Pince Caspian? Views?

[nkf]

I liked it a lot. A pleasamt surprise.

The thing is, The Horse And His Boy only features adult Pevensies, and they are going to have to rattle Dawn Treader and Silver Chair if they are going to keep the junior characters convincing ages. So I could easily see doing those two next, and then possibly (if there's still popular demand) The Horse And His Boy afterwards. That way they could potentially even have the original child actors playing Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.

Oh definitely. It will likely go Voyage, Silver Chair, Horse and His Boy, Magicians Nephew and the Last Battle, if they go further than just the Caspian stories.

Thing is, from a marketing perspective, once the ball is rolling, it's a good bet they will want to continue as long as the costs don't get silly, and the appetite for this sort of ambiguously spiritual/family friendly stuff is quite strong, particularly in America, and especially when you consider that a lot of churches are quite happy to be unpaid promotion engines.

The Last Battle is practically a grown up book I think. Or young adults as I think the book marketing people would call it.

Although JK Rowling is credited with coming up with the idea of a child aging throughout a series, it's really been done already. In the Narnia books and in Enid Blyton school books for that matter.

I may be wrong about this but, in the Last Battle, aren't the Pevensies still children? If so, they'd have to make 5 of the 7 books pretty quickly. Either that or not mind the actors aging quicker than the characters - a la Harry Potter.

No, they're not really still children, very much more young adults. Peter and Edmund disguise themselves as workmen at one point I think, so definitely not children.

Ah, I see. I just flicked thru my copy quickly before I posted and Eustace and Jill are described as 'the boy' and 'the girl' when they first arrive and free Trinian. But it is several years since I read it closely.

Eustace and Jill are still (older) children, but the Pevensies are older than Eustace and Jill so are more young adults.

I wonder who will play the Witch in The Silver Chair. She's even more scary than the White Witch. And how will they do the giant's castle?

Did any of you see the BBC versions? I bet you didn't, they came out between c 1989 & 1993, I bet you were all childless teens/20s then

Anyway they only did LWW, PC, VDT & SC - the child actors were mostly awfully wooden, although Jill Pole was ace, Tom Baker was excellent as Puddleglum, and Reepicheep was a very small person in a mouse costume without Eddie I's charms but still pretty entertaining, but considering the lack of CGI they were excellent; DD1 was 6 & DD2 3 when LWW was issued and they were gripped every Sunday teatime.

The stories are the thing...

I saw LWW, but was busy being a student for the others.

Bit if film trivia for you Wendy Weber - Reepicheep in the BBC version was Warwick Davis who played Nikabrik this time around.

I enjoyed Prince Capsian far more than LWW - my only gripes were that they could have made more of the Dr Cornelius who is an important character in the book, didn't show any of Caspians attempts to rally the old Narnians and fight before he blew the horn and that really unnecessary kiss at the end!

This is Eustace, apparently (the one in front)

Thanks, coral, that is interesting - I recognise the name actually although I wouldn't have known he was Reepicheep. I really want to see PC now - must reread the books first

Very different casting, hope they can make it work WW! I was indeed young, free and single when those programmes were broadcast

I saw all the beeb versions and have them all on video and DVD. My geekdom knows no bounds (and I actually prefer the BBC version of LWW - especially the portrayal of Edmund, I think it's truer to the book /sacrilege)

I have them all on video, Kay - we taped them at the time, those were re-watched many times, but I also bought the commercial versions before we had a DVD player.

Edmund is just the most interesting character of the 4, isn't he - the others are simply too good to be true and a bit dull, sadly - naughty people are more fun

lol, yes - I much prefer his vindictive sneakiness, but also the scenes with him making his way to the White Witch's castle, when he's wrestling with his conscience are really well done.

I know the film tried to make him more sympathetic - give him a reason to resent his brother and so on, but I do think the story has more impact when he's had the same treatment as all the others and still chooses to be mean at first, and later treacherous.

Also, in the BBC version, he actually apologizes to them for what he's done, but he doesn't in the film, which bugged me.

But, having said that, Ed in the Prince Caspian film is bloody fabulous, and his scene with the white witch is brilliant (although I do like the LWW film's treatment of Ed destroying her wand, too)

We saw it today with six 10-11 yr olds. They all enjoyed it, as did we (dh and I). I was surprised how gripped they were and there were many much younger children in the audience who didn't appear to get bored at all. It is a long film.

Roisin, dd, who's not even five yet, sat right through it too. (And yes I felt a bit bad about taking her, and we had a fallback if she got upset, but she loved Trumpkin and Reepicheep and that was it sorted)
Glad your lot enjoyed it

Just for interest, I found a copy of the Neil Gaiman short story 'The problem of Susan', mentioned earlier here

Sorry, meant to say that it is on the web at the link posted

Do you think it's suitable for a 6yo girl? Her Rainbow group is going to see it in a few weeks but I wouldn't have normally chosen to take her as it seems a bit grown up. We tend to just stick to U films as DD has a very overactive imagination and gets disturbed quite easily - unfortunately by unexpected things so it's hard to predict.

My 6 y-old loved it, but she's quite robust. The battle scenes might be a bit much.

Both dd 10 her friend and ds 12 and DH really enjoyed it, but I nodded off a few times. I enjoyed the first film and have fond memories of the stories on the BBC as a child, but for some reason I didn't want to rush out and see this, and I just can't connect with the characters.

I believe the illness issue was inspired by Joy Gresham and her sons...

Lewis wrote MN in 1955 - only one year before marrying Joy when she was in hospital so the story was fresh in his life/mind at that time?

I love Lewis (can you tell!) - my whole dissertation was on LWW and the whole series is far, far more complex than anyone imagined; the films are going to be difficult because Narnian time moves differently to the World time; but clearly we don't have Narnian time on tap!