It was entirely too dark. The Chronicles of Narnia is a series geared towards all ages. You read into it the level you are and as you get older, you get more out of it. When I saw PC, I was walking out with a mom that regretted bringing her son to the movie because it was so dark and intense.

They aimed PC more at teenage boys and the teen crowd instead of making it all age friendly. You don't have to have Winnie the Pooh to make a all age friendly movie. You can still have drama and intensity and danger and still make it appropriate for a family of all ages. Take out the night raid or at least cut the intense scene at the end where Ed flies over the courtyard. Bring their ages down to match the book or at least shift the squabbling from two boys wanting to be in charge to two kings arguing over what's best for the country and the tone shifts just enough to bring the movie up to something even a seven year old can watch it without a problem.

Keep in mind, my biggest issues with the movie was more along the lines of the way Peter and Caspian squabbled. I think they could have shifted it to follow the line "We haven't come to take your place, but to put you into it" and it would have shifted the entire movie without changing the ages and they could have even included the night raid. As a whole, the movie worked. But I too thought it was dark for being The Chronicles of Narnia.

They aimed PC more at teenage boys and the teen crowd instead of making it all age friendly. You don't have to have Winnie the Pooh to make a all age friendly movie. You can still have drama and intensity and danger and still make it appropriate for a family of all ages. Take out the night raid or at least cut the intense scene at the end where Ed flies over the courtyard.

I could not disagree more. The scene in LWW where the witch kills Aslan is just as intense and dark as anything in PC, if not more so. And if someone were to make an accurate adaptation of the Last Battle it would make PC look like a walk in the park. I really like the way they handled the night raid. It showed that actions have consequences. The Chronicles have many dark moments in them. If a parent thinks it might be a little too intense for their small child than that's there job. The marketing for PC did show how violent it was. And it's really subjective as to whether a kid can handle it. My younger siblings all watch it and like it. The Chronicles shouldn't be made to pander to small children. I don't mean that they should try to be dark and scary. But that they should do what's needed to tell a great story. And in my opinion they did a great job for the most part on PC

Starkat, you've brought up an interesting point about Peter and Caspian's relationship. I'd never thought about their rivalry as adding to the darkness of the movie. I don't believe there was the malevolent intent between them that there was with Miraz. Miraz was evil and he was dark and that definitely needed to come through in the movie and I think it did. The problem that the writers faced with movie Peter was that William Moseley was too physically mature to play a 13 - 14 year old. Something in the movie was gonna have to give or else they were gonna have to replace WM. Had they kept Capsian the age he was in the book, it might have lightened the mood a bit but Peter's character arc would not have been nearly as interesting or impactful (IMO).

As far as parental concern over age appropriateness--this movie was rated PG and therefore could include brief nudity, strong language and violence. I don't think PC came close to overstepping those boundaries. Any parent taking a child below the age of 10 should have taken the rating into account and should have done his/her due diligence. I tend to agree with Aragorn 2 here--I know 9 & 10 year olds who saw PC and loved it.

I guess I'm still wondering Starkat, do you think book PC was dark? If so, do you think the movie was darker than the book or do you think that, regardless of book darkness, the movie(s) should be made in a way that it/they would have a 'G' rating and thus, readily accessible to all audiences? That would definitely make a difference in how one would judge this movie.

Oh I don't think they should have pandered to young kids either aragorn2. And I agree, the Stone Table scene was darker than anything in PC. The difference however was balance and hope. In LWW, there was a note of hope even in the darker spots. I think that may have been due to the fact I knew what was coming, but also they had Aslan in the final battle in the trailer as well. So pretty much everyone could tell there was something to come. They also balanced it better than PC.

