S02E21 — The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Set sail with us as we unpack The Voyage of the Dawn Treader—a book full of wonder, temptation, and invisible Dufflepuds. The movie throws in a magic sword scavenger hunt, weird green mist, and one very confused plot. We’re talking dragon boys, mouse warriors, and why sometimes… simpler is better.

Listen to the other episodes in The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe series:

• The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe
• Prince Caspian

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The book is a magical island-hopping journey with deep spiritual moments, dragon transformations, and just the right amount of sea serpent chaos. The movie? A glowy, green fog mess that tries to force a plot where there wasn’t one—and somehow makes Eustace less annoying and more interesting than anyone else.

Donna: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Movie Score: 6/10

Rebekah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7.5/10
– Movie Score: 5.5/10

Josiah: The book was better.
– Book Score: 6.5/10
– Movie Score 6.5/10

Tim: The book was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Movie Score 6/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Rebekah: All right folks. Welcome to the book is Better Podcast Ta. I’m trying so many of these, I don’t know how I feel about all of the new ways I’m trying to, I just don’t wanna say the same thing over. This is a clean podcast. We are a family of four and we love to review book to film adaptations. Uh, spoiler alert, we are in this week the Voyage of the Don Treader, which is the fourth chronologically released book in the Narnia series by CS Lewis.

It is the fifth book if you count The Magician’s Nephew, which was released later, but it is a prequel to the story. And it is our final episode for now, but not forever on the Narnia series. Not 

[00:00:40] Josiah: for long. 

[00:00:41] Rebekah: Not for long. ’cause we have to talk about, however, female Aslan turns out. Oh. But yeah, we’ll get there eventually.

[00:00:50] Donna: But at what cost? Feminism? 

[00:00:52] Rebekah: No, no, no. So anyway, the spoiler for today is for Save A Women. 

[00:01:03] Josiah: What’d you say? You didn’t even, the two women are most upset about it. 

[00:01:12] Rebekah: Um, today’s spoiler is for the voyage of the Don shredder. We’ll probably spoil stuff from both that, uh, tail and the previous Narnia stuff. Might spoil some stuff further into Narnia.

I don’t know that we will a whole lot. It might just be a couple of very mild spoilers. So, yeah. Uh, as we introduce ourselves today, let us know who you are, what your role is here, and tell us do you have a memorable or humorous story in your life that occurred on a boat? Hmm. 

[00:01:44] Donna: I’ll start. My name’s Donna.

I’m the wife and mom of our little pirate cluster. I don’t know. I’m running outta words and I don’t want to pirate 

[00:01:54] Rebekah: cluster. That’s, that’s worse. I think were they 

[00:01:57] Donna: pro the people in the dontre really weren’t pirates, but, um, 

[00:02:01] Josiah: or 

[00:02:02] Donna: a cluster or, um, and I, um. I do have a memorable story, a humorous story that happened on a boat.

Okay. Uh, the first time I cruised was in 2000, uh, I guess around 2010 maybe. And we went on a minister’s and mates retreat with our district group of pastors in our, in our church. Mm-hmm. And we were sailing from, uh, Florida over to The Bahamas. And I’d never been on a cruise before. I had been on one, uh, short boat ride a day, a day long boat ride before something else, but this was the first time I like stayed overnight and all that.

Yeah. I have a little bit of issue with claustrophobia. Um, and I was a, I was a tad concerned, but I was determined I would not use. The little motion sickness patches or whatever. And so I’d been doing pretty well. Um, hadn’t had any big episodes. The morning of, of our first night’s sleep, okay. After a first night’s sleep, I wake up to go to the restroom.

Now, we did not have a window in the cabin that time, that was the last time that happened. I will never do it again without a window. But without a window and no light. The cabin is completely dark. So I go in. I didn’t wanna turn any lights on, disturbed Tim. So I’m in the restroom. I’m sitting there, and the thought occurs to me, what would I do if we hit an iceberg?

And I began this two or three minute long panic attack. 

[00:03:35] Rebekah: Sorry. Wait, where were you? 

[00:03:37] Donna: Cruising? 

[00:03:39] Tim: Sh in the Caribbean. Don’t 

[00:03:40] Donna: say anything. Sh 

[00:03:44] Tim: spoiler. 

[00:03:45] Donna: I didn’t. I didn’t. Put that little factoid into my mental compass until I had fully like, sweat and freaked out, and I didn’t wanna go back out and wake up your dad because it was early in the morning and I just didn’t wanna bother him.

Wow. That’s a good story. Mm-hmm. And we didn’t, we never hit an iceberg. 

[00:04:09] Rebekah: Well, congratulations. That’s exciting. Um, I, I’m Rebecca, I’m the daughter slash sister slash uh, in, in inventive creator boss of this podcast. Slash favorite child, obviously slash um, I’m just really awesome is what I’m trying to say.

Anyway, uh, I have went on a cruise in 2019 with my husband Josh, and I don’t know if there was anything particularly funny, but I did discover that somehow I am an elderly person. Um, I didn’t know that until I went on the cruise, but we spent the entire time, like in the little gaming rooms playing, uh, we played card games.

We’ve met this like older couple and just played card games with them the entire week. We did, we did a couple of other things, but that was like the major thing that we did. I just remember thinking, that’s wonderful. I’m remarkably more boring on vacation than I thought, you know, but that’s the best one I got.

I don’t have anything, I didn’t fall over or have a panic attack about icebergs in the Caribbean, so 

[00:05:14] Josiah: yeah. Hi, I am Josiah. I am the brother of this crew and I. Think this. Your 

[00:05:21] Rebekah: dad’s brother? 

[00:05:23] Josiah: Mm-hmm. Yep. I’m mom’s brother too. 

[00:05:26] Rebekah: That is awkward. 

[00:05:27] Josiah: My own uncle kind of thing. Yeah. I 

[00:05:29] Donna: am my own grandpa. Yes. 

[00:05:34] Josiah: I’m also the male progeny of Rebecca.

[00:05:38] Rebekah: No, no, definitely not. Definitely not 

[00:05:40] Josiah: that. Uh, I suppose we’re, we’ve already talked about the cruise at least once. If didn’t, did both of you talk about cruises? 

[00:05:50] Donna: Mine was a cruise, but not 

[00:05:52] Josiah: cruises. The last cruise. Gotcha. 

[00:05:54] Donna: I mean, when else are we on boats? 

[00:05:55] Josiah: Let’s be real. Okay. Great fun fact whoever came up with that.

No. No. So I love the cruises, but as a child, I suppose I’ll mention the Vegas of West Virginia memories I have of, I think getting on a boat on the Ohio River and catching one of two fish I’ve ever caught in my life. 

[00:06:21] Donna: Oh, that sound freaking sound Huck. Familiar does Huckleberry Finn, when were you on a boat?

[00:06:26] Josiah: I think Charlie and Eugene. Oh. Took me out and onto the river in our backyard. So it was, it was a like the Aha River I down a road. It was in, it was within view. The Via 

[00:06:38] Tim: River was our 

[00:06:40] Josiah: out our backyard. Yeah. Within view of our house. I vaguely remember like two properties over. 

[00:06:46] Donna: Yeah, 

[00:06:46] Josiah: yeah, yeah. Maybe catching a fish.

[00:06:50] Donna: That would be such awesome. Congratulations. Does that sound, 

[00:06:52] Josiah: I mean, did that happen? Dad, do you remember that? 

[00:06:54] Rebekah: Oh, you asked me. It could have happened. Did this thing really happened? But the drowning incident, do you insist? Did but none of us remember it. 

[00:07:02] Josiah: Got it. I was five. I was five. It was a big wave and it got up my nostrils.

And none of you were there, right? None of us All. None of us were there to save 

[00:07:14] Rebekah: you. And now you’re bitter about it. I don’t put 

[00:07:15] Josiah: my face under the shower. I think the fish is 

[00:07:17] Donna: awesome. Well, that’s a personal problem. I think the fish stories wonder. It is. 

[00:07:22] Tim: Yeah. Well, my name is Tim. I am the husband and the dad of our crew, which is appropriate for boat stuff.

Um, and my story about a boat that I had to remember was, uh. My first time down the New River Gorge, uh, river rafting. Mm. Um, and I always sat in the front, uh, on the front left side so that I could, I could paddle well enough. Um, but I remember the first time we went over, uh, one of the rapids called nosebleed.

And at a certain water level, the rock that’s in the middle of the river forms, you know, the water goes over it because the water is high enough. And on the other side of it. It’s a like a ditch in the, in the water. And so you basically go pretty well straight down and because you go straight down, the water level has to come back up.

And so then there’s a wall of water. And I remember that whole, that whole thing because you go so deeply in uh, and then you go quickly up, uh, the boat turns. You know, goes down and then goes up so much. But the guy who was leading told us that in order to stay in the boat, we needed to stretch out of the boat and dig into the wave as we, as we hit it.

Okay. Which sounds counter, well it sounds counterintuitive like you’re gonna fall out of the boat. But he said, if you don’t do that, you’ll lean back too far and you actually will fall outta the back of the boat, even from the front, which would’ve been, I knocked over several people and probably knocked them down too.

But I had a really good time. I took my dad on one of those trips later and when we went on a similar part, the, the boat actually turned over and we all fell out of the boat, which is not uncommon. Mm-hmm. But my dad got trapped under the. Raft and was trying to get out, but the water kept spinning the raft.

So as he walked from, you know, pushed himself from one end to the other, the boat kept turning around. So I’m nearly at the end. Oh no. The boat’s turned around again. And so, so I loved river rafting. That was, that was a lot of fun. I’ve been several times down the river Gorge and, um, more recently even on the Green River here, uh, close to where we live now.

[00:09:50] Rebekah: Yeah, we should try the koi. The koi is like three hours from us, and it was where the Olympic like rafting team did their stuff in the summer. So it’s like a, an award-winning that’s close to Charlotte. Uh, yeah. Yeah. You done maybe. I 

[00:10:05] Tim: think, I think there are some things. I think it’s close chat advertised.

[00:10:09] Rebekah: I feel like it’s towards Chatanooga, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah, you, you and dad do that. Me and Josiah stay on ground. I haven’t been rafting in a while, so mom, what does happen in this magical tale of a boat? 

[00:10:22] Donna: Let me tell you. Lucy and Edmund Ancy, along with their insufferably practical cousin, used a scrub.

Are magically transported into a painting of a ship at sea. Reuniting them with the land of Narnia. Aboard the Dawn tr they join King Cassian’s voyage to seek out seven lost lords of Narnia who disappeared during his uncle’s reign. Sailing East, they encounter a series of mysterious islands and perils.

On the Lone Islands, they rescue captives from slave traders, one being a lost Lord. An outlaw the say, an outlaw, the slave trade. The crew visits an island ruled by a friendly magician. Where Lucy Braves an enchanted spell book to break an invisibility spell on the island’s quirky one footed creatures.

The duffle PUDs. Hmm. They then face a fire breathing dragon, to which to everyone’s astonishment turns out to be Eustis magically transformed after a bout of greed. With Aslan’s guidance, Eustis is eventually restored to human form, deeply humbled by the experience. The adventurers also sail through a sinister dark mist that makes their worst nightmares come alive, but they managed to save another Lost Lord trapped in the darkness.

Finally, at the island of Du. Aslan’s table, they find the last of the OD Lords in an enchanted sleep. By journey’s end, the company fulfills the quest of restoring these lords, and in the film their swords as well, and arrives at the edge of the world. There the Valiant Mouse reap a cheap, long live repa cheap.

Yes, he fulfills his lifelong dream of venturing into Aslan’s country beyond the Far Sea. Disclaimer. He never said that was his lifelong dream, but we find at the end it is. Mm-hmm. Aslan appears to the children informing Lucy and Edmond. They will not return to Narnia sad and sends them and Eustis back to our world, their seafaring adventure at an end.

[00:12:34] Rebekah: Alright, well I think we can end it there. That was a pretty good, um, I’m just kidding. Uh, as we talk through the differences today, we’re gonna start with a couple of setting changes. There’s not a lot of that. We’re gonna talk quite a bit about how the characters are different and then we’ll go through the plot and timeline as well.

So, dad, do you wanna start us off with some setting changes? 

[00:12:54] Tim: Sure. Uh, much like the start of Prince Caspian, the film adds wartime scenes in England that don’t actually appear in the book. Uh, in this one, Edmund tries and fails to enlist in the Army during World War II era Cambridge. Uh, the book skips the war context and opens with Edmund and Lucy already at their cousin Eustis house.

So it’s all just understood as opposed to being shown. 

[00:13:19] Rebekah: I don’t totally get why in the first and third films we’re focusing so much on the like, world War II era stuff at the beginning of the movie. ’cause I don’t mm-hmm. I’m not convinced that that like adds much to the movie itself. Like I don’t really understand why.

