To me, Micheal Flaherty is right about proposed type of tone for MN.

VODT's controversy for this maybe isn't that it was too light, could just be that there wasn't enough screen time to properly tell the story, making it seem like the tone was too light.The backstory of the lost lords searching for the swords is sneeze and you miss it depth as to the Green Mist mystery story element (in fact i'm not sure if this is there at all ) beyond it's danger.

The tone is good and gives balance to the very character driven PC (which as much as i like, the Cons need to be balanced).To me, MN would be character driven light and Narnia story driven heavy, the anchor more being this Fantastical Narnia episode itself.

Beyond that, the back story of Charn has alot of potential too, could be shown in painting moving images or something or some portal type thing that Diggory & Polly get to observe in and we get to see it played out for a few minutes leading up to the last war - or the whole thing could be a major episode in MN. Apart from being very cinematic and epic, it would also relate because the individual Con's are about different times in the Narnia timeframes/history too, just more in depth, all the way to the Last Battle.

For SC tone, how about a spooky ghost story/monster type tone?
(I'm not suggesting that the story itself be made about ghosts/monsters!)

The truth is, I don't think PC really was dark. At all. It just... was a bad adaptation. The best thing about the book is the characters. Getting to know trumpkin, Reep, trufflehunter, Nikabrik, Doctor Cornelius. We didn't really get to do that in the film. Some of the characters seemed to changed as well. Reep didn't feel as lovable to me. And Trumpkin, especially, seemed much different to me than in the book. he acted cranky and rude, more like nikabrik. Whereas, in the book, Trumpkin is very respectful to the kings and Queens (after he finds out who they are and believes them), and is actually very kind.

Plus, the humor was a bit cheesy.

And a lot of the best scenes were edited out, just to make room for more battles and unnecessary moments.

I think that's why PC did so badly.

~Riella

I voted for not too dark/book adaptation issues. There's basically one scene in the entire movie that is genuinely dark and that's the massacre of the Narnians in the Night Raid. But this is a PG rated movie! I'm rather tired of parents not willing to make the effort to find out why a movie is given a particular rating, taking their obviously too young children to see the film, and then having a raging hissy fit because little 5 year old Johnny and Jilly had nightmares about minotaurs dying horribly. If you're too lazy to do some simple research, don't whinge and cry when you get burned.

But this is a PG rated movie! I'm rather tired of parents not willing to make the effort to find out why a movie is given a particular rating, taking their obviously too young children to see the film, and then having a raging hissy fit because little 5 year old Johnny and Jilly had nightmares about minotaurs dying horribly. If you're too lazy to do some simple research, don't whinge and cry when you get burned

.

Here! Here! You never said a truer word! This is what I have been saying about books and films, whether LOTR, Narnia, Harry Potter, or the Owls of Ga'hoole. We have PG movies so that accompanying parents can discuss the film with their children, so giving them a better appreciation of the movie, the issues in the movie, and also the chance to explain what the parent's values might be. If they don't want to do this, they should only go to General movies, and even then I'd say a bit of parental guidance and research would be advisable.

To be fair to parents, in some cases the accompanying adults could be lazy grandparents, who thought they were giving their grandchildren a treat, who weren't really interested in such a movie themselves, and who might be at a bit of a loss when confronted with crying children. Perhaps they blame the movie for tired or overly imaginative children rather than their out-of-date parenting skills. There wasn't a ratings system in use when I was five years old, but I don't remember people blaming The Crusades or Titanic when those 1950's movies gave me nightmares. I doubt that PC was anywhere near as dark as those movies.

At least I never noticed any problems with 5 year old children who went to see VDT. They seemed to adore the movie. But I did see 5 year old children crying throughout a screening of the last Madagascar film, a G rated film. I should have thought that the dialogue in that movie would have gone over their heads.

ok, sometimes I want to re-title this thread and call it "Narniaweb: It's A Dark Place"
I wish there wasn't so much negativity on the forum sometimes.....

Lewis didn't set out to write stories that were cute and 'kid friendly', he set out to write books that spoke to the kids of his day.

what surprises me is the parents to complain that movies like PC are too 'dark' for their kids and then they let their kids go watch Twilight or Harry Potter without a second thought. what's the difference? if anything, PC is so much less scary than the themes in Twilight and the latest Harry Potter movie has been deemed by some as the scariest HP movie yet.
I think that it's all about popularity. HP and Twilight are popular and so kids see it sometimes because their friends see it.

Mr. Flaugherty's interview really makes me wonder how well these movie makers really read the book. He states that PC had to be changed because it is a "dark war kind of story" and they had to "pull back a little" citing that Peter beheads a "couple" of people and they all "get drunk" in the end.

