We just went to see The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, finally. It was a good movie. We saw it in 3-D, the first movie I’ve seen that way, and the action really does jump out at you and make you feel more involved. There was lots of good action, thrills and chills, and the dragon was well done and believable. There was a character named Eustace who was supposed to be annoying and somewhat comical at the same time, and the actor who played him was great. The actress who played Lucy also did a good job of playing a confused young teenage girl, and Edmund and Caspian were O.K. as rivals/friends, if somewhat wooden at times. My theory is that the Edmund and Caspian characters couldn’t figure out whether they were supposed to be best buddies or contenders for the same throne, so they got mixed up sometimes. The plot moved along at a good pace, and there were a few lines that elicited a chuckle from me and from my girls.
Unfortunately, almost the entire movie, including the characters’ names, the title, and parts of the plot, was plagiarized from a book by an Oxford don named C.S. Lewis. The book was published about fifty years ago, and the screenplay writers obviously borrowed freely from Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In fact, the best parts of the movie came straight from Lewis’s book, and the worst parts–evil green mist, magical vibrating swords, a totally out of place stowaway–were invented by whomever it was that wrote this brand new story ripped from the pages of C.S. Lewis’s classic novel.
Z-baby and I are in the process of reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis now, and although I hope it and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are made into movies someday, I do hope that the people who made the movie we saw tonight don’t get hold of The Silver Chair. The silver chair would become a magic golden throne in a cave of green serpents with Eustace and Jill fighting duels with one another instead of arguing about the signs. Then, Aslan would appear and tell them to just believe in themselves and all would be magically resolved. Prince Rilian might get a bit part, and Puddleglum would be a complete clown.
If you haven’t seen The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, just re-name this movie in your head: call it Edmund and the Sea Serpent or something of the sort and enjoy it for what it is. Then, read or re-read all of the Narnia Chronicles and enjoy them for the wonderful, meaningful stories that they are.
Ha! You summed it up perfectly.
I like your suggestion of renaming it “Edmund and the Sea Serpent.” I did enjoy the movie, for the most part, but after relistening to the audio book, I like it much less. I had hoped there wouldn’t have to be a disconnect between to two, but, alas, such is Hollywood.
I agree! I really did not enjoy the movie since it deviated significantly (in my opinion) from the book. I am torn between wanting them to make a movie of The Silver Chair and just hoping they leave it alone!
At this point I don’t expect film adaptations to be “faithful” to any novel, and in many cases, the movie is better for it. For instance, I loved Harry Potter 6, though it took some liberties with the book, while I didn’t care for HP1 or HP2, which were almost slavishly faithful.
I guess it’s *possible* that a really faithful adaptation *can* be a good movie, but it’s not a guarantee. And we’ve already read the book…
I enjoyed Dawn Treader very much and didn’t find really anything to object to, except that the undressing of Eustace could’ve been handled better (but Aslan tearing away his skin might not translate to a very kid-friendly film.)
Love this. 🙂
I had a similar reaction. Once I realized it was a different story entirely from the book, I was able to salvage some of the moviegoing experience.
Which I was glad about. We hardly ever go to the movies…
Ahhh you say it perfectly. WTH was with the green mist? I wanted Voyage of the Dawn Treader NOT whatever that was. I would probably call it Eustace and the Green Mist. Heh.
I’m not really complaining about the movie itself. I just think they could have named the main characters Joe, Bob, Felix and Susy, called the ship The Impossible Dream, and changed a few of the more obviously plagiarized plot points and had themselves an original movie that would not have purported to be an adaptation of a book that they didn’t really want to interpret. The heart of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is Aslan uncovering what has been hidden–uncovering secret sin in the heart, uncovering the secret slave trade, uncovering the ridiculous pretensions of the monopods, uncovering and finding the lost lords of Narnia, uncovering and un-dragoning Eustace. The idea of the children’s being exposed to the sometimes painful light of Aslan’s Truth is pretty much lost in the movie.
I wanted to see this movie but I must admit I’m hesitant. The last two were faithful to the books enough but there is so much I loved about Dawn Treader that hearing it’s not good puts me off going to see it.
Yup. Nicely concluded here. That’s a good point. Maybe I should just rename the movie in my head….
DH and I saw it and enjoyed it well enough, but I haven’t read DT in a while. I was disappointed that the best part–the undragoning of Eustace–was glossed over. But maybe it’s just as well, since so little was faithful to the book.
Such a great review. I agree with you on every point.
They get around not following the book exactly by some wording (based on the book by C. S. Lewis or something like that). Although his stepson sold the rights to the movie, I’m not so sure Lewis would enjoy seeing them in movies.
I haven’t seen this one. I really liked The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Not entirely faithful to the original but still close enough it got the original message through.
Didn’t care at all for the second. I saw it on DVD and have never bothered watching it again.
I’ll see this one when it comes to Redbox. 🙂
Pudleglum is our family’s favorite of the “extra” characters. I wouldn’t want to see him a clown!
I’ve been a bit wary of the Narnia films, ever since the abomination known as Prince Caspian was released in 2008. I appreciate your thoughts on this new imagining of Lewis’ classic…
By the way, that last bit about what would happen if the filmmakers got ahold of The Silver Chair was absolutely hilarious! 🙂
I had wondered what they were going to do with VofDT, because the plot is rather episodic, which is OK in a book but doesn’t work well in a movie. And I guess the green mist was their way of linking it all together, along with making the search for the missing lords a more immediate issue rather than Caspian’s excuse for an adventure.
I don’t mind when movies make changes, because reading a book is a different thing than viewing a movie, and doing the same thing in both often means one is weak. Princess Bride is a good example of a great book & a great movie that aren’t mirrors of each other. In the case of this movie, it wasn’t the changes to the plot that mattered so much as the changes to the themes; that’s what makes it feel so different. They kept a lot more of the book than I had expected, but I think they understood the unveiling of Eustace and the edge of the world very differently than I did.
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The movie was so great! Don’t forget that Dawn Treader comes out on blu-ray and DVD on April 8th…TODAY!! 🙂