I know it was in the timeline and I know that that was like why they went somewhere. Like I kind of get it in the first book. I think in the second book, I’m just like, what’s the, 

[00:13:42] Tim: why are we, I think the reason, as for Lewis, certainly the context, but I think for the filmmakers, they wanted us to understand why in the earlier ones, Peter wanted to prove himself to be an adult.

Mm-hmm. As every young man, you know, teenager, nearly an adult already thinks themselves to be an adult. You get the same thing with Edmond in this one. He wants to be a part of something that’s bigger than him. Um, it is, he wants to to serve. In some noble capacity, especially for Edmund at this point. He’s already been a king of an, ian already done those things.

Mm-hmm. And then he comes back into a teenager’s body, uh, and lives a teenager’s life, and he wants to make a difference. And so, uh, serving as a soldier would’ve been a very honorable, very noble kind of, kind of thing. Uh, in 2025, we live in a slightly different time, so things look a little different, but those who serve in the military are, you know, they’re doing something noble and honorable.

And I think that’s the desire of every young person. Yeah. 

[00:14:52] Rebekah: Just kind of, it was meant to reinforce the personality stuff, conflict internally. I, I’m gonna say Josiah probably has a problem with that, based on the way he said the same thing. 

[00:15:03] Josiah: We’ll find out 

[00:15:04] Rebekah: later. 

[00:15:05] Josiah: Why, just think of something other, something else.

For Edmonds to have a character arc, it’s just Peter’s character arc from the second movie. 

[00:15:13] Donna: Okay. I, and see, what I saw was the opening scene of just as stupid of half blood print where Dumbo door finds Harry hitting on a girl in a restaurant. Mm-hmm. It was the dumbest, I just thought, why are we, what are we doing here?

What’s, what’s the deal with Edmund? Why we want to prove that he’s a normal teenager. But they may, and then, but then they make fun of him and he tried to falsify his birth, or, I mean, it was just the whole thing. I was lost there. Yeah. He was trying to commit a crime. Yeah. We will get there, I promise. Yeah, yeah.

Um, the Ian locations visited in the film do share the same name as the book, but they have some visual changes. So the, uh, most notably the dark island is, has this sinister green fog bank in the movie rather than the literal island of darkness that’s portrayed in the book, or that’s, that’s shown in the book.

Um, you know, nothing says evil like floating green, CGI mist apparently. Um, do you have a, I mean, why, why did they insert, I mean, maybe it’s just easier to portray than 

[00:16:21] Rebekah: blackness in a film. Maybe just doing a black screen then trying to show people talking is not what they were going for. The whole 

[00:16:28] Donna: thing over a little caption, the dark island.

[00:16:32] Josiah: Well, I think it’s notable that the green, the dark fog was one of the obstacles in the book, but it is the vi it’s the main villain in the movie. Yeah. 

[00:16:42] Rebekah: Um, the only other setting change that we noted is that, uh, similarly little changes, but Dragon Island, well, little Changes, features an active volcano in the film, which it does not in css, CS Lewis’s, uh, description in the book.

So, all right. Onto characters. Let’s talk about these, uh, fairly significant changes in some ways. And not in others. 

[00:17:05] Tim: We’ll see. Eustis Scrub is part of book and film. He is portrayed as pompous and obnoxious in both, but in the film he makes a few tweaks to the character for humor and clarity. Book. Eustis calls his parents by their first names Harold and Alberta as a show of disrespect, actually, it’s the school he goes to and they disregard those kind of differences.

Ma, mother and father, uh, the film drops this quirk and has him address them as a normal kid would mother and father. When our heroes first land in Narnia, Eustis reactions also differ a bit in the book. He’s incredulous about talking animals. He writes off Reap a Cheap The Mouse as a hallucination or a clever trick.

In the movie, they dial that up for comedy. Upon seeing reap a cheap speak, Eustis faints dead away from shock. Overall Film Eustis comes off as more overtly goofy at first, whereas Book Eustis Obnoxiousness was primarily conveyed through his snide internal monologues, many of which the film cleverly turns into voiceover diary entries for humor.

It was, it was interesting some of those changes. Yep. 

[00:18:17] Donna: I will say, of course, I will say. I genuinely love the casting pick for this. I love this kid. Yeah. And I know I’ve seen him, I mean, I’ve seen him farther along in other things, but I felt like his, he has a very interesting, his dialect is very interesting, like the tone of his voice, and I really liked that For Eustis.

I thought it, it, I, I thought he portrayed a great. Kind of antagonist, but when you go through the whole thing and hi and see him, him change. I thought his, the, the casting choice complimented Lucy and Edmond really well. 

[00:18:50] Rebekah: And in terms of like those changes that dad just went over. Yeah. I thought that taking out him calling his mom and dad by their first names actually made him like, I wish that they would’ve left that in.

’cause I think it’s kind of funny. Yeah. Um, I also, the other thing that I noticed I didn’t understand when he first came, like into Narnia and they fir they land on the first island and they’re like walking into some big room and he says he’ll be the guard out front in the book. He was like, so clearly I will not be doing any work.

I will not be doing anything. You people will do everything for me. I am not gonna get off my butt and do anything. 

[00:19:25] Tim: I am just going to find the British consulate. 

[00:19:28] Rebekah: Yes, that’s right. And so he was like, he was obnoxious in the movie, but it was kind of weird that he seemed like, in a way to like, already at that point be starting to be like, well, I can help in this way and then tries to be brave.

Like, I thought that it didn’t totally work for me because I liked in the book where it was such a dramatic change. 

[00:19:46] Tim: I, I agree. The, the dramatic change in the book was a little, a little better than the more subtle changes, you know? 

[00:19:54] Josiah: I don’t know. I wonder if it was the film trying to give him to something to do instead of just be around and mm-hmm.

It was a character moment where the heroes were tricking him and being like, are you gonna be brave or are you gonna be a coward? We’re, we’re forcing you to have to say you’re a coward. Right. But you, you’re so prideful that you can’t quite say that. Well, you know, he is not only prideful, he’s also greedy.

Both book and film have Eustis turning into. A dragon, uh, due to his greed. We love dragons. This was a year before Game of Thrones came out, uh, and him a year, the movie. Mm-hmm. 2010. Wow. And 2011 was Game of Thrones. The, uh, initial Game of Thrones pilot was finished in 2010. Dragons were, 

[00:20:44] Tim: so you’re saying that Game of Thrones was inspired by this movie?

Yeah. 

[00:20:49] Josiah: Voyage of the Dawn Shredder? Yes, absolutely. It was, the book was written in 96, but that doesn’t matter. Uh, uses becoming a dragon. It’s due to his greed and it’s also the catalyst for his change of heart. In the book uses dragon phase is traumatic, but relatively brief. I think it’s about a chapter, maybe two, but I think it, I think it is the subject of one chapter.

Aslan does meet Eustis privately on Dragon Island and restores him to boy form by peeling off his dragon skin in layers during baths, in, in natural pools of water. Uh, and he, he keeps taking baths, multiple layers, but by the time the crew reaches the next island, Eustis is human again, humbled, and he’s sporting an arm ring souvenir as proof of his lessons learned.

And also, I liked in the book how Eustis was trying to convince the crew that he was sti. And I feel like that it was more rushed in the movie. It was very much like Eustis just destroying things where I was like, no, he is. I mean, he’s not just gonna be, you know, I liked it a little more in the book. Him being a dragon 

[00:22:06] Tim: in the book, he, it takes longer for them to understand because he can’t talk in the film.

He burns it into the ground, right into the forest, burns the message into the ground. Something which the book says 

[00:22:19] Rebekah: he cannot do. Right? Like he tries to write things in the sand or whatever, and he just can’t do it, is not his, like, limbs don’t work for that. Mm-hmm. Right. 

[00:22:28] Josiah: Well in the film, he’s a dragon for a while.

You know, movies aren’t constrained by the chapter format, so I’m not gonna count this for or against the film necessarily. Uh, the, the book specifically had, like, this is the chapter, we’re used this as a dragon, but in the film, he is a dragon for probably a lot, a more, a larger percentage of the runtime.

He fights the serpent, the sea serpent, right? And does more, probably technically does more stuff as a dragon. And he turns into a boy when Aslan scratches the sand like a kitty, and then roars the curse away. 

[00:23:06] Donna: I thought that was interesting. The film does keep uses as a dragon for in essentially like the, the second half of the movie.

The dragon not only flies, but becomes like an honorary member of the crew. I thought that was, I, I might be, maybe I’m indifferent about this change. It was interesting, but I couldn’t decide if I hated it or loved it. Dragon Eustis toes. The dawn tread when the wind dies. He fights a sea serpent alongside them, and he, he does get heroic.

They make the dragon very useful to the, to themselves and to the crew and all that. Uh, his return to human form is moved to the climax in the movie. Aslan, uh, transforms Eustis back after the final battle. In this like touching moment when he has proven his bravery and his, his selflessness 

[00:23:53] Tim: and the crew thinks he may have died at this point.

Yeah. As, as a dragon. Yeah. That he’s, he’s been bested by the, by the serpent. Um, the screenwriters appreciated, apparently the Eustis experience of finding out that he had become a dragon while he was asleep. Uh, that’s the way it’s depicted in the book. 

[00:24:12] Josiah: Yeah. In, in the book. It’s kind of like he thinks that he’s surrounded by two dragons, so he just lays still 

[00:24:19] Tim: Exactly.

He sees a dragon foot on his right and then. Then later he see notices one on his left, uh oh no, there are two dragons. Mm-hmm. And he’s in between them. How’s he gonna get out? And then he, little by little discovers that he’s the dragon. The BBC did execute this in the 89 TV version. Uh, but the filmmakers didn’t see how it would translate to film.

Um, and I’m 

[00:24:44] Josiah: sure it didn’t look corny at all. Well, 

[00:24:48] Tim: well, but I re, I remember seeing the dragon foot, the way that the book had done it. So I, I wasn’t, I wasn’t really a fan of the fact that they kept him a dragon longer, you know, the helping pull the ship. There’s a lot of stuff that happens in the book that’s important stuff.

They were in dead air, so the boat wasn’t moving, and that was becoming discouraging and all of those kinds of things. Mm-hmm. And I feel like they just, Hey, we’ll just jump over that. You know, we’ve, we keep used as a dragon and he can pull us, you know, we can be discouraged for 10 minutes and then, you know, he can pull us.

Uh, and it just seemed like a, it seemed like a fix that didn’t need to be there. 

[00:25:27] Rebekah: I think the biggest part of Eustis changes, uh, from the book to film. The biggest part that bothered me. Was Aslan, basically him retelling the story to Edmond of how he went from Dragon to Boy, where Aslan watches him a few three times.

In fact, uh, strip off his dragon skin like he’s, you know, stripping off the scales. Um, and then three times he just realizes. Oh, oh, how symbolic significance, how symbolic. Um, and then the, the fourth time Alan says something about like, you’ll have to let me undress you, or something like that. And he has this painful experience where Alan takes his claw and like it says, he thought that he had pierced his heart.

Like that’s how much it hurt the first time. But then as soon as Aslan could peel off this, like, you know, external layer, far more than Euless could have done on his own, it was delightful. Like, he felt so much better. And then he was able to bathe in the, in the pool and it soothed the pain of the, the cuff, the gold cuff on his arm and, and all this stuff.

It is a so super like Christian metaphor. It’s a, that’s one of the most allegorical parts, like overtly of the whole book. And I would say it impacted me to the, to the degree that the scene in the first book where Aslan comes back to life, like it was almost to that degree. And I will. Right. This is just like a personal aside.

Um, I finished the book yesterday morning in the middle of the night up with my dog who wasn’t feeling great and listened to this part of it, like, you know, during the middle of the night and on my own was like teary-eyed and whatever. And then yesterday evening we had some friends over and one of them has just been going through a really hard time and I felt like the Lord was just like, share this scene, like with her.

And I also found out one of our other friends that was here just kind of listening to us, encourage her, um, has been dealing with a lot of really dark things internally as well. And anyway, so I read this whole scene out and I mean, I and at least one other person were just sitting here like crying, listening to this beautiful depiction of how Jesus like strips us bare of, of, you know, the, the, the skin we put on, you know, and the raging like as his like rebirth.

Mm-hmm. And. It was just really powerful. And then to realize, ’cause we’d already, I already watched the movie by this point, obviously, and it just, it bothered me so much. And I think that’s my problem. I know we talked in the first movie about how filmmakers had different ideas of the direction that they wanted to go.

And I do think as we go through these notes, there are at least, I think at least two other places where really clear allegorical connection is removed or completely changed so that it’s less Christian allegory, which is alarming in, in and of itself. So in the film, Aslan touches Dragon Eustis or Roars at him more specifically.

And poof, he is a boy again, clothed 

[00:28:18] Josiah: and all. I was gonna say, I wonder if the seven islands are the seven deadly sins. Uh, I believe they’re supposed to be 

[00:28:26] Rebekah: interesting. Uh, anyway, it, I guess the, I guess this could’ve, the whole change in this uses thing. Maybe it was because there’s a lot of younger viewers and that would’ve looked too intense or scary.

