The Adaptions Keep on Coming...

Watching adaptions is starting to become an extremely bad habit, because usually I don't like what I see. I thought it would be different with the third in the Narnia film series, because I loved the adaptions of the first two books. Like the "Lord of the Rings" series the movie versions of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian" were decently done. As with all adaptions there were flaws but they were relatively minuscule and the movies were fairly true to the story without being boring. This was not the case with "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", Michael Apted (the director of this particular adventure) turns what is essentially a road trip story into what seems to be a weird mix between a quest, a road trip, and a adventure movie.

The quest, is Prince Caspian, the two youngest Pevensie kids (Lucy and Edmund), their cousin Eustace, and the crew of the Dawn Treader, going out to sea to find the lords of Prince Caspian's fathers court. The road trip and the adventure story, is how they get to the different islands and what they do out at sea and on said islands.

 What makes this movie so bizarre is the addition of a villain who doesn't seem to have any goals, distinct shape, or the ability to achieve those non existent goals. Said villain is a shape shifting black miasma, with absolutely no reason to exist. Said clouds life ends pointlessly as a sea serpent. Basically what I'm saying is that if you're going to add a villain to a story without one, at least make them make believable. 

Positive Posting

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While continuously pointing out the flaws in mediocre movies is enjoyable, being so negative all the time is depressing. Therefore this blog I shall attempt the impossible and write positively about an adaptation.

Last blog I gave my general opinion on adaptations, for the most part they’re not that good (especially the remakes of comic series (with very few exceptions)). This usually has to do with the story (basically the most important aspect of the movie) being utterly unfaithful to the original source material, or just not being creative enough to really bother seeing. However there is an exception to every rule and in my case I find “The Lord of The Rings (originally written by J. R. R. Tolkien)” movie series (directed by Peter Jackson) to be an exceptional example of what adaptations can be if they’re done right.

I have this opinion of this set of adaptations for several reasons. Firstly the cinematography is breath taking. The Shire is pretty much exactly what I pictured when I first read the books, Rivendell is beautiful (which is to be expected), Moria is an incredibly creepy underground labyrinth, ect. The design of the supernatural beings, the Ringwraiths, Orcs, Trolls, Ents, ect, is just plain good. The music is epic, the characters are great (Sam is my favorite) I could go on. But what I like most about these movies is the story.

Frankly it’s just done well. Partially because the right people were found to play the main characters. Also partially because redundant characters from the books (e.g. Tom Bombadil) have been removed. Lastly there is also the pro that the movie doesn’t take two chapters to describe something that could be said in a paragraph. Or in film terms, a few minutes and several good close ups, wide shots, tracking shots, panning shots, ect.