KeithM
Posts: 862
Joined: 31/7/2008
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But, I'll try... 
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ORIGINAL: lovegrove7196
The first trouble was attempting to ride the wave of the first film. 'Wardrobe' was popular because it had been done so many times before, people knew it's name. But Caspian was trying to ride that same wave and failed because not many people knew of this story.
I can't think of a better reason to make the film than that. Who wants to see the same crap over and over again? The sheep maybe, but it's a sad state of affairs if we use that as the standard to which we aspire...
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What I dislike mainly is the disgraceful paradox between box office targetting and censorship. The novel is almost all a bloodlustful battle. There was not one drop of blood shown in this film, it took away from the realism of it. And the reason was so that it could appeal to a 'kids' audience.
The movie was darker, certainly, but I agree with you to a point that they didn't go far enough. But to address your previous point, they clearly felt they had to make some compromise in order to try to ensure a decent return. Unfortunately they probably got it wrong and this probably compromised the movie's tone as you suggest, but it's easy to understand why this may have affected some of their decisions - these movies cost an awful lot of money after all... And while it might seem obvious to you, if you were really that good at predicting ahead of time how to ensure a movie's success, you wouldn't be talking to us about it for nothing, you'd be getting paid a shitload to talk to the studios instead. Hindsight's a wonderful thing...
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I can guarantee... chuck a bit of blood in there and it would have taken an extra $100m!
I'll take that bet. The amount of blood didn't make a huge bit of difference to the movie's lack of box office, imo - in fact, even though they didn't go as 'dark' as you or I might have liked, the movie's darker tone in comparison to the first probably hurt it with the people who enjoyed the first one. The other main reasons why it didn't do so well, I suspect, is because a) they picked a bad year to release their movie - the competition this year was phenomenal - I personally saw more movies in the cinema this year than any in a very long time - Caspian not being one of them, however... partly down to the fact that the first was a bit too kiddy to make Caspian very high on my 'must see' list - again that falling between two stools hurting it in terms of 'demographic'.
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Also... the film was just generally mishandled in every way.
In your opinion, but as I said, I enjoyed it more than I anticipated, so they can't really have mishandled it that badly. Marketing yes. The movie itself, not entirely. It wasn't 'great', don't get me wrong, but nor was it awful either.
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Where in blue blazes was Aslan for the whole thing!? And why didn't the trees just uproot and attack earlier!? And why don't those kids care at all about their parents!? Why don't they look and feel more psychologically disturbed by being in a foreign environment of war and torture!? It just doesn't make sense.
The thing is, it makes sense in the book. Therefore, the direction and the writing of this film are both at fault.
Again, I agree to an extent, but this is a bit nitpicky, imo. I'm with you in general principle on plot holes - they're generally as suspension of disbelief shattering as continuity mistakes, but overall there was nothing so bad in the movie which killed the enjoyment for me, personally, so I guess it comes down to how much you analyse and how much you go with the flow. If these flaws really did spoil it for you, then I won't try to defend them any further than that. :)
However, it shouldn't bear repeating, but apparently it does - a movie isn't the book and never will be - at best they're the abridged version and a certain amount of 'reading between the lines' is needed if you absolutely must compare the movie to the book. Also, for me I read the book over 30 years ago and the details are a bit vague, so I was less concerned about absolute faithfulness than just how much fun it was - and it was fun-ish, so I'm not as down on this as I might be otherwise.
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Little do people know that the Narnia novels are closely sourced from Bible stories. (Aslan being the Jesus figure)
You don't say?!  I would say that's common knowledge, frankly. It certainly is for anyone who knows anything at all about the books or C.S. Lewis.
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There was an underlying significance hidden behind Aslan's absence, but it was not described for us!
This constitutes a massive failing on the part of the writing team and the director.
The movie gave me the impression that Aslan's absence and Lucy's behaviour was something about losing and regaining 'faith' or somesuch pseudo-religious nonsense. Like I said, it's been a long time since I read the book, so you'll have to tell me if the movie actually got the correct message over to me or not.
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If Dawn Treader is going to be any good... bring in some decent writers and a decent director. Like Del Toro (unfortunately he's gonna be a little busy for the next few years), or Jackson or someone who takes care in their pictures at least.
Holy crap! Why didn't they think of that?! Decent writers and a director who actually tries to do a good job! Genius. Give that man a job.
Like the originality with your Director choices too btw.
Sorry to take the piss a bit - I actually agree with many of your points on general principle, but I think you've been a little too overcritical of what was a very long way from the worst adaptation ever... or even this year.
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Disney Bails On Third Narnia Film - 
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