Um, we do get to. See Eustis, like redeem himself more actively on screen. But again, you’re giving him agency, he’s 

[00:28:47] Tim: not redeeming himself right 

[00:28:49] Rebekah: on screen. It seems like he’s trying to, but like in the book, it’s very clear that the big change in Eustis in terms of like, after this dragon experience, he becomes a helpful and good member of the crew.

And he’s never the same again. Even when he goes back, like to their world and all of those things. And so in the book, it’s just a lot more clear that Aslan is the one who redeems and changes him. Um, and so the movie tried to make it be like Eustis struggle for it. So, 

[00:29:15] Donna: so I found a little nip about this as they were considering how to, how to portray all this.

Considering this book scene, Walden Media President Michael Flaherty, stated in an interview with Reuters that people don’t earn grace. They receive it once. They are humbled and aware of their need. 

[00:29:36] Tim: So why did they make. Make that whole portion seem the opposite. Well, 

[00:29:42] Donna: but no. Well, the difference being, there wasn’t a lot of cost in it.

It was, oh, I recognized it. I’m a good boy. Yay. For me, there’s no consequence to our bad choices when there there is bad, there’s consequence to our bad choices. And that doesn’t mean we can’t move forward. And as Christians can move forward in God’s grace. Yeah. Which truly isn’t earned. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:30:08] Tim: Part of that section in the book, Eustis the Dragon is crying in lamenting. Mm-hmm. Because he knows that they’re going to have to leave him behind. 

[00:30:19] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:30:19] Tim: Because as a dragon, he can’t go with them. There’s no room for him. There’s no place for him to perch or whatever, and he 

[00:30:26] Rebekah: can’t fly with the ship Correct.

Like he does in the book and all that. Yeah. 

[00:30:29] Tim: So he’s. He’s lamenting not being able to go with ’em. Um, and then as land comes up with the solution, um, it just makes a better story. Um, I’m sorry. They decided to change that. Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:43] Donna: And this, you know, considering this is, we’re talking about a book written and famous for decades and decades written in the six in the fifties.

That does go through portray this painful awakening or realization or, or, you know, salvation. And it was okay. Somehow we had to soften it. 

[00:31:03] Tim: I can understand why you’re thinking, you know, younger viewers may not be able to take the visual of, of ripping off the dragon skin and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. I think that could have been done, but I, I think you can do it as 

[00:31:16] Rebekah: a pan away and just hear him.

Yeah. Yeah. In pain. You don’t have to watch it. 

[00:31:20] Tim: Yeah. And, and I think that what they ended up with was a scene that looks like, you know, Eustis became good, so then Aslan. Took away the dragon skin and it just, that’s just kind of a different thing. So the film introduces a completely new character, a little, uh, lone Island girl named Gail.

Gail stows away on the dawn shredder after the Lone Islands incident. And her father comes, wants to go with them to help find his wife. Uh, and she stows away on board. Um, the subplot, uh, doesn’t have an equivalent in the novel. It seems Gail was added to give Lucy someone to nurture and to raise the emotional stakes and perhaps to address the gender imbalance of having just one girl on the ship while Gail’s a charming addition to the screen.

I think she was kind of unnecessary. 

[00:32:14] Josiah: I think Gail was mainly for Lucy’s plot character, arc resolution. When Gail says, I wanna be just, I wanna look just like you, Lucy, when I grow up. And Lucy’s like, no, that’s how I feel about Susan per 

[00:32:33] Rebekah: perspective. 

[00:32:35] Josiah: Yeah. Well, in the movie, Lucy’s given a much more significant personal conflict with her self-image.

Ah. Yeah, sorry. Go ahead. Her biggest challenge in the book is a moment of temptation in the Magician’s house where she wishes to be as beautiful as Susan. She is able to resist with Aslan’s help, and that’s that the film turns this insecurity into a running subplot. Lucy is shown feeling plain and inadequate compared to Susan from early on, reading a letter from Susan.

She’s gazing at herself in a mirror. She flirts with Prince Caspian briefly and tries to, yeah, this 15-year-old actress tries to flirt with this 29-year-old actor, and, uh, he completely normal ignores her. Totally normal, totally whatever. I think Lucy says, have you found a queen yet while brushing her lock of hair?

Yeah. Behind an ear. And Prince Cassian says, no, no one worthy, uh, as your sister. So I haven’t, and Lucy’s like, uh, that’s exactly what. You should not have said to me, but uh, so in, yeah, in the movie she’s on the Magician’s Island. Even the book plot of the self-image subplot is expanded movie. Lucy actually casts the spell to make her beautiful like Susan and has a surreal What if I were Susan Dream that ends with, uh, Aslan admonishing her harshly.

[00:34:04] Donna: I wasn’t upset with the part of that where Peter Edmond and Susan are standing there and they don’t remember who Lucy is. It’s a wonderful life I, I could deal with. Yeah, I could. I was okay with that. I was like, oh, that, that was an interesting way to show Lucy that she’s who she, she has a purpose. She’s who she is.

Shouldn’t let be who anybody else be in a movie, but yeah, that’s true. They get. 

[00:34:28] Rebekah: So I think like Lucy also, this is similar in the others, but Lucy’s in more fights, kind of like Susan was given more of that agency to be like a, a tough fighter warrior. She fights by firing arrows and swinging swords a little bit.

And so in the book, that doesn’t happen. But I think this whole thing also speaks to exactly what we’ve been talking about. Filmmakers wanted to give the people what. Like the children, what they consider to be typical like age real, like age appropriate, like internal struggles. They didn’t want the religious aspect in there because it takes, I’m sure on screen.

I, I can see if you’re not a Christian, you can think that that just like takes away people’s agency. But Lucy is like the heart and soul of the group and for good reason. She’s the one that first saw and trusts Aslan. Like even the little bit where she like questions herself in the book, it’s like, yes, of course a teenage girl like could actually have that go through her mind really briefly.

But the reason that it’s quickly squashed is because she trusts and knows Aslan have to go through this big internal struggle because. She like, keeps the faith of a child. And so it just, like, again, it’s, I know this movie was not made by people trying to like, drive home the Christian allegory, which is ing to me.

I’m like, why would you even make this if that wasn’t like what you wanted? But yeah, I think it all 

[00:35:50] Josiah: money, 

[00:35:51] Rebekah: money, 

[00:35:52] Tim: money 

[00:35:53] Donna: in this economy, capitalistic cash script. 

[00:35:57] Tim: Well, it, I didn’t, I didn’t care for it because in the Magician’s house she starts, you know, oh wow, what if I could be as beautiful as Susan? And she hears as Lynn’s roar.

And that’s enough for her to realize, no, I can’t do this. Yeah. But in the film, she packs it. Mm-hmm. You know, she tears it out of the book and takes it with her and, and it’s just, it’s longer than it needed to be. Her, her, that resolution of it, I didn’t think it needed to be like that. Um, by the time. Of Dawn Shredder book, Edmond Pei is a pretty steady, mature character, having learned his hard lessons already.

Edmond address, uh, he mo yes, he mostly helps Caspian and teases Eustis in the novel without any major personal drama. The film, however, gives him some lingering demons to confront some, literally the screenwriters weave in a theme of Edmund being tempted by power and haunted by his past treachery from being frustrated at being just Edmund in England and trying to join up in the war underage to his struggle with not being the one in charge.

A few prickly moments with Caspian. Ugh. Um, I, I, I felt like, I felt like they wanted his part to be, to still have a, an arc, but it’s, it’s kind of funny when a character has gone through the major part of their story arc. You can’t just let them be. A good character. 

[00:37:28] Josiah: He was just cool in Prince Caspian that worked for me.

Um, I was, I was sad that they, yeah, had him backpedal. Here I am imagining a better character arc for him, where, first of all, there’s just no mystery. In these books. Oh my goodness. It’s, it’s very difficult to enjoy them. Like a typical, I’m enjoying them in different ways. But did pe, did writers not write mysteries back then anyway, to put in a mystery and a better character arc for Edmond, I’d love for there to be a, a subplot on the ship of someone’s, you know, stealing rations of food or water, or someone’s sabotaging this or that.

And I’d love for someone to remember a story about how Edmund. What started on the side of the white witch, and so they start blaming Edmond and then he has to deal with his past demons being brought up, and then I think that makes some of his prickly moments. With Caspian, you can almost keep them, but they have a different subtext, a more interesting subtext, and then it’s more interesting and more justified for the white witch to appear.

Then you have more of a mystery that can be solved in some way. I don’t know if at that point it makes eus more evil, so maybe make it some random guy on the ship is evil. But the white witch is mentioned briefly in the book, but the movie just cannot resist Tilda Swinton being in it for a spooky moment.

Edmond Hallucinates the Witch, uh, in the Dark Island. That’s an invention for the film. It’s, I guess in externalizing Edmond’s inner temptation. But like he resolved his issues with the white witch to really in the first film, but in the second film, it was. Cemented when he was the one who without hesitation, killed the almost resurrected white witch when Caspian and Peter did hesitate.

So I feel like that’s such a cool moment for Edmund from Prince Caspian that they’re undoing a little bit to make her be able to attempt him. Of course, in my version where Edmond, uh, is being accused, I mean, haven’t we all had a moment in our lives when we’re being accused of something that we didn’t do and we just want to do it just to be like, well, I’m already being accused of it.

If you’re going 

[00:39:55] Tim: to blame me for it, then I might as well do it. Yeah. 

[00:39:59] Josiah: Yeah. And it’s so irrational, but that’s like human nature or something like that. So I wonder if that would’ve been more interesting for Edmund to be tempted in that way? Uh, yeah. White Witch is not, does not appear in Voyager, the Nonreader book, the, uh, the appearance in Nonreader.

It kind of underscores for me, the film series trying to maintain a throughline villain throughout the series. They try to always have the same villain up here and, uh, it’s fan service. 

[00:40:29] Rebekah: I wonder how that would’ve worked if they had continued on with the stories too. I don’t know much about the plots, but 

[00:40:35] Donna: on the money cash grab side, do you think this is just, oh, Tilda, we want your name in the credits.

Can you do a cameo in each of these? 

[00:40:43] Josiah: I mean, I think the audience wants it. The audience sees the white witch on the poster and says, oh yeah, I enjoyed the white witch. I mean, the poster has Peter and Susan, even though they’re smaller. 

[00:40:53] Donna: Exactly. Sure. 

[00:40:54] Josiah: It’s, it’s, it’s what the audience wants. Yeah. I I won’t blame them too hard.

[00:40:58] Rebekah: So, another reminder that the movie tries to make him a dynamic character rather than a static one who’s resolved his issues, uh, that incident with the gold transforming Pool. Um, in the film, Edmund is the one tempted by greed there. Uh, he argues with Caspian and momentarily covets the power he could get from the pool.

Uh, which again, he’s kind of already resolved that in the previous films and books. Um, in the book, the role of Greed belonged to Caspian. Edmond actually tried to talk sense into him, but they swap this in the film and that reinforces his film only arc of his whole, like temptation and jealousy thing. Um, and then by movies like Edmund overcomes his impulses and shatters that witch illusion, uh, he’s not our slave anymore.

But the, uh, the problem is if they’d kept doing movies, somehow they’d make him relive it. Mm-hmm. Every single time. Yeah. 

[00:41:47] Josiah: Yeah. They’d bring him back for one scene in silver chair. Yeah. Because he is not in silver chair. 

[00:41:51] Donna: Yeah. And 

[00:41:52] Josiah: it’d be like him and the white witch or something like that. And, 

[00:41:54] Donna: and again, why can’t he just be the strong resolved one?

Why does so Peter and Susan resolve their issues? Mm-hmm. So they’re outta the movies. It’s, it’s almost the way they’re portraying it. But 

[00:42:06] Josiah: first of all, if you have a character that doesn’t have any problems, then why put them in the movie, especially as a main character? Sure. Like, have Repa cheap there. He doesn’t have a problem, but he’s a fun side character.

He’s not a main character. Uh, but I think you can give them the incorrect problems, but I think they should have some problem to deal with. Secondly, I was thinking in the, on the island in the book, Edmond isn’t. Edmund isn’t maybe greedy, but doesn’t he try and talk sense into Caspian by fighting him or something?

That’s what I was going 

[00:42:37] Tim: to say. I think it’s, it’s Edmund and Caspian that are both greedy. Well, you know, this would be gold. That would be wonderful. Mm-hmm. Know these Long Islands belong to me, says Caspian, things like that. And it’s Lucy who gets them to stop fighting. I think they’re both greedy there.

Oh, I see what you mean. So I, I think it, yeah, I think in the book they both were tempted by that, by that greed. And Lucy is the, is the voice of reason, which is also why some of her story arc in the film is awkward. ’cause she should have been the one she believes in. Alan, she follows him. There are moments when she wishes she were Susan, but when she hears Alan’s voice or roar, she realizes, you know, I, you know, I’ve got the best life.

Right. The life I’m supposed to have. 

