Prince Caspian
May. 17th, 2008 04:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI have to preface this by saying it was on Disney's dime – such is the vastness of the Company that they booked every cinema at the theatre (every theatre at the cinema?) to show their local employees this morning. Would my opinion be different if I paid full evening price for it? Maybe. I think it has to do more with never having read the book, being optimistic but not overly worked up for it, and just looking for a spot of fun.
And ... it was fun ...
I mean, understand here, I thought Pirates 3 was fun... it didn't make any sense whatsoever but it was a great time if you just gave up and went with the flow. Caspian makes significantly more sense than that, which might be a little bit of its downfall, because you're coaxed into believing it enough that when something unbelievable happens, a red flag comes up.
My main reason for not liking it as much as the first one is that it doesn't feel like it's about anything. The first one had its whole Christian allegory going on (subtly, which was a relief, but it was at least a unifying theme) and on the surface was about reawakening a land, instilling hope, and overthrowing an oppressor. Caspian seems like mostly a succession drama, which is not really engaging, with a dash of overthrowing an oppressor but not enough to convince you of its necessity. Just how bad were the Telmarines? They seemed to be absentee landlords for the most part; they hadn't even finished the bridge into Narnia and appeared to avoid the place, yet they've been 'ruling' it for hundreds of years? The White Whitch goes around turning people into stone! Now THAT's oppression! There also wasn't much by way of personalities working at cross purposes ... LW&W's strength was the moral fallibility of its characters, with Edmund's and Tumnus's betrayals and suchlike, whereas Caspian's characters were pretty evenly divided into Good and Bad with little or no crossover between the two. The closest we get to fallible is the number of times (possibly too many) that Peter learns his lesson for being cocky. The pacing was good, I never got bored, and the story fit together well enough ... the raid on the castle, which I just learned was added for the movie, seemed well-integrated into the plot as a whole and I find it hard to imagine the story without it, at least because this was the only time we really got to see characters bouncing off each other, even though the largest logic hole in the entire movie comes near the end of it. What annoyed me most about the plot was the deus ex machina at the end – can the Narnians ever win something on their own without running to Aslan? Or does this venture onto theological ground that the filmmakers didn't want to tread?
Cinematically, it all held together well enough ... there wasn't any terribly exciting camera work but it wasn't boring either. It all supported the story, no matter how much I am of the opinion that the follow-the-arrow-in-flight shot should be forbidden except in cases of parody. Also, the moral of the story appeared to be 'don't stand and look back regretfully/longingly/wistfully/angrily/with horror at any time.' There was an awful lot of that, and almost always it put the character at a disadvantage. Just GO! Stop staring and GO! Was this intended to provoke this reaction or does Mr Adamson have a soft spot for lingering?
The acting I find hard to comment on because I am no great fan of C.S. Lewis – all his dialogue sounds a bit stilted to me, so if it's delivered in a less than naturalistic way it just feels in style, whether it came from his pen or someone else's. It was stilted, but for what it was, it seemed fine to me, or at least was consistent. You'll just have to make up your own mind in that arena.
The effects, now, I can comment on, because wow. This movie may be the best yet for the seamless incorporation of CG characters. They were all lit, rendered, and composited beautifully. The only giveaway that they were CG most of the time (aside from being talking animals and suchlike, of course) was, I'm guessing, something about the rigging ... There still seems to be a bit of trouble with mammals, especially those with loose skin. Either they end up looking really overanimated (like the wolves in LW&W) or like a plastic model with a fur coat glued on, not something with bones and muscles moving underneath skin and fur. Is it because the skin/fur is tied to a specific spot on the body mesh? I noticed this especially with the badger, who in real life would look more like a fur bag full of muscle than a stuffed animal. I don't mean this to be too harsh a criticism; I know there's only so much you can do in CG. Goodness knows furry animals have come a long way in the last ten years. Mammals with tauter skin, such as horses, for example, looked a lot better, and the birds ... damn can they ever do wings. Props to the bird nerd at Framestore. And to everyone, really – for all Syd's stories of production hell they didn't let any of that show in their work. I was only disappointed by Reepicheep, and this is only because I'd come into the movie with swashbuckling rodents being the main thing I was looking forward to. Why did they style his facial fur like Puss in Boots'? Why? The swordfighting scenes I was hoping for were basically cancelled by him having no one his size to duel with. Oh well. I really liked the trees ... I thought they used their tree-ness (arboreality?) much better than the Ents in LotR which seemed like giant wooden (or foam rubber) people most of the time, though this is probably down to author's vision more than effects department. Speaking of which, and if you've read The Silmarillion you'll know what I'm talking about, Lewis and Tolkien were friends, but did their friendship extend to sharing mythological creatures, i.e. Ulmo? There is no way that isn't Ulmo. The feeling of shared universes isn't helped by the shared locations ... that's obviously Fangorn at the Prince's escape.
