Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I noticed that I never did a post about Voyage of the Dawn Treader to go along with my other Narnia movie posts. It's probably because I was so excited to see it and then once I did I was thrown into a state of shock and couldn't find any words to say. It's likely that I thought 'I'll wait for the shock to wear off and then watch it again and post about it' but never did...until now. 

Favorite Scene: The end when they are on the edge of the world and say goodbye. Even though it's very different it's still touching in its own way. 

Biggest Surprise: I would say the entire movie, but that may not be the best answer. The green mist. Where on earth did that come from? I mean, I understand changing a few things in order to make a story more 'movie-esque' but for real?!?!

Least Favorite Scene: Oh I don't know...it could be the part where they talk to Coriakin and he explains their mission to them, or the part where Lucy wishes herself away, or the whole dark island sequence.  

Favorite Character(human): I think Eustace did an excellent job of being an obnoxious twit. I literally want to smash him in the face, but that's the idea so he did good. I think it's interesting to parallel his story with Edmund's. Both were antagonistic towards Narnia at first, both are annoying, both do something incredibly stupid, but then both of them turn around and end up doing great things. With Edmund you can really see the transformation though. With Eustace he's obnoxious one second and as soon as he becomes a dragon and he's in a bad spot he's sorry. I guess the magnitude of his mistake leads him to realize that he's been a burden all along with his complaints etc and once he's experienced the reality of this actually being a different world he changes his mind. It wasn't perfectly done, but I think William Poulter did a great job of making him an enjoyable character. 

Favorite Character(fictional creature): I feel like there weren't as many options for this as in the previous films. I'm going to say Reepicheep again. He has several good, meaningful lines in this one. 

Costumes: Nothing too spectacular. Since everyone wore the same thing for the majority of the movie there really wasn't much to analyze. 

Scenery/Set: Since they're at sea most of the movie there really isn't much astounding scenery to be seen. When they're coming into the little harbor on Coriakin's Island there are some nice shots. I think the Dawn Treader looks amazing. 

Music: New composer: David Arnold. At one point I thought to myself 'This must be the guy who wrote the Stargate music' and then I thought 'based on 2 seconds of music that sounds similar? yeah right like you could guess that.' Turns out I was right. I always get excited when I can guess film score composers. Anyway, I like the music. The Eustace Dragon theme and the part where he is dueling Reep are my favorite bits I think. You still feel the first two soundtracks coming through subtly at points, but it's all nice and new as well. 

Overall Adaption: I was quite disappointed in this movie overall. I thought Edmund, Lucy and Caspian came off weak as main characters. I do prefer Caspian without his fake accent, so that was a good move, but I think there was just some lost potential in these 3 that could have been pulled from the book. I really dislike the whole green mist thing and pretty much everything associated with it. I didn't like the 'sacrifices' at the Lone Islands, how green kept seeping around everything, how they had to lay down the swords to destroy the evil, how the mist covered Dark Island. I feel like they cheapened the quest by making it senseless. 'Lay all these swords on a table and then the evil will be defeated forever.' They obviously do not defeat evil forever even though they complete this quest. All they do is defeat the green mist, which shouldn't even be there in the first place! If the green mist is supposed to be some ongoing manifestation of Jadis then it really doesn't make sense. There is some consensus that the Lady of the Green Kirtle in The Silver Chair is Jadis. I assumed that they would go along with this if they made a movie adaption of TSC, but if she is the mist and the mist was defeated then they're precluding this possibility. I would much rather they go with the presumption that she is the Lady and stretch that than insert her pointlessly into VDT where she never belonged. I don't understand why the goal of finding the lost lords, and then the condition that they leave someone at the eastern edge of the world wouldn't be good enough to make the story enjoyable. By changing it so dramatically they've lost the confidence of many fans and they've pretty much ruined any chance of making more Narnia films any time soon. Certain scenes I completely understand. The way they abbreviate the stop at the Lone Islands makes sense, that's part of making a book into a movie. Even having the sea serpent show up in the Dark Island makes some sense in that regard and I would have accepted it. With Prince Caspian they changed some of the characters and plot lines, but they kept the main story the same and what they did change had legitimate purpose and it made sense as a movie if you disregard the book. I feel like VDT had a disjointed story line and just didn't work well at all. Instead of taking the story and making it more conducive to film, they mutilated the plot and made it unfit for a film or a book.