Voyage to the Cinema

*Warning, mild spoilers*

Greetings! I assume you have visited this blog to hear a technical, in depth review of the film 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader'. This is the first film review I have ever written, so feedback would be very much appreciated!

So, this is my first post. Started up this blog from request of someone on NarniaWeb. Don't know if anyone's going to read it, but you never know until you try, hey?

So, I dragged 8 friends of mine to the cinema to see VDT with me. I felt extremely sorry for the friends who were sitting either side of me, because throughout the whole movie I was whispering to them and muttering under my breath everything that deviated from the book. I did warn them before hand, though...

Anyway, without further ado...

Overall position of the film:

I would say that VDT is somewhere between LWW and PC, from a Narnia fan's perspective. Not quite as good as LWW, but so much better than PC. A HECK OF A LOT better than the trailers!!! The trailer showed pretty much the worst parts of the film, so if you see it, rest knowing that it will at least be better than the trailers. As far as films go, it is quite a good flick. As far as Narnian films go, I think it did the film series justice.

Plot:

Okay, they changed the plot around quite a bit. At first, they're looking for the 7 lords, but then there's the whole 'evil mist' thing related to Dark Island that takes up most of the movie. Which, to me, was rather annoying. It ruined the wonderful realness and episodic nature of the book. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand why they did it like that, after all, it's supposed to be a Hollywood movie, and it needs to have a plot and all. But to me, it was almost as if it was too 'epic', if you get what I mean. They tried too hard to come up with an action packed plot, and it ruined the thing a bit. Voyage of the Dawn Treader, if you think about it, is such a unique book. It has no dominant bad guy, and no huge battles or anything, but nevertheless it has such a wonderful storyline and is filled with as much adventure as you could ever want! (This is me agreeing with someone whose post I cannot locate somewhere on NarniaWeb) Really, if you ask me, the story didn't need to be changed. The error the filmmakers made was that they destroyed the book's uniqueness and tried to make VDT more like other fantasy films. And were very unoriginal in doing that, I must confess. Still, I suppose it could have been worse. The battle at the end of the movie was perhaps unnecessary, but admittedly very exciting. It had me sitting on the edge of my seat!

Altogether, the plot changes did annoy me quite a bit. However, they weren't unbearable and acheived the filmmakers' aim of making the story less 'episodic'.

Characters:

Caspian- Lost the Spanish accent! Yay! Now he just needs to get a haircut! Of course, he had a beard in this movie. If you ask me, that just made him look like a woman with facial hair, but some of my friends (Fan girls, cough cough) did not share the same opinion. About his actual character, they made him seem a lot more composed than he was in the book, with hardly any faults. This is one of the main points they slipped up on in the movie! Probably the main human character in the book is Caspian, and I love how VDT is a story about him learning what it is to be a king. The movie did not have this, which I was very annoyed with and will discuss in more detail later in this review. However, the friendship he forms with Edmund, Eustace and Lucy by the end of the movie I liked very much. I found that even though I am of the opinion that they should have cast a younger, blonder Caspian with shorter hair, I liked Ben Barnes as Caspian in this movie better than I did in PC.

Edmund- Not actually as much of a jerk as he was made out to be in the trailers. Still a jerk at times, but overall his character was not too bad. Nothing like Peter in PC, I'm glad to say. He's been second in command all his life, and now he wants to be in charge a bit more. Fortunately, as was in the book, he and Caspian only have one fight, on Deathwater Island. After that, he and Caspian get along well to the point that they are like brothers, which is quite sweet. Their friendship grows as strong as Eustace and Reep's, which is quite a strong bond. Overall, I think that while it is slightly illogical for Edmund to go from someone so strong in their resolve to follow Aslan (PC) to someone who is tempted by gold and the White Witch again (VDT), Edmund is a very believable character in this film, and by the end he is again a favourite character.

Lucy- The whole thing about Lucy in this movie is that she does not think she is as pretty as Susan and she wishes she was. They sort of expanded on her desire to be like Susan in one scene of the book to make it most of the scenes in the movie. It's a bit cringey at the beginning, I must admit. But after that, it's fairly believable. Not that I have to like her being like that, but as they are making her a few years older in the movie than she was in the book, I can see why they thought it was a logical decision. In the movie, the spell is not to make her beautiful, but to actually make her into the person she wants to look like. The problem in the movie is that she actually says the spell, and dreams of what would have happened. Not only is this unoriginal (a dream? Come on!), but it destroys the point, because she has already recited the spell and there is supposedly no turning back from there. So they probably should have showed her what would have happened had she recited the spell before she recited the spell. By the end of the movie, however, she is back to the Lucy we all know and love.

