For some people the addition of the Green Mist and the Seven Swords was never something they were going to approve of, given that it is something which is not in the book. However, i personally felt going into the movie that it was something which had a (reasonably) logically sound basis for its inclusion and had just enough grounding in the book to make it acceptable. Afteral, its not that much of a stretch to view the Dark Island in the book as being a potential threat towards Narnia, and to then tie that in with the books' Seven Lords plot by having their swords be the method for defeating it - fair enough. It neatly establishes a "villain" for the story without having to add one in, and it neatly gives the existing Seven Lords plot a greater purpose in overcoming that "villain" simply by having each of them own a sword. But yet despite how simple it seemed to me on paper, i have to say the final product simply did not work. Not just in terms of its lack of faithfulness to the book, but simply as a movie plot device in its own right, i just felt it did not work.

I think part of the problem for me may simply of been that the characters repeatedly referred to it as the "Green Mist". In doing so i found it hard to make the connection back to the Dark Island in my mind, and so the concept continued to feel out-of-place with the story to me. Perhaps if the mist had been black and not refered to with such a name i would of found it easier to reconcile its presence with my own vision of how the story should be. On the whole though, on a purely cinematic level, and completely ignoring the books for a minute, i am kind of torn as to exactly what the main problem with the "Green Mist / Seven Swords" plot line was as far as the film goes.

On the one hand i felt that they didn't do enough to develop the background of the Green Mist or the Seven Swords. As a result of the heavily rushed first half, the basis for both concepts never seemed to be properly established and was never really developed. I'm all for plot elements having a certain mystery to them, but you actually have to establish that there is a mystery, not just fail to mention anything about them. I would very much of liked for example, a scene where they confront Gumpas about why it was necessary to offer victims as a sacrifice to the Mist. He wouldn't of had to of said much, just of given a sufficient snippet of information so as to raise a level of intrigue into proceedings, and make us as the audience curious to venture fowards. As it was, there was no real explanation as to why things were the way they were, we were just expected to accept it and move on.

Likewise with the swords, i never felt they were sufficently developed as a plot device for me to buy into the fact that they were capbable of defeating the Dark Island. Why does laying them at Aslan's table unleash their true magical powers? Who knows. I found it all the more odd that Edmund mentioned the presence of the Stone Knife at Aslans Table, and they even appeared to lay the swords on top of the Knife (as seen in the trailers), but its presence there was not in the least bit significant to the swords purpose. That seemed like a bit of a missed opportunity to me, and would perhaps have helped integrate the Mist/Swords plotline with the existing Narnian mythology to a greater degree.

So in that regard i felt they didn't do enough with the added plot to make it feel like a genuine part of the movie and not just a tacked-on extra. However, at the same time i also feel they did too much with both plot elements. For example, having the Green Mist repeatedly appear everytime a character was in a "temptation" moment just felt really heavy handed to me. I didn't really feel it helped in any of the character developments (if anything it hindered it by reducing any interesting character motivations to a mist-induced bewitchment), and i didn't really feel it helped in establishing the Dark Island's threat either. It just kind of floated around various scenes, giving us a visual indicator that some "temptation" was going down, but didn't really help to link up the various temptation moments to the overal plot in the way that it was perhaps intended. In that regard i would of preferred for them to do less with the Green Mist and to try and integrate it less into every scene. Likewsie with the swords it felt at times like they were putting too much focus on recovering the Swords, and next to no focus on rescuing the Lords - Caspian stated at the start that this was his sole purpose, but once the Swords/Mist plotline became established no-one seemed to care much that several lords turned up dead.

I honestly think they could of found a way to make the entire "Mist/Swords" idea work. Perhaps if they had just started from the basic premise of having the Dark Island as the central threat and finding the Seven Lords as being the key to defeating it, they could of wound up at an acceptable solution. However, knowing the route they came through, via the the LOTGK and her soul sucking cave of doom, its easy to see how they ended up where they did with the whole Green Mist eating slaves thing. On the whole it felt like a concept that had been considerably watered down from its original intent, but didn't quite have enough of its own backbone to standalone as a genuinely workable plot device.

If the intention of the movie is to tell the story about the green mist and 7 swords, then it was not done well.

But, really they are macguffins in a film meant to tell a story about the spiritual life and temptations. In that sense, neither mist nor swords bothered me that much. The main gist of the film remained intact.

What 7 swords plot? Honestly, I walked out of the theater remembering very little of the 7 swords stuff. The book parts were so outstanding compared to that that everything else takes a backseat.

I wish they'd left it out, but they weaved it in ok. The only part I thought should have been left out was at the Lone Islands with the mist and the boats.

What 7 swords plot? Honestly, I walked out of the theater remembering very little of the 7 swords stuff. The book parts were so outstanding compared to that that everything else takes a backseat.

I wish they'd left it out, but they weaved it in ok. The only part I thought should have been left out was at the Lone Islands with the mist and the boats.

Word for word agreement on this. After all the posts and video "analysis" about the swords and plot, I had to laugh at how innocuous the device ultimately was. I was just pumped the ending was left unchanged and that they actually showed the undragoning - something that is only talked about as a flashback in the book.