[00:43:24] Josiah: You know, it’s a sad thing that this was, uh, scanner Kane’s last role as an actor. He retired, the Edmond actor retired. After the Narnia movies. I really enjoyed it. He was a, you know, one of those, I liked him a lot. One of those characters, one of those actors I looked up to as a teen.

That would’ve been fun. He’s currently an English political advisor for the Tories. Wow. A he 

[00:43:45] Donna: has, he has an insane educational and, and career background in this. Like, he’s done a lot of like, not just things for England or on, but the things he’s done on behalf of his job as a political advisor. He has a lot of interest in like the, in Arab countries and in their development and the, the things he’s done since then as an adult have been fascinating to me how he, not that an actor can’t go on to do something else, but it’s just interesting that he took this turn and just went with this thing.

And 

[00:44:19] Tim: I think it’s a good thing for. For actors, especially young actors, to come to a point where they choose what they want to do. ’cause we’ve seen too many actors and singers and things like that. Uh, the young ones that they just go off the rails, um, because they trapped in stardom. Yeah. They, they want to be, they want to be the characters that they, that they were.

Or they want people to love them like they used to, and now they’ve changed and different things like that. Well, in the novel. King Cassian is only a few years older than Edmund and Lucy, a youthful, slightly cheeky, but good hearted king who sometimes doubts himself. The film makes Caspian an older, fully grown young man since actor Ben Barnes was in his late, uh, twenties at the time.

Caspian comes off as about that age rather than the teenager of the book. Uh, and actually in, uh, the beginning of Prince Caspian, he’s, if he’s a teenager, he’s barely a teenager. 

[00:45:17] Josiah: Is isn’t Don Tr like four years after Prince Caspian in Narnia, 

[00:45:21] Rebekah: three years in Narnia, one year in England. So that’s when we learned that it’s a, an inconsistent time change, obviously, when they leave.

[00:45:29] Tim: Yeah. It’s not mm-hmm. Not just one direction. Correct. So the 

[00:45:31] Donna: children and the line, the witch and the wardrobe become. Their children, and then they become a fully grown adults in Narnia and they become their children and then they go back into the wardrobe and their children. Mm-hmm. And so now Caspian starts out as a child in Narnia, and somehow in three years he becomes in his late twenties.

I like that. 

[00:45:49] Tim: Yeah. Well, personality wise book Caspian is noble and curious, and while he has moments of impatience or temptation, like almost dueling Edmond over the gold pool, or wanting to abandon duty to sail further, overall he is a humble leader who defers to aslan’s guidance. He’s often at the front of the fight making stirring speeches, and the film pointedly avoids showing him in a bad light.

The movie transfers the death water, greed incident to Edmund alone. Uh, additionally, when the Dark Island missed temps Caspian, it’s not with greed, but with emotional and emotional fear, a vision of his father expressing disappointment in him. This is a new wrinkle, giving Caspian a moment of vulnerability, but it’s quickly overcome.

Uh, the film makes him a little, uh, more one dimensional perhaps than the book. 

[00:46:44] Donna: Uh, the film also introduces a mild romantic spark between Caspian and Lillian Dale, the Star’s daughter. Uh, he’s instantly smitten and awkward in her presence, which is actually true in the book as well. And later he marries her per the book’s lore.

However, the book had Caspian blurred out a corny line about sleeping beauty when meeting her, whereas Film Caspian keeps it a bit more earnest and just. Admires her beauty. Again, I think we mentioned before how Ben Barnes being a part of Stardust and they keep him in the star, they keep the star trope going with him.

Um mm-hmm. Yeah. I thought this was interesting. Even though he pined over Susan didn’t take him long when he saw Lillian Dale to go, Susan, who, what? 

[00:47:34] Josiah: Yeah. It should take someone more than three years to get over a crush. A 

[00:47:38] Rebekah: crush with whom he had a single kiss. 

[00:47:41] Josiah: Yeah. Yeah. In a couple days of knowledge, I think I enjoyed a video I was watching about Voyage of the Dawn shredder, where he was imitating Caspian’s Inner dialogue, inner monologue, and he, he said, wow, two women that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with right away have completely purposefully disappeared off this plane of existence to get away from me.

Might need to reevaluate my life choices. It’s 

[00:48:12] Donna: not, uh, not great. Yeah. 

[00:48:14] Josiah: The only two, he has a type, I guess the, uh, the director Apted was not impressed with Ben’s, uh, Spanish accent. Ben Barnes, who played Prince Caspian in Prince Caspian, yes. He, he had this Spanish accent to match kind of the con conquistador aesthetic they were going for in that movie, Apted had him move to his natural British accent in Don Rader.

I do think it’s funny that Ben was both embarrassed by doing the Spanish accent in the previous film as he, he’s gone on to say, but he also fought the director and lost to keep the Spanish accent in this film. He said that I think on a live stream. Sometime. 

[00:48:55] Tim: Well, it’s, that was would be consistency. I mean, I, I recognize that the director would say, well, I don’t really like that accent.

Well, you chose to know they were supposed to be conquistador. Kind of, it was, yeah. It was a different director is a new director. Right. And I understand, understand that people 

[00:49:10] Rebekah: maybe weren’t necessarily gonna go watch the last one. And then I, I would assume that most viewers probably won’t notice something like that after a couple of years have passed.

But at the same time, 

[00:49:21] Tim: that’s, that’s a big change. When we watch, we’re gonna watch a new film of a series of films. We have a tendency to watch to rewatch the last one so that we’re mm-hmm. In step with where the new one is going to be. Yeah. So, I don’t know. Maybe people do it more often than you would think.

[00:49:39] Donna: This was really, that Spanish accent was so overpowering casting. That this was strange. A huge changeover, and it sounded more natural for sure, just to speak as he deals with the rest of the cast or whatever. But 

[00:49:54] Josiah: how long did it take you to notice? 

[00:49:55] Donna: Oh, unfortunately, I’d already read this trivia, so I picked it up as soon as he started talking.

But dad did, did, wasn’t this one of the things you said, uh, wait, I think you might have remarked something about this and I just can’t, I, maybe I’m missing 

[00:50:10] Tim: thinking that. Yeah, I can’t remember. I do, I do remember in the previous film that his accent was drawn and I wondered if, I wondered if he was not British that, you know, they had to use the accent because he was, it was his accent.

Yeah. But reading this, it’s. Strange. 

[00:50:26] Donna: Well, Rebecca, I think our next character might be one that you’re particularly fond at. Forget being brave, 

[00:50:33] Rebekah: like a gryffendor. I want to be brave, like rip Cheap. Uh, I love him. I love him so much. You’re not, uh, you’re not. I’m Griffin. Not at all Griffindor, but I’m a Hufflepuff and I like Repa cheap in the, 

[00:50:46] Tim: the audio book that I was listening to, the narrator.

Mm-hmm. Person who’s reading it, uh, calls it repeat cheap. It’s always repeat cheap. That’s so funny. 

[00:50:54] Rebekah: I think you listen to a different one than we do. And so that’s ours. I love the voice probably that ours used. Honestly, I thought it was fun. Yes. Um, basically the same book to film in, in most ways, he’s a lot of comic relief.

Uh, you know, due to his size and enormous ego and a little fanatically courageous. Like he’s so much braver than everyone else. It’s almost ridiculous. Uh, Simon Peg actually voiced Repa Cheap in this one, which was different than in the second film, uh, which I don’t mind. I thought it was a really good, um, portrayal.

He befriends Eustis, which is really touching in both the book and the film. Uh, and generally is the same, but, uh, I, oh, he’s my favorite. I wanna be like, reap. 

[00:51:35] Tim: Apparently Director Apted chose Simon Peg to voice him because he felt like P’S voice came across more mature and serious than did Eddie Izard, who voiced him in the previous movie.

Hmm. 

[00:51:50] Donna: Interesting how he made that change from Ben Barnes’s accent and then he picked a different voiceover for Reci because of how his voice. I just thought that was kind of interesting that he made some of those changes. But 

[00:52:03] Josiah: yeah, I think there’s a conspiracy theory ’cause Eddie Izard is very anti-religion.

[00:52:10] Donna: Oh, well, I mean, it’s true. That’s my conspiracy theory. That’s, it’s true. I mean and true because he said it not true because I just decided it was true. Yeah, yeah, 

[00:52:18] Josiah: yeah. He, he, he is very vocal. Yeah. Isn’t he one where like, we would probably listen to him more if he weren’t. Vitriolic about. Yeah, because he is funny, funny.

Can be funny. 

[00:52:27] Donna: He he is very funny. Yeah. Uh, one notable change in repa sheep’s final fate. In both versions, book and film, reap fulfills the prophecy and travels to Aslan’s country. At the end. The book has him ecstatic to go. He, he doesn’t even do a big drawn out goodbye. He just wants to go. He’s like, well friends, it’s been great, but I’m off to paradise.

See ya. And he sails up the wave and he is never to be seen again with a joyful heart. In the film, re, Apache humbly asks. Aslan for permission to enter the country. He bows to his friends and there are teary eyes all around as he paddles away in the mystical, not green evil, but mystical, beautiful mist.

Um, I did like this a lot. I did think this scene was a good for film because you do need that moment where you see them. They’re emotional, you know, they’re, they’re all disconnecting at this point because they’re all saying goodbye. But I thought it was good for him and, um, loved, I, I was okay with Eddie Izard in Prince Cassian, but I loved Simon Pagan.

This I. I liked the actor a lot and really, uh, thought he did a great job. Thought he interacted with Eustus well. I thought their, they had a good chemistry in their dialogue and back and forth and things like that. I 

[00:53:42] Rebekah: didn’t mind this re a cheap change quite as much like as some of the other things they do change with the Aslan interactions and all that stuff.

[00:53:49] Tim: So some of them seemed a little more logical. Sure. 

[00:53:52] Rebekah: There are several side characters who get altered a little bit through the film. So, uh, Lord Rinse gets a more personal stake in the journey. He wants to find his missing wife, Gail’s mother. He’s Gail’s father. Uh, Lillian Dill, who is remand DE’s daughter is actually given her name in the film, in the book.

She’s just referred to as Ray Mandus daughter. And instead of being a side character to that father, like in the book. She’s the one who explains to the characters why the three Lords have been sleeping at the table for so long, and we do not see Rimando on screen. Uh, Jill Poll, who doesn’t show up in the books until the silver chair gets a brief movie cameo.

And then Lord Byrne is portrayed in the film as a grizzled prisoner rather than a well-settled noble on the Lone Islands as he was in the book. Alright, let us move right along into our plot and timeline changes. 

[00:54:44] Josiah: Yeah. You know, the book drops us right into Eustis Home and in the first chapter there’s sucked into Narnia.

It’s kind of the structure of a book where you gotta have the inciting incident happen in that first chapter. Whereas the movie, there’s a little bit of drama, uh, setting up movie only character arcs. You know, in the movie, Edmond is chafing about just being a kid tries to forge papers to enlist in the army.

Those, uh, opening scenes, set a more urgent tone. You know, give Edmond a chip on his shoulder from the get go. The, the book’s opening is quite brief. Eustis is obnoxious and they’re in Narnia. Water pours out, they’re in the sea. Next to the dawn tread, there’s no war commentary necessary, stuff like that.

[00:55:33] Tim: Well, when the crew reaches the Lone Islands, the broad strokes remain. Our heroes are captured by slave traders and eventually triumph. But the details diverge quite a bit and unnecessarily. In the book, Caspian employs a bit of undercover strategy. He allows himself to be sold as a slave and then reveals his identity.

Only after meeting the Lord burn one of the lost lords in captivity, using that surprise to depose the corrupt Governor Gupa, 

[00:56:05] Rebekah: which I loved in the book, it was such a fun thing, 

[00:56:09] Tim: right? The things that they do with the ship to make it seem like it’s just the first of a. Group of ships that they’re signaling, you know, and so it makes more sense.

The film throws subtlety overboard. The, the moment slaves ambush in the movie, Caspian basically shouts his royal status. I’m your king and engages in a fight, which only gets him knocked out and imprisoned. Yeah, Whoopi King. It’s just a, it’s. It’s a strange part, and that’s where they introduced the green mist, which didn’t exist in the book.

[00:56:44] Josiah: Two things. Of course, they had an add an action scene and take out one of the more interesting little subplots from the book. Second of all, I am Your king, has been ruined for me because it’s a famous line in Game of Thrones when the annoying little boy King says, I’m the king. And then his grandpa, who is a bad guy, but is also really cool, he says, any man who has to say I am the king is no real king.

I’m like, gosh, that’s a such a good line. I’ll always remember it. So when Caspian says, oh yeah, the king, I’m like, uh, you’re thinking, no, you have to say it. You have to say it 

[00:57:27] Tim: then. It’s not really no man worthy of the throne has to say it. Yeah. 

[00:57:31] Donna: Well, instead of a clever economic argument with the governor Gupa about the evils of slavery, the movie’s conflict adds a spooky twist.