I don't understand this at all. Where exactly did they "pull back" from the darkness? In the book Peter only beheads one person, not a couple of people and they left that in the movie, PG version though it was. That part is not important to the overall story, they could have easily left it out and it wouldn't have changed the story at all. And I have been reading these books for 30 some odd years-I've probably read each of them at least 50 times. I never once got the impression that anybody was drunk during that part of PC. I know that if you do a little research you find some pretty racy stuff on Bacchus and Silenus but most people don't even know who these characters are much less what they represented in Greek mythology. You don't even have to have those characters to get across the message of this scene--its a parade of people who are joyfully celebrating freedom at last. What is he saying? That you can't show a scene of Aslan reawakening Narnia without showing a drunken orgy? So they had to cut it all together?

So their idea of "pulling back" on the darkness was to take away the selfless hero, drop the lovable characters, delete all scenes that show the Narnia we remember from the first movie and add in longer battles and a night raid that was more gruesome than anything in the book?

The Narnia books are no darker than Snow White, Sleeping Beauty or Hansel and Gretel. Movie PC was far darker than book PC and it was their own choice to make it so. That being said, with the exception of the night raid, I didn't find the movie to be overly dark.

As far as children are concerned, Parental Guidance means exactly that, and the Narnia movies don't try to hide the fact that they depict battles and killing. My kids and I have had some very interesting discussions on war and slavery as a result of reading these books.

Bookwrym, Liberty Hoffman, and fireheart209, you have all summed it up perfectly.

You know, I find it quite interesting. While out shopping some time back, I noticed a big display for Thor in the toy department. Now, this is a PG-13 movie, so I'm not really sure why it's being advertised to children. Of course they're going to want to see it and probably they will. This isn't the first time either (Jurassic Park for example. Any more, fill in the blank). But... we have a problem with the "darker" side of PC? I'm not sure I get it.

I'm sorry, but the darker side has to be a part of Narnia. What would LWW be without the raid sequence in the beginning or Aslan's sacrifice? What matters is that the violence or dark side isn't over glorified or promoted. These themes are just a part of our reality. This helps in the reality of Narnia, it's a real place with real problems and danger. If it wasn't there, we might have a problem believing in Tumnus or centaurs or any of the mythical characters as real beings. They would probably just seem silly to us. You balance the evil with triumph in the end. I believe C.S. Lewis had a quote about that (I wish I could remember what it was to the exact, but it was about letting there be beheadings and evil in the story, with the hero triumphant in the end). If someone can find the exact quuote for me, I know it would be of importance here.

Bookwrym, Liberty Hoffman, and fireheart209, you have all summed it up perfectly.

Indeed they did! You did as well!

You know, I find it quite interesting. While out shopping some time back, I noticed a big display for Thor in the toy department. Now, this is a PG-13 movie, so I'm not really sure why it's being advertised to children. Of course they're going to want to see it and probably they will. This isn't the first time either (Jurassic Park for example. Any more, fill in the blank). But... we have a problem with the "darker" side of PC? I'm not sure I get it.

Not to mention Tron: Legacy which had a similar rating and violence level as PC in my opinion and got no complaints. (Just thought I'd mention I started watching JP when I was 8 and had no side effects. In fact I love those movies about as much as I love Narnia.) And there's movies like Watership Down which also came out before the ratings system, but was an animated film based fairly closely to book. But unlike most animated films that I know it didn't shy away from showing the bloody or violent parts. And speaking of animated movies, what about things like Mulan, Bambi, or The Lion King they have their fair share of battles and death as well, but few will argue against them being suitiable for kids.

Though I still think the Nightraid was too much, at least the ending was. So was that added scene where Peter and Caspian nearly took each other's throats out right after. And the train station fight. In fact the only reason I say PC was too violent, was because the scenes they added were too violent. The book stuff IMO was fine. (Oh and there's drinking in the Aristocats, and All Dogs Go to Heaven if I recall .)

wolfloversk, let's not forget the animated film We're Back! (nice listing of animated films with intense moments by the way). I probably saw this film for the first time when I was five. I didn't have any problems with it at that age and it does have its frightening moments, not to mention blood and a small amount of violence- the villian at the end certainly has an interesting demise. This is also a G rated film. On the drinking moment you listed above, don't even get me started about all the old G films with smoking (seriously, when and how is this a problem?). It just seems to me that kids today are being... what's the word I want?... tiptoed around the reality of the world. These types of films put in a way for them to understand, dark moments and all.

^ True. Screweyes scared the heck outof me when I was a kid and it didn't scar me for life.

Not to mention Tron: Legacy which had a similar rating and violence level as PC in my opinion and got no complaints. (Just thought I'd mention I started watching JP when I was 8 and had no side effects.

