I have an idea for adapting The Voyage of the Dawn Treader but I can think of as many cons for it as pros. Let's see what you guys think.
The idea is that after repairing the ship, the crew would actually leave Eustace the dragon on Dragon Island. (I know, I know. I'll write about the negative implications of this below.) Then after being undragoned, Eustace would wake up on the ship. This would be after a couple of islands (and if this adaptation is a series, a couple more episodes.) I feel like this would give the story more suspense as the viewers would be wondering what was going to happen to Eustace and it would keep them from getting bored with Dragon Island.
On the downside, it'd make the main characters look like horrible people if they just abandoned Eustace. Maybe they could have Eustace voluntarily stay behind. I know some fans didn't like Eustace being undragoned right after he fought off the sea serpent because they felt it made it look like he earned it though. And having Eustace let the others leave him on the island indefinitely would probably have the same effect.
And honestly I wouldn't like not having Eustace on any of the island. I didn't like that he was absent in the Deathwater scene in the VODT movie because I thought it would have been good character development for him to be one of the few characters (the only one really besides Reepicheep) not to be tempted by gold after his experience on Dragon Island. He has some great lines on the Island of the Voices. And the sea serpent episode is arguably pointless without him.
Despite all that....I really do feel the story might be engaging with this change.
For better or worse-for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?-hope was left behind.
-The God Beneath the Sea by Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen check out my new blog!
So just to be clear on your idea: Eustace gets turned into a dragon, the ship then decides they have no choice but to leave him behind, and then several islands later Eustace reappears on the ship in human form, and then we learn in flashback what happened in the interim?
I am not entirely sure if i see the precise logic in your suggestion (you offered a lot of cons, but I couldn't really see any definite pros?) but for me it all depends on what format they decide to go for the adaptation. For a single feature length movie, if you wanted to stick to a traditional 3 act story, and abide by conventional narrative character arcs, you would probably have to go down a very similar route to the Walden movie adaptation, otherwise Eustace's redemptive arc would conclude far too early in the movie to hit all the typical beats of a classic redemption story.
If you went with the TV show format however you would perhaps get a bit more freedom to stick closer to the book, as you can have individual story arcs play-out within the course of an episode.
To that end, i definitely think the "leave Eustace behind" bit works better in the movie format than the TV series format, because you can have Eustace return as a form of "Deus Ex Machina" at the conclusion of the movie to complete his arc, which i guess is kind of what happens in the Walden movie, but thinking about it now i've actually only ever seen than movie once, almost 10 years ago, because it was so bad.
I'd say Eustace's undragoning was already a deus ex machina in the book. He's already magically transported from the island to a mysterious garden and then back, possibly in his sleep, and given new clothes. I don't think it's that much of a stretch to have him be transported to the ship.
The pro I would say is that it would give viewers something to wonder about. Hypothetically, they're wondering about what happened to the seven lords and about what Aslan's country will be like-if the characters can even reach it. But that wondering is pretty much idle curiosity. Wondering how Eustace would be saved or if he could be saved would be actual suspense. But I'm not sure that's worth all the cons.
For better or worse-for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?-hope was left behind.
-The God Beneath the Sea by Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen check out my new blog!