Reepicheep- I was a bit disappointed with Reep's role in this movie, I must say. Being my absolute favourite character in all seven books (apart from Aslan, which is a given), I was hoping for this movie to focus quite a lot on Reepicheep and his yearning to sail to the end of the world and to find Aslan's country. However, they did not spend nearly enough time on this and instead spent a lot more time on him being Eustace's mentor and friend. I did not mind the mentor part, because it really shows Reep's decency and it was very in character of him, but I was just a bit disappointed about them not making him that enthusiastic about sailing to the end of the world. *sigh*

Aslan- Slightly disappointing. It seemed so corny whenever Aslan came and talked, as if he was some wise tribal leader giving out fortune cookies or something. I found myself even wincing in some places, it seemed so forced. But the movie was redeemed at the end, when pretty much everything he said to the Pevensies and Eustace was taken directly from the book. I would have liked for Aslan as a lamb to make an appearance, but I admit that may have slightly confused people who haven't read the books.

Eustace: I have left Eustace for last because, quite frankly, he was my favourite. Some of my friends came out of the cinema saying, "I hated the actor that played Eustace!" (of course, they hadn't read the book). I strongly argued against them, because he was every bit as beastly and arrogant and annoying and comical as I imagined him when I read the book as an eight year old. Will Poulter was perfect for the part and played him brilliantly. He spent a bit longer as a dragon than I would have liked, but again, that's just Hollywood. It's worth seeing the movie simply for the sake of watching a childhood memory come to life before your eyes! Hooray, Will!

Themes:

What they did with the themes was slightly weird, I thought. The main theme was temptation. Thing is, that wasn't exactly the biggest theme in the book. I thought that the most prominent themes in the book were redemption, discovery and finding Aslan, so I was quite surprised that they had focussed on temptation. However, it fit in well with the story and Dark Island and everything, so thematically it wasn't too bad, I suppose. And they still kept the other themes in there.

Spirital stuff:

Well, this morning when I was at church, I was talking to some of the elders who had seen the movie bit had not read the book. To my excitement, they had picked up many spiritual aspects of the film as a result of the plot changes! Stuff like the 'star messenger' and 'the beast'. So they thought it was a very spiritual movie. They were quite surprised when I informed them that none of this was in the book. I wonder if the filmmakers were actually aware they were including those things...

Anyway, for me, the movie did have quite a few Christian messages, similar to the book. It emphasised that Aslan can help you overcome temptation, that only He can help you out of your sin/blindness (grace is given, not earned- go Douglas Greasham!) and that He has another name in our world (YES!)

Props/scenery:

The dawn treader was absolutely amazing! It was precisely how I imagined it and I honestly can't think of any changes they could have made... except for perhaps having a rampant lion on the sail rather than some strange design. BUT THE SAIL WAS PURPLE!!! Thank goodness for that! The rest of the scenery was quite good, I'll say. I loved the Magician's Island especially, with the Dufflepuds, the garden and the library that I'll admit made me drool slightly.

Music:

Okay, so I read this interview that someone had with David Arnold about a month ago, and it made me so excited about VDT's score. He was so humble and he had read the book as extra research for inspiration. Did the music live up to my expectations? No. For most of the movie, I didn't even notice the music. When I did, I wasn't blown away by it. David Arnold is a nice guy, but they should have got Harry to do the score again. It would have probably been more original than this. The end song for the credits, 'There's a place for us', was not particularly original or exciting. Overall, it was not bad but not particularly good either.

Things I really wasn't happy about:

The thing I was probably most disappointed about in the movie was a certain scene they did not include, which was where Caspian wants to go with Lucy and Edmund and Eustace to wherever they're going, and everyone tells him he can't come, and he has a tanty but then Aslan speaks to him and he sees how childish he's been and apologises. That is one of my favourite scenes in the book, and yet they do not include it!

The scripting was really where it all went wrong, I think. Sometimes the way the characters interact with one another just seems fake and unnatural and put-on. It leaves so much to be desired, I reckon, personally. Lewis' dialogue would have done much better.

The editing also was not really at its best. It made some scenes awkward and others confusing. Most of my friends I went to see it with had not read the book and were very confused in some parts because the editors cut out important dialogue and scenes.

They cut out Ramandu! How could they?

Things I was happy about:

No kissing! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Eustace

The Dawn Treader

Friendships formed (Lucy with MLG, Caspian and Edmund and Eustace and Reep)

Set up for Silver Chair at the end of the movie

Aslan at the World's end

Altogether:

I know that my review has been quite critical, but it really is quite an amazing movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's exciting, adventurous, and has still, despite everything, managed to carry with it the spirit of my favourite book. Does it do the book justice? No. Nothing ever will. Is it worth watching? Yes, absolutely.