.

Caspian: We have to find him.
Peter: You don’t have time. You need to get the gate open.
Caspian: You wouldn’t even be here without him, and neither would I.
Susan (to Peter): You and I can deal with Miraz.
Caspian: And I can still get to the gate in time.

Caspian runs off to look for Cornelius to Peter’s disapproval. Trumpkin heads in a different direction. Back at the gatehouse, a Telmarine soldier enters to find, in a hilarious sight gag, the cat bound and gagged. While he’s still trying to process this, he hears a sword being drawn and turns around to see Reepicheep dangling in front of his face. “Yes, I’m a mouse,” says Reepicheep and (it’s implied) slits the man’s throat. Despite this Narnia movie focusing on violence more than the last one, we still don’t see any blood gushing from the throat. Some viewers may find that a distraction but, honestly, I don’t think I could enjoy this action scene with realistic wounds. And I really do enjoy this scene, far more than I enjoy the climactic battle or the melting waterfall scene from the previous film. I’ll give a reason why shortly. The mice run to the door, killing another soldier in their path, and climb on each other’s backs to open it. Trumpkin enters in lieu of Caspian just in time to shoot a third solider entering from the far end of the room.

Reepicheep: Ah, we were expecting someone…you know, taller.
Trumpkin: You’re one to talk.
Reepicheep: Was that supposed to be irony?

OK, I know I said I find this movie’s humor more consistently funny that the last one’s, but that bit is pretty weak.[5]To be fair, the worst line is the last one which Eddie Izzard, if I remember the audio commentary correctly, improvised. The movie didn’t have to keep it though. But this is a good example of what I love about the raid scene, the first part of it anyway. Not only does it incorporate Edmund’s torch, but it also makes the various creatures’ strengths and weaknesses an integral part of the action. The mice’s small size and agility enables them to infiltrate the gatehouse, but their relative lack of strength means they need help opening the gate and lowering the drawbridge. Caspian’s delay in assisting them adds to the suspense.

We cut to Cornelius lying asleep in the dungeon. Caspian awakens him just as the professor awoke him in the first scene of the movie. (Well, not exactly. He’s considerate enough not to put a hand over his mouth.) “Five more minutes?” Caspian says with a grin. “What are you doing here?” Cornelius demands as Caspian unchains him. “I didn’t help you escape just so you could break back in! You have to get out before Miraz learns you’re here.” Caspian hands him the key. “He will find soon enough,” he says, “We are giving him your cell.” Caspian turns to leave but Cornelius grabs him by the shoulder. “Don’t underestimate Miraz as your father did,” he warns. Caspian’s eyes widen and he seems to be having trouble breathing. “What are you talking about?” he says. Dr. Cornelius lowers his head. “I’m sorry,” he says. Caspian throws his hands off and runs out of the dungeon like he’s terrified. I don’t like where this scene is going but Ben Barnes does a good job of conveying his character’s horror at realizing Cornelius’s implication.

Peter and Susan sneak through the castle’s corridors. We cut to Miraz and Prunaprismia asleep in their bed. A sword pokes Miraz’s throat. He opens his eyes only to laugh condescendingly upon identifying the intruder. “Thank goodness,” he says, “You’re safe.” That’s right. It’s not Peter or Susan who is holding the sword. It’s Caspian. “Get up,” he snaps. Despite his casual, utterly unintimated attitude, Miraz must take Caspian seriously as a threat on some level because he obeys. His wife awakens.

Prunaprismia: Caspian?
Caspian: Stay where you are.
Prunaprismia: What are you doing?
Miraz: I should think it’s obvious, dear. You know, some families might consider this inappropriate behavior.
Caspian: That doesn’t seem to have stopped you!
Miraz: But you are not like me, are you?

Caspian doesn’t drop his sword or anything, but he draws back, a little uncertain of himself. “It’s sad,” says his uncle, “the first time you’ve shown any backbone and it’s such a waste.” Prunaprismia meanwhile grabs a crossbow from behind her bed, loads it and points it at her nephew. “Put the sword down, Caspian. I don’t want to do this,” she says. “We don’t want you to either!” says Susan as she enters the chamber, her own bow drawn, with Peter. This creates a Mexican standoff situation with Susan aiming an arrow at Prunaprismia who is aiming one at Caspian who is pointing a sword at Miraz who snarks “This used to be a private room.”

Again, I generally enjoy this movie’s banter, but I’m not sure if Miraz’s snarkiness really benefits the scene. It dilutes the suspense, making it obvious the scene is meant to be fun and nobody we like is really going to die.[6]From what I understand, humor in recent Marvel movies has been criticized for much the same reason. The idea, I guess, is to make Miraz intimidating by having him be really fearless but I don’t think it works that well. Maybe the movie agrees with me on some level because in the following exchange, Caspian manages to back his uncle against the wall through sheer intensity though the man’s expression doesn’t betray any fear.

Peter (to Caspian): What are you doing?! You’re supposed to be at the gatehouse!
Caspian: No! (to Miraz) Tonight for once I want the truth! Did you kill my father?
Miraz: Now we get to it.
Prunaprismia: You said that your brother died in his sleep.
Miraz: That was more or less true.
Susan: Caspian, this won’t make things any better.
Miraz: We Telmarines would have nothing had we not taken it. Your father knew that as well as anyone.
Prunaprismia: How could you?
Miraz: For the same reason, you will pull that trigger. For our son!
Prunaprismia (to Caspian): Stop!
Susan (to Prunaprismia): Stay right there!
Miraz: You need to make a choice, dear. Do you want our child to be king? Or do you want him to be like Caspian here? Fatherless?!

I remember the first time I watched the movie. I’d been enjoying it so much up to this point and I distinctly remember being annoying at this scene for taking me out of it. What are my problems? First of all, I can’t empathize with Caspian demanding to know if Miraz murdered his father because…well, of course, he did! It’s traditional in stories like this. And it isn’t as if Caspian had believed his uncle was a wonderful human being before now. He wasn’t surprised at all that the man was out to kill him. I can still buy that he would be stunned by the idea that Miraz killed his father. (The book describes Caspian as “feeling very queer” when Cornelius reveals the information to him though not a big deal is made of it afterwards.) But why jeopardize the whole siege by immediately running to Miraz and demanding an answer instead of doing his job at the gatehouse? He knew the plan was to capture Miraz anyway. Why not wait and interrogate him later? I guess I buy that Caspian was so shocked by the idea of his father being a murder victim that he panicked and lost all confidence that the Narnians would succeed in taking Miraz and the castle. But, again, should the idea have really been that much of a shock? While Peter is generally the less likeable of the two characters in the movie, I can’t blame him for being exasperated with Caspian here.

No shade thrown at Ben Barnes who makes the scene work as well as possible.

Then there’s what they’re doing with Prunaprismia. In the book, we don’t know anything about her except that she has red hair and dislikes Caspian. The former thing was once was seen as very unattractive, though happily for redheads this is no longer so, and while the latter doesn’t necessarily make her an evil person, realistically speaking, the book doesn’t want us to think that realistically. I’m not a fan of adaptations taking (implied) villains and making them more sympathetic but, to be fair, doing so for Prunaprismia will allow this movie to keep a memorable moment from the book’s last chapter that would probably have otherwise been cut for being too random. However, this feels like such a strange time to suddenly delve into her character! She’s only appeared in two scenes prior to this one and had no dialogue unless you count screaming while giving birth. I had no problem with this on a first view, assuming that, as in the source material, she wasn’t going to be important. And now in a scene that really should be focused on Caspian, she’s given this highly dramatic situation. It’s so awkward and jarring. It doesn’t help that while Alicia Borrachero’s performance is generally great, her line readings in this scene make her character seem less shocked by these revelations about her beloved husband than she should be. If I remember the audio commentary correctly, the idea was that she had suspected that he wasn’t the greatest guy for a while but there’s not much about the dialogue to suggest this.

Anyway, the prospect of her son growing up without a father makes Prunaprismia pull the trigger, wounding her nephew in the shoulder. Miraz takes advantage of this distraction to get away, evading Peter. His wife throws herself on the bed, weeping. (Again, Borrachero is generally great in this movie, the casting of which is generally superb.) We cut to Edmund on the tower, fumbling with his torch and dropping it on the parapet below. When I first saw the movie, I thought this was because he was startled by Prunaprismia’s scream. On reflection, I think that’s just a coincidence since if she were really that loud, every soldier in the area would have reacted to her. Part of me likes the idea though as it would make Caspian’s dumb decision even more integral to the scene. A Telmarine finds the torch. Hilariously, while trying to figure out what it is, he shines it in his own face and waves it around, confusing Nikabrik, Glenstorm and the other Narnians outside who wonder what crazy signals these are supposed to be. Edmund jumps onto the man’s back.

Throughout this, the clamor of bells is heard. Miraz has sounded the alarm. We see Telmarine soldiers jumping out of bed and grabbing their armor and weapons. Instead of beating a hasty retreat, Peter, followed by Susan and Caspian, runs down to open the gates and let in his forces. “Now, Ed, now! Signal the troops!” he calls as he races across the courtyard. “I’m a bit busy, Pete,” calls Edmund who’s fighting the Telmarine who found his torch.[7]Fun facts: Peter is never called Pete in the books and Susan is never called Su in the movies. Edmund and Lucy are called Ed and Lu in both. Well, I think those facts are fun. It turns out Peter also has to battle some opponents before he reaches the gates. Thankfully, both brothers win those fights and Edmund retrieves the torch, but he has some trouble getting it to work. Peter meanwhile desperately turns the crank for raising the castle gate’s portcullis despite Susan’s protests that it’s too late and they must call off the attack while they have the option. “No, I can still do this!” insists Peter. “Help me!” Seeing that they don’t have time to change his mind and more Telmarine troops are coming, Caspian and Susan obey. Meanwhile, Trumpkin and the mice work the machinery to lower the drawbridge as well as they can unassisted. “Exactly who are you doing this for, Peter?” Susan demands. He doesn’t reply, either because he’s using all his strength and energy on the gate or because he doesn’t have a good answer.

Finally, Edmund gets his torch to work. He signals the Narnian troops who charge through the town, across the bridge and into the courtyard. Not a moment too soon for their leaders since that courtyard is filling with Telmarine enemies. As he, Susan and Caspian enter the fray, Peter yells, “For Narnia!” Now in the last movie, his battle cry was “For Narnia and for Aslan!” I’d like to think the omission of that last part here is to reflect his attitude toward the Lion but in the next Narnia film, the Narnians battle cry will still just be “For Narnia,” so that’s probably reading too much into it.

I don’t have much to say about the ensuing battle. I don’t find it as fun as the first part of this scene but, to be fair, it’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be intense and depressing. There is a really silly moment when Susan kills an opponent, not by shooting him or stabbing him, but throwing an arrow at him. And there’s a cool moment for Edmund when he has to slide away from a bunch of enemy archers and kicks a door shut behind him. It’s full of the arrows the next moment. He runs down a hall and out onto another parapet, using his torch to bar the door behind him. I’d like to take this moment to say that though is one of the only major characters in the movie not to have an arc of some sort, he’s a fun, likeable presence.