Tron:Legacy was marketed for teens and young adults, not as a children's film. That makes a huge difference. They don't have to worry so much about alienating little kids if families are supplemental fan base, rather than the target fan base. According to BMO, 75% of the audience were over 18. I also think it's worth noting that Tron Legacy didn't do as well as PC at the box office.

Others are comparing PC to Twilight, but Twilight shouldn't be compared to PC either for similar reasons. While I haven't seen those movies, I have seen the marketing (who hasn't?), and it's clearly aimed at the teen/young adult demographic.

The Narnia books, on the other hand, were intended to introduce pre-adolescent children to the wonders of imaginative story telling. While the books, and the first movie, have subtle, complex themes that would engage more mature audiences (except for the stupidest grown-ups, who are, after all, the most grown up), if a piece of literature/film is not accessible to upper elementary children, it simply isn't Narnia. Granted, I feel this objection could be applied to VDT as well. I think that film would turn off many 10-year-olds, though for the opposite reason.

One thing that some, including Bandido, are forgetting is that the general reaction to PC was two-part. The film was considered too dark AND not magical enough. It didn't have any of the magical charm of the first film, whereas all of the books, have some of that, although it's developed differently. This isn't stictly an objection of the "moral police." I have a 22-year-old sister who had a problem with the violence in PC. Not because it was scary or offensive, but because it was clichéd and she felt it was used as a substitute for effective story telling. In her words "That wasn't Narnia, that was a dumb action movie." I've seen critics who had similar problems with the "darkness" in PC, on artistic not moral grounds.

I feel like this word "dark" gets thrown around so much that I'm not sure what it means anymore. That being said...

PC had some adaptation problems...but the level of darkness was not one of them.

The idea of the kids coming back and finding that the LWW-Narnia they knew has been swept away, the innocence lost, is so central. Narnia is now occupied by humans who drove them into hiding and now deny they ever existed. PC is about the sadness of the old days being gone and the hope that they might return. What was wronged must now be put right again.

Tron:Legacy was marketed for teens and young adults, not as a children's film. That makes a huge difference.

I think it's very important that we not confuse the issue. Weather or not PC was marketed correctly is for another thread entirely. I think the point of this thread is if the level and quality of the darkness in the PC film is faithful to the book.

if a piece of literature/film is not accessible to upper elementary children, it simply isn't Narnia

I see what you're getting at, and I might agree if you replaced "simply" with "probably." I think the problem is that kids today have a short attention span. If a film is not accessible to them, it's possible they are to blame. Not the film. I really don't want the filmmakers to dumb down the books for modern audiences.

Also keep in mind that Lewis had a very different idea of what a childrens story was then most people today do. Lewis said that if he enjoyed a story as a child but not as an adult, it was not worth reading in the first place. He also observed that he got more out of his favorite fairy tales when he read them as an adult then as a child.

I suspect Lewis was writing for kids who had much larger attention spans.

The idea of the kids coming back and finding that the LWW-Narnia they knew has been swept away, the innocence lost, is so central. Narnia is now occupied by humans who drove them into hiding and now deny they ever existed. PC is about the sadness of the old days being gone and the hope that they might return. What was wronged must now be put right again.

But there are elements of light and magic interwoven with the darker elements. For example, Caspian's wonder and excitement when he discovers that the fantastical legends that he knew as bed time stories were actually true and alive. Also, there was the joy of Narnia returning to itself and the people and animals being liberated from Miraz' rule. I don't feel the film captured those elements at all. Basically, I thought that the book PC was only a shade darker than the book LWW (let's not forget that LWW had dark elements as well), but the films had dramatically different tones.

I think it's very important that we not confuse the issue. Weather or not PC was marketed correctly is for another thread entirely. I think the point of this thread is if the level and quality of the darkness in the PC film is faithful to the book.

No, the point of this thread is determining which was a bigger issue, the dark tone or the fidelity to the book. If the question was "Is the darkness faithful to the book?" then "too dark/no book-to-film issues" wouldn't be an option on the poll. Darkness and fidelity to the book are treated as two different dimensions of the problem.

Also, the issue of why audiences complain about PC, but not various other films has come up repeatedly throughout this thread, which is why I'm addressing it.

Also keep in mind that Lewis had a very different idea of what a childrens story was then most people today do.

The popularity of the LWW film suggests otherwise. I didn't feel like that was at all lightened compared to the book. Altered, yes, but not lightened.

I suspect Lewis was writing for kids who had much larger attention spans.

