Some months ago, I wrote a blog entry about Peter Jackson's adaptation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In that entry, I explained that one of the strengths of the films was their ability to be true to the spirit of the books, even if some of the details of the book were changed. Similarly, the Harry Potter books have been made into 8 films. While none of these films will go down as the greatest film ever made, they all capture the spirit of the books upon which they are based, and they are all solid entertainment. That, more than anything else, is why I think the adaptations of the Narnia books are failures. I think also that my perspective is informed by how much these stories mean to me. I wonder if I would be more forgiving if these stories were not such a part of my formative years. In any case, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" suffers from the same shortcoming that plagued the other two Narnia films. All three movies would not stand on their own as movies. On top of that, they do not do the work necessary to be true to the spirit of the books. Why the filmmakers decide to change so much is beyond me, but filmmakers do that all the time with adaptations of books. What makes these movies particularly unfocused is their inability to see the strengths of the stories found in Lewis' books. In other words, since the books have great stories, it would seem that a lot of the work is done for the screenwriters! Instead, the screenwriters decide to make up stories that aren't in the book. At the same time, the screenwriters still want to have some of the original elements from the book, so they clumsily slap in some of them. This makes for nonsensical storytelling, since the background for some of the scenes is not fully explained, and the story has been wasting time in other ways that have nothing to do with the original story.
Focusing in on "Dawn Treader", one of the most important scenes in the book is robbed of its power due to ineffective storytelling. The scene in question is the one wherein the character Eustace is shed of his dragon's skin by the lion Aslan. In the book, the scene is one that depicts a soul who is being saved by the only person who can save him. It would seem that a screenwriter would love to have a scene of a powerful lion tearing off a dragon's skin to reveal a boy, but the film softballs this scene. There is no exposition of the plot point that the dragon whom Eustace becomes symbolizes the greed and ugliness of his heart. When Aslan rips the dragon flesh off of Eustace, this reminds the reader of the painful transformation of a human soul whose sin and ugliness must be washed away by God. Since no background is given in the film as to why Eustace becomes the dragon, the power of Aslan removing his skin is completely lost, and while it is one of the scenes that is technically faithful to the book, the spirit of the book is lost. This is just one example in this film of a trend which affected all three films.
The debate here could be endless. I'm sure there are many who simply found the movie captivating whether they had read the book or not. This is where matters of opinion come in. Also, would I feel this strongly if I had no connection to the Lewis books? It is impossible for me to know that. All I can say is that I still feel that the storytelling is weak because this movie seems to want to have a lot of the cinematic and visual pay offs of the book without laying the groundwork that is found in the story. That is the biggest reason why all 3 of these films have been a major disappointment to me. What I wouldn't give to have CS Lewis' reviews of these 3 films.