PC was one overwhelmingly long dark toned movie. There wasn't the balance there that LWW and had. As for the book being dark, no. It was better balanced than the movie. I'm one of the few who has PC ranked as their favorite CoN book (after LWW of course, but still ). In the "walking and talking" that got cut out, is the scene with Aslan where the kids one by one come to see him and they get their orders from him. A break in the "Narnia is a more savage place then you remember" tone of the PC movie. The night raid was so intense, I still don't watch it. I usually skip the entire chapter on the dvd. The hopelessness of the scene is appropriate for what was written, but, like I said before, they could have done without that last flyover. Peter's devastation at leaving troops behind would have been enough. Trumpkin and Trufflehunter alone in the book pulled many of the darker moments up to something that even a seven year old could handle. In the movie, Trufflehunter was the only one who brought that by his faith in Aslan.

I think the argument shifting from two boys squabbling over who was "in charge" to two kings arguing what was best for their countrymen wouldn't have changed the dynamic that much and it would have brought Peter back to having the Narnian air play an effect on him. Something quite evident in the shift in the scene where he asks Dr. Cornelius to write the challenge to Miraz in the book. That same High King Peter moment doesn't come until Peter hands over his sword to Caspian in the duel in the movie. Entirely too late.

Keep in mind, I will watch PC again. I will continue to skip the night raid and the spot with the WW (a whole other argument not for this particular thread). But the reasons I've posted in this thread are the reasons I went to see LWW in theaters 9 times and PC only 5 or 6. I went more times with friends to see LWW than I did with PC as well.

That's interesting. Because if I had to pick my top 5 scenes from PC I would definitely put the Night Raid in there. I thought the "flyover" was absolutely brilliant way to get the point across.
I'm not sure what you mean by it being too intense though. Yes it is very intense but as I said earlier, far more horrible things happen in the Last Battle. The first 2 thirds of it are still probably the most depressing portion of a book I've ever read. And I've read a lot!

Liking this thread so far.

I never felt the PC film was too dark. I thought they hit a good tonal pitch. The story is about the despair of the old days being gone and the hope that they might return. You have to feel that despair. The shock of all those Old Narnians being trapped behind the Telmarine gate is appropriate. It's something that wouldn't have happened in the LWW-Narnia. That's where I think the audience really gets it: this is not the old Narnia. Something has fundamentally changed.

I applaud Adamson for not wimping out. It was the right thing to do.

The difference however was balance and hope.

I agree with you in a sense. I think PC did a good job of creating the despair of the old days being gone and the longing for their return. But, for whatever reason, I didn't feel a sense of joy when they did return.

So.... in that sense I suppose I do kind of think PC was too dark. But I hasten to add that I did not object to the dark scenes. I thought they were perfectly appropriate. The issue is the missing sense of joy at the end.

Whenever I re-watch PC, for the first half I catch myself wondering why I don't love the movie. Then, by the end, I think "Oh...right....that's why."

The scene in LWW where the witch kills Aslan is just as intense and dark as anything in PC, if not more so.

I disagree. The film never established Aslan as Narnia's only hope. So, for me, when he died it was just "aww poor CGI lion." I thought it was dark and kind of weird, but did not hit me very hard on an emotional level. I actually felt that the amount of time spent on Aslan's elaborate death seemed like overkill for a character we didn't get to know very well, and wasn't that important to the story.

(Very different in the book. Lewis has spent the entire story slowly creating a sense of mystery and anticipation about Aslan, and establishing him as Narnia's hope. His death is so unexpected, and spells certain doom for all of Narnia.)

I think one of the reasons I like the PC movie a little more than LWW is that I felt more emotionally engaged. With LWW, even though I really enjoyed the characters, I kind of felt emotionally detached for a lot of it. When they were running from the wolves, for example, I didn't really feel much.

I certainly like the first Narnia better. But I wouldn't call PC dark. Dark is a bad thing. I would just call the film more serious.

Starkat, you made a statement, "PC was one overwhelmingly dark toned movie" that got me to thinking, perhaps the issue is not the AMOUNT of darkness and light but the level or degree of each. I still believe the movie was appropriately dark--I mean, it deals with fratricide, murder and the slaughter of an indigenous population. That's DARK!! And there were periods of lightness in the movie (and I'm not talking about the jokes). But, both you and gP talked about BALANCE; I think that's important. What wasn't balanced were the degrees of dark and light. The darkness was to the point of despair so the 'lightness' needed to be greater than just 'happiness.' That's why I think gP introduced the right word--JOY. There really wasn't a scene of true joy. There was happiness--ding, dong, the witch is dead--but not joy.

