Lift Up Your Hearts!

How can you take a book without one single battle scene and turn it into an action movie?

"How" is actually quite well answered by the makers of the most recent attempt to bring Narnia to Hollywood, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  But what I really meant by the question was, "Why would you want to do so, and where do you get the audacity?  If you want to tell a different story, why take someone else's character names and setting?"

But I've sung this same song a lot recently, most notably for The Lord of the Rings and the first two Narnia films, and it's getting wearisome.  If I'm tired of movies that rip the heart and beauty out of a book and try to pass their new creation off as the real thing, then others are surely tired of me whining about it.  Perhaps the action film, bratty teen, and self-esteem genres are the "heart language" of today, and the filmmakers should be commended for speaking to people in a language they can hear.  Maybe the door will open a crack for what I see as the true beauty and wonder of the books.

What I liked:

• Technically, the film is well done; I especially admire the way Reepicheep is animated. 
• Eustace, hardly one's favorite character in the book, is well played; the actor does a great job.
• The ending is reasonably depicted, despite passing over the wonders of the Last Sea, and eliminating the scene with the Lamb.

What I didn't like:

• The pervasive, dark creepiness.  For a story filled with sunshine and light, light so real that by the end of the book it is "drinkable," this is more than strange.  The center of the movie is not the bright goodness of the sun and the journey to Aslan's country, but a quest to conquer the evil of the Dark Island.  (In the book, Dark Island is but a short episode, and it's not conquered, but fled from, after Lord Rhoop is rescued.)
• As in the other movies, the children have lost their admirable innocence in favor of an egotistical self-centeredness.
• The re-taking of the Lone Islands, accomplished in the book by chivalry, loyalty, and intelligent action, without a drop of blood shed, is turned into a battle.  What's more, the point is completely missed that the evil of slavery is made possible by a collusion of profiteering and bureaucracy.
• As in Prince Caspian, Aslan comes across as a rather tame lion who drifts in and out of the story without affecting it much, rather than the point on which many of the episodes turn.
• The mysterious story in the magician's book, "about a cup and a sword and a tree and a green hill" is missing altogether, as is the point that Dark Island is "the land where dreams come true."  Also Ramandu, the retired star, being made younger by the fire-berries from the sun, and Caspian's battle with himself at the end of the world, along with many other stories that could easily have been fit in if so many battle scenes had not been added.
• The lesson Lucy learns from her struggles with the magician’s book has been changed from the perils of eavesdropping to the importance of self-esteem.
• The "un-dragoning" of Eustace occurs out of sequence, and is given short shrift.
• The significance of the Stone Knife at the table on Ramandu's Island is passed over completely, the enchantment of the lords being reduced to a punishment for fighting in a place where violence is not permitted.

The more I think of it, the odder the fighting in Dawn Treader appears.  Unlike Prince Caspian, in which battles are essential to much of the story—though even so I think the movie overdoes the point—Dawn Treader, the book, includes example after example of battles averted.  To name a few:

• Caspian is able to make the voyage because all Narnia is at peace.
• When approached by the slavers, Caspian insists on not being identified as the king, and resists Reepicheep’s suggestion of battle as being unwise in their disadvantageous position.
• The Lone Islands, as mentioned above, are retaken, and the slaves freed, with a show of (assumed) force and a strong will, but without a fight.
• Eustace, in dragon form, was indeed very useful to the others, but not as a fighter.  He explored the island, took his friends on rides, brought them a tree to replace the broken mast, and re-provisioned the ship by hunting wild goats and pigs.  “He was a very humane killer too, for he could dispatch a beast with one blow of his tail….”
• The sea serpent is not conquered by battle, but by cleverness.  “Others would have joined [in fighting] if at that moment Reepicheep had not called out, “Don’t fight!  Push!”
• The appearance of Aslan breaks the spell of Deathwater Island just as Caspian lays his hand on his sword to fight with Edmund.
• There is no battle with the Dufflepuds, although the Chief does once send his spear flying into a tree.  Reepicheep explains, “If we had any assurance of saving [Lucy] by battle, our duty would be very plain.  It appears to me that we have none.  And the service they ask of her is in no way contrary to her Majesty’s honour, but a noble and heroical act.”
• As mentioned earlier, after rescuing the Lord Rhoop, Caspian orders the ship to flee Dark Island with all speed, much to Reepicheep’s disappointment.
• The quarrel of the three lords at Ramandu’s Island is prevented from escalating to violence when one of them grabs the Knife of Stone, “a thing not right for him to touch,” sending them into the enchanted sleep.
• Reepicheep is distracted from answering the Sea King’s challenge to combat by his discovery that the water they are sailing in is no longer salty.
• As Reepicheep, the mighty warrior, heads off to Aslan’s country, he flings away his sword, saying, “I shall need it no more.”  (The inclusion of this scene is part of what makes the ending of the movie better than I had by that point come to expect.)

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie tells an interesting story, better than most these days, and if I did not know the book, I might have liked it.  I hope it is (has been?) successful enough to encourage the production of the rest of the Narnia series, even though I know I will continue to be disappointed.  I can’t recommend it to those who have higher hopes that their children will discover the glories of what C. S. Lewis wrote.  And yet …  I also can’t help thinking … hoping … that maybe the movies are a good thing for those whose alternative will not be the books, but something darker, more violent, and with less heroic goodness than these films have to offer.