Back to the scene. Miraz sends troops to the gatehouse. Trumpkin puts up a good fight but gets pushed out a window. It’s not a short fall and the landing looks like it hurts. A minotaur sees the portcullis being lowered and runs under it, holding it up with great effort. Peter finally decides the situation is hopeless and orders his army to retreat. Now the Narnia books describe a good king as being the first in every charge and the last in every retreat, so you could say that this goes against their philosophy. Honestly though, I can’t really blame the movie for disagreeing with that philosophy. Realistically speaking, you’ve got to retreat sometimes, and a king being killed or captured because he was the last to go means a terrible inconvenience for his side since he then has to be replaced. Anyway, to help get Susan to safety with all possible speed, Glenstorm pulls her onto his back. In the Narnia books, riding a centaur is a great honor that hardly anyone receives. I can buy that Glenstorm would casually bestow that honor on Susan since this is a desperate situation but as a book fan, I wish the movie would treat it as a big deal and not a matter of course.

As Glenstorm gallops off, Susan calls for Caspian who has disappeared. “I’ll find him,” says Peter. Needless to say, there’s a lot going on right now, so forgive me if this description is choppy. Various Narnians are escaping through the gates, but the minotaur is having a hard time keeping the portcullis up. Edmund’s pursuers break down the door he barred behind him, but he evades them by dropping off the parapet onto a gryphon’s back. Caspian emerges from the castle on his horse-ah, yes, I neglected to mention Glozelle brought back Caspian’s lost horse when he captured Trumpkin-along with Dr. Cornelius on another one and a third horse for Peter. Miraz sees this from his balcony view. “Give the order,” he tells Glozelle. “My men are still down there,” Glozelle protests but Miraz grabs his crossbow from him and shoots the minotaur, yelling, “Now!” Apparently, that order was for the Telmarine archers to rain arrows down into the courtyard indiscriminately. The minotaur manages to hold up under the onslaught long enough for more of his allies, including Peter, Susan and Caspian, to escape. For a moment, he even manages to defiantly raise the portcullis higher than he had it before. But eventually it’s too much and he collapses. I’m afraid this didn’t have the intended sad effect on me since I never liked the idea of heroic Narnian minotaurs and was happy to see one less.

Amusingly, the gap his body makes under the portcullis is still big enough to let Reepicheep and the other mice escape. But, alas, far more Narnians are now trapped like rats.

Peter, Susan and Glenstorm pause in their flight to look back at them. We see a faun try to climb up the gate, only to be shot down. For all the problems I have with William Moseley’s performance as Peter in this movie, he shines here with some really heartbreaking facial expressions.

He’s not the only one. There’s a nice moment where one of Glenstorm’s sons gives a stoic nod to his father from behind the gate and turns to face the enemy. Caspian calls to Peter that the drawbridge is being raised and now is his last chance to escape. Peter doesn’t like leaving his troops behind, but he forces himself to do so. The scene ends with Edmund and the gryphon flying over the courtyard, staring down in horror. While we don’t get a close look, the place is clearly filled with dead and dying Narnians.

I’m somewhat bewildered whenever fans bring this scene up as an example of the Narnia movies adding pointless action scenes. Unlike the melting waterfall from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), it’s integral to the plot and can’t really be removed from it.[8]Though in the melting waterfall’s defense, that scene did serve to build up to Peter slaying Maugrim. I’d also argue it’s not so much an added scene as something from the book that’s been changed a good deal. Remember in the source material, Caspian didn’t blow the horn and summon the Pevensies until he and the Narnians had been fighting for a while.

It was after they had taken up their quarters in and around the How that fortune began to turn against them. King Miraz’s scouts soon found their new lair, and he and his army arrived on the edge of the woods. And as so often happens, the enemy turned out stronger than they had reckoned. Caspian’s heart sank as he saw company after company arriving. And though Miraz’s men may have been afraid of going into the wood, they were even more afraid of Miraz, and with him in command they carried battle deeply into it and sometimes almost to the How itself. Caspian and other captains of course made many sorties into the open country. Thus, there was fighting on most days and sometimes by night as well; but Caspian’s party had on the whole the worst of it.

At last there came a night when everything had gone as badly as possible, and the rain which had been falling heavily all day had ceased at nightfall only to give place to raw cold. That morning Caspian had arranged what was his biggest battle yet, and all had hung their hopes on it. He, with most of the Dwarfs, was to have fallen on the King’s right wing at daybreak, and then, when they were heavily engaged, Giant Wimbleweather, with the Centaurs and some of the fiercest beasts, was to have broken out from another place and endeavoured to cut the King’s right off from the rest of the army. But it had all failed. No one had warned Caspian (because no one in these later days of Narnia remembered) that Giants are not at all clever. Poor Wimbleweather, though as brave as a lion, was a true Giant in that respect. He had broken out at the wrong time and from the wrong place, and both his party and Caspian’s had suffered badly and done the enemy little harm. The best of the Bears had been hurt, a Centaur terribly wounded, and there were few in Caspian’s party who had not lost blood. It was gloomy company that huddled under the dripping trees to eat their scanty supper.

This leads to Caspian finally blowing the horn and the attack on the castle in the movie leads to Peter finally sending Lucy to look for Aslan. (As I mentioned before, the script really should have given him a better reason to specifically do that, but I digress.) If the adaptation had literally followed the book, there would have been several costly battles rather than just one. Technically, this is cutting action scenes. Is the problem changing the location? Personally, I think that’s an improvement. Having the battle take place at the castle is much more visually interesting that in “the open country.”[9]Maybe the issue is that in the book, at the very first war council, the overzealous mice “proposed storming Miraz in his own castle that very night.” Thus, an idea that was presented as … Continue reading Is the problem that the scene is too depressing? The equivalent in the book is more humorous with an emphasis on Wimbleweather’s bumbling.[10]It’s even more comical in the book where it’s followed by a scene of him weeping over his mistake and drenching the mice, much to their annoyance. I can understand that criticism, I guess. It is sort of untrue to the book’s spirit. But in a movie, unless it’s a farce which is untrue of either version of Prince Caspian, I’m not sure how you could play an army suffering so without being tacky. Honestly, C. S. Lewis only gets away with it in literary form by skimming over the battle scene itself. The only way to be perfectly true to the book’s spirit at this point would be to show a series of unsuccessful battles in a montage and, I’m sorry, I like the scene in the movie better than that idea. Is the problem just that this scene makes Peter too unlikeable? I guess I can’t argue with that. I’ve written before in this series, why his character assassination doesn’t rankle me as much as some fans and I’ll probably write more about the topic later. For now, I’ll just close by saying that, on the whole, I personally enjoy this scene in the movie a lot.

Next Week: Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance AKA The Film’s Weirdest Scene

References

References
1 C. S. Lewis was a big fan of the medieval aesthetic and might have considered using a flashlight in medieval style battle to be “soiling it.” But I don’t watch movies because C. S. Lewis would have liked them. I watch them because I like them.
2 Which I am too lazy to look up now.
3 Of course, in some cases, the token girl or token guy is supposed to represent their entire sex. If the storytellers want gender to be a theme, I interpret them that way, but that doesn’t seem to be the goal of either the literary or the cinematic Prince Caspian.
4 Critics who condemn the Narnia books as misogynistic tend to focus, maybe a little obsessively, on Susan. That’s reasonable enough since she’s very stereotypically feminine both in her good traits (motherly, doesn’t like to see anyone get hurt) and her bad ones (not a lot of stamina, overly concerned with makeup and appearances in the last book.) However, it ignores the fact that there are four other leading ladies in the series and the others don’t fit as neatly into gender stereotypes. Why should one of five be considered the normative one?
5 To be fair, the worst line is the last one which Eddie Izzard, if I remember the audio commentary correctly, improvised. The movie didn’t have to keep it though.
6 From what I understand, humor in recent Marvel movies has been criticized for much the same reason.
7 Fun facts: Peter is never called Pete in the books and Susan is never called Su in the movies. Edmund and Lucy are called Ed and Lu in both. Well, I think those facts are fun.
8 Though in the melting waterfall’s defense, that scene did serve to build up to Peter slaying Maugrim.
9 Maybe the issue is that in the book, at the very first war council, the overzealous mice “proposed storming Miraz in his own castle that very night.” Thus, an idea that was presented as ridiculous in the book is taken seriously in the movie. But remember the context. When the mice made this proposal in the book, they had no reason to think the castle’s defenses would be down.
10 It’s even more comical in the book where it’s followed by a scene of him weeping over his mistake and drenching the mice, much to their annoyance.
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Animation Station: How Charles Dickens Went Inside Out

I’m filing this post under Animation Station because it’s about an animated movie that’s not an adaptation of anything-two movies like that actually. But I will be writing about themes and messages they have in common with the works of Charles Dickens, adaptations of whose books I cover on this blog semi-regularly. It’s a weird post, I grant you, but no one else is going to blog about the thematic links between Pixar’s Inside Out films and Charles Dickens if I don’t do it.

To properly do so though, I’m going to have to get into major spoilers for the original Inside Out, its sequel, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, a novella Dickens wrote in the style of A Christmas Carol in Prose, and the longer and more famous novel Great Expectations. I won’t give away every detail of the plots, but I am going to get into climaxes and endings so consider yourselves warned.

For those of you not in the know, Inside Out takes viewers inside the mind of young Riley Andersen (voiced by Kaitlyn Diaz in the first movie, Kensington Tallman in the second) where the embodiments of five primal emotions, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader first movie, Tony Hale second), Disgust (Mindy Kaling first Liza Lapira second) and Anger (Lewis Black in both films) see what she sees, hear what she hears and drive her (sort of) through a console. They also collect memories each day, represented by glowing orbs the color of whichever emotion is associated with them. Special core memories power Riley’s Islands of Personality such as Goofball Island, Hockey Island and Family Island. Most of her early memories are happy. But when she’s eleven years old, Riley’s family moves from Minnesota where she’s lived all her life to San Francisco and the unpopular Emotion Sadness starts to touch Riley’s happy memories of her old home, turning them blue. Worse, she creates a sad core memory by making Riley break down crying in front of her new classmates. Joy tries to keep Riley’s personality from being changed by getting rid of the sad core memory. She accidentally ends up removing herself, Sadness and all of the core memories from Headquarters. The result is that Riley feels neither happy nor sad and can no longer enjoy any of the things that usually give her pleasure.