I think I've been unfairly critical so far – I did enjoy it as a whole. These are the things I enjoyed:
Oo pretty!
Siege weapons!
Somewhere in New Zealand that looks like Lynn Canyon!
Ruins!
Badgerland, Badgerland, Badgerlaaand (it's Badgical)!
Cunning plans gone wrong o noes!
Guilt re: above!
Costumes! (I hope Susan's dress comes to FIDM next year cos I want a good look at it)
Siege weapons!
Archery!
Chase scenes!
Siege weapons!
A great big army descending on the holdout of plucky good guys ... with their siege weapons!
Cunning!
Ulmo!
The Tube!
Artwork created for the film that actually looks medieval! (ahem Black family 'tapestry' coff coff)
Men bashing each other with swords!
That just about covers it. Except for this:
DON'T LOOK AT THE FOLLOWING IF a) you haven't seen Prince Caspian yet AND b)you don't want a major distraction through the whole movie.
I recently rewatched The Three Amigos while hunting for dialogue to animate. Little did I know it would bug me while watching Prince Caspian. One of the Bad King's sub-nobles looked so much like this guy:
Every time he appeared in a scene my brain said 'El Guapo!' I didn't even learn his name until I looked it up on IMDb. He's not the same guy – obviously, he'd look 22 years older now – but argh, distracting.
And ... it was fun ...
I mean, understand here, I thought Pirates 3 was fun... it didn't make any sense whatsoever but it was a great time if you just gave up and went with the flow. Caspian makes significantly more sense than that, which might be a little bit of its downfall, because you're coaxed into believing it enough that when something unbelievable happens, a red flag comes up.
My main reason for not liking it as much as the first one is that it doesn't feel like it's about anything. The first one had its whole Christian allegory going on (subtly, which was a relief, but it was at least a unifying theme) and on the surface was about reawakening a land, instilling hope, and overthrowing an oppressor. Caspian seems like mostly a succession drama, which is not really engaging, with a dash of overthrowing an oppressor but not enough to convince you of its necessity. Just how bad were the Telmarines? They seemed to be absentee landlords for the most part; they hadn't even finished the bridge into Narnia and appeared to avoid the place, yet they've been 'ruling' it for hundreds of years? The White Whitch goes around turning people into stone! Now THAT's oppression! There also wasn't much by way of personalities working at cross purposes ... LW&W's strength was the moral fallibility of its characters, with Edmund's and Tumnus's betrayals and suchlike, whereas Caspian's characters were pretty evenly divided into Good and Bad with little or no crossover between the two. The closest we get to fallible is the number of times (possibly too many) that Peter learns his lesson for being cocky. The pacing was good, I never got bored, and the story fit together well enough ... the raid on the castle, which I just learned was added for the movie, seemed well-integrated into the plot as a whole and I find it hard to imagine the story without it, at least because this was the only time we really got to see characters bouncing off each other, even though the largest logic hole in the entire movie comes near the end of it. What annoyed me most about the plot was the deus ex machina at the end – can the Narnians ever win something on their own without running to Aslan? Or does this venture onto theological ground that the filmmakers didn't want to tread?