Caspian learns from Lord Burn. Then unsold slaves are being sacrificed to a malevolent green mist and it haunts the seas 

[00:57:51] Tim: Boo 

[00:57:54] Donna: priorities. The Book’s villain was Human greed. The films villain is an actual evil cloud that eats people, so, mm-hmm. I wonder why, if this is why the filmmakers. End up with so much trouble figuring out which direction to take the story.

[00:58:15] Rebekah: I, it’s a green 

[00:58:16] Tim: mist, a mystery green mist. 

[00:58:20] Rebekah: So like we said, throwing subtlety overboard. Uh, the crew on the don shredder stages a jailbreak in the film. They free everybody in short order. They have no drawn out political maneuver beyond Caspian declaring the slave trade illegal. Um, Lord Byrne does notably become the governor.

Um. The new governor of the island in both versions. But in the film, he also hands caspian a sword. He kept, in fact, one of seven sacred swords, whereas in the book, Caspian’s just, you know, happy to meet, uh, meet an old friend. 

[00:58:56] Tim: Okay, well, perhaps the biggest change in the film is the creation of a unifying villain or a goal that the book doesn’t have.

In CS Lewis’ novel, there’s no overarching big batty, no green cloud of doom, and the mission is simply to find the seven lost lords, most of whom have met various fates on different islands. The film writers decided to bind the episodic voyage together with a quest to defeat an evil green mist. That is my goodness, kidnapping and devouring people to do so, the protagonist must collect the seven magical swords.

What are we playing a ga A game here? Uh mm-hmm. The seven Magical Swords of the Lost Lords and unite them on Aslan’s table. None of this sword and mist stuff is from the book. It’s a wholly new storyline for the movie, presumably to raise the stakes and give a traditional evil to fight. The mist is even there in the Magician’s house.

Uh, Tim Allen. Oh, 

[01:00:02] Josiah: well, in the film, whenever they find a lost Lord. This is how it works. They retrieve his sword conveniently. They all got scattered to different islands. It’s like a fantasy scavenger hunt, a game McGuffin quest. I don’t know. Laying all seven swords together is going to dispel the dark islands power.

That’s what happens in the film’s Grand finale. The book has no such device. The swords on the table in the novel are just the possessions of three lords. They, they’re who that are laying enchanted. In a deep sleep. There’s, there’s no magical reaction to collecting all it’s, it’s just a, a piece of the book that’s interesting and I guess symbolic.

But, uh, yeah, the darkness of the dark island vanishes in the book be because they, they leave the island with aslan’s help. But the, uh, the McGuffin movie plot gives the heroes a more urgent objectives, lets the crew do something to win compared to, with the books, uh, kind of wandering, wandering from place to place.

Plot. Not, not in a super bad way, not like it’s meandering in a bad way, but, but it is an adventure with like seven different little mini quests. But this change fundamentally changes the stories tone from exploratory to, to more mission oriented. Mm. 

[01:01:18] Tim: And gives them a reason for eus to remain a dragon and then be saved later where he can on the island, put that last sword in place at the last second.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. It take, it takes, takes away Aslan’s movement and puts a lot more in their own hands, which is very different. Yeah. I 

[01:01:42] Rebekah: don’t mind the ticking time bomb aspect. Like I get that, that’s like a, well, it’s like a movie and a book thing. Honestly, you can do that. But I, I felt like they, see, it’s interesting ’cause I know like the mission was, I guess exploratory is a good word, because they were just trying to find out what happened to the Lords.

They didn’t necessarily have plans to like retrieve them. They just needed to know what had happened to them or whatever. But I feel like they were like, that was their mission. Like I just, the swords thing just felt weirdly ddu. Like duplicative, like why, what is, who cares? Like you found the Lords like that was the point.

So yeah. I’m, I wasn’t as big of a fan of adding that. Strange, yeah. Their swords weren’t 

[01:02:20] Tim: magic, you know. Uh, his uncle, Caspian’s uncle had tried to get rid of the Lords who had been, um. Who had been loyal to Caspian’s father, whom his uncle had killed in the previous story. Um, and so they wanted to find out what had happened to each of them.

CS Lewis wrote this so that they would be faced with these temptations on these different islands. And yeah. Um, yeah, the introduction of an evil, uh, different than that was, I guess it tied things together, but I think some of it lost some of what made it beautiful and special. 

[01:03:01] Donna: I wondered when, you know, I hear the part in the movie where we gotta find these seven lords, and I knew that, I mean, I knew that.

Book, but it was like, okay, they found one and then finally they found another. And I thought, this movie is only around two hours long. When are they gonna find the other lords? And I thought it was interesting. All of a sudden, oh, there’s three of them at the table. Yeah, three of them are there at the table.

Because it almost, that came across to me like 

[01:03:30] Tim: maybe CS Lewis was a little lazy when he got to that point. I don’t know. 

[01:03:33] Donna: Well, I don’t even, it just seemed like from a, I didn’t get that from the book, but in the film it just seemed like, oh, well we gotta hurry up and let’s just sit ’em at the table. They’ll all just be kind of frozen there and, and the girl can find them or the whatever.

And then Eustis can have his, you know, thing. And well, as, as far as some other, uh, shuffling of events here, the film significantly shuffles sequence, the sequence of islands. And it even combined some events that were separate in the book. For example, uh, the novel in the novel, the Don Traitor hits a horrible storm.

After leaving the Lone Islands, it limps to Dragon Island where Eustis turns into a dragon and is later cured, and then continues to another place called Death Water Island, where they find a magic pool that turns things to gold and nearly come to blows over it. In the movie, however, this is streamlined, the storm still happens, but later in Dragon Island and Goldwater or Death Water Island are essentially merged into one stop, uh, on this single island, uh, which is the volcanic wasteland in the film.

The crew discovers the pool that turns everything to gold, and Eustis finds a dragon’s treasure hoard all in the same locale. So this means the movie characters recover two of the lost Lord’s swords in quick succession, one from the pool. Uh, a Lord turned to gold and one from the treasure cave. Another Lord’s skeletal remains in the book.

These discoveries were like two at two distinct islands visited at different times. And I keep reminding myself these books aren’t a lot longer than these movies were, but they still had to pull together some things and refit some things. So be interesting if it had to do with like locations. The money involved and things like that would be interesting to know.

[01:05:25] Rebekah: In keeping with that added centralized threat. The film does build to a major final battle. Uh, the film does not have this, which, you know, I think happened, uh, in the first book there was a battle and it became a lot longer in the film than in the book. And in the second book, uh, yep, they add a battle.

And in this book we gotta have a battle. I don’t know. Uh, in the movie, our heroes sail to the Dark Islands, specifically to confront the villain of the green Miss.

And to rescue its victims. Uh, this leads to a showdown with a gigantic sea serpent conjured from Edmund’s nightmares, which is prevalent. Uh, happens in the book sort of, uh, well, the serpent is there. The fight is lengthy and pretty intense thrashing tentacles. The ship gets squeezed. And, uh, CGI chaos all about everywhere.

Um, Edmund gets a little moment of glory as he slays the serpent, as the last sword is placed on the table and activates 

[01:06:23] Tim: magical power. It’s not Edmund that places it, it’s used to places. The sort gets 

[01:06:30] Rebekah: a moment of glory. I don’t know how I missed that. Sorry. 

[01:06:37] Tim: Well, in the book by contrast, the encounter at Dark Island is eerie, but brief.

The crew ventures into a pitch. Black fog hears terrifying unseen threats. The island where dreams come true. Even your worst ones, which is far more horrifying than it sounds. They rescue Lord Rupe, who’s been psychologically scarred by his time there. And then Lan in the form of an albatross, guides them out before anything too terrible happens.

The whole thing lasts. A single chapter with no epic fight. They certainly don’t kill a sea monster as a climactic heroic act. There is a sea serpent in the book, but it appeared earlier in the voyage and was more of a nuisance they never killed. It just slipped away from it. Um, I have a question for you guys.

Mm-hmm. If now they’re not necessarily the seven deadly sins that the, the voyage is about, but see if this connects with most of the story. Pride, greed, wrath, lust. Envy, gluttony and sloth. Can you, in the book, can you place where those might fall? And I would say the greed, of course, on the, on the Gold Island, um, as well as with the dragon.

And we’ve certainly got fear, which can fall into one of those categories. 

[01:08:01] Donna: You have envy with Lucy, deals with envy over wanting to be someone else 

[01:08:07] Rebekah: used to, starts out with sloth. And then he also expresses greed. Lust. 

[01:08:12] Tim: There’s a, there’s a lust for power. Mm-hmm. In, in that isn’t 

[01:08:15] Donna: there a part to where he is like stealing food 

[01:08:18] Tim: that’s gluttony.

Yep. I think the seven deadly sins have some basis for, for being that as well as, uh, adding fear. I think the, the Dark Island was a place for fear and the reason. That, um, Eustis was able to let the crew know that he was useful as a dragon was because they’d already encountered the sea serpent at that point, who broke the mast of the ship, and he was able to bring a large tree that could be made into a new mast.

Uh, and that lengthened the time on Dragon Island. And, you know, and subsequently his. His distress, that knowing he was gonna have to be left behind. So I think when they changed that, they changed quite a lot of things. 

[01:09:06] Donna: And for the cherry on top, the movie’s, dark Island Resolution has all the people who were absorbed by the mist, magically reappearing, safe and sound.

Once the serpent is vanquished, 

[01:09:19] Josiah: ooh, yay, ooh, shouldn’t that, where’s the happy music from The mist? 

[01:09:25] Donna: Is there happy music in the miss? Never including Gail’s mother providing a neat and happy ending. And the little girl finds her mommy and she jumps in the sea and I’m like, oh, could you wait? Just anyway, she jumps and swims over there.

The book having no evil mist, of course, had no need for such reunions. The only person retrieved from Dark Island in the novel was Lord Rupin. He had to recuperate from the trauma of his nightmares. No mass rescue needed 

[01:09:57] Rebekah: in both versions. When the Dawn Treader finally reaches the end of the world assure just before getting to Aslan’s country, Cassian faces a choice, continue onward or turn back to rule his kingdom.

The book plays this out as a test of obedience. Actually, Caspian throws a tantrum. He’s a little rude. Uh, he declares. He will sail into Alan’s country with Repa cheap. Uh, and he’s actually very unkind to his crew members, kind of out of character because he’s so desperate to go. And finally you 

[01:10:28] Tim: can just take the ship and go back home and tell everybody 

[01:10:31] Rebekah: exactly.

Anyway, finally, Alan forbids him. And Caspian Bladed does agree to stay return to his home country and remain king. Um, in the film, this is toned way down to a much more introspective moment. Uh, Caspian is a little more open. He wants to see his dead father again, beyond that massive wave, um, stopping them from heading towards Alan’s country.

And there is temptation there to see the father, but Caspian decides on his own again, removing. Some of Aslan’s influence and giving him internal agency, which understandable from a movie standpoint. I don’t like, again, the allegorical and humanism. Yes. Um, but anyway, Cassian decides on his own, uh, he’s gonna remain king and not go on his own personal quest.

Um, it’s a voluntary choice, uh, rather than as land laying down the law. 

[01:11:23] Tim: Yeah. Well, in the film, Caspian even gets a short heart to heart with Edmund and Lucy about how they have completed their journey and he must continue his, which isn’t in the book, this change paints Caspian is more selflessly responsible in the film.

Whereas in the book, he needed a figurative smack upside the head from Aslan to do the right thing, which I think is a, is a better story arc in the, in the film he’s a little, because they’ve taken away, they took away the greed part at the, uh, the island with the gold. The Goldwater and took away this part of him saying, you know, selfishly I want to go see my father, you know, blah, blah, blah.

I don’t care about the people of the kingdom. Instead, the film paints him to be a little bit better than the book does, personally better. Mm. 

[01:12:13] Donna: Be interesting if he went and there was like this big weird black shrouded dude that said, Sian, I am your father. 

[01:12:20] Tim: Sorry. 

[01:12:21] Donna: I 

[01:12:22] Tim: dunno. Different film. Different film, I think.

Mm. 

[01:12:25] Josiah: So we’re at the end of the story Now both versions have Aslan inform Edmund and Lucy that this is their last time in Narnia. They’ve just grown too old. The film has this scene on the beach with Alan appearing as a majestic lion to give the news and encourage the children, uh, to know him in their world by another name.

Mm-hmm. An overt reference, basically saying, this is Alan is on an allegory for Jesus. It is. He is actually Jesus Christ. In the novel, Aslan first appears as a lamb and then immediately turns into a lion. Oh, I wonder why. Uh, while sharing a farewell meal with the travelers. It’s a small but symbolically rich detail that the movie, the movie skipped and I think it makes sense.

The movie skipped it. 

[01:13:11] Donna: Yeah. So my question here and my question through any of these changes from the very overt Christian reference in the novel to. Not necessarily anti-Christian in the film, but it just waters down a lot. I just have to wonder it. Well, it wasn’t made as a faith-based film. 

