oh my god, csi:ny never had this problem

[bedlamsbard]

Today I did things that seemed very productive, and yet were not. Well, I washed my car. That was productive. Then I put on shorts and a bikini top and sat outside for an hour or so reading in order to get tan for graduation. I'm wearing a dress for graduation, and my legs are...so pale they could double as landing lights. This is not good. Thus the tanning. The thing is that I never do the whole girly tanning thing, and this is the first time I have ever done so. (I'm eighteen, by the way, so...make of that what you will.) I also read a significant portion of S.M. Stirling's Dies the Fire, one of my favorite post-apocalyptic novels.

I have not watched Narnia. I am kind of tempted to write fic, though, but I keep stopping and debating the merits of writing from movie canon when it's a book-based canon. But, but...I'm inspired by the movie. I'm pretty sure the justification isn't in the book!

Oh my God, we never have this problem in media fandom. In HP people are mocked for writing from movie canon! Just because it's Narnia doesn't make it any more acceptable!

Guys. I am really very bothered by this. Would anyone like to weigh in?

(I have this hilarious meta post brewing on how the movie Prince Caspian did exactly what I expect fanfic to do, and how screwed up I am over the fact that it did so legitimately and now I cannot figure out whether it's legitimate or not or should even...seriously, this is what happens when you spend too long in HP fandom.)

Also, at this point I clearly need a Narnia icon.

Comments

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

I've seen Prince Caspian 4 times now. I had to see it more than once to really appreciate some of the subtle ways they pulled stuff out of the back story to the forefront, to make it a more "active" movie. I *didn't* like the Caspian/Susan romantic elements, because they had NO charisma together & barely spoke! Plus, it just didn't make sense, from the situation.

I prefer canon-characterization, but the movie did have a very pretty "look" to it, costume and scenery-wise; and a few things happened that make good fic fodder. I think the role of Caspian was written less strongly than it could have been, since they were making changes; and a little less attention to a romance that wasn't necessary & more attention to some of the characters (namely, Edmund-Skandar's a damn good actor), would have been nice.

If you haven't seen it yet, I'd suggest seeing it at least once, just so you know what people are talking about & you can pick through it for inspiration, as you like. I don't think the movie would ruin your enjoyment of the book, so if you don't like it, you can ignore it. The changes make good discussion topics-I've been itching to talk about what I call the "defeminizing of Narnia", what with the missing dryads and naiads, in particular.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I've seen Caspian twice -- at this point, when I said Narnia I was talking about the BBC series, which I'd picked up and meant to rewatch and see if I was picking up stuff from Caspian that was also there in the books, the BBC series, and the first movie.

Eh, Caspian's a teenagers. Teenagers crush on people easy. (I should know; I am one.) And the Caspian/Susan made sense to me: he's a guy, she's a girl, he's expecting someone a whole lot older and less pretty, and instead he gets this beautiful young thing who can kick ass and is a queen to boot. (There're also the political aspects of it: if the Pevensies had stayed, a marriage to Queen Susan would have cemented Caspian's position as a king of Narnia, not just the Telmarines in Narnia.)

Anyway, I was highly, highly impressed by Prince Caspian; the filmmakers added a lot of complexity that wasn't in the books but makes sense in the context of the movies. (Which is, um, where some of my freakoutedness came from, initially.)

[realpestilence.livejournal.com]

But what struck me as odd was that they seemed to be writing Caspian as a teenager, as you say; but he's obviously in his mid-twenties. So he comes across kind of clueless to me, or very sheltered. I think Ben did well with what they gave him to do & that scene where he's working out his own relationship with the Narnians to help him take the Telmarine throne was good. I just don't think the scriptwriters really had a focus on who Caspian was supposed to be; not surprising considering in the books he's what, 12 or so? I do think the film caught that aspect of Caspian's personality that really comes into play in Dawn Treader-he's basically a very decent guy but he *does* choose to do what he wants a lot of the time, not necessarily what he *should*, as a ruler, do. I'm looking forward to the next movie, very hopeful they'll be able to keep the quality up.

I think the film was very good, for the layered meanings you mentioned, too. That's why I saw it more than once-it definitely helped me pick up on things I missed originally, little nuances. I think William did a powerhouse job on portraying Peter & his fight scenes makes it obvious what hard *work* sword-fighting and battle is. I've got a link for a meta on Peter's character that I found recently that I'll look up & send to you-it was written a couple of years ago, I think, & it's fascinating to me because I think it hits the movie issues right on target.

I saw a review the other day that was talking about how bad the movie was & that kids wouldn't like it and prospects didn't look good for the franchise, etc. I could only wonder what movie that critic saw. The merchandising alone is generating a lot of revenue. *frowns*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not like twentysomethings can't act like teenagers. And I'd be willing to bump Caspian's age up to anywhere between eighteen and twenty-six; I'm not sure exactly how old Ben Barnes is. And I think Caspian was very sheltered; he's a prince. He's a very sheltered, very naive, pretty clueless, completely over his head prince and he's floundering. He has nowhere near the amount of experience that Peter and Co. have, and he shouldn't have; they were kings and queens for fifteen years. Beyond that, he's far more sheltered than the Pevensies were at the beginning of LWW, even though they were far younger: they wre children of war; he was a child of privilege.

Oh, yeah, I read an article on Sci-Fi Wire where William Moseley was talking about all the training he did to prepare to play Peter; he was learning hand-to-hand at a club (or something, don't ask me) in New York City. Hardcore.

The thing that scares me about Voyage is that the director that did LWW and PC isn't coming back. That's what makes me dubious if Voyage will be as good; PC exceeded my wildest expectations. (And I have really high standards, too.)