The Books and the Movies: Narnia and Middle Earth

I just finished rereading the three Narnian books that have been made into movies, and rewatched the movies too. I started off watching The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which I hadn't seen for at least 8 years, and loved it. It seemed to me to remain true to the book, which is no mean feat. Taking a classic book and translating it for screen is very tricky and rife with pitfalls, from casting, to set, scenery and script, and you have an awful lot of people out there to please or displease with your choices.

I remember years ago when Ralph Bakshi did an animated Lord of the Rings which for me was horribly disappointing, and so I waited with trepidation for the release of Peter Jackson's version of The Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkein's writing is rich with description and the landscape and characters are indelibly imprinted on my consciousness and I hoped that Mr. Jackson's reading of the story would not be wildly dissimilar to my inner picture of Middle Earth and its inhabitants.

Fortunately Mr. Jackson's sensibility was very close to my own. I loved the visual Middle Earth he translated (I won't say created) on the screen. It really reflected Tolkein's imaginative world brilliantly, and I daresay most people would agree with me. The actors he cast were perfect in their roles, from Ian Holm's Bilbo Baggins to Ian McKellen's Gandalf, Sean Astin's Sam, Orlando Bloom's Legolas, Elijah Wood's innocent Frodo, Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn, and on and on. I adored the first and second movies, and only had a few minor problem's with Jackson's presentation of The Return of the King.

And the problems I had / have are not with the script or the casting or the landscape in the third movie, but with the over use of CGI in the battle scenes. Jackson did rather over do it in The Two Towers battle when the orcs attack Rohan, but that was nothing in comparison with how carried away the CGI got in the final movie and the final battles. Not that I minded overly the giant elephants employed by Sauron's dark armies, but the legion of ghosts Aragorn leads into battle - done with transparent green screen images - soon looked very ridiculous, like foaming green soap detergent scrubbing out the ships in port. It made me laugh and as you can imagine, the sense of drama and high seriousness was seriously compromised.

But overall I have to thank Peter Jackson for sticking firmly to the story as Tolkein tells it. And for the most part, Andrew Adamson gets it right about Narnia and the characters and landscape. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is just about as perfect a visual telling of the story as can be. But the movie Prince Caspian suffers a fair bit from the Peter Jackson CGI overuse, for not only does Adamson extend the battle scenes far beyond what Lewis describes, but he changes Lewis' story and adds an attack on the castle of King Miraz that fails badly, and much more Narnian blood is shed in a very heartrending scene that would certainly upset children, as it depressed and saddened me. I'm not sure Lewis would approve. I certainly didn't. When Aslan finally shows up after all this excessive fighting and bloodshed, one can't help but blame the magical lion for not showing up sooner and preventing the tragic loss of life. And if one interprets the fantasy in light of the Christian allegory Lewis did intend, then this doesn't put the Christian ideology in a very good light.

To be fair to Mr. Adamson, he has to contend with what the studio thinks audiences want in a movie, which is the kind of impossible fighting no one in real life could survive and excessive special effects so that interest never flags for a second, and to that end he changes the story to suit what the movie moguls believe audiences want, and for all I know, they do want, even in a children's film. It's a great pity that those people at the top of the movie decision-making ladder don't trust that the original story - without the unecessary impossible battles and effects - will charm and enthrall movie goers as it has readers since it was written over half a century ago. There are the Merchant Ivory kind of directors who do take a classic and trust in the story - but somehow this kind of directorial integrity is lost when it comes to fantasy adventure stories.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader fares better under Adamson's direction. While Adamson has gone the whole hog of impossible special effects with the sea serpent scene , the outline of the action of the story - from Island to Island - is the same. And I will give him credit for enhancing the adventures in the ways he does, making them livelier and funnier and scarier than the actual book. But the crown jewel of Adamson's accomplishments with the Dawn Treader remains the opening scene with Edmund, Lucy and Eustace Scrubb in the back bedroom in Eustace's house as the water from the picture of the Dawn Treader splashes from the picture frame and fills the room, and the children are transported to Narnia once again. That scene is filmed so brilliantly and the CGI so amazing, but best of all, it is completely true to what Lewis wrote and envisioned and for that I forgive Adamson any and all of his gaffes in the Prince Caspian movie. Oh, and the CGI rendering of Reepicheep is top drawer, as Lewis would say!