At first glance, the protagonist of The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, Mr. Redlaw the melancholy chemist, has nothing in common with Joy. But at even a cursory second glance, he too seeks to remove unpleasant memories. He is a haunted man in two senses.[1]All five of Dickens’s Christmas novellas actually are about men who are haunted by something or other. He’s haunted in one sense by the fact that he was unloved by his parents, unlucky in love, betrayed by a close friend who also broke the heart of his beloved sister, a sister who died tragically-Phew! Clearly, few of his core memories are happy. He’s haunted in another sense by a grim phantom who appears to Redlaw in his own shape on Christmas Eve. The ghost offers him the ability to forget his sorrows, wrongs and troubles with the side effect that he will make anyone with whom he comes into contact forget theirs too. Tempting as this sounds, Redlaw feels a strong foreboding that it’s wrong but accepts the bargain anyway. “Who would not forget their sorrows and their wrongs?” he reasons. But the results prove disastrous. When Redlaw causes the many members of the struggling Tetterby family to forget their past struggles that bound them together, they resent their present struggles and, what’s more, resent the inconvenience of each other.[2]The Tetterbys make for interesting foils to the Cratchit family from Dickens’s most famous Christmas story. We never saw them fighting with each other and I don’t mean that as a criticism … Continue reading When Edmund Denham, an ill student of Redlaw’s, forgets his past sickness, he becomes cold and ungrateful to Milly Swidger, wife of Redlaw’s college’s caretaker, William Swidger[3]Sorry if it’s hard to keep all these characters and their relationships straight., who helped him through it. When William’s old father, Philip, forgets all the grief George, his more wayward son, caused him over the years, he counterintuitively feels disinclined to forgive him and when George forgets all the sorrow his sins have brought, he no longer feels repentant.

The idea that suffering strengthens the bonds between people, particularly family members, also turns out to play a big part in Inside Out. In one of the movie’s most powerful scenes[4]It may sound strange to describe a bouncy cartoon like this as emotionally powerful, but it earns the description., Joy accidentally rewinds a happy memory of Riley’s old hockey team cheering for her to its sorrowful beginning. The reason Riley’s parents (Kyle MacLachlan and Diane Lane) and teammates came to lift her spirts was that they saw she was deeply discouraged by a critical mistake she made on the ice. Without that, the joyful memory would never have been made. This inspires Joy to regretfully hand the core memories of Riley’s old life in Minnesota to Sadness, turning them blue. Riley tearfully confesses her homesickness to her parents, and they tell her they miss their old home too. As the Andersens share a group hug, Sadness gently takes Joy’s hand and places it on the console. Riley sighs with relief and smiles through her tears. A new core memory is created, one both golden and blue, happy and sad. It creates a new Family Island, one even bigger and stronger than the old version.

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain also ends with memories and relationships restored. On Christmas Day, Milly Swidger is also able to remove the ghost’s “gift” from everyone by her mere presence. Apparently, she’s just that goodhearted. Err, yeah, that ending is rather anticlimactic and ridiculously convenient and the main reason The Haunted Man is not as great as A Christmas Carol.[5]It’s also odd since Milly interacted with all of the “forgetters” except for Redlaw himself the night before and lacked this power then. Apparently, she gained it after Redlaw … Continue reading Still, there’s poignancy in Milly acting as a go-between between Redlaw and the friend who betrayed him, gently asking for forgiveness for the man and even more in the revelation about her own memories of sorrow. Long ago, she and her husband lost their only child in its infancy. “When I see a beautiful child in its fond mother’s arms,” she says, “I love it all the better, thinking that my child might have been like that and might have made my heart as proud and happy. All through life, it seems by me to tell me something. For poor neglected children, my little child pleads as if it were alive and had a voice I knew with which to speak to me. When I hear of youth in suffering or in shame, I think that my child might have come to that, and that God took it from me in His mercy. Even in age and grey hair, such as father’s is at present: saying that it too might have lived to be old…and to have needed the respect and love of younger people.”

Riley’s Sense of Self

In Inside Out 2, Joy remembers the lesson she learned about every Emotion serving a purpose, but she seems to have forgotten her lesson about unpleasant memories serving a purpose too as she banishes them to the (literal) back of Riley’s mind. By contrast, she plants the memories she likes beneath Headquarters. They grow into beliefs which make up Riley’s belief system which, in turn, make up her Sense of Self.[6]This raises all kinds of questions. How come the Emotions didn’t know about this in the first movie? Wouldn’t the memories that create beliefs be the core memories? If they’re … Continue reading The Emotions pride themselves on thirteen-year-old Riley’s Sense of Self being a positive one. But the new Emotions, Anxiety (Maya Hawke) and Envy (Ayo Edebiri), threaten that.[7]I could also quibble with the idea that emotions like Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adele Exarchopoulos) only arrive with puberty. Even in-universe, while such feelings … Continue reading Right before Riley and her best friends, Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) and Grace (Grace Lu), attend a three-day hockey skills camp, she learns that they will be attending different high schools. Anxiety makes Riley’s main goal at camp be to get on her new school’s hockey team, the Fire Hawks. To do this, she suppresses the original five Emotions, sends Riley’s old Sense of Self to the Back of the Mind and creates a new one based on anxious memories and beliefs.

Pip, the protagonist of Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, also suffers the loss of his positive sense of self in his youth. While he hadn’t had nearly as comfortable a childhood as Riley, he was once happy with his destiny of growing up to be apprenticed to his sister’s husband, Joe Gargery the blacksmith. But when he visits the beautiful, upper-class Estella and she snubs him, he becomes ashamed of his home. “I had believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon,” he laments in the book’s first-person narration, “I had believed in the front door as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and independence. Within a single year all that was changed. Now it was all coarse and common…” Happily, Riley doesn’t meet with the same kind of scorn that wounds Pip. Val Ortiz (Lilimar Hernandez), the star of the Fire Hawks with whom Anxiety drives Riley to spend most of camp schmoozing, is much more like genial, helpful Herbert Pocket, who shows Pip the ropes of being a gentleman when his wish to be one is unexpectedly granted, than like the cruel Estella.[8]Dani, another girl on the team (whose voice actress is unspecified in the credits for some reason) is harder on Riley but still not as bad as Estella or other snobby characters from Great … Continue reading But the same loss of innocence that Pip experiences when he plays cards with Estella, and she berates him for calling the knaves jacks can be seen in the scene of Riley realizing that her favorite band is seen as childish by the Fire Hawks. Just as Pip makes earning Estella’s approval the goal of his life, Riley makes hers earning the approval of the Fire Hawks. This leads her to pretend to disdain her aforementioned favorite band, eat energy bars that taste like cardboard and broccoli and even to shun Bree and Grace. (“Why are our best friends always trying to hang out with us?” Envy complains.) Pip likewise shuns Joe Gargery and Biddy, the lowly schoolteacher’s assistant who tutored him as a child, once he becomes a gentleman of expectations. When Joe pays him a visit, he confesses in the narration that “If I could have kept him away by paying money, I most certainly would have paid money.”

I recently wrote that I don’t understand why so many kids’ movies believe that the main thing children need to be warned against is self-doubt rather than pride. At first, Inside Out 2 seems to be one of those movies. Anxiety the antagonist takes away Riley’s sense that she’s a good person, replacing it with a sense of inadequacy, and the heroes’ goal is to restore the original sense of self. But the movie subverts this to a limited but surprisingly large extent. (Great Expectations with its guilt-ridden narrator doesn’t bother with it at all.) While the anxiety-fueled Sense of Self harms Riley, Joy finds that her earlier naive, arrogant sense of herself as a good person will no longer do either. Instead, Riley gains a third Sense of Self grown from the memories that formed the first two and the uncomfortable ones Joy initially sent to the Back of the Mind. Only then does she find peace. It turns out that Anxiety wasn’t entirely wrong when she said a more negative self-image could spur Riley to self-improvement. But instead of worrying about being a better hockey player or a member of the gentry, Riley and Pip realize they need to prioritize being better human beings. “I was such a jerk to you guys,” Riley says to Bree and Grace. “I’m so sorry! If you don’t want to be friends anymore, I get it. But I really hope that you can forgive me someday.” Pip says much the same thing to Joe and Biddy though he takes more words to say it. In both stories, the old friends forgive the protagonists and though their lives cannot return to exactly what they were before, the bonds between them remain strong. I’m reminded of a line from another animated movie. “The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.”

Of course, Charles Dickens was also aware that obsessing over painful memories can have terrible consequences. The main villain of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham[9]Actually, a character called Compeyson is probably the real main villain, but Miss Havisham is the most developed antagonist and the one everybody remembers., relives the most miserable day of her life every day, making it define her whole identity and dedicating her life to avenging it. If her inner life were dramatized, Inside Out style, we’d see her Emotions constantly replaying the fateful day and brooding over it. Cleary, that’s not healthy. But Pip’s story, like those of Redlaw and Riley, shows that “bad” memories can also lead to empathy and repentance. I can think of no better way to close than with this quote from The Haunted Man. “Lord keep my memory green.” I’m sure the characters in Inside Out would agree with that sentiment though they would maintain that memories should be multicolored.

Next Week: Back to Narnia

References

References
1 All five of Dickens’s Christmas novellas actually are about men who are haunted by something or other.
2 The Tetterbys make for interesting foils to the Cratchit family from Dickens’s most famous Christmas story. We never saw them fighting with each other and I don’t mean that as a criticism at all. One of the two scenes in which we saw them all together was a rare occasion when they could all take the day off and enjoy each other’s company. The other one had them grieving the death of one of their own. Showing them fighting wouldn’t have fit in. I’m sure Dickens still expected us to assume they fought amongst themselves now and then. With the Tetterbys we actually see them fighting amongst themselves and then apologizing and making up with each other. It’s a more complex look at a large and generally loving family struggling with a small income.
3 Sorry if it’s hard to keep all these characters and their relationships straight.
4 It may sound strange to describe a bouncy cartoon like this as emotionally powerful, but it earns the description.
5 It’s also odd since Milly interacted with all of the “forgetters” except for Redlaw himself the night before and lacked this power then. Apparently, she gained it after Redlaw listened to some Christmas music or something like that…Yeah, this book really isn’t as great as A Christmas Carol.
6 This raises all kinds of questions. How come the Emotions didn’t know about this in the first movie? Wouldn’t the memories that create beliefs be the core memories? If they’re buried, doesn’t that mean Riley can’t recall them? Oh well. Just don’t think about it much.
7 I could also quibble with the idea that emotions like Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adele Exarchopoulos) only arrive with puberty. Even in-universe, while such feelings weren’t personified as characters, I got the impression Riley already experienced them. Anxiety was just Fear on a bad day. He and Disgust handled embarrassment between them. Since Inside Out connects Disgust with taste, she and Sadness were in charge of envy. And ennui was arguably conveyed by the absence of Sadness and Joy. If I were writing the sequel’s story, I would have had Fear undergo a Jekyll-and-Hyde transformation into Anxiety. Then again, that would have cost us Fear’s part in the story as it is and Maya Hawk’s vocal performance as Anxiety, so I’m willing to accept the movie as it is.
8 Dani, another girl on the team (whose voice actress is unspecified in the credits for some reason) is harder on Riley but still not as bad as Estella or other snobby characters from Great Expectations.
9 Actually, a character called Compeyson is probably the real main villain, but Miss Havisham is the most developed antagonist and the one everybody remembers.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 7: I Think We’ve Waited for Aslan Long Enough

At the Telmarine camp, Glozelle tells Miraz that enough weapons and armor for two regiments have been stolen from them. (In the book, the armor the dwarfs made was better than anything the Telmarines had by the way.) He also shows him a message the thieves left carved into the supply wagon they raided. YOU WERE RIGHT TO FEAR THE WOODS X. Sopespian wonders what X could mean. “Caspian,” says Miraz, “the Tenth.”

Glozelle: I apologize, my lord. The blame is mine.
Miraz: I know. Tell me, General, how many men did you lose?
Glozelle: None, my lord.
Miraz: None?
Glozelle: They came like ghosts in the dead of night. We never saw them.
Miraz: Then how do you explain your injuries?