Cinematically, it all held together well enough ... there wasn't any terribly exciting camera work but it wasn't boring either. It all supported the story, no matter how much I am of the opinion that the follow-the-arrow-in-flight shot should be forbidden except in cases of parody. Also, the moral of the story appeared to be 'don't stand and look back regretfully/longingly/wistfully/angrily/with horror at any time.' There was an awful lot of that, and almost always it put the character at a disadvantage. Just GO! Stop staring and GO! Was this intended to provoke this reaction or does Mr Adamson have a soft spot for lingering?
The acting I find hard to comment on because I am no great fan of C.S. Lewis – all his dialogue sounds a bit stilted to me, so if it's delivered in a less than naturalistic way it just feels in style, whether it came from his pen or someone else's. It was stilted, but for what it was, it seemed fine to me, or at least was consistent. You'll just have to make up your own mind in that arena.
The effects, now, I can comment on, because wow. This movie may be the best yet for the seamless incorporation of CG characters. They were all lit, rendered, and composited beautifully. The only giveaway that they were CG most of the time (aside from being talking animals and suchlike, of course) was, I'm guessing, something about the rigging ... There still seems to be a bit of trouble with mammals, especially those with loose skin. Either they end up looking really overanimated (like the wolves in LW&W) or like a plastic model with a fur coat glued on, not something with bones and muscles moving underneath skin and fur. Is it because the skin/fur is tied to a specific spot on the body mesh? I noticed this especially with the badger, who in real life would look more like a fur bag full of muscle than a stuffed animal. I don't mean this to be too harsh a criticism; I know there's only so much you can do in CG. Goodness knows furry animals have come a long way in the last ten years. Mammals with tauter skin, such as horses, for example, looked a lot better, and the birds ... damn can they ever do wings. Props to the bird nerd at Framestore. And to everyone, really – for all Syd's stories of production hell they didn't let any of that show in their work. I was only disappointed by Reepicheep, and this is only because I'd come into the movie with swashbuckling rodents being the main thing I was looking forward to. Why did they style his facial fur like Puss in Boots'? Why? The swordfighting scenes I was hoping for were basically cancelled by him having no one his size to duel with. Oh well. I really liked the trees ... I thought they used their tree-ness (arboreality?) much better than the Ents in LotR which seemed like giant wooden (or foam rubber) people most of the time, though this is probably down to author's vision more than effects department. Speaking of which, and if you've read The Silmarillion you'll know what I'm talking about, Lewis and Tolkien were friends, but did their friendship extend to sharing mythological creatures, i.e. Ulmo? There is no way that isn't Ulmo. The feeling of shared universes isn't helped by the shared locations ... that's obviously Fangorn at the Prince's escape.
I think I've been unfairly critical so far – I did enjoy it as a whole. These are the things I enjoyed:
Oo pretty!
Siege weapons!
Somewhere in New Zealand that looks like Lynn Canyon!
Ruins!
Badgerland, Badgerland, Badgerlaaand (it's Badgical)!
Cunning plans gone wrong o noes!
Guilt re: above!
Costumes! (I hope Susan's dress comes to FIDM next year cos I want a good look at it)
Siege weapons!
Archery!
Chase scenes!
Siege weapons!
A great big army descending on the holdout of plucky good guys ... with their siege weapons!
Cunning!
Ulmo!
The Tube!
Artwork created for the film that actually looks medieval! (ahem Black family 'tapestry' coff coff)
Men bashing each other with swords!
That just about covers it. Except for this:
DON'T LOOK AT THE FOLLOWING IF a) you haven't seen Prince Caspian yet AND b)you don't want a major distraction through the whole movie.
I recently rewatched The Three Amigos while hunting for dialogue to animate. Little did I know it would bug me while watching Prince Caspian. One of the Bad King's sub-nobles looked so much like this guy:
Every time he appeared in a scene my brain said 'El Guapo!' I didn't even learn his name until I looked it up on IMDb. He's not the same guy – obviously, he'd look 22 years older now – but argh, distracting.
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Date: 2008-05-19 06:38 pm (UTC)