[01:13:31] Tim: That’s true.

Well, I think the, I think the lamb and lion reference in the book 

[01:13:35] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:13:35] Tim: Would have been confusing. Sure. For a, for an audience that may or may not have any real Christian background. Yeah, that’s true. I think of all the changes that were made, I think that one makes the most sense to me. 

[01:13:48] Rebekah: I just. It just, uh, I don’t know.

I don’t even know how to like, verbalize. 

[01:13:53] Tim: Well, CS Lewis said this was a Christian allegory. He, he made sure that people knew this was allegorical. I do mean for it to represent Christianity. Um, and so to take that aspect of the books and water them down to the point that there are only hints, um, seems disingenuous to the, to the original work.

I’m grateful that they did use some of them, and I can still read into the films more because I want to, and those who watched the films and said, I didn’t see any of that. I guess they can too. 

[01:14:33] Rebekah: Yeah. I, I just, I don’t, I would just rather have had the Christian version of the story and I know that that’s, yeah.

Christian filmmakers, I would love to see them make Narnia, but it has 

[01:14:44] Josiah: What about animated? 

[01:14:45] Rebekah: That could work? I mean, it’s so hard. I think when the line that witch in the wardrobe started, I think the casting of these four kids was so good to start the moment with, you know, the, the lamppost and. The fawn.

It’s just, it’s so good and magical, but I just feel like I lost interest. The further that the, this particular thing went along, like I love it in live action, but the longer it went along, the more, like in the first film, they didn’t try to take a lot of that stuff out. Like some of the stuff with Aslan, it was a little muted maybe, but it was.

Still clear enough that as a believer, I could like watch the movie and like get caught up in the emotion of seeing this like picture of Jesus. And it just, by the time I get to this one, I’m like, you’re just trying to make like a basic fantasy story. And that’s not why I love these films. Like there’s a lot of good fantasy out there that has this same exact tropes that you ended up using.

What is not out there as much? Is this beautiful like Christocentric story? I don’t know. So I, I just, I, it made me lose interest because I value the stories for what Lewis intended for them to be. 

[01:15:53] Tim: I think I would love to see a version of this that, um, that the chosen director and writer would produce.

Yeah. Well, 

[01:16:01] Rebekah: unfortunately the person producing it has called her version role, so Oh no. 

[01:16:05] Josiah: Oh no. I trust that Greta Gerwig is gonna make it really faith. Based. Yes. Sounds like it’s 

[01:16:12] Tim: headed that way. Oh 

[01:16:12] Rebekah: wow. Yeah. Uh, for the ending of the film, there is a brief tag where Eustis hears his mother say that Jill Poll, a school friend has come to visit, uh, this 

[01:16:22] Josiah: friend of Jack Pale.

Very cute. 

[01:16:24] Rebekah: Uh, this is foreshadowing to the next story. Uh, Jill is not mentioned in the end of Dawn Treader, but she and tis do connect in the silver chair. She’s also part of the last battle, uh, storyline. Uh, and at that point when Jill enters the story in the silver chair, tis and her are actually not friends.

Like she had disliked him until she gets to actively see the changes that he has found during his first, uh, foray into 

[01:16:50] Donna: Narnia. So, tagging on this, there were some plans to go forward with an adaptation of the Magician’s nephew in 2011, however, but by the time they started to flush all this out, Walden Media’s contract with the Lewis estate expired.

And for whatever reason, and I never found a real specific thought or why they didn’t just continue it, um, further plans were canceled. So these three movies were it. 

[01:17:17] Tim: If all of them were going to be made, if, if the entire series was going to be made into a movie, it really needs to start with the magician’s nephew if you’re gonna do it.

That’s the beginning together. That’s the beginning of the story. Mm-hmm. Um, he goes, Lewis goes back and writes that story. Okay, 

[01:17:35] Rebekah: I am hate to say this, but Greta Gerwig version starts with the magician’s nephew. They’re not starting that one with the line, the witch and the wardrobe. So, I mean, I hate to say it ’cause I’m so now Dad has to watch it and like it, I remember we have to have hope for it.

I have memory of reading The Magician’s Nephew, which I know is not the book we’re talking about today, but I have a memory of reading that for the first time in one of my first college, it wasn’t a class. We were like taking a personality test or something and I happened to finish early. I had the book on me.

So I sat there and I’d never read it and I cried, like just sitting in a room with a bunch of other students doing their thing. I read this beautiful portrayal of Aslan like breathing life and breath into the world. Yeah. Singing the world into Existence. Yeah. And it was literally one of the most like, impactful moments I’ve ever had reading a book.

And again, it just makes me, as someone who values this book based on its intent, like original intended, uh, purpose. Like it makes me not look forward to a version of it done by someone who doesn’t value my, like the faith I have. And, and its role in this story. Like that’s why it makes me nervous and I’m like, like, how are you gonna change all of that to make it less about God?

[01:18:45] Tim: The nervousness is legitimate. We have movies like that. Mm-hmm. Uh, one of them is. Noah, that that has almost nothing to do with Noah, where he encounters all these other ships and 

[01:18:57] Donna: people in this when he’s out in the flood and yeah. Why not? 

[01:19:00] Tim: Yeah. It’s, it’s so outlandish. If, I would hope that people would try to be faithful to, to the work that they’re, that they’re working from.

And I think even, even outside of Christianity and the things connected to it, um, I think some of the. Times when people have had the worst responses to adaptations is when they felt like the person or the group that adapted. It wasn’t true to, to the essence of the original work life for Shining. We’ve seen, we’ve seen a lot of things and read a lot of things where the adaptation changed a lot, but still kept the essence of the original.

Um, you have, and I think that you have to be really careful because when you change that essence, you lose the, the audience that’s awaiting that. You know, you may gain a little bit of an audience, but you lose the first audience. Mm-hmm. And it’s disingenuous, I think. 

[01:20:01] Josiah: Yeah. 

[01:20:02] Tim: Well, CS Lewis ended, dawn.

Shredder with a line about how Eustis remained changed for the better. Uh, there were no extra visitors, no peeking back at the magical painting. The movie, in contrast, closes with Lucy looking back, wistfully at the image of the dawn shredder on the painting. As it fades away, as it travels back out of the painting, it is a visually touching sendoff that isn’t in the book’s conclusion, but for a visual medium, I think it’s a very good way to end it.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I would agree. 

[01:20:36] Donna: Moving on into some trivia of that lovely cash grab that we’ve been remarking on occasionally. Um, the book released in September. Of 1952, 

[01:20:51] Tim: which according to a friend of mine, must have been about my birth time, except it was a decade before. So whole decade. Yeah. Yeah. 

[01:21:00] Josiah: Only 

[01:21:00] Tim: a decade.

[01:21:01] Donna: Well, nine years, you know. Yeah. But who’s counting? 

[01:21:03] Rebekah: Dad? Apparently. 

[01:21:06] Donna: Yeah. It’s it. That’s it. Uh. The movie release was on November 30th, 2010 at a Royal Film performance, so it was a one one night premier there. Then on December 9th, 2010 in the uk and December 10th in, uh, the US the book rating on Good reads was 4.09 out of five.

Now that’s 497,000 reviews. And the reason I remarked this was that’s the rating of the single standalone book, but the rating of the complete series of the Chronicles of Narnia had a little bit better. It was 4.28 out of five rating with just short of 700,000 reviews. So I kind of found it interesting.

The book didn’t, I mean, it didn’t bottom out by itself as far as readers were concerned, but I kind of thought that was an interesting comparison, that it was lower than the series overall. Um, the movie rating on Rotten Tomatoes was a 49, so didn’t hit the fresh, uh, fresh level, but, um, it’s 49%. IMDB gave it a little bit better, 6.3 outta 10, um, and the flixter audience score was 58%.

So, so 

[01:22:25] Rebekah: score wise, this is like the lowest of the three, is that right? 

[01:22:27] Donna: Yeah. I think so production cost of the whole thing was 140, between 140 and 155 million. There’s a couple of estimates in there that that couldn’t give me a real solid number. Um, the opening weekend brought in 24 million. Then USA Canada gross of the film was 104 million.

So I mean five times that over the period of time it was out. And then international 311 million Interesting. Three times. The USA Canada gross. I thought that was, I don’t think we usually see it quite that, that higher. Kind of interesting, uh, bringing a total box office to 415.6 million. Um, I will say Disney was going, initially.

Disney planned to go ahead and be the main backer of this, and then there were some budget concerns and some issues going on in. Between Caspian in this filming and Disney pulled back. And so Walden Media took it and, and it went forward with 20th Century Fox. And I did also wanna note that, you know, in the end of all of it, Disney’s bought all this now, so it’s back to a Disney property.

But, uh, lastly, Tim just loves all the stuff Disney’s bought 

[01:23:48] Tim: Disney eyes. It means we could do, we could do 28 of the seven books. I think they’re finally suffering of it. Yeah, 

[01:23:58] Donna: I do too. I think so too. Uh, it was rated pg, which I felt was fair rating, and it was filmed in Australia and New Zealand. That was another change where they’d looked at some other locations and decided they could get the look in the field that they wanted and, uh, also save some money by moving the locations.

So 

[01:24:19] Tim: I have a tiny bit of trivia and a question. The, the trivia that I have is that over overall in Hollywood, apparently over 50% of the films made in Hollywood have been adaptations of books or, okay. Short, short stories or long, long short stories. Uh, in 2005. It was over 60% and by 2011 it was over 65%.

They have a, let’s see, I have, I have, uh, an actual number here. They earn 53% more in revenue and between 2007 and 2016 book adaptations raked in a whopping $22.5 billion. So I understand why, why they want to a, want to adapt. I also understand why we do, will we, do, you know what, a 

[01:25:18] Rebekah: book that I would love to see adapted to film that I haven’t heard any plans for is, uh, the Heirs of History, A Nation From Nothing.

I’ve heard that that would make. By t Jos. I think that would make a great, probably a TV show. ’cause I’m sure it’s far too complex to put into a, you know, three hour runtime. Yeah, 

[01:25:35] Tim: I would say that. Yeah, probably. I, my question, and I haven’t found an answer to it yet, uh, and it’s just a question to linger out there, what is, what would be the average length of time from a book to becoming a film adaptation?

Like this one was almost 60 years. Well, but it been adapted before that. I was gonna say there, there were some others. It had been adapted about 34, 35 years later. Um, initially, and then there are some that we’ve done that are like, you know, the. Book came out and the movie came out four years later. Um, so I’m just curious what the average time would be and maybe, maybe that’s something that a slide rule has, you know, used to be a long time and now it’s a much shorter time.

So 

[01:26:23] Rebekah: the typical timeframe is something like three to 10 years, which makes sense. Um, that’s where the terms mm-hmm. Development. Hell comes out like we’ve heard that before where people just wait and their books are just sit in development and directors and different studio people decide what to do.

Somebody has the 

[01:26:38] Tim: rights. 

[01:26:39] Rebekah: Yeah. Um, there are some fast tracked adaptations for really huge books. So Harry Potter falls into this, the Hunger Games falls into this. Before Sunrise on the Reaping came out this year, they had already announced that it was going to be a film that comes out in next November of 2026 course.

Um, and then of course of course’s, a few major exceptions. They mentioned Dune in this as one which took over 40 years from the initial attempts to a movie to a major adaptation. And then there’s stuff like Lord of the Rings and Narnia where there’s those few, couple of like, you know, classics. And I think for that, in some cases, the reason that they probably weren’t considered as for films.

Many, like decades earlier was just that technology wasn’t to the point that you could have done justice to the story itself without it just, you would’ve had to make it animated. And so live action we’re, we’ve seen a lot of those since the turn of the century because of technology changes, 

[01:27:31] Tim: because the technology allows for the Fin testicle.

I mean, 

[01:27:34] Donna: shameless plug, there was also that movie Flatlands. It was years and years and years and years before that was adapted. Huh. 

[01:27:41] Josiah: I mean, 

[01:27:41] Donna: decade 

[01:27:42] Josiah: a century. Right? That’s true. Why didn’t they make a movie in the 1850s when it publish? That’s so I 

[01:27:47] Donna: don’t get it. But, but what did we cover? Just a moving picture.

What, there’s one book we’ve, uh, to film, we’ve covered where while the book, like even before it was out in mass publication, they were already like, the movie’s gonna happen. It was not Sunrise. It’s, I wanna say it was a Devil’s It was Self, it was a self-published. 

[01:28:05] Tim: What was the Oh yeah, it was, it was Marshal, it was Wool.

He was the self-published before 

[01:28:11] Donna: he Oh. But I was thinking there was another one. Go ahead, 

[01:28:14] Rebekah: marsh. That might be, the Marshal was self-published before being picked up, um, as a book, like as a published book. 

[01:28:19] Tim: But I think the, while, while he was self-publishing, they were saying, let’s start, do the book and make it a movie.