Glozelle looks bewildered. Sopespian gives him a knowing look, no doubt trying to remind of their is-any-of-us-safe conversation. Suddenly, Miraz violently strikes Glozelle’s face, drawing blood. “I asked,” he says without raising his voice, “how many men were killed during this bloody Narnian attack?” Handing him a sword, he adds, “Of which you were a fortunate survivor? General?” Glozelle realizes to his dismay that Miraz wants him to kill some of his troops so that he can blame it on the Narnians and drum up support for the war effort. (Also, probably to punish said troops for not stopping the thieves.)

After weighing his options, he accepts the sword and says “three.” Miraz and Sopespian head back to Miraz’s horse. “I apologize, Lord Sopespian,” says Miraz. “Caspian is not a victim of this savage uprising. He is the instigator. It seems Narnia is in need of a new king.” He rides off. Sopespian and Glozelle exchange glances again and the scene ends with Glozelle about to kill the unfortunate three.

This little scene is original to this adaptation and in my opinion, it works splendidly. As I’ve mentioned before, the book gave no buildup to Glozelle and Sopespian’s rising enmity towards Miraz, not even introducing them by name until right when they become vital to the plot in the third-to-last chapter. I think that can be defended. The book’s plot is a bit plodding as it is and slowing down to focus on characters who wouldn’t be relevant to the end might make that worse. But having the subplot come nearly out of nowhere had some obvious drawbacks too. Not only do scenes like this in the movie eliminate them but they also make Miraz creepier than he is in the book. (Sergio Castellitto’s performance continues to excel.) If I have a quibble, it’s that this makes Glozelle and Sopespian’s motivations for turning against Miraz much more sympathetic than they are in the source material. But if the adaptation had to make that alteration, at least it does so well.

Meanwhile, the good guys are trekking through the woods. Trufflehunter privately asks Trumpkin what the two kings and two queens of old are like.

Trumpkin: Malcontents. Complainers. Stubborn as mules in the morning.
Nikabrik: So, you like them then?
Pause
Trumpkin: Well enough.

Lucy overhears this and smiles. It’s a predictable bit of humor but it makes me smile too. Well, smirk anyway. As a fan of the book, I’d object that it makes Trumpkin less respectful and deferential to the Pevensies than he is at this point there, but I’ve already written about that.

Anyway, the Narnians emerge from the trees into a clearing where an ancient mound towers. There was a bit of dialogue cut from the movie in which Glenstorm explained that the mound has been abandoned for hundreds of years and that only the mice knew of its existence. This probably should have been kept in the final cut since it’s a bit odd to see the Narnians encamped at a major new location without a word of introduction to it. The bit about the mice was also a nice nod to a minor revelation from the book that the movie would cut. Still, there will be an explanation of sorts in a matter of moments, so it’s not too annoying if you’re patient.

Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy do a heroic walk into the entrance. Caspian hangs back in awe of them and maybe just a tad envious. There’s a funny moment where the youngest of the centaurs doing a military salute (Gomez Mussenden, son of costume designer Isis Mussenden) nearly decapitates Lucy.

In the torchlit tunnels that riddle the mound, we see Narnians hard at work forging weapons. “It may not be what you are used to, but it is defensible,” Caspian tells Peter. Susan directs Peter’s attention to a less busy tunnel where she shows him images from the last movie, of her and Lucy riding on Aslan’s back, of all four Pevensies standing by their thrones on the day of their coronation, carved into the stone walls. The kings and queens of old stare at these memorials of themselves. The melancholy music that plays over this is nicely haunting. “What is this place?” Lucy asks Caspian. (I told you we’d get an explanation of sorts soon!) “You don’t know?” Caspian asks, surprised. He takes a torch from the wall and leads them around a bend. The camera lingers on a carving of Tumnus by the lamppost. When I first saw the movie, I was irritated by this since I had clearly seen the iconic image behind the characters, and I didn’t need the movie to stop and point it out to me. But, on repeat viewings, I’ve come to appreciate that we hear the musical theme of his lullaby on the soundtrack at this moment.

Caspian leads the Pevensies into a dark room. He sticks his torch in a vat of lamp oil (or something) that runs along the wall, setting off a chain reaction of fire. This illuminates stone carvings of various Narnian creatures on the walls. By far the biggest is the one of Aslan on the far wall facing the Pevensies.

But that’s not the big reveal. The big reveal is the remains of the Stone Table in the center of the room.

Lucy slowly and gravely walks toward the sacred artifact with her siblings following behind her. She sets her hand on the stone, turns to Susan and says, “He must know what he’s doing.” This is a callback to what Susan said to her in the last movie when Aslan had let the White Witch and her soldiers kill him. (I wrote about the line at some length.) This movie is trying to explore the classic objection to Christianity:[1]It applies to other worldviews that believe in a benevolent deity too but for purposes of simplicity, I’ll just refer to Christianity. I sincerely hope my readers who practice other religions … Continue reading How could a good God allow evil? The thing is the movie doesn’t really have much of an answer to this objection. To be fair, neither does the book but in the book, the question is implicit rather than explicit-if it’s there at all. This moment is the closest we get with Lucy being reminded of a time when it really seemed that Aslan had dropped the ball, only for it to turn out that he had a great plan all along. Granted, it might be harder to justify why he would let Narnia be conquered, many of its citizens be killed and those that remained be forced to live as outlaws for generations, but this reminder gives her hope. And, for me, the moment works, largely thanks to Georgie Henley’s powerful performance. She conveys that Lucy’s doubts aren’t totally laid to rest, but she still feels she’s been given a good reason to hold onto her faith and she’s taking comfort in it. You could also infer that she’s saddened by the memory of the horrible pain Aslan went through but that she’s also encouraged by it to trust his goodness.

You know whose trust in Aslan hasn’t been bolstered by this? Peter. “I think it’s up to us now,” he says curtly, evidently not liking to be reminded of the lion.

We cut to another day or possibly the same day later. A faun sentry outside the mound, which is called Aslan’s How in the book by the way, spots a Telmarine scout watching from the thicket. Originally, this was part of a scene of Susan training the Narnian archers and winning an archery contest with a flirtatious Caspian. They would have been the ones to notice the scout at the end. Since I consider the idea of adding romance between these characters stupid, I approve of this cut. That being said, I also appreciated that the deleted scene had dialogue similar to an archery contest between Susan and Trumpkin in the book, a follow up to his fencing match with Edmund. And there’s a case to be made that if the movie had to include the romantic subplot, it would have been better to develop it. But, no, no, no! I did not type that. The less flirting between Susan and Caspian, the better.[2]I should take this opportunity to say that I’m sure Anna Popplewell and Ben Barnes could play a good couple. I just don’t think that couple should have been these characters.

Inside the How, the Narnians hold a meeting. “It’s only a matter of time,” says Peter. “Miraz’s men and war machines are on their way.” In the book, the Telmarines were never described as having war machines but, you know, Hollywood. Actually, you know what? I agree with Hollywood on this one. If you’re going to do a war movie about heroic underdogs, why not give the bad guys war machines they don’t have? It makes sense. Back to the scene. “That means those same men aren’t protecting his castle,” Peter continues. “What do you propose we do, your Majesty?” asks Reepicheep. Peter and Caspian both start to answer at the same time. Awkward silence ensues and Peter glares Caspian into silence. In the book, by the way, King Miraz objects to the idea of High King Peter and King Edmund on the grounds that “how could there be two kings at the same time?” It’s kind of depressing that the adapters share the same mindset as the original story’s villain. Oh well.

I feel like I should apologize to William Moseley for showcasing so many images of him looking like a jerk. It’s the movie’s fault, not mine.

Peter: Our only hope is to strike them before they strike us.
Caspian: But that’s crazy! No one has ever taken that castle!
Peter: There’s always a first time.
Trumpkin: We’ll have the element of surprise.
Caspian: But we have the advantage here!
Susan: If we dig in, we could probably hold them off indefinitely.

Peter looks mad at her for not siding with him. Caspian looks pleasantly surprised. See, I don’t just have a problem with the romance thing because it’s not in the book or because it’s a stereotypical Hollywood addition. We can’t tell here whether Susan is being reasonable in supporting Caspian or whether she’s just doing it because she’s attracted to him. It’s not impossible for her to have both motivations of course. Still, I feel like she’d be a more creditable leader if we knew she was genuinely approaching this from a neutral standpoint like the other characters.

Trufflehunter: I, for one, feel safer underground.
Peter (to Caspian): Look, I appreciate what you’ve done here. But this isn’t a fortress. It’s a tomb.
Edmund: Yes, and if they’re smart, the Telmarines will just wait and starve us out.
Pattertwig (cheerfully): We could collect nuts.
Reepicheep: Yes, and throw them at the Telmarines! Shut up!

I wrote before that I dislike the way this adaptation makes Reepicheep all sarcastic and quippy, but I actually think that line would work me if Izzard delivered it in a lordlier tone and if they cut the undignified “shut up” at the end. Anyway, Reepicheep tells Peter he’ll be happy to storm the castle. “If I get your troops in, can you handle the guards?” Peter asks Glenstorm. Glenstorm looks a little unsure. He exchanges glances with Caspian before replying but his reply is “Or die trying, my liege.” “That’s what I’m worried about,” says Lucy who is seated on the Stone Table. In the book, the characters would never dare sit on that, considering it disrespectful but I don’t mind giving the movie a pass since they’re clearly trying to imply visually that Lucy is the only one in the room thinking about Aslan right now.[3]Well, Trufflehunter might be too.

Peter: Sorry?
Lucy: You’re all acting like there’s only two options. Dying here or dying there.
Peter: I’m not sure you’ve really been listening, Lu.
Lucy: No! You’re not listening! Or have you forgotten who really defeated the White Witch, Peter?

Honestly, I don’t blame Peter for being confused. The movie doesn’t really do a good job of clarifying why Aslan, the one “who really defeated the White Witch,” would be against Peter’s proposal. Basically, what the adaptation is doing here is replacing Peter’s decision to follow the river rather than the invisible Aslan with this decision to attack the Telmarine castle rather than seek Aslan’s help. I’m good with that idea. While I may not be attracted to battle scenes per se, they’re probably more exciting than scenes of characters wandering in the woods. But in the book, Aslan specifically told Lucy (in the scene with the half-awake trees) to lead the others to him. He’s said no such thing in the movie’s version of the scene, so it’s not clear how the characters are defying him here. There are so many problems with this movie that could be easily fixed by a single, clarifying line of dialogue! It’s very frustrating. Anyway, the scene ends with Peter saying, “I think we’ve waited for Aslan long enough,” turning and striding out of the room. The camera shows the carved image of Aslan away from which he is walking. The script may not do a good job explaining how Peter’s plan equates to walking away from Aslan, but this is a great visual symbol of it. As I wrote before, this movie is good at keeping Aslan in viewers’ minds even as he’s physically absent.

Next Week: I Take a Break from Narnia and Bring Back the Animation Station Feature. It’ll Be a Weird One but Hopefully Interesting.

