Ben Witherington found the trailer for the third movie in the Chronicles of Narnia series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, set to be released December 10. I have to admit I forgot the studio was planning to plow through each of the seven Narnia books in turn, and even a little surprised to see a third installment come out at all, after Prince Caspian's box office take dipped from the successful The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and a new company had to step in to finance Dawn Treader.
Although I would love to see a big-budget, big-screen version of The Last Battle, I don't know if my interest—or studio budgets—will last through three other movies before that one, though maybe they won't wait to do the grand finale. (Any studio would probably love to side-step the politically incorrect Horse and His Boy. And some speculated early on that Last Battle could follow Silver Chair, in part for continuity in the age of the child actors needed for both, not to mention limited studio budgets.)
How about you? Are you up for four more Narnia movies? Will non-Narnia-devotees show up for any others, the way they did for Wardrobe? Will studios have the money, and the patience? Would keeping some of the Narnia series off the big screen preserve some of the books' evocative imaginative power?
(By the way, does anyone else remember the old cheap British television Narnia series? I remember it vividly and it still shapes my imagination of Narnia. I think they made it through the Silver Chair before calling it quits, which isn't bad.)
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Comments (11)
But no one seems to be bothered by some of the massive changes in plot that really dumb down the story - the wolf chase scene in Wardrobe, and the sentiment that hope in the children, not Aslan, revives Narnia, the constant whining about needing to leave. In Caspian, the angst about the children leaving the country, the silly added castle attack scene. And in the trailer for Dawn Treader, I saw the quote that "the fate of Narnia depends on...", when really, they went adventuring for honor's sake alone.
There seems to me that crucial elements of the stories - honor, duty, and loyalty to Aslan - are being completely dimmed or left out entirely, and the whole flavor of the series is changed.
Really wish they could've started with The Magician's Nephew --
I also wonder if all the books post-wardrobe will always have less cultural cache because the allegory is less obvious (or in the case of the Last Battle, more controversial).
No Eustace in the trailer? Some of the themes of the book will rub against market interests. I'd love to see them keep it up at least through the Magician's Nephew which I think would make a terrific movie and the Last Battle.
I have the old British series, and I love them all!
I really want to see the Last Battle. And the Silver Chair was good too!