This thread (at least what I'm writing now) is more to do with the old Narnia movies than any upcoming ones, so I'm not sure if anyone will really care now that we finally have some exciting news about those. But I'm going to go ahead with it anyway because I think I have an interesting point to make here. 

There's this idea that keeps popping up in the Narniaweb Discussion Forums that the problem with Walden Media's Narnia adaptation is that they were too "action driven" and that they need to be "character driven" instead since that's (allegedly) what the books are like. There's some truth in this. Many of the scenes that were added to the stories by the movies were action scenes. I'd argue however that while the marketing campaign played up the action movie elements of each film, it can just as easily truly be said that an adaptation goal of the movie's was to make the stories more character driven than the books (by modern standards.) In fact, if we were to list all the scenes that were added by the movies, I think we'd find that were more character moments added than there were action scenes and even those action scenes sought to be character driven, sometimes to a heavy-handed extent. 

I'd also argue this emphasis on being character driven was directly responsible for some of the bits of artistic license that book fans disliked the most. 

You see, what modern screenwriters think of when they hear "character driven" is the story being driven by the personalities and choices of the main characters, not the supporting characters, often with an emphasis on character development and relationships. C. S. Lewis did a great job of characterizing his four leads in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in that he gave them each different enough personalities that whatever your own, you probably relate to one of them. But he wasn't trying to write a character driven story in the sense that modern writers imagine. The only main character whose choice has a big impact on the plot and whose character is particularly changed by the end is Edmund. Once all four children get to Narnia, the other three largely function as pawns that C. S. Lewis moves across his literary chessboard. He does a great job with very few words of implying their horror at the news of Edmund's betrayal and, in Peter's case, of implying a sense of guilt. But they have no particular inner lives that we experience. When things are good, they're happy. When they're bad, they're sad or scared. Their main thoughts that he shares with us are either their concern for their survival or their awe of Aslan. The book's climax is really about a conflict between Aslan and the White Witch with even Edmund reduced to passivity. (He does break the Witch's wand, but the book doesn't focus on that much.) 

In the LWW movie, on the other hand, the main characters, Peter and Susan anyway, are constantly questioning the prophecy and whether they could possibly fulfill it. A lot more emphasis is placed on their individual relationships with each other. (Peter and Susan argue when Edmund runs off and later when they have to cross the melting river, but she later supports him when he tries to take some of the blame for Edmund's betrayal. Susan and Lucy reminisce about their mother and how they used to have fun "before (Susan) got boring.") A major scene original to the movie is the four of them agreeing that they should all stay and fight in Narnia, not just Peter, with Edmund playing a major role in convincing everyone, reflecting his character development. The focus on the battle rather than on Aslan during the climax can be said to reflect the filmmakers desire for an action movie but it can just as easily be described as reflecting their desire to focus on whom they consider the most important characters. 

One of the changes to which fans of the book objected the most was Father Christmas declaring that the arrival of the Pevensies in Narnia was responsible for weakening the Witch's power, not Aslan's arrival as in the book. This had nothing to do with adding action, but it did have to do with making the story more character driven. From the screenwriters' perspective, having such a major positive development be caused by a supporting character rather than the leads would be the opposite of good character driven storytelling. 

In Prince Caspian, the filmmakers likewise tried to give Caspian more of an arc and have him drive the plot more by having him struggle against the desire to kill Miraz himself and ultimately decided not to do so. They also portrayed Peter as feeling guilty over "abandoning" Narnia after seeing what's happened to it in his absence. One of the most controversial things about this adaptation for fans was how unlikeable Peter came across. I wouldn't say this was inevitable with the goal of being character driven but it wasn't unrelated. Since they wanted Peter's character arc of rejecting Lucy's advice and then admitting he was wrong to be the emotional center of the movie, it makes sense that the filmmakers would make his flaws as noticeable as possible and have his redemption come at the climax, more or less, rather than two thirds of the way through the story. I think there's even a case to be made that adding a romance between Susan and Caspian was also a result of an emphasis on characterization. 

I admit The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the movie that fits into my thesis the least though I'd argue you can still tell making the story more character driven was a major goal of the adaptation. If it's not evident, that's because making the book "character driven" in the sense of everyone having an ongoing character arc is such a lost cause that the movie couldn't pull it off. While Eustace already had a readymade arc from the source material, flaws of Edmund and Lucy which only were the focus on brief scenes in book were emphasized in the movie to a rather forced extent. It's established early on that Edmund feels powerless in England, setting up his desire for gold and the power that comes with it on Deathwater Island, and that Lucy is jealous of Susan, setting up her interest in Coriankin's beauty spell. (I'd actually argue C. S. Lewis set that up too more subtly by having Susan be the one to go to America because adults think she's "the pretty one" and Edmund and Lucy "try(ing) not to grudge (her) her luck.") The movie even slows down before an action scene to include moments that stress Emund and Lucy have Learned Their Lessons, Edmund by saying Peter's sword isn't his to take and Lucy by telling Gael she should grow up to be just like herself. (Gael's self, not Lucy's.) Even Caspian wanting to leave his kingdom behind and go to Aslan's country is set up prior to the scene of it and given a more personal motive (he wants to see if his dead father is there) rather than being a reaction to the Silver Sea's magical aura. 

I'm not saying any of this suggest the movies improved on the books! I enjoy the latter more on the whole though I don't think all of the movies' original ideas are bad either. What am I saying? Well, I guess I'm a little tired of fans acting like making adaptations action oriented is the only way the adapters could go wrong and that what fans mean when they say they want Narnia to be character driven and what the screenwriters and directors think of when they hear the words, "character driven" may be two different things. If the people who made the 2005 LWW had not cared about making it character driven, they might have had Aslan be the one to return spring and Christmas to Narnia.