Fantasy Book Club discussion

Who is this "C.S. Lewis" hack, and who did he sleep with to get the novelization contract for the brilliant Prince Caspian movie?

Lewis took a wonderful PG movie and turned it into a saccharine G-rated book. Or a mostly G-rated book, anyway; his desperate attempts to spice up the novelization with the addition of coprophagy and cannibalism ("...the feasts on the poop and the musicians") and nudism ("...helped her take off some of the unnecessary and uncomfortable clothes she was wearing") are likely to go completely over the heads of the target readership market, in large part due to Lewis' ever-so-precious and painfully old-fashioned language.

Apparently Mr. Lewis didn't realize that the lead roles were only cast as Brits because those accents are generally viewed as sexy by key American demographics. America's where the money is, baby - and by aiming the book at an audience of middle-aged Brits, Lewis has almost certainly killed off the lion's share of the profits from the novelization (hey, that's a pun! Lion's share, get it? Never mind).

Every character has been painfully flattened, deprived of all the hot-n-juicy details which made the movie such a smash success. They all act like kids, for god's sake! Where's the primal struggle for domination between King Peter and Prince Caspian (with a racy subtext of incestuous yearnings)? Where's Peter's pivotal moment in which he gives up on Aslan? Where's the gorgeous complexity of hot-blooded Spanish (I mean "Telmarine") culture and those neat historical costumes? Where's "you killed my father"? Where's the hot-blooded passion between Caspian and Susan? Where's the kiss, damn it - where's the kiss?

And what about the catapults? What about the collapsing battlefield? Those are a huge part of the special effects budget, gone! Lewis left them out, the no-talent idiot! Things HAVE to go smash, or the teens won't pay attention. Nobody will ever read the Prince Caspian book!

And what about the White Witch? Tilda Swinton is KEY to the whole series. Does Mr. Lewis have the faintest idea of how much it cost to get her in the movie? And yet he fobbed her off with only the slightest mention. That's just criminal, and I'm not using a figure of speech. Disney should sue Mr. Lewis all the way down to his pocket lint. He should never work in Hollywood again!

Shameful. Just shameful. I don't know who dropped the ball, but someone did. And this isn't the first time that some talentless British hack has screwed up a world-class cinematic property; look at the crappy job that the fake-sounding "J.R.R. Tolkien" did on the novelizations of Peter Jackson's wonderful Lord of the Rings movies.

Say..."J.R.R. Tolkien"..."C.S. Lewis"...could it be just a coincidence that the novelizations for two boffo fantasy series were both screwed up by fake-sounding English guys with too many initials? Could "C.S. Lewis" and "J.R.R. Tolkien" actually be the same guy? That would explain a lot!

Maybe Lewis (or whatever his real name is) has compromising photos of key Hollywood producers. Or maybe he's just related to someone big. Either way, someone has to do something to stop him before he screws up another valuable novelization. Millions of dollars are at stake!

Cute. Not as amusing as the review for Ping on Amazon, though. :)

i liked the movie better too. they added a lot of good parts to the original novel and put more action into it...

Kate wrote: "Cute. Not as amusing as the review for Ping on Amazon, though. :)"

What review was that? I could do with some amusment.

Peter, if you go to Amazon.com and look up "the story about Ping" and scan the reviews, you should be able to find one written as if Ping were not a fuzzy little duck, but a network function to determine if your computer sees an IP address.

Yeah, I'm a geek.

Kate wrote: "Peter, if you go to Amazon.com and look up "the story about Ping" and scan the reviews, you should be able to find one written as if Ping were not a fuzzy little duck, but a network function to det..."

Ah, yes. Very funny! Here's a permalink: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2VDKZ4X...

I'm a geek too. :D

Peter wrote: "Who is this "C.S. Lewis" hack, and who did he sleep with to get the novelization contract for the brilliant Prince Caspian movie?

Lewis took a wonderful PG movie and turned it into a saccharine ..."

This is sort of funny are you serious because the book was written way before the movie it was written in 1949 published in 1951. The Lord of the Rings books were written between 1937 and 1949 C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien were freinds they taught at the same school in England in fact one of my favorite authors Diana Wynne Jones who wrote Howl's Moving Castle was taught by both of them....

Actually C.S. Lewis died in 1963, the same day J.F.K was assassinated, J.R.R Tolkien died in 1973...