Honestly I thought very little of the Seven Swords plot. I don't think this added plot is what hurt the film. Rather its the film's lack of development on the plots.

I wish they had provided an explanation as to why the Green Mist was all of a sudden attacking Narnia (as the Dark Island had been around for hundreds of years why didnt it attack Narnia sooner?). I also didnt like how it looked like the Smoke Monster at times. That said, I did find it to be a good demonstration of spiritual warfare, if you view the mist as a demonic substance that can't be seen but can be very influential on how we are tempted by things.

However, when you really think about it, the Green Mist is just a substitute for the Serpant Cave (leaked script). The film followed the same general plotline of the leaked script (with a few exceptions). But they replaced Gumpass forcing the slaves down the serpant cave with Gumpas placing the slaves in boats for the Green Mist to consume. They replaced the Lady of the Green Kirtle being the Source of the dissapearances (as she was using the kidnapped slaves to raise an underground army), with the Dark Island being the source of the random dissapearances. They replaced Trumpkin searching for his missing wife with Gael searching for her mom. And they replaced the use of the knife that killed Aslan with the Seven Swords.

While the "Lost Souls" plots of the Leaked Script and the Movie are both complete departures from the book, I do think that the plotline in the leaked script would have made more sense and that it would appeal more to the casual fan (who is bound to get confused by the seven swords plot).

My biggest complaint boils down to that it just ended up being a bit lame. They did not give any explanation or backstory to the mist, the swords, Aslan's Table...all these things were important to the plot, but they were sort of forgotten about.

I have a theory about the whole seven swords plot which I will put in spoilers, since it refers to the early draft script.

Think about it. There's no main evil. There's no explanation why Aslan gave them the swords, or why they must be laid at Aslan's table (only that they MUST; but WHY?!? Why that particular place?) The scarified Lone Islanders serve no purpose...they're just floating around at the Dark Island, happy as clams and completely untouched.

LAME.

ETA: Okay, Josh beat me to the punch. Dang.
That being said, I don't think the Seven Swords plot ruined the movie by any means; and it definitely wasn't the main focus (at least for me). But it could have been a lot better executed.

There is enough from the leaked script in what I saw on film to convince me they didn't exactly start from scratch when Fox took over. Unfortunately for VDT the film, so much work had already been invested in that early draft that some of the ideas (mist, the darkness "eating" slaves) didn't entirely disappear.

I'd heard quite a bit about the 7 swords plot - despite some attempts to remain spoiler-free this time 'round - that it wasn't too bothersome. But the green mist was a distraction at times.

A reviewer on another website compared it to the Smoke Monster on LOST - and that's exactly what I thought about when it first appeared. It seemed strange that Lone Islanders had to be 'sacrificed' to this version of Smokey.

I appreciate that the appearance of the small, green tendrils of mist later in the movie represented envy/jealousy/temptation, but I would have preferred a slightly more subtle way of illustrating that point (for example, the undragoning's significance is nicely subtle).

One comment I heard after the movie was over concerned how the mist operated. At first, it tried to get people to do its bidding with mental manipulation - temptation to do something - but at the end it physically acted against Eustace. True, we learned earlier in the movie that it would be strongest as the last sword was gathered, but that's a pretty big change in how it operates. Instead, it could have pulled out all the stops in tempting Eustace mentally as it had others (though admittedly that would have taken longer and may have been too difficult to portray).

These are actually minor nitpicks, really. I went in knowing about the mist and the swords, so they weren't too disappointing.

So the mist has no causer? There is no reason why it attacks? See i don't think i like that. I think that seems very contrived and unrealistic.

This is why having the Lady of the Green Kirlte be the villain would have helped the film. They wouldnt even need to show her, but make it clear that she is responsible.

For one, in the leaked script we knew that she either enchanted Gumpas or had made a deal with him to feed the slavers to her Serpant Cave. But in the film Gumpas just sacrifices the slaves to the Green Mist for the heck of it. Why? Well, I guess we'll never know. Not unless they bring this up in the Silver Chair movie (very unlikely).

So they defeat the Dark Island Doom Resort and all the Lone Islanders are floating around, safe? Not insane from the trauma of their experience, not starving, not dehydrated? What, were they in stasis pods the whole time?

I know. I think there should have been some consequence for the people who got fed to the Darkness. Otherwise, the Green Mist isnt much of a threat?

Anyway, I originally thought everyone who got eaten by the mist had died.

There was a lot of unfinished information - the green mist never got explained, as if they were afraid of its being unsuitable for PG. Where did the people go in those boats and how long had they been there?
It looked like a Dr Who story not yet fully developed.

The swords were okay - except that as we know, the Telmarines weren't followers of Aslan, so why did he give them these swords? Unless we have to accept that the good ones were, and they were the Lords who went off to sea?
Sorry to have found that the linking plot wasn't as strong as I expected it to be, after I had accepted that it would be there.
Maybe that was why I ignored it too?

I didn't want corpses floating in the sea being feasted on by sharks or something truly disturbing like that, but at least some of those people should have died. To have them all alive in the end is the kind of unlikely happily ever after you get in books for very small children.