The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in Production
20th Century Fox announced that production is underway in Queensland, Australia, for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third installment in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Early reports are that references to World War II and its effect on England include English soldiers and nurses saying farewell to each other.
Fans of the original C.S. Lewis series and other purists tend to disagree with the writers’ decisions to continue referencing the war, and would prefer to see the films stick more closely to the original material.
What do you think? How much creative license should a writer take when working from a book or other published piece? When have you departed from original materials for a screenplay?
I can certainly understand the challenges in adapting a book to the medium of film, but I believe the screenwriter should remain true to the message and the main characters of the book. For example, I can understand how Prince Caspian would have been quite dull if the film had adhered exactly to the book – most of the second half of the book took place in a cave. So I could understand the need to add the castle raid – but what I strongly disagreed with the way the filmmakers changed Peter’s personality to clash with Caspian. Yes, it made for increased dramatic tension, but only by doing violence to the Lewis’s vision of who Peter was. To me – that crossed the line.
July 31st, 2009 at 8:09 pm