You're forgetting how short the book was. The film dwelled at length on elements that were glossed over or barely mentioned in the book. I've never timed myself reading a Narnia book, but I'm pretty sure you could read the book PC in less time than it takes to watch the movie. The problem with PC and the Narnia target audience is that, in many points, PC feels more like a period drama, like 1492 for example, than a children's fantasy film. Although the violence does make it darker, the overall aesthetic contributes to that even more. I grew up on old movies, and I have to say, children's movies didn't look like CoN: Prince Caspian back in those days.

Prince Caspian was NOT too dark. If anything, it should have been darker, and had not included so much attempts at comic relief.

Prince Caspian was advertised as a dark film with lines like "You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember" and "Narnia is about to be anihilated!" being constantly spoken. Notice that the trailers constantly showed nothing but the battles and the ressurection of the White Witch scene? It was pretty much trying to scream "This is like Lord of the Rings! Teens, WATCH THIS!!"

The fact is that when the teens saw the PG rating they knew that the film wouldnt be the Lord of the Rings like war movie it was advertised as so they went to see Iron Man.

As for parents...I don't see the problem. Prince Caspian was not that much darker than LWW. In fact, most younger kids found the White Witch more frightening than Miraz. I just think the lack of "cute" scenes involving Tumnus and the Beavers and the reduction of Aslan's role made parents feel that there was too much emphasis on the battles.

But really, were they that bad? The PG Harry Potters, and several other fantasy films had much worse in them. In addition, it's not the end of the world if a kid gets scared in the movie. Did it ever occur to people that maybe the point of a werewolf or a battle is that IT'S SUPPOSSED TO BE INTENSE!!! If your little 8 year old is comfortable and non scared during a movie then the movie becomes BORING!!! This film does have some intense moments, but I seriously doubt they are the stuff that would scar anyone within the target audience (8 and up).

If any parent took a kid under 8 years old to the movie and they got scared, it's really the parents fault. They could do just a 5 minute online search to see what the content was in the movie or if they wanted to be really protective they could go see it themselves instead of whining to the filmakers who did nothing wrong.

Really enjoying this thread so far. Lots of interesting posts.

But there are elements of light and magic interwoven with the darker elements. For example, Caspian's wonder and excitement when he discovers that the fantastical legends that he knew as bed time stories were actually true and alive. Also, there was the joy of Narnia returning to itself and the people and animals being liberated from Miraz' rule.

I pretty much agree. I think the PC film did a good job on the sadness of the old days being gone, and the longing for them to return....But didn't do a good job on the joy when they did return. And the way they returned was wrong: They emphasized brute force, as opposed to the book where they won over the hearts of the Telmarine people. I like the first two acts of PC, and then it all kind of falls apart in the third.

No, the point of this thread is determining which was a bigger issue, the dark tone or the fidelity to the book. If the question was "Is the darkness faithful to the book?" then "too dark/no book-to-film issues" wouldn't be an option on the poll.

Good observation, I stand corrected. Thank you.

Also keep in mind that Lewis had a very different idea of what a childrens story was then most people today do.

The popularity of the LWW film suggests otherwise. I didn't feel like that was at all lightened compared to the book. Altered, yes, but not lightened.

Hmmm. Could you elaborate on that more? I may be misunderstanding your point here. It seems to me that the film's huge popularity (as far as box office at least) indicates that it appealed to both kids and adults. I think if it only appealed to kids, it would probably not have grossed $745m.

You're forgetting how short the book was. The film dwelled at length on elements that were glossed over or barely mentioned in the book.

The book on tape is 4 hours, so reading it for yourself probably takes about 2 hours...about the same length as the film. In any case, reading generally requires a larger attention span than a film, and all the visually pleasing aspects of the book (such as the battles) were expanded in the movie. (Sorry, I think I may be misunderstanding your point again)

I think modern audiences don't really want to watch movies. They just want to look at them. If the films are not accessible to that audience, I think that indicates they're on the right track.
I don't want them to dumb down the films for that audience. The first two films did this, but not to an intolerable extent. The third film was made for that audience.

As a sidenote: There are also many things in the book that the movie only skimmed over. Such as Caspian's backstory, the discovery of the Cair ruins, Caspian meeting the Old Narnians, and a whole lot of awesome dialogue during the "Sorcery and Sudden Vengeance" chapter. And of course, tragically, the romp with Bacchus and Silenus was cut out entirely.
In LWW, the movie skimmed the snow melting , Aslan restoring the statues. , and Edmund's journey to the Witch's house. They also cut down the Beavers dinner scene, and took a totally different approach to it, making the dialogue fast-paced and adding a lot of humor. A far cry from the scene in the book, which has a quiet, mysterious feel.
VDT basically skimmed (or totally cut out) all the most important parts of the book, such as Reepicheep's longing, and the build-up/anticipation for the world's end.