Miscellaneous memos

Watching ‘Prince Caspian’ has thrown me into dilemma of sorts.

On one hand, I thought the movie was highly entertaining and enjoyable.

On the other hand, as a fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, the little nuances like choosing someone who is really old to play Prince Caspian and having a romance sizzle between him and Susan, just puts me off giving it an entire thumbs up. Add to that, is the fact that Disney is the movie machine behind it, and you have me ready to go up in arms about it.

I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a schoolgirl and I would like to think that it was one of those books that contributed to my reading habits, and my early education, which in turn, has fuelled part of the person that I have become today.

It is because I write for a living now, that I place so much importance on the literary influences that I have had.

I never quite agreed with CS Lewis’ concept of equating Aslan and Christ, but a good story and plot is worth going through the book for… and for me, changing even the slightest bit of it so that it brings more people to watch the movie, is just sacrilege.

Was making the lead role of Prince Caspian into a heartthrob, by casting a former member of a British boyband, worth it?

I think he would have been better off as a boy, all innocent, as CS Lewis made him out to be, without all the adolescence trappings of having to appeal to the mass audience.

And it is made worse by the fact that it has been coupled with the need to add a romance which was not even in the book in the first place.

But as a movie, Prince Caspian comes up tops in production values and pace and if I was not so hung up about all the rest of it, maybe Prince Caspian would have been one of my favourite movies of all time.

Because as a movie alone, it is bloody good.

The dilemma for it comes in because it is riding on the popularity of the book that it is based on.