References

References
1 It applies to other worldviews that believe in a benevolent deity too but for purposes of simplicity, I’ll just refer to Christianity. I sincerely hope my readers who practice other religions won’t feel slighted.
2 I should take this opportunity to say that I’m sure Anna Popplewell and Ben Barnes could play a good couple. I just don’t think that couple should have been these characters.
3 Well, Trufflehunter might be too.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 6: Not Exactly What I Expected

We cut from Caspian saying the Telmarines will be there soon to a bunch of them cutting down trees and building a bridge across the ford of Beruna. (In the book, there had already been a town at Beruna for quite some time.) Cutting down trees is a pretty generic way to visually symbolize invasion but, to be fair, the book pretty much handed it to the film.[1]Though in the literary Prince Caspian, the trees had already been cut down long before the story’s main events. Cliches sometimes become cliche for good reason and this scene basically works. I think it would work better though if the previous movie had established this location. Then it would feel more like the Telmarines were defiling an important historical Narnian landmark. Interestingly, a moment deleted from the movie would have shown a dryad reduced to a pile of leaves by her tree being felled.[2]The same thing happens in a different Narnia book, The Last Battle. This would have made what the Telmarines are doing more palpably evil, but it also wouldn’t have made sense since all the tree spirits are supposed to have been comatose for centuries at this point.[3]Maybe it would have worked if Trumpkin and the Pevensies had looked shocked to see the dryad before it died but if you check out the deleted scenes, you’ll see that’s not how the actors … Continue reading

Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and Trumpkin peep over a pile of logs and see the vast number of Telmarine soldiers. They quickly duck down as they see Sopespian and Miraz arrive at the camp on horseback. “Perhaps this wasn’t the best way to come after all,” Susan whispers. Despite Anna Popplewell having great comedic timing, she doesn’t deliver that line in a snarky way, and I believe that was the right decision. In the corresponding scene in the book, the characters run into a Telmarine outpost and have to flee from enemy arrows. Here they sneak away unnoticed, a rare example of the movie removing an action scene from the original story rather than adding one. Fans of the book who dislike this adaptation tend to describe it as putting action above all else. I disagree for reasons I intend to delve into later.

Anyway, for lack of a better idea, our heroes return to the gorge. “So where exactly do you think you saw Aslan?” Peter asks Lucy. “I wish you’d all stop trying to sound like grownups,” she complains. “I didn’t think I saw him; I did see him!” In the book, her equivalent line, which is directed specifically at Susan, is “don’t talk like a grownup.” That strikes me as a lot funnier than “I wish you’d all stop trying to sound like grownups” but the altered line allows the movie its own highly funny moment as Trumpkin says to no one in particular, “I am a grownup.” Lucy walks right up to the edge of the cliff. “It was right over…” Suddenly, the ground gives way beneath her. The others, horrified, rush over to the hole to find that Lucy has landed on a little pathway just below the cliff, one which they can use to climb into the ravine. “Here,” she says happily, finishing her sentence.

Not sure why Susan couldn’t have noticed this hidden path by looking down and a little to her left.

This is similar to what happens in the book a little later. There Lucy found the pathway when she was being led by Aslan who is initially invisible to the others. The movie will give us a functional equivalent of that scene at the climax. For now, Trumpkin and the Pevensies carefully make their way down into the gorge and cross the river. At one point, a stone gives way beneath Lucy’s feet and Trumpkin keeps her from falling into the water, further establishing their friendship. I’m not sure how the characters climb up the other cliff but apparently, they do somehow. We cut to night when they’re all lying on the ground, seemingly asleep except for Lucy who stares up at the stars. According to the book, Lucy felt “a thrill of memory” at seeing “after all those years, the bright Narnian stars. She had once known them better than the stars of our own world, because as a Queen in Narnia she had gone to bed much later than as a child in England.” I love that the movie contains a visual reference to this though I’m not astronomically minded enough to say if the stars the movie shows are actually different from the stars in this world.

Did you notice how I said the others were seemingly asleep? Well, Susan rolls over and asks Lucy why she thinks she (Susan) didn’t see Aslan. “You believe me?” Lucy asks in surprise. “Well, we got across the gorge,” says Susan. This sort of corresponds to a scene in the book, after everyone, more or less, can see Aslan, when Susan tearfully confesses that she really believed Lucy when she said she saw Aslan but pretended, perhaps even to herself, that she didn’t because she was desperate to get out of the woods and following Trumpkin and Peter’s plan seemed easier than crawling down into the gorge. In the book, Susan is the Pevensie who ends up being an unpleasant jerk for most of the middle section whereas in the movie, it’s Peter. Not that I blame the literary Susan much. If I were hiking through thick woods for hours with nothing to eat but apples and bear meat and no chance of a good place to sleep, I’d be as cranky as she was or crankier. After thinking about her sister’s question, Lucy says she doesn’t know but suggests Susan maybe didn’t really want to see Aslan. That line reminds me of Till We Have Faces even more than the line I described as doing so in the last post! We see that Trumpkin is also awake and listening to this conversation, no doubt wondering if Lucy’s words apply to him.

Susan: You always knew we’d be coming back here, didn’t you?
Lucy: I hoped so.
Susan: I finally just got used to the idea of being in England!
Lucy: But you’re happy to be here, aren’t you?
Susan: While it lasts.

Like Susan’s dialogue at the train station, this little scene arguably foreshadows her rejecting her experiences in Narnia as “funny games” she played as a child in the final Narnia story. I like the idea of foreshadowing that in Prince Caspian[4]I’d argue the book version already does so with Lucy’s line about Susan “talking like a grownup” and her deluding herself into not believing that Lucy saw Aslan because … Continue reading but I’m not crazy about this way of doing it. We get the impression of Susan as a victim. If a hypothetical movie of The Last Battle set in this universe had been made, we’d likely get the impression she told herself Narnia was a fantasy because it hurt too much not being able to live there anymore. The book’s implication is more that Susan didn’t want to believe in Narnia because that wouldn’t have fit in with her desire to be one of the cool kids.[5]Critics tend to condemn this part of The Last Battle for vilifying adulthood. Jill, a younger girl who also had adventures in Narnia, says that Susan’s problem is that “she always was a … Continue reading I understand that many readers feel C. S. Lewis threw Susan’s character under a bus[6]Actually, he saved her from being hit by a train. Read the book to get that joke. and there’s something to be said for still keeping her sympathetic. But I think you could still imply that her motivation for denying Narnia is still pride or vanity while still having more empathy for her than C. S. Lewis showed.[7]I would not recommend an adaptation change the ending of Susan’s story and have her reembrace Narnia. Completely ignoring or reimagining controversial endings annoys me. I am open to nuancing … Continue reading Still, credit where credit is due, Anna Popplewell acts the scene beautifully, conveying that Susan is bitter while maintaining the character’s emotionally cool, prim personality and not making it over-the-top.

We transition to the same location in the morning. Now Lucy really is the only one awake. It seems that what is keeping her up is a golden light emanating from within the forest. After hesitating, she leaves the others and goes deeper into the trees. This scene’s equivalent in the book took place at night and I’m rather bummed they changed that as I believe moonlight was part of its mysterious and magical atmosphere. What Lucy discovers in the text is a group of trees that seem to be dancing in a circle.

The first tree she looked at seemed at first glance to be not a tree at all but a huge man with a shaggy beard and great bushes of hair. She was not frightened: she had seen such things before. But when she looked again, he was only a tree, though he was still moving. You couldn’t see whether he had feet or roots, of course, because when trees move, they don’t walk on the surface of the earth; they wade in it as we do in water. The same thing happened with every tree she looked at. At one moment they seemed to be the friendly, lovely giant and giantess forms which the tree-people put on when some good magic has called them into full life: next moment they all looked like trees again. But when they looked like trees, it was like strangely human trees, and when they looked like people, it was like strangely branchy and leafy people…

The movie doesn’t manage anything as memorable or magical as that. But it does convey the basic idea that the trees are “almost awake, not quite” to use Lucy’s words from the book. Cherry blossom petals blowing in the wind briefly turn into a laughing dryad. Silver birch trees pull apart, creating a clear path for Lucy.

This path eventually leads her to Aslan! Joyfully, she runs over and embraces him. The scene makes excellent use of music from the last one. Unfortunately, we’ve now come to a rather laughable blunder on the part of the script. Here’s a quote from this part of the book.

“Welcome, child,” he said.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”

Here’s how that dialogue goes in the movie.

Lucy: I’ve missed you so much! You’ve grown!
Aslan: Every year you grow, so shall I.

Clearly, the screenwriters wanted to include those memorable lines but, in their haste, they completely missed the point and made them say the opposite of what they meant. Oy vey!

Lucy asks Aslan where he’s been and why he hasn’t come before to help. “Things never happen the same way twice, dear one,” Aslan says. Just then a twig is heard cracking and Lucy wakes up back at the camp. I’ve read some fans sharply criticize the movie for making that scene between her and Aslan a dream, but I’ve never gotten the impression it’s supposed to be only a dream. Another Narnia book, The Silver Chair, has Aslan send someone a dream and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader arguably has it too.[8]In that case, it’s ambiguous how much of the dreamlike scene is real but it has real effects. I just always interpreted this part of the Prince Caspian movie along those lines. I will say though the dream scene would work much better if it ended with Aslan telling Lucy to meet him somewhere or do something. I’m not just saying that because it’d be closer to the book. The story the movie itself wishes to tell would make more sense that way.

While I might wish the movie had kept the moonlit atmosphere of the scene with Aslan from the book, I have to admit the contrast between the bright golden light of Lucy’s vision and the dim, early morning light when she awakes is great.[9]For the record, that’s not to say the dim, early morning light isn’t beautiful. If anything, I might prefer it. She tries to wake Susan up. Here’s a quote from the corresponding part of the book.

She went to Peter first and shook him. “Peter,” she whispered in his ear, “wake up. Quick. Aslan is here. He says we’ve got to follow him at once.”
“Certainly, Lu. Whatever you like,” said Peter unexpectedly. This was encouraging, but as Peter instantly rolled round and went to sleep again it wasn’t much use.

The movie keeps this hilarious moment but gives Peter’s part to Susan. As I wrote above, the adaptation arguably switches their roles in general. Lucy wanders off in the direction of the twig cracking sound. She sees the same birches she saw in her dream, now immobile, and places her hand on one, saying plaintively, “Wake up.” Of course, nothing happens, and she sadly moves on. This is based on a scene that actually takes place the night before Lucy sees Aslan in the book.

A great longing for the old days when the trees could talk in Narnia came over her. She knew
exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on. She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his face and hands, and hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood.

“Oh, Trees, Trees, Trees,” said Lucy (though she had not been intending to speak at all). “Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake. Don’t you remember it? Don’t you remember me? Dryads and Hamadryads, come out, come to me.”

Though there was not a breath of wind they all stirred about her. The rustling noise of the leaves was almost like words. The nightingale stopped singing as if to listen to it.
Lucy felt that at any moment she would begin to understand what the trees were trying to say. But the moment did not come. The rustling died away. The nightingale resumed its song. Even in the moonlight the wood looked more ordinary again. Yet Lucy had the feeling (as you sometimes have when you are trying to remember a name or a date and almost get it, but it vanishes before you really do) that she had just missed something: as if she had spoken to the trees a split second too soon or a split second too late, or used all the right words except one, or put in one word that was just wrong.

