Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie review

Remember how I've said in the past that I can take a little tweaking of a story from book to screen so long as the movie holds true to the spirit of the book? That's very true. I don't mind a few "adjustments" at all when necessary to translate the written story to a visual.

And so it follows that if the new Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie had held to the original spirit of C.S. Lewis' masterpiece, I would have ignored any changes and told you I loved the film. If. Ah, if only.

I think perhaps the problem with this book to screen is that the story was not understood as originally written. I've heard that Voyage is not necessarily people's favorite book in the Chronicles of Narnia series because it feels like a choppy set of stories all thrown together in a way that makes it difficult to tell where Lewis was necessarily going with the story. When I read the book, I read as follows:

Lucy and Edmund are returned to Narnia along with their cousin Eustace. They are placed on board the Dawn Treader where they are reunited with Caspian who is searching for the seven lost lords of Narnia. They travel to various islands in search of the lords and on each island they encounter a different adventure which teaches a different spiritual lesson or principle.

But apparently the screen writers and producers didn't see that and felt the need to come up with a plot that would "make more sense" of the story. However, if you are a long-time lover of Narnia and a stickler for certain details, the "screened up" version of the story jolts you from known reality and leaves you feeling more bereft and confused than before you took your seat in the theater.

This is how the movie plot runs:

Lucy and Edmund are returned to Narnia along with their cousin Eustace. They are placed on board the Dawn Treader where they are reunited with Caspian who is searching for the seven lost lords of Narnia. They travel to the lone islands whereupon they discover that an evil of some sort is taking over the seas and demands human sacrifices. Unstopped, this unknown evil that appears in the form of green gas (and resides on the Dark Island) will take over the world. Caspian and Edmund vow to destroy this evil and save all of the lost souls who have been sacrificed to the green gas. In order to destroy the green gas, they have to collect seven magical swords which Aslan gave to each of the seven lost lords and place all the swords on Aslan's table. Only then will this evil be stopped.

Already there are too many liberties. They messed with the plot. They tried to make it more complex and modern and so ruined the purity and simplicity of Lewis' tale.

All this I could have forgiven and more, had they traveled to the Islands at least in the order they appeared in the book and had the movie correctly translated the spiritual principles which exist in the story.

But here's what happened (and yes, I'm so writing up a spoiler review because the movie is spoiled anyway so I don't know what the issues would be):

These were the big disappointments:

1. First Adventure (Island of Felimath) - The crew of the Dawn Treader are taken as slaves and sold. In the book Caspian tells his shipmates not to make known their positions of royalty but to keep their identities quiet until such time as it would be beneficial to make themselves known. In other words, Caspian cautions the crew to be wise as serpents but harmless as doves. In the movie Caspian immediately declares his kingship, which doesn't go over very well. But he is made aware of the evil green gas and so declares a new mission for the Dawn Treader and so on we go.

2. Second Adventure (Dragon Island) - This is only my favorite part of the whole book. Eustace's greed causes him to turn into a dragon. The only one who can return him to his human form is Aslan. This is a huge turning point for Eustace in the book where his sin nature becomes very clear to him and he repents of his sin. It's a brilliant analogy of discovering that we are but sinners - but God is gracious and merciful, and full of compassion. In the movie, Eustace stays a dragon for way too long and there is not real explanation or description of the emotions of fear, repentance and redemption that Eustace experienced. Totally. lost. on. the. screen. (Also, on the screen this is not the second adventure but it comes later on in the story to suit the battle against the green gas.)

3. Third Adventure (Sea Serpent) - In the book this adventure takes place on the sea. Bravery and endurance when the going gets tough are described. In the movie, the sea serpent appears because of Edmund's fear and they battle the serpent next to the Dark Island. The serpent is so ugly there is no way I could show this film to my kids for YEARS.

4. Fourth Adventure (Goldwater Island) - Done decently well. I really won't complain about this one. (Except that they did combine Dragon Island and Goldwater Island into the same for the movie. I can forgive that from a time perspective but otherwise I thought they still represented it ok.)

5. Fifth Adveture (the invisible Dufflepuds) - My second favorite adventure of this story is when Lucy enters the magicians house in search of The Book of Incantations in order to find the spell to make the invisible Dufflepuds visible again. Lucy learns some valuable lessons which were tweaked for the modern audience viewing the film who likes to be told to "be yourself!" Aslan roars her name but he doesn't make an appearance. In the movie, the magician just tells them more about how to defeat the evil green gas and the time spent on this Island feels far too short and doesn't offer enough explanation as to all that Lucy learned on this adventure. (Other than to be herself.)

6. Sixth Adventure (The Dark Island) - In the book their trip to the Dark Island is rather short for they realize their danger fairly immediately. In the movie The Dark Island is the scene of all of the evil and is, in fact, the very last Island that they visit in order to nab that seventh magical sword.

7. Seventh Adventure (Ramandu's Island) - I'm getting tired of typing. You never meet Ramandu in the movie and his daughter is a Beautiful Blue Star who takes the form of a beautiful female for Edmund and Caspian to admire. Seven swords laid on Aslan's table to break the spell of the green gas. Blah, blah, blah.

8. Eight Adventure (Reepicheep sails to Aslan's country) - In the movie he is accompanied almost all the way there by Caspian, Edmund, Lucy and Eustace. No explanation is given as to how BIG a deal this is to Reepicheep. Caspian is represented as being tempted to go on to Aslan's country but no one tries to stop him or shake some sense into him. He just magnanimously decides on his own that it's not time yet.

A moment with Carrie in the theater:

In the movie Lucy asks Aslan, "This is our last time here, isn't it?" (Why, how smart of you, Luce!) She asks him if they will ever see him again. He responds to her, "I will be watching you." I almost lit out of my chair in a rage, hoping that they would decide to complete Aslan's instruction to Lucy.

Tears came into my eyes when he told her that in her world, he has another name. The reason she was brought to Narnia in the first place, was so that she could get to know Aslan and so it would be easier for her to find him in her own world.

And I thought to myself that if they had followed the book more closely and accurately, I would have bawled my eyes out through the whole thing. Lewis had such a way with words and a magical way of telling stories. Why they would try to change those stories is beyond me.

In the end, I cried twice. I cried when Lucy and Edmund were hoisted onto the Dawn Treader and were overjoyed because they were in Narnia again. I was overjoyed too. I might have cried harder if I had known what was coming and how the story was about to be deranged but I didn't know better then.) I cried at the end when they allowed Aslan to speak the words that Lewis wrote which are powerful and impacting.

Otherwise, I watched the film and agreed with Eustace's line: "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder!"

You know mother's sage old advice that if you can't say something nice, you shouldn't stay anything at all? Well, I'll say that they picked a MAGNIFICENT actor for Eustace! I completely loved him for the way he played his role. Marvelously done. I despised him when I was supposed to (and was only sorry not to get to know him on screen as you do in the book.)

With that token of niceness, I now feel allowed to tell you that I really didn't care for the film a bit, am greatly disappointed and am going to purge and cleanse my mind by re-reading the story as soon as I possibly can.

Oh, and by the way, I remained in my seat the whole time until Carrie Underwood started singing at the conclusion of the film about how, "We can be the kings and queens of anything if we believe....." at which point I told Jonathan I had to leave the theater.... NOW!