My one disappointment with movie PC has always been that there was never an intimate scene between Peter and Aslan to show Peter's humility, Aslan's forgiveness and Peter's redemption. From the beginning of the movie, it was made clear that Peter's real conflict was with Aslan, not Caspian. That's why when Peter gives Caspian his sword, Peter's character arc isn't truly complete. We never get to see Peter resolve his 'Aslan dilemma' so, at the end of the movie, we're left with that feeling of wanting more. If done correctly, I think the Peter-Aslan scene could have provided the impetus for the JOY that the movie needed.

That's why I think gP introduced the right word--JOY. There really wasn't a scene of true joy. There was happiness--ding, dong, the witch is dead--but not joy.

I think that this was the danger of omitting that book romp around Narnia. I expect, just as in the BBC movie, this particular scene from the book was put into the too-hard basket by any film producer.

Starkat, you've brought up an interesting point about Peter and Caspian's relationship. I'd never thought about their rivalry as adding to the darkness of the movie. I don't believe there was the malevolent intent between them that there was with Miraz.

Neither did I. For once, seeing the rivalry between Peter and Caspian in the movie, I recognised that it was a good vehicle for imparting crucial information from the book, as squabbles often are in films, as in real life. The weakness of starting the movie with Caspian's escape from Miraz, and blowing the horn too early, was always going to be that nobody would have much time for the sorts of thorough explanations from Trumpkin which in the book left Peter clear as to what he was actually expected to do in Narnia, and more apt to own up to his 'leading wrong' when he finally meets Aslan. In the movie, I felt Peter's and Caspian's mutual suspicion was quite warranted, given that neither was particularly well-informed of what might happen when they finally met.

Such squabbles, no matter how petty or usefully altruistic, do add to the drama, especially when rivals aggressively pursue the matter beyond mere words, reasoning and debate. But in doing so, such aggressive squabbles do tend to make a movie darker, I'd agree. But come to think about it, in the book, Peter and Caspian only met during a fight, as in the movie, and Peter did find it necessary to state why he was there to reassure Caspian to forestall such squabbling.

Apart from the end battle which i skip when watching( as soon as catapults start slinging & before the whole underground cavern sub-plot) straight to Lucy finding Aslan in forest & waking the trees, PC is ta tops to me!

It's not exactly the book, but it's a companion, where you can look at the book and movie and see essential the same story told in slightly different versions, which is the most true to life in how stories are often too.

I think one of the reasons I like the PC movie a little more than LWW is that I felt more emotionally engaged.

I agree with you gP. And I would argue that the darkness of the movie has a lot to do with this. From the attempted murder of Caspian at the opening through to the end of the Night Raid, part of what makes you care about the characters is the darkness each is facing. Lighten the mood and you negatively impact the emotional involvement you feel.

Good topic, I've been wanting to jump in here for a while now but haven't had the time. I suspect I'm just going to repeat a lot of what was already said, but here's my own opinion.

Really, was [Prince Caspian] too dark?

'Too dark' is a relative term for me. Within the spectrum of movies for kids, I've seen a lot worse without as many complaints. Within the Narnia films as a whole, the darkest moment is when the White Witch stabs Aslan and I didn't hear many people complain about that. I think people who complained about the movie being too dark are comparing it directly to the book, so I'm just going to cite a few examples of the biggest complaints I heard, some of which have already been touched on here...

1. The night raid
2. The beheading of Sopespian
3. The character of Peter
4. The lack of joy

Ok, first up, the night raid. We all know what happens in the movie, they go attack the castle, they fail miserably, lots of Narnians die, Edmund flies over the battlefield surveying the carnage. In the book, there are many battles where the Narnians are defeated and take heavy losses, but Lewis doesn't go into details. There is no moment where you read about the emotional loss of life like where you see Glenstorm nod farewell to his son who is about to die. No mention of carnage strewn about on the battlefield. In fact, Lewis brings some humor into the situation by talking about Wimbleweather's tears splashing on the mice (at least, I thought it was funny ). So in comparing the book to the movie, the same thing happens with lots of Narnians dying in battle, but the way the movie portrayed it was far darker.