At first, the movie’s version may seem pale and even lame compared to the passage from the book. But I think, practically speaking, Lucy delivering a big speech to the trees, begging them to come to life would have come across as ridiculous, especially if she really seemed to believe it would work. As it is, I feel Georgie Henley’s performance makes the moment nicely sad.

Lucy tentatively starts to call for Aslan when someone clamps a hand over her mouth and pulls her down into the bushes. Fortunately, it’s Peter. He wordlessly points out an armed minotaur nearby. Leaving Lucy in hiding, Peter emerges and draws his sword. Before he can challenge the minotaur though, Caspian jumps in and starts fighting him. Peter disarms his opponent but Caspian ducks right before Peter can slice his head off and Peter’s sword gets stuck in a tree. Caspian kicks Peter aside and tries to pull the sword out. Peter picks up a rock when Lucy calls for him to stop. Peter sees the Narnians, including Nikabrik and Trufflehunter, rally around this Telmarine. “Prince Caspian?” he asks.

I think the movie’s plot would make more sense if Peter didn’t know Caspian had become the leader of the Narnians even if that would be another change from the book’s story. Trumpkin and everyone just assuming Caspian is their destined king because he blew the horn is never explained well, as I’ve written before, and it’s a bit odd that it would take Peter so long to guess his identity if he was expecting the Narnians’ leader to be a Telmarine youth. Back to the scene. “Yes, and who are you?” asks Caspian. “Peter!” yells a voice. Caspian turns to see Susan (the voice’s owner), Edmund and Trumpkin run up. He looks down at the now dislodged sword in his hand. “High King Peter?” he asks. “I believe you called,” says Peter, trying and failing to sound cool. “Well, yes,” Caspian says, “but…I thought you’d be older.” Caspian, unlike Trumpkin, never expresses surprise at the Pevensies’ ages in the book but I don’t mind the idea as long as he gets over it quickly. In fact, his reaction to seeing the larger-than-life heroes of his bedtime stories as people his own age could be really interesting though the movie, alas, hasn’t established him having enough respect for or interest in them for it to work. “Well, if you like, we can come back in a few years,” says Peter. I enjoy the joke, but I wish Peter delivered it in a jocular way instead of a snobby, offended tone of voice. It’s a line that could have been included in a Prince Caspian adaptation that stayed truer to C. S. Lewis’s Peter if only it weren’t for that tone. Caspian quickly apologizes. “You’re just…not exactly what I expected,” he says, turning an admiring glance at Susan who smiles, appreciative but a little embarrassed by the attention.

Sigh.

Yes, this adaptation has Caspian and Susan, two characters who barely interact in the book, be in love with each other. It’s such a stereotypically Hollywood thing to do, adding romance between characters who were not romantically involved at all in the source material just because. The best thing I can say is that at this point in the movie, the chemistry between Caspian and Susan is just a humorous little bit of subtext, so it isn’t too much of a nuisance for book fans. I can even enjoy it and laugh at it a bit. Later, the movie will try to make it this big dramatic part of their characters and it’s just dumb, but we’ll get to that in time. Speaking of time, I recommend my readers take a break from reading this and watch this short YouTube video from Narniaweb.com, a site that keeps fans of the books updated on news of adaptations. The video has a rather hilarious and horrifying story about the history of the 2008 Prince Caspian.

Hope that made you laugh. Anyway, in response to Caspian’s “not what I expected” line, Edmund says, “Neither are you,” looking suspiciously at the minotaur. “A common enemy unites even the oldest of foes,” says Trufflehunter. I hate to go straight from one thing about this adaptation that annoys me to another one but here we are. In the book, when it’s suggested that the Narnians should ally themselves with “an Ogre or two and a Hag,” both Caspian and Trufflehunter strongly object.

“We should not have Aslan for friend if we brought in that rabble,” said Trufflehunter…

“Oh, Aslan!” said Trumpkin, cheerily but contemptuously. “What matters much more is that you wouldn’t have me.”

By changing this dynamic, the movie loses the book’s theme of avoiding moral compromises. Well, it doesn’t entirely lose it since later it will have Nikabrik align himself with some other descendants of the White Witch’s followers with nearly disastrous consequences. But it doesn’t set it up nearly as well as the book does. Of course, you could argue that some of the creatures working for the White Witch, such as dwarfs and talking wolves, had good and evil members of their species and minotaurs could be one of those. But I doubt anyone reading the book would have guessed that.[10]And don’t tell me the book sends a bad message by portraying some creatures as inherently evil! They’re fantasy creatures. It’s not like the National Association for the Advancement … Continue reading It feels like the filmmakers just made minotaurs good creatures because they wanted an excuse to have them in every Narnia movie and… I don’t really see what’s so cool about them. They were hardly the most visually interesting of the White Witch’s soldiers. Then again, I suppose the fact that they weren’t grotesquely ugly is what made the filmmakers feel they could make heroes of them.

Enough of my complaining. We’ve now reached a fun part of the adaptation. Reepicheep steps forward and bows to Peter. “We have anxiously awaited your return, my liege,” he says, “Our hearts and swords are at your service.” It’s disappointing that Reepicheep is the only Narnian in this scene who seems really delighted to see the ancient kings and queens but like I said this is part of a fun moment. “Oh my gosh, he is so cute,” Lucy whispers to Susan. Reepicheep whips out his sword and spins around. “Who said that?!” he demands. Lucy apologizes and Reepicheep seeing who she is, sheathes his sword. “Oh! Your Majesty. With the greatest respect, I do believe courageous, courteous or chivalrous might more befit a knight of Narnia.” While these two characters don’t interact in the book version of Prince Caspian, according to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, “Lucy longed…to take Reepicheep up in her arms and cuddle him. But this, as she well knew, was a pleasure she could never have: it would have offended him deeply.” So, this moment in the movie is both great fun for book fans while still making sense and being funny for viewers who haven’t read a word of the books.[11]I’m not sure English girls in the 1940s used the word, “cute,” that way but come on, lighten up! It’s a hilarious moment.

Peter: Well, at least we know some of you can handle a blade.
Reepicheep: Yes, indeed and I have recently put it to good use securing weapons for your army, Sire.
Peter: Good cause we’re going to need every sword we can get.
Caspian: Well then, you will probably be wanting yours back.

He hands Peter back the sword with an attempt at a friendly smile. Peter accepts it without any such attempt and just glares coldly at Caspian.

Yeah, this is a big problem for fans of the book and for some of them, the biggest problem with the adaptation. While Caspian and Peter don’t meet until the book is almost over, they’re relationship is perfectly friendly. When Peter sees that Caspian is overawed by his presence, he addresses him as “Your Majesty” and tells him “I haven’t come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it.” A page or two later, Caspian is described as liking Peter very much. In the movie…not so much. I can’t blame any fans for being upset by this character assassination, but I will defend it a bit. I get the impression from some fan complaints that they feel the movie is changing the themes and messages of the book here. But I feel like the basic message is the same. It’s not like the filmmakers read the book and were like, “Peter is a terrible role model for children! The way he peacefully passes on the mantle to Caspian and supports him is just sick! He should be rude and power hungry! That’s how someone should behave in this situation!” I’d say the movie and the book are sending the same message. It’s just that the book is using a positive example whereas the movie is using a negative one. Of course, if you grew up with High King Peter as your role model, I understand that there’s no way you can ever accept this change. (Personally, I grew up with Polly Plummer from The Magician’s Nephew as my Narnian role model because of her talent for telling the other characters exactly what’s wrong with them. Maybe it’s just as well this series of adaptations never got around to her story.) I’ll also reiterate that I think Peter’s reaction would work better if he hadn’t known that Caspian was the leader of the Narnians even though that would take the story even further from the source material. If Peter were expecting to resume his role as King of Narnia and then were surprised to learn that he was supposed to set this wet-behind-the-ears boy on the throne, especially if that boy were a member of the royal family that conquered Narnia, I think viewers would sympathize with his feelings more. At least Caspian is likeable in this scene as it is. How long will that last though?

Next Week: What Was That Reepicheep Said About Recently Securing Weapons?

References

References
1 Though in the literary Prince Caspian, the trees had already been cut down long before the story’s main events.
2 The same thing happens in a different Narnia book, The Last Battle.
3 Maybe it would have worked if Trumpkin and the Pevensies had looked shocked to see the dryad before it died but if you check out the deleted scenes, you’ll see that’s not how the actors played it.
4 I’d argue the book version already does so with Lucy’s line about Susan “talking like a grownup” and her deluding herself into not believing that Lucy saw Aslan because following him would be inconvenient. But many readers apparently find that insufficient to prepare for her later offstage trajectory.
5 Critics tend to condemn this part of The Last Battle for vilifying adulthood. Jill, a younger girl who also had adventures in Narnia, says that Susan’s problem is that “she always was a jolly sight too keen on being grownup.” What these critics never mention is that Polly, an older woman who’s had adventures in Narnia, disagrees, saying that Susan’s real problem is that she refuses to grow up. “Her whole idea of life is to race on to the silliest time of one’s life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can.” Do detractors of The Last Battle just skip over that part when they read it?
6 Actually, he saved her from being hit by a train. Read the book to get that joke.
7 I would not recommend an adaptation change the ending of Susan’s story and have her reembrace Narnia. Completely ignoring or reimagining controversial endings annoys me. I am open to nuancing them though.
8 In that case, it’s ambiguous how much of the dreamlike scene is real but it has real effects.
9 For the record, that’s not to say the dim, early morning light isn’t beautiful. If anything, I might prefer it.
10 And don’t tell me the book sends a bad message by portraying some creatures as inherently evil! They’re fantasy creatures. It’s not like the National Association for the Advancement of Minotaurs was going to object to the movie.
11 I’m not sure English girls in the 1940s used the word, “cute,” that way but come on, lighten up! It’s a hilarious moment.
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Prince Caspian (2008) Part 5: He Wanted Us to Follow Him

Prince Caspian makes his way through the woods. He hears Trufflehunter and Nikabrik sneaking behind him. “I just think we should wait for the kings and queens,” Trufflehunter says. When Caspian doesn’t pay attention to this, he sarcastically calls after him to “see if the others will be as understanding.” This prospect inspires Nikabrik to say maybe he’ll go along with Caspian. “I want to see you explain things to minotaurs.” Caspian stops walking and looks behind him, not so much scared as intrigued.

Caspian: Minotaurs? They’re real?
Trufflehunter: And very bad tempered.
Nikabrik: Not to mention big.
Trufflehunter: Huge.
Caspian: What about centaurs? Do they still exist?
Trufflehunter: Well, the centaurs will probably fight on your side but there’s no telling what the others will do.

Caspian hesitates before asking another question, this one as if he’s scared of the answer. “What about Aslan?” Now while he’s never the protagonist and usually doesn’t show up until two thirds of the story are over, Aslan is the only character to appear in all seven Narnia books and is probably the most important one. A common fan criticism of these movie adaptations is that he doesn’t feel as important as he does in the books. I feel like Prince Caspian is the Narnia movie in which that is a problem the least, in part because of things like that pregnant pause before asking about Aslan.

