January 5, 2011 6:55 PM
Narnia 3 - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
I'm the kind of mom who loves movies enough to take my kids out of school to see them - which is what I did yesterday. Well, really, I just picked everyone up half an hour early so we could make the 4:40 show (we live an hour from a multiplex).
Just Sophia, Maddy, Jonny, Jesse, Daniel, Justin and I - but we were the ONLY ONES IN THE THEATER! What a treat!
Our whole family has seen the previous Narnia movies - loved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but were disappointed by Prince Caspian - as were many others. In fact, while The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the second highest grossing film of 2005, Prince Caspian ended up making only half as much.
As a result, Disney - which had partnered with Walden Media to produce the first two films withdrew from the third. For a while it looked like The Dawn Treader would never be made, but then 20th Century Fox stepped into the breech. With this precarious backstory, Narnia-watchers knew that the future of the series rested on the success of Narnia 3.
"So the question box-office handicappers are asking now is, 'What did Walden learn from Caspian, and will it be enough to keep Dawn Treader and the franchise afloat?'"
That's the question posed by World magazine in their December 18 Treading carefully: After Prince Caspian's disappointing results, Walden Media went back to the basics with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Serious cinephiles will be interested in this behind-the-scenes analysis.
All by way of saying that I was a little worried about the movie myself - and since I'd heard mixed reviews, I wasn't at all sure what to expect. After seeing it, all I can say is if you've been sitting on the fence, you really should take your kids (keeping in mind that it's rated PG for some scary scenes) and escape to Narnia once again.
I'll be honest: it's been long enough since I read the books that I'm a little fuzzy on the details. My daughters had to fill me in on what was different - and we had a lot of discussion on the way home about whether the changes added or detracted. Since they are both avid readers they tend to guard the author's original work very jealously. I think they would like it to be exactly the same. So in some ways I had a certain advantage in being able to enjoy it from a fresh perspective.
One of the strong themes in the movie - underscored by Carrie Underwood's theme song "There's a Place for Us" - is to be true to who God designed you to be. This was dramatically highlighted by embellishing a small incident in the book involving Lucy, who longs to be as beautiful as her big sister Susan. A character has been added in the movie - a younger girl who looks up to Lucy. This was very effective.
Actually, I need to say that a great deal of the movie's charm rests on the young actors. Lucy has grown up a lot, but she is still as charismatic and appealing as ever. Edmund and Caspian are compelling and believable. Susan and Peter make very small appearances through memories of Lucy and Edmund, but they are replaced by a much more interesting character: cousin Eustace - the most priggish, crotchety and hateful child ever to light up a movie screen - which only makes his transformation/redemption at the end more profound.
Have you seen The Voyage of the Dawn Treader? What did you think? Do you plan to go? If you can afford it, I think you should. Did you know that some 300 Cinemark Theaters across the United States show movies for as little as $1?
Comments
We took our children and youth group to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader and were pleasantly surprised. I wasn't crazy about the first two Narnia films because of the changes made but with this film I could forgive the changes. :)
I'm waiting to hear your review on True Grit. Have you seen it yet? It's definitely worth seeing IMHO.
Posted by: Lynn in AK | January 5, 2011 8:49 PM
I can't wait to see it! I loved those books growing up, especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Seems like a movie that's worth going to see on the big screen too.
Posted by: Anna | January 5, 2011 8:50 PM
We cannot wait to see it! My kids were so mad when they found out that it wasn't coming to Japan until Feb. Now they are worried that we won't be able to find it in English, since it's 3D, and we've had that problem with other kid friendly films that are in 3D (Japanese movies are one thing, but dubbed American movies are unforgivable to my kids!). If that happens we'll just have to buy it from Amazon in English!
I had not heard the story behind why Disney dropped the series. Neither of the first movies were big hits here - probably because the books aren't as well-known or popular. We were just relieved to hear that it was being made, and that it will make it's way over here eventually! Thanks for the review.
Posted by: Sue | January 6, 2011 2:39 AM
Our whole family went to see the movie. We all love it! It was my first in this series of movies. So good........
Posted by: Eileen | January 6, 2011 6:09 AM
My husband, who "grew up in Narnia" and is a substantial part of the official Narnia fans forum (http://www.narniafans.com/forum/index.php -- and they keep it kid-friendly) agrees with my assessment: Dawn Treader is not quite how Lewis wrote it, but he COULD have written it that way. That was not true for Prince Caspian. We both really hope that the funding will be found to complete the series, IF they continue to stick to Lewis' vision.
Posted by: Salome Ellen | January 6, 2011 10:30 AM
Our family is in love with the The Narnia series and we want to go to the movies without a ton being changed--and they changed a lot of the story.
The most disappointing part of the film to me was the minimization of Eustace being a dragon and Aslan being the only one that would be able to take off that skin--it was just a brief scene, minimized to nearly nothing, but in the book it shows the enormous struggle that Eustace is having taking off his own "sins" ....and then Aslan comes and has to painfully scratch layer after layer after layer off--without any help from Eustace.... thus, being an allegory on how Christ is the only one who can remove our sins....
It would have been an excellent movie had I not read the book.... but for this family of six, we were really sad about the changes that they made.
But still, I am pleased that they made this movie. : )
~B
Posted by: B | January 6, 2011 10:35 AM
B -
Yes, my daughters complained about that too, said that they should have taken more time to preserve the drama of the book. I mentioned before that it had been so long since I read the series - and I was not a Christian at the time - that I do not remember everything.
I think now I will go back and reread the books myself. I can see why that would be disappointing. If you read the article at World, it discusses that the reason Caspian failed was because it did not remain true to Lewis, but that his stepson Douglas Gresham had had a stronger hand in Dawn Treader and so hoped to have had more of an impact.
Sorry, I left out the link to the World article - it's well worth reading http://www.worldmag.com/articles/17406
Posted by: Barbara | January 6, 2011 12:03 PM
We saw the movie opening weekend. My family loves the Narnia stories and we have read the entire series several times since the children were very small.
Overall, we were pleased with what they did with the story. I agree that more detail should have been paid to the change in Eustace.
Posted by: Chrissy | January 7, 2011 7:39 AM
Despite the rather compressed nature of the film, and all other things considered, I think the production crew did a great job adapting the book.
The dashing, chivalrous Reepicheep inspired me to write a song several years ago, after reading the book. The primary inspiration was Reepicheep's yearning to travel to Aslan's country at the end of the world, a main theme in the book that was mostly absent from the movie.
I recently pitched the song, "Eastward," to Twentieth Century Fox hoping they would pick it up as a trailer for the movie... but alas it was not meant to be.
Anyone interested can have a listen here: http://www.nickmilos.com/music.htm
Will Poulter was outstanding as Eustace!
Posted by: Nick Milos | January 11, 2011 12:36 AM
We, too, were blessed to see this film at the theatre when it first came out. It's definitely the best of the three. The references to faith and temptation were fantastic! I came out of the theatre so uplifted !!
While I agree with the above comments regarding Eustace, I do feel that his character has led us to great dinner discussions.
We love this movie !!
Posted by: Catherine Muskett | April 26, 2011 12:45 AM
