Desecrated is a strong word.
If you recall, yesterday I said that I was pleasantly surprised by how good movie of The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe was. I am a huge Chronicles of Narnia fan.
However, I believe that they are progressively destroying the fabric of the series with each movie they make.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was great.
Prince Caspian was… less than great.
They made a lot of changes that I felt were un-necessary, and the book was almost unrecognisable. It still made a decent adventure story, but I felt that much of the original was sacrificed to try and make it more exciting for the big screen.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was…
Terrible.
As an adventure movie it was confusing and disjointed. As an adaptation of the book it was so different that I challenge anyone to prove it was based on it.
And this is more than just me being a purist. I can accept changes to the plot, and characters, but they went one step further… they changed the purpose of the book. C.S. Lewis wrote all his Narnia books as allegories for Christianity. Some of the key theological points made in the story were reversed!
For example, Eustace Scrubb earns redemption through his actions, not his faith. The line about him realising in a dream that he could not be free without Aslan’s help, is removed and replaced with him being freed from his transformation as a reward for helping the good guys.
Some of the best bits were not just ruined, they were changed to actually mean the opposite of what the author intended. Not cool.
The sad thing is that there are very good movie and television versions of the films made for BBC. However the latest versions are all being transformed into something they are not to try and make them appeal to a mass market, who have never actually read the books.
I would say it was a good thing if it were encouraging people to read the books, but I suspect they will give up after a few because “They aren’t the same as the movies.”
Sad.
Seven's Heaven 