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Interesting timing! I was all ready to write about what might be in the next Narnia film, based on how The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe had been adapted, when the trailer appeared for Prince Caspian. So, now I can comment on what should be in the forthcoming film—but I will begin with some comments about how the earlier film compared with the book.

I found The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film faithful to the plot and characters in the book and, for me, it did more to create the atmosphere of Narnia than reading the book. Perhaps this is because C.S. Lewis was writing for children and avoided long descriptive passages. However, I can’t help noting that, in his essays, Lewis was concerned that adapting a book for film might destroy some of the real satisfaction of the story.

In particular, he referred to the possibility that too much film action can be hostile to deeper imagination and a sense of wonder. I felt that the LWW film overcame this, especially with the discovery of Narnia. All credit to the production team for so carefully capturing the wonder of ordinary human children interacting with the magical world into which they stumbled.

Of course, the dialogue had to be changed to remove those outdated “golly-gosh” type expressions, and the scriptwriters did an excellent job maintaining the period feel and the reality of sibling tensions.

Another way in which the film differed from the book was in downplaying violence in the fight scenes, which was presumably to make the film more accessible for younger children. The final battle with the White Witch could have been a bit scary for some, but I thought that Peter’s slaying of the wolf without seeing a drop of blood was sanitised to a fault. I see this as a good thing—if it allows parents to take small children who love the Narnia books to the cinema to see the films. Hopefully the Walden/Disney-Narnia productions will continue to be more accessible in this respect.

So, what can we learn from the trailer for Prince Caspian? I was hoping to see more 1940s steam railways at the start as the book suggests; but I like the link from the Tube tunnel in London to a sea-cave in Narnia. Tube stations also connect with air raid shelters and World War II, which is the powerful backdrop mirroring the power struggles of Narnia. Supernatural goings-on in a London Underground station also remind me of the TV sci-fi thriller Quatermass and the Pit. I suppose these days such references can be taken as a positive thing, or even a device to create suspense.

The Strand station has been used in several films because of limited opening and recent closure. For the sake of accuracy, they might have renamed it to somewhere near the Pevensies home in Finchley, North London. However, I wonder if there is any significance in the fact that Lewis’s childhood home was in the Strandtown area of Belfast.

By the way, I am fairly sure that if you went to look at the Strand station, you wouldn’t find a statue of a lion just where he appears in the trailer. I think he belongs in Trafalgar Square—or Narnia!

Trivia aside, what else do we know about how the book is being adapted for film? The next big change sounds like the meeting of the Pevensies and Prince Caspian earlier in the story. I can appreciate the scriptwriters’ concerns about running two parallel plot lines a long way into the film, but I think something significant will be missing if we don’t share the struggles with disbelief experienced by Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy on their journey to find the Prince.

We are warned that Narnia is now a more savage place, so perhaps this film will not be as suitable for the youngest fans as I had hoped. The reasoning given in interviews is the result of years of oppressive rule by the Telmarines. It may also be an excuse for more battle scenes since the book only describes skirmishes until the army of Miraz is finally overwhelmed. Whereas the battle at the end of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film fits well with the book, I’m afraid that the balance of the Prince Caspian story may have shifted in the film from the role of the individuals’ choices and heroism towards small people caught up in a big war machine, possibly for visual effect.

Does this more serious tone mean that we will lose some of the humorous characters and dialogue? This may not be a bad thing in some cases. The three Bulgy Bears and possibly the Squirrels would be out of place when the tension is mounting. On the other hand, Narnia would not be the same without the nobility and reckless courage of Reepicheep and the steadfastness of the Badgers. And what scriptwriter could cut any of Trumpkin’s outbursts—”Wraiths and wreckage”, “Crows and crockery,” and so on? Trumpkin wouldn’t be out of place among Tolkien’s dwarfs.

Dwarfs (or dwarves!), of course, appear in many myths and legends. Walking and fighting trees, however, to many people nowadays will mean Tolkien’s Ents. We have previously seen the personality of the trees in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film represented by blossoms blown on the wind, and there is an indication in the Prince Caspian trailer that the trees will sway in response to Lucy; but will we see them wading through soil and waging war? I’d be happy for the awakening trees to be played down to avoid unfavourable comparisons with The Lord of the Rings.

I imagine that there are some passages in the book which were never going to make it into the film—like cutting up bear meat and lugging it along. There are some other bits which I hope the scriptwriters have left out or toned down, namely the wild cavorting with Bacchus, Silenus, and the Maenads. I’m not sure if Lewis was trying to redeem Greek mythology by including these characters and their antics in Narnia, but he’s not being as careful with temptation as he was in Screwtape Letters. If caring parents don’t want their children to find out more of what Harry Potter learnt at Hogwarts School, then they ought also to be concerned about any suggestion that the actual behaviour of these ancient characters is being condoned.

There is much to look forward to in the Prince Caspian film, but with all the changes we know of to date, it’s going to be somewhat different from the book. Let’s hope that the overall effect captures the spirit if not the exact atmosphere of the book.