Those kinds of things. So I guess it has to do with the popularity because when I go to places like Barnes and Noble or even to a library, um, I realize just how many books there are. And you know, it’s like if you go to Barnes and Noble, it’s like these 80 books are at the front of the store. These are new, these are new releases.

And I’m thinking so few of those will ever even become movies. I mean, it just seems strange that, that we just kind of pick and choose and I’m not sure exactly what causes it. Mm-hmm. Because sometimes it’s not the best seller that makes it, it just has to have something that somebody notices is different enough, 

[01:29:10] Rebekah: or 

[01:29:10] Tim: to be honest, the same enough, 

[01:29:13] Rebekah: something else they can confirm is successful.

Uh, Doug Gresham, CS Lewis’s stepson that we’ve talked about several times was also a producer for Don Tr uh, in this film. His cameo is as one of the slave buyers, uh, his previous cameos in Narnia, or the radio announcer in line, the witch in the wardrobe, and he was the one who calls out that Raz has a son in Prince Caspian.

[01:29:36] Josiah: What, what is, did Prince Caspian eat the sun? 

[01:29:41] Rebekah: I don’t know how to respond to that. No. 

[01:29:45] Donna: Oh, okay. So I have a question and I will admit to you that I saw this in the, saw this trivia. Watch the movie after it, and. Missed it. I’ll tell you my answer in a minute. Did you see Aslan’s face in the stars, uh, the chil where when the children sat looking at the night sky remarking that they, whether or not they’d seen those constellations?

Did you see Aslan’s face? I thought I noticed 

[01:30:12] Rebekah: it. Absolutely 

[01:30:13] Tim: not. I, I thought I did, but 

[01:30:15] Donna: yeah, I know. It was like, I don’t know, maybe I didn’t. I was so excited when I read it. I was like, oh, I can’t wait to watch it. I’m gonna watch for that. ’cause I’m not observant. I’ve said that many times before. And I watched it and I was like, I’m observing it and I still don’t see it.

[01:30:29] Tim: I’m sorry. This next thing is about observation two. Yeah. During the in credits, the character drawings are the exact ones that appeared in the novel. Did you notice that this was a tribute to Pauline, the entire book series Illustrator who died in August, 2008 at age 85? Uh, we also see an in-memory note of her in the credits as she had passed away.

By 2008, Bains contributed illustrations to more than 200 books, mostly works for children. Most notably, she was the first illustrator of some minor works of JRR Tolkien, including the adventures of Tom Bombadil and his poem. Bilbo’s last song, she was also the cover artist for The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and was the creator of the poster map or inset illustrations of a map of middle Earth.

Mm. So we have her to thank Wow. For all of 

[01:31:27] Josiah: those things. Yeah. She was, and she also did Narnia. Yeah. And 

[01:31:30] Donna: she was, she, she did the whole series of Narnia illustrations. I read some just little interesting tidbits about her life. Um, she knew CS Lewis, but she wasn’t that crazy about him. And then she read after he passed away in like an, a biography about him, um, she read that he kinda said she was kind of irritating too.

And so she illustrated his books and she made them beautiful. But hey, um, 

[01:32:00] Tim: didn’t you, didn’t you also say that there was, you know, something about the fact that she was bothered or at least. You know, struck by the fact that, yeah. Uh, someone purchased a first edition of the Chronicles with her illustrations, and they paid more for the book than she got paid for doing.

Yeah. The illustrations of all of them, they 

[01:32:24] Donna: paid three times for the first, uh, first uh, edition of the book. Then I even got paid for doing it. The, and I think there was a little bit of issue too, the, she was a Christian, but she wasn’t completely sold on the way that he portrayed. Christianity or something, especially Aslan as Christ.

[01:32:43] Tim: I think 

[01:32:44] Donna: it’s interesting to me only because I love to see how people think, and we just make an assumption that all these people are gonna do, they’re gonna get along, they’re gonna do their thing and work together, blah, blah, blah. And then you read some of these things where, oh, they’re just people and they have opinions, and sometimes they’re complimentary of each other, sometimes they’re not.

And so I found that very fascinating. I’ll also 

[01:33:06] Rebekah: point out, I don’t think any of us would’ve noticed that the character drawings were the same ones as in the novel since. I think we all listened to the audiobook. Um, another piece of trivia I wanted to ask about, ’cause we’ve talked about our thoughts at length a little bit, but did you know that Christian reviewers of this film widely agreed that Don Treader did a better job depicting the biblical themes of the novel than the two previous movies, but there was a general consensus that Prince Caspian in particular had strayed from its core audience that was laid out in line, the witch in the wardrobe.

I don’t understand. I mean, I agree that it got worse in Prince Caspian, but I feel like I felt like this was the worst offender of those three Personally. What do you guys think? 

[01:33:49] Tim: Hmm. 

[01:33:50] Josiah: I, yeah, I, I think that Prince Caspian stripped a lot of it away and didn’t really replace it, and Don Tr still had some intact, uh, I don’t think that CS Lewis.

Made good stories outside of Yeah. Them being Christian allegory, uh, which for some people is totally fine, but, uh, you know, for the movie makers, I assume it was a sticking point Yeah. For them. So they were trying to change it. 

[01:34:14] Tim: Well, I, I have a tendency to partially agree with this thought. Um, I think that Prince Caspian probably strayed the farthest, uh, away from, from the core audience and from the Christian allegory part.

Lemme ask you a question about that. I’m sorry for some of the stuff they missed in, in this one. Lemme ask you about that though. 

[01:34:34] Rebekah: In, uh, prince Caspian, what were the super notable allegorical things that were removed? Can you remember them? That’s, they weren’t in the book. I, I think that’s my point. It’s like it was a bad book.

My problem was the book Don Tr had so much that felt like it was taken out. The movie, prince Cassian didn’t really take out a whole lot of that particular element that I can even remember, but like, it was very, very overtly obvious to me that they took out, for instance, like the Dragon skin being pulled.

Like that’s what I was like, I don’t know that I think it was taken out. Maybe it just was not a book that had as much in it. 

[01:35:10] Donna: You know what I mean? So maybe then, maybe would we agree then that the first one line, which in the wardrobe was probably the most popular of the three movies and it seemed to have the most Christian reference in it, and these started straying Away, but was kind of, 

[01:35:28] Josiah: it was the best book, it was the best movie, it was the best Christian allegory separate from one another.

Those are all. Distinctions that Yeah. True Lion Witch and the wardrobe had it’s iconic for a good reason. 

[01:35:40] Tim: Yeah, I could see that. But I, I think that of all of the books in this series, this should probably, if, if the first is true that the Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe is the best, I think this book should be the second.

Mm-hmm. Now, you guys haven’t yet listened to or read The Magician’s Nephew, the Silver Chair, or The Last Battle? 

[01:36:03] Rebekah: I have read The Magician’s Nephew, but it’s been a while. 

[01:36:05] Tim: Okay. Um, I really, really would encourage you all to do that. I think together, it’s a, it’s a wonderful story, uh, the whole thing, but I, I, I would say.

Probably in the order that I would would give them for the novels. The lion in the witch in the wardrobe is probably number one, and I would say mm-hmm. The voyage of the dawn shredder is number two. 

[01:36:26] Rebekah: Maybe magician’s nephew for me is three at this point. But 

[01:36:29] Tim: yeah, there’s, it’s funny because without giving anything away, the conclusion of the story is, is another beautiful aspect to the whole thing.

[01:36:40] Josiah: Yeah. Well, as far the future of Narnia, I know that we’re looking forward to Greta Gerwig directing. Uh, this was after several other adaptation options fell flat. In July, 2023, Netflix announced that Greta Gerwig had signed on to write and direct at least two Narnia films and films, not TV series. Yeah.

They’re technically films. Interesting. 

[01:37:04] Tim: Okay. Multi-part films, I would assume. I want, 

[01:37:06] Donna: I want to be, uh, episodic. I want to be hopeless. Uh, hopefully hopeless. I want to be. Hopefully encouraged that she could do something good. ’cause I do think she’s a good director. I do think there’s, what 

[01:37:21] Tim: do we know so far about it?

Because it, she was the direct, she was the director of Barbie. A few starts 

[01:37:27] Donna: that, it starts with Mission Barbie. Yeah. She was Barbie, correct? Yeah, 

[01:37:29] Tim: Barbie, 

[01:37:30] Josiah: which 

[01:37:30] Tim: is her worst film. That’s interesting. I can, but I can see, I can see things in Barbie. I didn’t have a whole lot of problem with it. There were some spots where I thought, okay, but for what it was, I didn’t have, I didn’t have any real problems with it.

So do we know, do we know the things that are supposed to be already in place that are, you know, changes or whatever. Did you say 

[01:37:51] Donna: something about the lion? I mean, she 

[01:37:52] Tim: said rock and roll. She called it a rock and roll 

[01:37:55] Rebekah: Roll. Like, she wants it to feel more rock and roll. And there has, there have already been comments about like re-imagining certain things.

[01:38:02] Tim: For the kids. It takes place during World War ii, that is so far back, that’s only a memory for people that are over 60. 

[01:38:12] Rebekah: Sure. I, I think that there are just going to be some very obvious, like feminist first changes. I think that that’s gonna be one of the most major parts just based on it. 

[01:38:22] Josiah: It did. I mean, it, it did hurt me in voyage of John Don tr the, not just Lucy, but Edmond too of kind of the sexism of the only problem that little boys can have is that who’s in charge?

This boy or this boy. And the only problem that little girls can have is who’s more beautiful? This girl or this girl. Yeah. It was all very like, boys can’t be pro boy and girls can’t be pro girl. Yeah. And, and they both resolved it by the end. But I think that they, they could be considered perpetuating sexist stereotypes of both men and women in Don Tread film.

So, I mean, I’m, I’m okay with a little. Boy and girl sexism. But yeah, 

[01:39:04] Rebekah: I understand what you’re saying. I think that that’s probably gonna be the most obvious change if I had to guess. But anyway, uh, we had I think, a brief mini game. Before we get into our final verdicts, 

[01:39:14] Donna: just a short, I found this interesting and I hope our listeners, you know, look, if there’s interest here and to look at some of these things, I have found a lot about the background of some of the folks we’ve talked about, um, in the creators and directors and writers and all that.

I did not know anything about the director of this film, Michael Apted, and I just looked up a little bit about him and I wondered if you all recognized his name. Like some directors’ heard it before. We mentioned before may not be super popular names. We know others have been, and maybe we’ve heard of them or maybe we’ve heard of them.

Is he familiar to, to you at all? 

[01:39:52] Tim: I’d heard his name, 

[01:39:54] Josiah: but I don’t know why 

[01:39:55] Tim: he, I had 

[01:39:55] Josiah: never recognized this thing. I looked him up. Yeah. Today. And so before that, not really. I, he, he apparently died in 2021. Rest. Peace. Did he did he 

[01:40:04] Donna: lived, he was 79. He, so he’s born in, uh, he was young. Yeah. 2021. And, uh, was born in 1941.

Um, but he began his director’s debut in 1966, and he did a couple of seasons on television of Coronation Street, which is a wildly famous CBBC series. He did a lot of so opera, um, a lot of television directing from like 66 all the way to 2017. Like he was involved, I think, um, series. He’s done several, directed several TV movies.

The reason he popped out at me when I looked at his filmography, one that I’m most familiar with, was he directed Coal Miner’s Daughter, which was in 1980. That seemed to be his 

[01:40:52] Tim: most award-winning film. Yeah. And, 

[01:40:53] Donna: um. 

[01:40:55] Tim: That was interesting. That’s Loretta Lynn’s story, right? 

[01:40:57] Donna: Yes. But he did, he did a number of Yeah, it was hers.

Um, gorilla’s in the Mist. 

[01:41:05] Tim: Oh, I remember that. That’s another, that’s another true story. Oh my gosh. 

[01:41:08] Donna: And here I am missing totally the fact that he did something else. Gorilla is in 

[01:41:14] Josiah: the Wow. 

[01:41:16] Donna: Um, I did not catch it until just then how exciting and totally spontaneous that was. Um, but the other thing was, um, he, he did a lot of documentary films and there were some really pretty highly acclaimed, um, out there.

But he did a series seven up 14, up 28, up 35, up 42 up and 49 up. And it deals with the lives of these people. And he started profiling their lives, looking at their lives in. Seven up all the way up in these years of their lives and looked at their lives in this economy and looked and looked at their lives.

Their lives. As the prophecy foretold. 

[01:41:58] Rebekah: Yes. 

[01:41:58] Donna: As they got older. And it was the, uh, I don’t, was this considered a do? It might have been it. Uh, the people he looked at and they’re just like, not necessarily fame all famous people, Bruce Baldwin, Simon Bassfield, Jacqueline Bassett and Andrew Brockfield were the four names through all of them.

And so I found, found it. But at what 

[01:42:22] Tim: cost? 

[01:42:23] Donna: Yes. Yeah. 

[01:42:24] Tim: And 

[01:42:25] Donna: then we die. Um, oh. And he did die. Oh. Oh. 

