The whole family went and saw Prince Caspian today. Let me just say that it was awesome.
Why was it awesome? Well, I think that they were able to take the intent of the book and translate it into an exciting film. That ought to be enough to let you know that they departed from the original text. The first film took a few liberties but was very true to the text. Prince Caspian wanders much further, but I would argue that it makes for a better film and was worth it. To the true fan, I guess those would be fighting words, but it’s what I think.
There are major omissions – but it’s nothing to do with length. Lewis was very careful to keep all the books to roughly the same length, and none are long. They are all meant to be read aloud to children. This means even chapters are kept to a similar and short length. (Having read them all aloud, to children, more than once myself – I appreciate the effort he took in this regard.) That length didn’t drive the omissions is further proven by the fact that there are some major additions. This is really almost a different story in some ways – though major outcomes and a few key events are untouched. What is also untouched, in my opinion, are some of the main points of the tale. The major themes still come out strongly.
This film is much more violent and much more dark than the first in this series. My kids are 8, 7 and 5 and they didn’t watch at least a couple times because they were a little scared. When it was over they said they enjoyed it and my middle daughter asked, “When it is out on dvd can we buy it and skip the scary parts?” My son, the youngest, wanted to go watch it again as soon as it was over. There was only one scene that really gave him trouble – due to a creature that was pretty creepy. For me as an adult – the film moved quickly and was full of some great action.
I think the Pevensie kids were cast very well. This really crushes the old BBC versions of the tales. I thought the acting was decent, Edmund really comes into his own and the girl that plays Lucie is just adorable. I’m so psyched for Voyage of the Dawn Treader that it isn’t funny.
Special effects were decent. Nothing new – and some bad cgi in a couple spots – but it was good. I wonder if budget is what drives that kind of thing. I’ve seen other films do better with things that were less complicated, so I assume the only difference is how much can be spent on making it right.
The Christian allegory is not as completely obvious as it is in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. At least I don’t think so. Of course it is still there – and Aslan is in it of course – and it is quite difficult to forget who he is supposed to be. For me, this is a strong part of the appeal to the story and the film. For others I guess it could be a drawback. I think it is interesting though, because I think a large part of what Lewis portrayed in this story is what makes some of my favorite recent authors so compelling. Right now I’m specifically thinking of Steven King and J.K. Rowling. It’s that theme of faith and doing the right thing, even when doing the right thing is really pretty much hopeless. (With King I think of this mostly in terms of stuff like The Stand and Dark Tower.) The protagonists can’t win on their own. They will lose. In the face of that, they don’t back down, but they push forward and it is faith that keeps them going. And that faith pays off in the end.
I think this has value and resonates with people well outside the circle that could be called Christianity. Of course, I make more specific connections and applications of the ideas in my life, but the bigger picture is there too. I guess the only people this would really bother are those who reject any external force or power that could step in and take action on behalf of the people. I would think that someone like say, Ayn Rand would find this film to be frustrating and stupid.
To sum up – I love the books, and this film is very different from the book in some ways but I believe it stays true to the heart of the story and is excellent.
Browsing Posts published in May, 2008
Reuters reports on a Harvard Medical School study on sleep patterns and how they relate to food. Researchers already knew that the sleep patterns of mice would change to match the opportunity to feed, but they did not know the mechanism that enabled the change. What I thought was most interesting was how the researchers looked for the part of the brain at work. They bred mice without a certain master gene, and then target various parts of the brain with the gene, delivered in the shell of a virus. The results may among other things, provide a new method for preparing to deal with jet lag.
I was doing some work using Google Docs today and noticed a new feature – off line access to my documents. I don’t know when this became available, but it is completely awesome. It works by using Google Gears to save files locally and sync them when an internet connection is detected. I need to read more about it. The Google Gears version is not 1.0 yet – so I assume they have a lot of features, etc. yet to write. I’m not sure how it handles concurrency on shared documents. I’ll have to set up an experiment with that at work or something.
Google Gears itself has been around for a while and slashdot has had posts about the launch as well as a piece about Brad Neuberg and Gears.
If you are interested, installing gears is easy – it is available as a plugin for firefox – I think you can install it on IE as well. I was going to put a bunch of Gears links here – but I think the best thing to do is just google, google gears. The top hits are all very good and will get you everything you need if you are interested.
I’d like to do some reading on the gears api – as it is open and creates a means for persistent storage with any web app. Oh – and if you are like me, once I had installed it and synced my docs- my first thought was “Where are they?” That is answered here. Not hard to find – but just thought I’d throw it in there.
In the NHL, there are three teams that I support – in the following order:
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Detroit Red Wings
- Phoenix Coyotes
Two of them are now going to be in the Stanley Cup finals. (And if you are not a hockey fan- the Coyotes are not one of the two. They haven’t even made the play-offs in a while.)
It’s not a dilemma for me- I’m pulling for the Penguins. They’ve always been my favorite team, even if I did grow up in a Red Wings family. The only thing that I don’t like about seeing them both in the finals is that if the Penguins lose, I will be hearing about it from my brother forever. It will be unbearable for quite a while. Makes it more exciting I guess, since I am much more motivated to care about the outcome.
In the sports realm- need to find somewhere to watch Wednesday’s game on a big screen. It’s on ESPN2, so I could watch it at home, but it seems that the Champions League deserves something bigger.
I don’t usually cross-post between my blogs. But I’m doing so here for a couple reasons. One is that the posts I’m going to mention would fit in really well over here – usually I don’t have stuff that I’m torn on where to post it. The second is that I don’t allow comments over there – for a host of reasons. But I’d like something up here in case someone reads and wants to discuss.
Basically I have been and will be writing down my thoughts in regards to mission/ministry and technology. The first is here, Connections Part 1 and the second is here, Connections Part 2. I’m just getting started but thought I’d point it out now.