Anyway, by this time, Trufflehunter and Nikabrik have overtaken Caspian. Now it’s their turn to stop walking and turn around, intrigued. “How do you know so much about us?” asks Nikabrik suspiciously. “Stories,” replies Caspian. “Your father told you stories about Narnia?” asks Trufflehunter. I’m really not sure why he would assume it was Caspian’s father who would tell him those Narnia. I guess the screenwriters just wanted to establish that his deceased paternal parent is a sore point for the character. Sure enough, he clams up. “No, my professor,” he says[1]As I wrote in my last post, in the book, it was also his nurse., “Listen, I am sorry. These are not the kind of questions you should be asking.” Just then Trufflehunter smells something dangerous. It’s a group of Telmarine soldiers with their bows pointed at the group who promptly run for it.[2]I was going to argue that it doesn’t make sense for Caspian to run here since he was heading back to the Telmarines anyway and, at this point, Miraz is pretending that the Narnians were the … Continue reading

This chase scene isn’t from the book, and I know some book fans would criticize Hollywood for adding action scenes for the sake of more action. I was able to do that, to an extent, with the added action scenes in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But with this scene in this movie, honestly, I really enjoy that. There’s one cheesy shot that tracks an arrow but other than that, I really enjoy the chase for its own sake and feel no desire to make the movie closer to the book by removing it. Sue me.

At one point, an arrow pierces Trufflehunter and he falls to the ground. Both Nikabrik and Caspian turn to go back for him, and the latter tells the former not to bother. Even though he doesn’t trust Caspian, Nikabrik obeys. (I guess he just realizes that Caspian’s legs are longer?) Trufflehunter hands Caspian the horn. “Take it! Go! It’s more important than I am,” he says. As Caspian hastily bundles up the horn, he sees something strange. Something is sneaking under the forest undergrowth and apparently cutting off the feet of the Telmarine bowmen.[3]We don’t see any feet being cut off, of course. In fact, if you pause the movie, you can see them intact as some Telmarine fall on their backs. But that seems to be the implication. This scene … Continue reading Caspian manages to hoist Trufflehunter onto his shoulder and run away. Soldiers pursue him but more and more of them fall. It starts to feel less like they’re running after the prince and the badger and more like they’re running away from whatever is attacking them.

By the time, Caspian gets Trufflehunter to Nikabrik and tells him to get him out of there, there are only two soldiers left.

Make that one.

Caspian really should take this moment to run himself but as the remaining soldier hacks desperately at the underbrush with his sword, searching for his invisible opponent, he just stands there and stares, apparently overcome by curiosity. Fans of the book will have already guessed what’s happening here and I don’t mean that as a criticism. In fact, as a fan myself, I enjoyed the realization of what was coming-or rather who was coming. The Telmarine falls and its killer heads straight for Caspian, coming closer and closer until, rather than stabbing him in the foot, it (fortunately) leaps onto his chest knocking him backward. It turns out to be a foot-high mouse wearing a swordbelt and, around its head, a little gold circlet with a dashing red feather. It draws its sword and points it at Caspian’s throat, saying (in Eddie Izzard’s voice), “Choose your last words carefully, Telmarine.”

Caspian just stares at it in bewilderment. “You are a mouse,” he says. The mouse sighs. “I was hoping for something a little more original,” he says. This is Reepicheep, one of the most iconic and quotable characters in the Narnia books. He’s also surprisingly complex[4]Albeit not so much in Prince Caspian as in the next story, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. and I’m not sure any adaptation has gotten him entirely right. That doesn’t mean every adaptation has gotten him terribly wrong though! There’s a lot to appreciate about this version. Reepicheep’s personality here is almost exactly like it is in the book except for one nagging little detail. He’s too quippy and sarcastic. While C. S. Lewis’s Reepicheep was definitely intended to be funny, he was funny in spite of himself. All of his dialogue was elegant, courtly and fiercely dignified. I can definitely see the character being annoyed by his victims being surprised that a mouse was killing them but not him saying, “I was hoping for something a little more original.” If I were to rewrite the scene, I would have him give Caspian a death glare as he started to say “mouse” and have Caspian amend it to “mighty warrior.” That would still be funny while also being truer the book’s character. I’d also have Reepicheep be voiced by a “serious” actor rather than a comedian to send the message that he wasn’t trying to be funny.[5]Honestly, even granting that the cinematic Reepicheep is more sarcastic than his literary counterpart, the role still doesn’t play that much to Izzard’s strengths as a performer anyway.

Having said that, Reepicheep is easily the best comedic relief supporting character in any of the Narnia movies.[6]The only one funnier is Eustace Scrubb in the next movie and he’s more of a protagonist than a supporting character. Actually, Reepicheep himself becomes something of a protagonist in that … Continue reading He’s far funnier than the beavers were in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And to be fair, when the movie gives Reepicheep a serious line-which it does at least as often as it does a humorous one-Izzard delivers it well.

Reepicheep: Pick up your sword.
Caspian: Uh, no thanks.
Reepicheep: Pick it up! I will not fight an unarmed man.
Caspian: Which is why I might live longer if I choose not to cross blades with you, noble mouse.
Reepicheep: I said I would not fight you. I didn’t say I’d let you live!

Fortunately, Trufflehunter, propped up by Nikabrik, intervenes. (Apparently, his wound just winded him; it wasn’t that serious.) “I trust you have a very good reason for this untimely interruption,” says Reepicheep. “He doesn’t. Go ahead,” says Nikabrik. Ha ha! It’s not just Reepicheep actually. This Narnia movie in general makes me laugh louder and more consistently than the previous one did. I criticized The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe‘s screenplay for being written like a generic quippy action movie. That’s as true or truer of Prince Caspian but I find myself enjoying the generically Hollywood-esque banter in it a lot more. It may not be what I’d prefer for a Narnia adaptation but if they had to write it this way, at least they’re doing it well and much the same could be said for the action scenes. Trufflehunter tells Reepicheep that Caspian is the one that blew the horn and Reepicheep looks at him with more respect. “Then let him come forward,” says a voice. It belongs to Glenstorm (Cornell S. John), a centaur who is accompanied by three others, his sons (Ephraim Goldin, Yemi A. D. and Carlos DaSilva.) “This is the reason we have gathered.” C. S. Lewis depicted centaurs in the Narnia books as intimidatingly wise and solemn beings. (“No one ever laughed at a centaur,” says one character in the book Prince Caspian.) John projects that kind of presence perfectly, even with just his voice. He’s much more memorable than Patrick Kake’s centaur in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.[7]C. S. Lewis almost certainly didn’t intend the centaurs to be dark skinned but, while 2008 was a politically contentious year for my country (America), people were less sensitive about color … Continue reading

It is weird to me that the Narnians assume Caspian must be good because he blew the horn. Very shortly in the movie, Nikabrik will say this just proves the Telmarines have stolen something else from them and… yeah, that attitude makes more sense. But I’ll get into that in the next scene with Caspian.

Elsewhere, Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and Trumpkin are threading their way through trees and rocks. Susan isn’t sure they’re going the right direction. “That’s the problem with girls,” says Peter, “Can’t carry a map in your heads.” To which Lucy replies, “That’s because our heads have something in them.” That exchange was from the book though there it was between Edmund and Lucy. As I wrote in my last post, I feel like this Narnia movies includes more dialogue from its source material than the last one. Props to them for that, particularly in this case because it’s hilarious. Susan whispers to Lucy that she wishes Peter would listen to “the D. L. F.” “The D. L. F.?” asks Edmund. “Dear Little Friend,” explains Lucy. “Oh, that’s not at all patronizing, is it?” Trumpkin snarks. That nickname was also from the book. There it was actually bestowed on Trumpkin by Edmund as payback for him calling the Pevensies his “dear little friends”[8]“Little from you is really a bit too much!” Edmund says in the book. I’m surprised that line wasn’t in the movie. before observing their royal skills and pledging his fealty to them. The nickname would have made more sense in the film if that had been included but, as things are, it’s still very funny.

Peter stops and looks around him in confusion. “I’m not lost,” he insists, mainly to himself, it seems. “No, you’re just going the wrong way,” says Trumpkin. OK, I know I just wrote that I was enjoying the movie’s banter on its own terms even if it’s not what I’d prefer for a Narnia movie, but sometimes, even on those terms, it can be a little tiresome. Characters don’t need to respond to everything with a quip; it can get kind of annoying. To be fair though, the book does portray the characters as being wearied of wandering in the woods with minimal food and generally uncomfortable conditions and as being a bit short tempered as a result.[9]I actually imagine the exchange about maps and brains in the book as being snippier than it is in the film. I don’t think the movie is actually a huge stretch.

Peter: You last saw Caspian at the Shuddering Woods and the quickest way there is to cross at the river Rush.
Trumpkin: But unless I’m mistaken, there’s no crossing in these parts.
Peter: That explains it then. You’re mistaken.

I feel like the movie’s problem of Peter being unpleasant would be halved if William Moseley just delivered that last line as a cocky joke instead of an angry one. I mean, Peter would be an arrogant jerk either way, which he really isn’t in the book, but at least he could be a fun jerk and our satisfaction in seeing his comeuppance would be less grim. Then again, I kind of admire how seriously the movie takes the character’s flaw of arrogance. It’s pretty typical for Hollywood action heroes to be full of themselves. (Think Robin Hood or Han Solo.) I feel like treating the hero’s pride as a serious vice the way this movie does is somewhat unusual.[10]Though maybe I’m not giving Star Wars or The Adventures of Robin Hood enough credit.

Peter leads his followers to the Rush, but it doesn’t make him look very good since the river is now at the bottom of a deep gorge.

Susan: See, over time water erodes the earth’s soil, carving deeper-
Peter: Oh, shut up.

Did I mention this movie was really funny?

Edmund asks if there’s a way down. “Yeah, falling,” says Trumpkin. Peter still pathetically insists that he wasn’t lost even if he led everyone in a useless direction. In the book at this point, the characters were trying to find the Rush so they could follow it, not cross it and Trumpkin actually cheers a despondent Peter up by saying that even if the river is now at the bottom of a gorge, they can still follow it.[11]To be fair to the movie, Caspian hasn’t yet reached the location he’s at when the Pevensies and Trumpkin are searching for him in the book. Here he tells the Pevensies that their best bet is to head for the ford near Beruna. He starts to lead them away when Lucy, still looking across the river, says, “Aslan? It’s Aslan! It’s Aslan over there! Don’t you see? He’s right…” But as everyone turns to follow her pointing finger, Lucy’s face, which has lit up, falls. No Aslan can be seen across the gorge.

“Do you see him now?” Trumpkin asks, sounding a bit worried. “I’m not crazy,” insists Lucy. “He was there. He wanted us to follow him.” The others exchange unsure glances. There’s something subtle I love about this scene in the book. Lewis doesn’t write, “Suddenly, Lucy saw Aslan” or anything like that. Instead, he has her interrupt a conversation between the others with the news. The movie happily captures that by not showing us Aslan from her point of view. This puts us in the same position as her companions. I’d say it works even better dramatically in the book where Trumpkin has made a good argument for following the river and Aslan leading the characters a different direction is something of an inconvenience. Here, Trumpkin has made looking for Beruna seem like a necessary evil (“How do you feel about swimming?”), altering the dynamics of the scene. But it still works.