Next up, the beheading. I can't tell you how many times I read on some person's review about how horrific this was in the movie and they couldn't believe they took their kids to see it and the movie should have been PG-13! Outside of NarniaWeb and fans of the book, this was the number one complaint. Well, in the book, Sopespian was the one who was beheaded, but am I remembering right that in the movie it was just some random Telmarine soldier? Either way, this was straight out of the book, so sorry non-book fans! This was either the same or lighter than the book.

Onto the character of Peter. I know some people liked the way the filmmakers changed his character; they found it more realistic. But this change really affected the tone of the movie.
Movie Peter: A complete bully in the beginning / Book Peter: Maturely reminiscing about Narnia
M Peter: Bickering and belittling Trumpkin / B Peter: Befriending and respecting Trumpkin
M Peter: Meeting Caspian and arguing with him / B Peter: Telling Caspian he had come to make him King
M Peter: Killing off most of the Narnian army out of pride / B Peter: Actually saving the lives of Narnians by tricking Miraz into a duel and then WINNING the final battle
I could cite more examples as the list goes on and on, but the bottom line is Peter's negative attitude throughout the movie really affected it.

But the thing that made Prince Caspian a much darker movie than the book for me was that it was robbed of its joy. There was very little in the movie to contrast the dark parts that were in both the movie and the book. I understand that 'what works in a book doesn't always translate well to a movie.' Yeah, I get it. But there was plenty that would have worked that they changed or cut. Gone was Caspian's excitement of finding the Old Narnians and replaced with spilled soup and being attacked by a mouse. Gone was the excitement of the Pevensie finding and meeting Trumpkin and replaced with bickering and complaining. Gone was the excitement of the Pevensies and Trumpkin seeing Aslan again and replaced with a weird dream sequence. Gone was the excitement of Caspian and Trufflehunter meeting the high Kings from the past and replaced with more arguing and a failed night raid. Most of all, gone was the extremely fun and exciting romp with Aslan while freeing the oppressed Telmarine villagers and replaced with more dying Narnians.

For the record, with the exception of the character change to Peter, I thoroughly enjoyed PC for what it was. It was a very well-made fantasy movie! But for me, there's no question that the movie was darker than the book. As to whether or not it was TOO dark, that's a personal opinion. But for those looking for a movie with a closer adaptation to the book, I can totally understand why many thought it went too far.

You make some great points Starkat

But personally I can't tell you how glad I am they left out the romp through town turning men to trees and boy to pigs and cavorting all the while. I understand why Lewis put it in there and why a lot of fans appreciate it. But I think it feels completely random and out of place. I know it's supposed to contrast the gloom of the Telmarines. But I think it's way overdone. And I know anyone who wasn't familiar with the book would be rolling their eyes if the film makers tried to adapt it to screen.
It just wouldn't have worked at all.

Please don't hate me

I think that The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is a better film overall, but I quite like Prince Caspian, and the issues that I do have with it do NOT stem from the darkness. Indeed, the night raid scene is fantastic. I loved the decision to change Prince Caspian from a boy into a young man. It makes the film more believable, and allowed it to go to slightly darker places. Part of the reason that I loved the night raid scene was because it brought some actual stakes and consequences to the film. All to often - especially in what are ostensibly children's stories - there aren't any real negative consequences. That's an especially terrible thing when battles and wars are being shown. I'm not a parent, but if I was, I'd MUCH rather my child see a film that shows the negative effects of war than a film that sugar coats war and makes it look like a big glorious game.

When I was a kid, I remember ALWAYS liking the darker kids/family films most. They're the ones that I remembered. The ones I wanted to watch again. The ones that thought me something. I actually think it's too bad that so many people think that "kids movies" should be all cute and coddling, and I tend to think that C.S. Lewis would agree. His "kids stories" certainly aren't devoid of violence and darkness, after all.