Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I saw the movie The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last night. I took my oldest son and daughter to see it with me. They will be putting their reviews in their blogs in the coming days.

I thought it was an excellent film. Roger Ebert suggested seeing it in 2-d rather than 3-d, advice with which I heartily agree. In one way it is a "reimagining" of the book. The book is a series of adventures without a specific focal point. The movie incorporates a minor plot device from the book and turns it into a specific focal point that all the adventures emanate from.

This choice, in my opinion, allows the movie to deviate in many ways from the book while still maintaining the integrity of the book. For example, two adventures take place on the same island in the film where they took place on two different islands in the book (and in inverse order) . I was glad that the books integrity was kept in this film as I thought that the movie version of Prince Caspian made changes to the characterizations that were much different portrayals than on paper.

Unfortunately some of my favorite parts of reading Dawn Treader were kept out of the movie adaptation. Dawn Treader has one of the best opening lines I have ever read: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." As I have taught my co-op students when I taught the Narnia books last year, in one line C.S. Lewis introduces a new character and tells you of his character. This is just one example of how a great movie about a great book still cannot replace the book.

Next Time: A funny thing happened on my way to home school.