Peter: I’m sure there are any number of lions in this wood. Just like that bear.
Lucy: I think I know Aslan when I see him!
Trumpkin: Look, I’m not about to jump off a cliff after someone who doesn’t exist.
Edmund: The last time I didn’t believe Lucy, I ended up looking pretty stupid.

Props to the movie for keeping the book’s detail of Edmund being the only one to really advocate for trusting Lucy! That was definitely a memorable character moment. Peter pauses as if considering his brother’s point but isn’t quite convinced. “Why wouldn’t I have seen him?” he asks Lucy. Since I criticized Moseley’s performance earlier, I should say that I like the way he infuses that question with wistfulness, implying that Peter is wishing for comfort from Aslan and really wishes he had seen him. “Maybe you weren’t looking,” Lucy replies. That line could have been written for another book C. S. Lewis wrote, Till We Have Faces. Reminding me of Till We Have Faces is almost always a great thing. “I’m sorry, Lu,” says Peter and he leads Susan and Trumpkin away. Lucy stares sadly at the place she saw Aslan. Edmund gives her a sympathetic look, then they both follow the others. This is far from the flashiest scene in either the book or the movie, but it is a highly pivotal one and they do a great non-flashy job with it.

We cut to what I assume is Dancing Lawn at night. I assume that because it’s where this scene’s equivalent in the book takes place though no dancing takes place there in the movie. The Narnians or what the book calls “the people that lived in hiding” have gathered and are debating whether they should follow Caspian as their king or not. It’s not really clear why the question is on the table in the first place. A couple of marketing tie-in books give Trufflehunter a line about it being said that whoever sounded Queen Susan’s horn would bring back the Ancient Kings and Queens and lead the Narnians to freedom. No such prophecy was in the book but if that line of dialogue was originally in the screenplay, it really should have been kept because the way the Narnians talk about Caspian is confusing without it.[12]If the line wasn’t in the screenplay originally, I have to credit the people who wrote the marketing tie-in books with being better at exposition than the screenwriters!

Nikabrik: All this horn proves is that they’ve stolen yet another thing from us!
Caspian: I didn’t steal anything.
A Minotaur (voiced by Josh Campbell with Shane Rangi in the suit)
[13]Aren’t the minotaurs supposed to be bad guys? We’ll get to that later.: Didn’t steal anything?! Shall we list the things the Telmarines have taken?
Glenstorm’s Wife (Lejla Abbasova): Our home!
A Faun (Curtis Matthew): Our freedom!
Someone I Can’t Identify in the Crowd: Our lives!
Caspian: You Would hold me accountable for all the crimes of my people.
Nikabrik: Accountable and punishable.

As he speaks that last line, Nikabrik moves toward Caspian menacingly, but Reepicheep gets between them and draws his sword. “Ha!” he says. “That is rich coming from you, dwarf! Or have you forgotten that it was your people who fought alongside the White Witch?” When I first saw the movie, I hated that line because it struck me as way too petty for Reepicheep. But multiple viewings have led me to believe that the movie actually intended him to be making a good point. I just wish they could have had him say it in a tone that sounded less like he wanted to pick a fight and without that little “ha” at the beginning. Anyway, the way Nikabrik casually swats aside Reepicheep’s little blade is funny.

He says he’d gladly fight alongside the White Witch again if it would rid Narnia of “barbarians” like Caspian. “Then it is lucky that is not in your power to bring her back,” says Trufflehunter in the voice of a parent ending an argument between their children. “Or are you suggesting that we ask this boy to go against Aslan now?” This possibility draws a negative reaction from the gathered Narnians. “Some of you may have forgotten,” continues Trufflehunter, “but we badgers remember well Narnia was never right except when a Son of Adam was king.” Nikabrik scoffs at this. “He’s a Telmarine,” he says, “Why would we want him as our king?” Caspian assures him that he’ll make it worth their while. “Beyond these woods, I am a prince,” he says. “The Telmarine throne is rightfully mine. Help me claim it and I can bring peace between us.” Glenstorm speaks up. “It is true. The time is ripe. I watch the skies for it is mine to watch as it is yours to remember, Badger. Tarva, the Lord of Victory, and Alambil, the Lady of Peace, have come together in the high heavens and now here a Son of Adam has come forth to offer us back our freedom.” I doubt many viewers unfamiliar with the book will connect those lines with the planets we saw in the movie’s opening seconds but maybe some do. After all, they had to have been wondering why that seemingly random image was the first thing we saw. And in any case, Cornell S. John does a great job of giving the lines a mystical import.

I really should show an image of Glenstorm’s face here. But I really like this shot framed through his hooves and there’s nowhere else to put it in this post.

“Is this possible?” pipes up Pattertwig, a talking squirrel (voiced by soundtrack composer Harry Gregson-Williams.) “Do you really think there could be peace? Do you? I mean-I mean really?” Pattertwig is a minor character in both the book and the movie, but Gregson-Williams’s (intentionally) jittery vocal performance is endearing enough, especially considering he’s not a professional actor, that I kind of wish he could be in it more.

“Two days ago,” says Caspian, “I didn’t believe in the existence of talking animals or dwarfs or centaurs. Yet here you are in strength and numbers that we Telmarines could never have imagined. Whether this horn is magic or not, it brought us together and together we have a chance to take back what is ours.” Glenstorm draws his sword in salute. “If you will lead us,” he says, “then my sons and I offer you our swords.” Not only Glenstorm’s family but practically all the other Narnians follow suit with their weapons. “And we offer you our lives unreservedly,” says Reepicheep.

OK, there’s Glenstorm’s face for you.

Now this scene has a lot to commend about it. Much of the dialogue takes inspiration from the book, even if it doesn’t always follow the exact wording. But it also really exemplifies what I consider one of this adaptation’s biggest faults, one that arguably weakens the movie as a story in its own right too. In the book, Caspian has grown up longing for the stories about Old Narnia to be true. At one point in his childhood, “he dreamed of Dwarfs and Dryads every night and tried very hard to make the dogs and cats in the castle talk to him. But the dogs only wagged their tails and the cats only purred.” His only interest in becoming king seems to be that it might give him the power the bring Old Narnia back to life. There’s no question in the book of whether he’ll go back to the castle to accuse Miraz of attempted murder or stay with Trufflehunter and company. “I’ve been looking for people like you all my life,” he tells them. You really get the impression from the book that Caspian was born in the wrong world and that by becoming the leader of Narnians he’s finding his true destiny. This is a big part of the story’s poetic appeal. In the movie however, while Caspian briefly seems intrigued to hear that minotaurs and centaurs aren’t extinct and, credit where credit is due, even more intrigued by the possibility of Aslan being out there, he mostly seems like he’s helping the Narnians so that they’ll help put him on the throne. It’s only thanks to moments like him going back to save Trufflehunter and Ben Barnes’s likeable performance that he doesn’t come across as completely mercenary. The line “whether this horn is magic or not, it brought us together” is especially problematic. It makes this version of Caspian less like the literary one who had a deep faith in Aslan than like Nikabrik who just wants to use others belief in Aslan if it furthers his own ends. While the screenwriters clearly want to tell a story proclaiming the importance of faith, I feel that they tipped their hand with that line, making me think they don’t have much, err, faith in faith. Also, keep in mind, Caspian was always a bit of a bland lead in the book.[14]The book that bears his name anyway. He’s arguably a bit more charismatic in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and even in The Silver Chair in which he plays a minor but integral role. By taking away his dissatisfaction with the world into which he was born and his longing for something else, this Prince Caspian just made him that much blander! That is the main reason that while I can concede that the movie’s story improves on the book in several ways, I’m never going to agree that it’s an improvement on the whole.

It’s worth noting that the book also didn’t have a big scene where Caspian convinced all the Narnians to accept him as their king. Some of the dwarfs were described as being understandably suspicious at first but they were also described as quickly convinced. I understand why the movie felt like this was past the point of believability. It might be plausible enough that beasts like Trufflehunter would accept Caspian on the grounds that “Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was King”[15]Some may find that rule itself to be ridiculously convenient but if you ask me, it corresponds enough to reality in our world to emotionally resonate. Of course, I know there are philosophers who … Continue reading but it’s a bit much to buy that the skeptical Trumpkin becomes as loyal and obedient to Caspian and the Pevensies as swiftly as he does. Even granting that this was a real storytelling problem in the source material though, this scene in the adaptation is very much a band-aid solution, one that arguably draws attention to the problem. All it took was that speech to get everyone on his side? Is that really better than them all agreeing right away?

“Miraz’s army will not be far behind us, Sire,” says Trufflehunter. “If we are to be ready for them,” says Caspian, “we’ll need to hurry to find soldiers and weapons. I’m sure they will be here soon.”

Next Week: Lucy Gets Another Glimpse of Aslan

References

References
1 As I wrote in my last post, in the book, it was also his nurse.
2 I was going to argue that it doesn’t make sense for Caspian to run here since he was heading back to the Telmarines anyway and, at this point, Miraz is pretending that the Narnians were the ones after his nephew. But, on reflection, while Miraz may have “officially” sent these soldiers to rescue Caspian, he probably ordered some of them privately to kill him, so he could blame it on the Narnians.
3 We don’t see any feet being cut off, of course. In fact, if you pause the movie, you can see them intact as some Telmarine fall on their backs. But that seems to be the implication. This scene takes inspiration from a battle scene in the book, but it made more sense there.
4 Albeit not so much in Prince Caspian as in the next story, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
5 Honestly, even granting that the cinematic Reepicheep is more sarcastic than his literary counterpart, the role still doesn’t play that much to Izzard’s strengths as a performer anyway.
6 The only one funnier is Eustace Scrubb in the next movie and he’s more of a protagonist than a supporting character. Actually, Reepicheep himself becomes something of a protagonist in that story.
7 C. S. Lewis almost certainly didn’t intend the centaurs to be dark skinned but, while 2008 was a politically contentious year for my country (America), people were less sensitive about color blind casting specifically, so it went largely without comment.
8 “Little from you is really a bit too much!” Edmund says in the book. I’m surprised that line wasn’t in the movie.
9 I actually imagine the exchange about maps and brains in the book as being snippier than it is in the film.
10 Though maybe I’m not giving Star Wars or The Adventures of Robin Hood enough credit.
11 To be fair to the movie, Caspian hasn’t yet reached the location he’s at when the Pevensies and Trumpkin are searching for him in the book.
12 If the line wasn’t in the screenplay originally, I have to credit the people who wrote the marketing tie-in books with being better at exposition than the screenwriters!
13 Aren’t the minotaurs supposed to be bad guys? We’ll get to that later.
14 The book that bears his name anyway. He’s arguably a bit more charismatic in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and even in The Silver Chair in which he plays a minor but integral role.
15 Some may find that rule itself to be ridiculously convenient but if you ask me, it corresponds enough to reality in our world to emotionally resonate. Of course, I know there are philosophers who believe that man is just another animal and so would beg to differ.
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