Prince Caspian
I was able to see the second installment in The Chronicles of Narnia series over the weekend, Prince Caspian, and enjoyed the movie as much as I did the first. I have come across a number of reviews of the film and have found them interesting and insightful. Bruce Edwards, at his C.S. Lewis blog, while not hating the movie, gives an overall less than glowing review here. He feels that the movie misses the mark of portraying the story C.S. Lewis presented in Prince Caspian:
Prince Caspian, thus, is about what happens next, what happens when the mystique and the mystery of life has been stripped away or treated contemptuously—about what happens when Aslan’s true nature and the Pevensie’s righteous reign are discarded or buried or ignored. A movie made of such poignant substance, could be transcendent, lyrical, mythopoeic, could be a wondrous standalone tale in itself—as the forgotten kings and queens of Narnia return not a moment too soon to help the noble but naive Prince Caspian learn his destiny and help true Narnians recover their birthright. Regrettably, that is not the movie Andrew Adamson and his crew have chosen to make.
Contrast that with this brief take by John Mark Reynolds, who states the movie is better than the first (even than the book):
Like a miracle, comes a gift to us from Disney and Walden Media. Prince Caspian, the weakest of the seven Narnia books, is a better film (as a film) than the first . . . and I really liked the first. This time the makers felt able to make changes as the plot was less well known (and less tightly structured).
Finally, I point you to this review by Amy Hall at the Stand to Reason blog. She like the movie overall, but had some specific issues with the film. One of these dealt with the question of how much God knows or can know. At one point Aslan asserts that there are some things even he cannot know… specifically counterfactuals (that is, what would happen if an alternative course of action was chosen by an individual, rather than the choice actually made). This line struck me as odd at the time as well and I wondered if anyone else caught it. Hall states:
The second change is even worse (being more explicit) and involves another of the ideas most memorable to me–one that recurs throughout the series. In the book, when Lucy realizes she’s failed to do something she should have–and could have–done, she asks Aslan what would have happened had she done what was right: “Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?” Aslan responds powerfully, “No. Nobody is ever told that.” Aslan has authority and perfect wisdom–rebelling against his command has consequences, and Lucy’s not doing what he had revealed for her to do causes new difficulties for everyone. But make no mistake, Aslan is quite aware of what would have happened had she obeyed. Compare this to the film version where Aslan’s response to Lucy’s plea is: “We can never know what would have happened.” We? Yikes! I’m not a fan of open-theist (open-lionist?) Aslan.
If you haven’t seen this enjoyable film, go see it for yourself.