Prince Caspian: The Book vs. The Movie

On Saturday night I saw the movie Prince Caspian and yesterday I finished rereading the book. Much like the movie version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I felt like Prince Caspian the movie was so-so. After Peter Jackson’s incredible version of The Lord of the Rings, it’s just hard for The Chronicles of Narnia to measure up.

Prince Caspian is a great example of not measuring up, and I didn’t realize how badly until I finished rereading the book. The movie felt like lots of battle and not enough exposition in between. You never quite knew what was happening or why. The book is about the exact opposite: very little battle and loads of exposition in between. Turns out both battles in the movie (the raid on Miraz’s castle and the epic battle between the Telmarines and Narnians) aren’t even in the book (well, the epic battle is sort of in the book, though Caspian, Peter and Edmund fight for mere moments before Aslan shows up).

Seems like a bizarre choice to pump Prince Caspian full of battles when LOTR already covered that ground better than anyone will for a long while. I realize they needed to make the movie more epic and more climactic, but it seems like they were telling a different story.

3 thoughts on “Prince Caspian: The Book vs. The Movie”

  1. I’ve been wanting to go read Caspian again, since the movie was nothing like I remembered from the book. But I haven’t read the book in a long, long time. I found the movie to be rather bland, since I don’t get particularly excited when watching lots of violence for no apparent reason.

  2. haven’t seen Prince Caspian yet but definitely looking forward to it… i’ll have to look over the book one more time just to remind myself how the original story goes

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