[01:42:28] Tim: There is no escape from 

[01:42:29] Donna: destiny. Anyway, I just found it. And then he went on, he like did 63 up after that 56 

[01:42:38] Josiah: up. This is a never ending 

[01:42:40] Donna: betrayal. I’m not kidding you. I kept reading it going, are these really connected?

And he said, are these all the 

[01:42:45] Tim: same people? 

[01:42:47] Donna: Yeah. Yes. And so it 

[01:42:49] Tim: is the same people, the 

[01:42:49] Donna: synopsis that of 63 up, and this was in 2019. So, um, and critics Rotten Tomatoes gave this of 98%. So critics loved it, whether who knows about the audience. But the synopsis says, an exploration of the lives of British children from different socioeconomic backgrounds who are revisited every seven years to discuss.

Their lives and what they’ve gone through and things like that. So I, I was, I just found that interesting that he was a part of something like that and it kind of makes me want to go out and go, Hmm. 

[01:43:23] Tim: What’s the, the movie, the more recent movie that’s, I think it’s covers 10 years of a Boy’s Life. Do you remember it?

Oh, 

[01:43:30] Donna: yeah. Boyhood. Boyhood. Yeah. Boyhood. 

[01:43:31] Tim: Okay. 

[01:43:32] Donna: But like other stuff, which was, which 

[01:43:33] Tim: was a supposed to be an unusual kind of concept that they actually took mm-hmm. That length of time for one actual person. Yeah. 

[01:43:41] Donna: But some other stuff, uh, Gorky Park from a three, these were movies, like I recognize the name more so than those are, all 

[01:43:48] Tim: of those are reward winning, I think.

I don’t recognize a lot of this. 

[01:43:51] Donna: Enigma. Enigma from 2001. Um, 

[01:43:55] Josiah: G and Gorky. What? Right. Yeah. What did you say? Gorky Park. Gorky Park. Go 

[01:44:02] Donna: Park is, there’s, it’s a Soviet detective who is William Hurt. 

[01:44:06] Josiah: Oh, so not a Robin Williams. Oh, no, it’s William Hurt. It’s Lee Marvin, 

[01:44:10] Donna: Brian Dennehy. Um, it, it’s a drama. The, so Soviet detective uncovers a network of deceit, intrigue, so it, he covers a lot of genres.

Um, I, anyway, I found it interesting. Oh, and the other one that we would know, he did one James Bond movie in 1999. The World is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan. And the other one that I recognized the most was Nell from 1994. Uh, talking about she has, she has like a social or a behavioral, uh, disability, I think.

Mm-hmm. And anyway, um, if, if you like to go back and look at, uh, things like that from the past and just thought to throw that out there, he was a, an incredibly not my 

[01:44:56] Tim: children. 

[01:44:57] Donna: Yeah. 

[01:44:58] Tim: If it’s in black and white. 

[01:44:59] Donna: Oh yeah. Well these, most of these are, are in color probably to start 

[01:45:02] Josiah: with. 

[01:45:02] Donna: Most are in color.

[01:45:03] Josiah: Yeah. But if it was in the seventies, it was basically black and white. Wow. 

[01:45:09] Tim: Oh my. 

[01:45:11] Rebekah: It’s fun. Well, uh, as we wrap up, let’s give our final verdicts, uh, write the movie in the book outta 10. And it’ll be kind of obvious with those numbers, but why did you think the book or the film was better in this case? Um, I don’t mind going first this time.

I think that for me, this book definitely outweighs, uh, the second that we covered. Uh, and I didn’t like the horse and his boy, which I have actually read now that I think about it. Well, I read part of it at one point. Uh, I would probably write this book like a seven and a half out of 10. It made me cry several times, uh, with the Jesus stuff and the film was fine.

Like give it a five and a half, six, something like that, out of 10 for me. Um, I definitely think the book was better. As I’ve said at length, I wish that the Christocentric allegory would’ve been kept. ’cause I preferred, like that was a big deal to me. But I did enjoy the film. I thought it was definitely better than Prince Caspian in my opinion.

Uh, I know that this got rated lower than that, so I was a little bit different than that, but that is my verdict. 

[01:46:11] Donna: I’ll go next. Uh, I did enjoy both of these relatively well. I will occur with Rebecca. I thought the book drew me in at certain points. The, the emotional impact of it was great. Um, I enjoyed the brevity of the book in the way that Lewis packed in so much information.

Mm-hmm. But it didn’t feel like he was rushing through something. And so I, I liked that. I would say, uh, I’ll say the book, I’ll go a little lower. I’ll say maybe seven for me. Six and a half, seven. Um, I wasn’t as just waiting to get back to it. Like I could listen for a while and I could all come back and, uh, as I was maybe with like line and witch in the wardrobe, but I still, still enjoyed it.

I’m gonna say the movie again, close to year, Rebecca. Six, six and a half. Um, there were touching moments in it. I did like the scenes where Lucy had to deal with some things, not necessarily the being like Susan part, but I did like the fact that she, the way she handled several areas and whether maybe I wouldn’t have added Gail just for the point of getting another female in there.

In the, in the cast. I did like that Lucy genuinely cared about her and watched over her. I was okay with that. Again, as I said before, I liked the casting choice of Eustis. I thought he was a good compliment to the whole thing and enjoyed re Apache. I think I liked Simon Pegs version of him better. So I’ll say the movie, maybe seven somewhere.

I know I just ranked the book below the movie, didn’t I? A little bit, but I still but the movies, but the book was still something that touched me more. Mm-hmm. So I don’t know if that really is as consistent as it should be, but hey, I am old and sometimes I think backwards, so we’ll just leave it there.

[01:48:11] Josiah: You know, I think the voyage of the Don Shredder is an improvement over Prince Caspian book. I think the movie does some things better, some things a little worse, but at the end of the day, I just don’t understand why c. S Lewis. Well, yeah, I do understand. He was trying to make a Christian allegory. He didn’t care about the narrative structure of his books.

Susan and Peter just have Susan and Peter come back. People want to see the IES people grow to love characters. And when you just take them out of a story for a pretty vague reason, what, what is, what’s the spiritual reason that Peter and Susan 

[01:48:57] Tim: are too old? You come to Christ as a child, we all have to come with childlike faith.

I think that’s his point. And they’re not Christians anymore. 

[01:49:05] Rebekah: Hold on. There’s a stated point at the end of this book that Adam says, it’s time for you to discover me in your world. Like they had to come to Christ as like children. Now that they have found him, like in this world, they now have to find him in theirs.

Like I think the point was like discovering him as a child, but then they have to live in their world. I do think it’s a weak excuse narratively. I understand what you’re saying. I’m just saying that they did kind of try to answer that 

[01:49:33] Josiah: we have to keep a child like faith. Yes. That doesn’t go away. Mm-hmm.

Can’t go away. Yeah. I guess at the end of the day, like I’m hearing these Christian allegories and I’m thinking, do I, do, I like, fully agree that these are, these are good enough, these are solid enough Christian philosophical ideas that we should, that they’re worthy of telling the children. If you’re trying to surround your children with these Judeo-Christian ideals and, uh, you know, there’s some good stuff in, in Don Tread, of course, about don’t be greedy, don’t be mean and selfish.

Uh mm-hmm. You know, believe in Jesus, literally at the end. Uh, but you know, prince Caspian didn’t really have a lot of that in Booker movie, I don’t think. And I’m, I try to, I’m trying to conceptualize in Prince Cassian something about man’s position as king over creation. Uh, not king, but like the inheritors of Yeah, we we’re the stewards of creation and I’m trying to like, is that what Prince Caspian represents?

Or something like that. I’m just confused at what it’s supposed to represent. I was pleased when I did a cursory search of Reddit and Medium and screen rant that a lot of people consider Prince Caspian one of the weakest books and consider Voyage of the Don Treader, one of the strongest books. So I’m, I’m glad to kind of being confirmed to that.

I remember starting reading. Don tr and expecting to dislike it as much as I disliked Prince Caspian and I started out being very cynical. And then they, but then they get out, they get out of it in an interesting way, and then it becomes a little, I liked the, I started to like the political stuff mm-hmm.

With him and what was his name? Grumpy. Mm-hmm. The Go Governor Grumps or whatever it was. And then I started to realize, oh, okay, this is a bunch of little adventures and all of the little adventures were generally interesting. Uh, I’ll definitely have to give the book is better than the last book. Uh, and it’s tough because I don’t know if the movie was better than the last movie.

It’s certainly some people’s cup of tea. I can see how some people would enjoy it more. Uh, it’s just with Edmond was cooler in Prince Caspian, the aesthetic, uh, was I, oh, you know what? I don’t like stories on boats. Interesting. 

[01:51:58] Donna: Okay. 

[01:51:59] Josiah: I don’t like stories on boats, much like, I don’t like stories about war or sports ’cause I, it’s hard for me to get invested ’cause it just to me seems like, oh, whatever happens in this basketball game, eh, whatever happens on this sea, whatever happens in this battle.

It’s just whatever the rider decides, it’s not because of what the characters are doing. You know, it’s like random stuff happens at sea. Random stuff happens in a soccer game. Stuff like random stuff happens in the Hunger Games. But like, at least in the Hunger Games, Kanu is making character choices. So this had some character choices, particularly in the movie with Eustis as the Dragon.

So I actually kinda liked Eustis Dragon helping out in different ways. It’s just a tough thing for me. ’cause I think the book was better than the last book. The movie was not as good for me. Mm-hmm. As the last movie. Oh. And I just don’t know where to put them compared to one another. ’cause they both do different things.

Well, um, I don’t, like Lucy doesn’t have much of a conflict in the book, but she is more likable. She’s a leader. Yeah. She’s always, she’s always correct and, but, but out of compassion and bravery and nobility. Ah, I, so both of them are like six and a halfs for me. Film and, and book. Uh, I’m probably going to give it to the book because I think that a travel log, a very exploration based story.

I think it works better. It’s more satisfying in a book chapter format than in a movie’s three act structure. 

[01:53:43] Tim: I would give this book probably a seven of 10, and I would probably give the film a six of 10. I think I probably do like. Uh, film better than the Prince Caspian. Um, as we’ve talked, I, I think my order ranking would be the lion, the witch in the wardrobe, the voyage of the Dawn shredder, and then with just these three, prince Caspian would come in there, uh, and in third place.

But I, I like these works. I’ve read several other things of CS Lewis as well. He has other kinds of series, and I think his writing is more juvenile. I think that’s probably what bothers you, Josiah. It’s, it’s more juvenile than, than necessary juvenile in a 1950s kind of way. You know, we do, we do young reader things and, you know, young adult fiction and even some of the movies that we’ve reviewed have been young adult fiction.

Um, 

[01:54:48] Josiah: I mean, Winnie the Pooh is hard to read for modern audiences. Sure. And it was meant for young audiences. Sure. 

[01:54:53] Tim: Um, so it’s a different time and, you know, I’m, I’m living in that transitionary time. Uh, that’s, that’s kind of an unusual thing where these things were common and it was a normal thing. Um, the books that I read as a child, Dick and Jane books were, uh, were normal and now we do completely different things.

But I, I enjoyed it. I think it was, I think it was good reading. The entire series was good for me again, so while I was reading all of this, I went ahead and read all the way or listened all the way through the whole series. Uh, and I, I really enjoyed it. There is a, a real purpose to it, I think, as opposed to just fiction, just a story.

I think there’s a purpose to it, and I, I appreciate the purpose, the through line for the whole series. It’s, you know, and it is Christianity. I mean, it, it is overtly Christianity. It is, uh, less overt in some of the books and more overt in others. Um, but it is the through line. 

[01:56:00] Josiah: I like children’s books that are well written Line Witch in the Wardrobe and Wild Robot.

Mm-hmm. Both made me cry. I just, you know, I have a, they both seem to be a bit more 

[01:56:10] Tim: adult though in some of the ways they, they voyage themes. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe so. 

[01:56:15] Rebekah: Well, I think that brings us to a close today, and if you enjoyed our episode, we really appreciate those five star ratings or reviews. Uh, it helps a whole lot.

If you haven’t been to our website yet, please check it out. Um, it’s actually really good for us if you Google the book is Better podcast and go to it from there. But you can also get there directly by going to book is better pod.com. We have links to our Patreon. Every single episode has links to any podcast player that you like plus a player on the page.

Um, you can also get to our discord from there or from the description of this episode. If you wanna subscribe on Patreon, uh, we have some ideas we’d love to add to some paid tiers or do for our paid, uh, Patreon subs. Uh, you can also find us on X Instagram and Facebook at book is Better Pod. Um, it’s easiest to communicate with us probably on Instagram or in Discord if you have ideas for episodes or just thoughts, um, and fun to be had with us.

We love thoughts. Uh, until next time though, the, and then the Wolves came 

[01:57:17] Tim: through 

[01:57:17] Rebekah: the 

[01:57:17] Tim: Green Mist,

[01:57:24] Josiah: that famous melody.