☺Cable☻ wrote: "Peter wrote: "Who is this "C.S. Lewis" hack, and who did he sleep with to get the novelization contract for the brilliant Prince Caspian movie?

Lewis took a wonderful PG movie and turned it into..."

Actually, the whole post is pure sarcasm. I was half-way through reading Prince Caspian to my son while we were on vacation recently, when he saw that the movie was available for rent at a local supermarket. I was stunned at how many liberties the movie took with the book - C.S. Lewis must be reaching truly astonishing RPMs in his grave.

Even my son was outraged at how untrue to the book the movie was, and he's only seven! He did like my sarcastic rendition of Caspian's dialog in an extremely cheesy Spanish accent ("Susan, I am so hot-blooded that when I see you shooting that bow, my lips tremble with passion.")

He also cracked up when Aslan breathed on someone - I forget who - and I said "Hey, Lion. Have a breath mint." So that gives you some idea of his sense of humor.

I'm very familiar with Lewis and Tolkien, which is why I get so annoyed at how badly they've been represented in the films of their work. I must admit that it also annoys me that so many people don't seem to notice the abusive, unnecessary, and essentially disrespectful nature of many of the changes that Hollywood has made to the original plotlines and dialog.

I'm reminded of an old joke:

There was an idiot whose lifelong dream had been to star in a play. One day, he unexpectedly inherited a large sum of money. He immediately arranged to put on a huge production of Hamlet with himself in the starring role.

No expense was spared; the production was held in the largest and fanciest playhouse in town. The best supporting actors were hired, as was the best director. All the critics and leading citizens were invited to opening night.

When Hamlet stepped on the stage, however, it was soon obvious that not only not only did he NOT have any talent, he actually embodied the opposite of talent; he was actively painful to watch. Within a few minutes, the audience was booing and throwing things at the stage. Stopping the production, the anguished Hamlet shouted out "Hey, don't blame me - I didn't write this crap!"

☺Cable☻ wrote: "Actually C.S. Lewis died in 1963, the same day J.F.K was assassinated, J.R.R Tolkien died in 1973..."

I should also admit that the post was entirely derivative of a previous post I made complaining about the awful novelizations of the Lord of the Rings movies. http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...

you know I actually feel stupid because thinking about it you actually do sound sarcastic I hope you dont take it against me I thought you really hadnt known....lol

☺Cable☻ wrote: "you know I actually feel stupid because thinking about it you actually do sound sarcastic I hope you dont take it against me I thought you really hadnt known....lol"

You're not the only one who has mistaken my sarcastic posts for serious ones. For the Tolkien post, I actually ended it with "/snark", and still someone berated me for insulting JRRT. :D

I know that most people don't get my sense of humor, and I accept that. Heck, even my wife doesn't "get" about half of my jokes. I'm just glad that my son does! :D

Well I think as far as book to movie adaptations go, I think the movie versions for the Chronicles of Narnia have been pretty darn good. Of course I have seen much worse.

Elise wrote: "Well I think as far as book to movie adaptations go, I think the movie versions for the Chronicles of Narnia have been pretty darn good. Of course I have seen much worse."

Ah well; de gustibus non disputandum. And I tend to get particularly worked up when Hollywood mauls (as I see it) my favorite books.

There have been very few book-based movies that I can think of which are faithful to the original texts. In fact, at this minute I can't think of any.

I didnt like how susan was just running about shooting people with arrows I mean when they first see the dwarf and she shoots the soldiers how did she know, they could have been the good people and the dwarf a dangerous criminal....but they did use the person who acted willow in it...

Peter... As one of the few who gets and enjoys these posts of yours... Thank you.

There have been very few book-based movies that I can think of which are faithful to the original texts. In fact, at this minute I can't think of any.

Peter,

I did get your sarcasm in your first post and enjoyed it.

As for movies close to the original, I think the Harry Potter movies qualify.
Also I liked the first movie of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants better than the book.

Watchmen was also really close to the graphic novel.

Elise wrote:
Watchmen was also really close to the graphic novel.
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I agree that they got the look and feel right, but the culmination of Veit's work was not the same, and really felt like a slap in the face to me (and to several other fans of the comic).

In fairness to Hollywood, adapting books as is wouldn't work that well. For one thing, they'd be extremelly long. And you'd have people talk for a minute, then another person reply for a minute, and back and forth with very little of the drama that is necessary to keep the audience watching.

Peter, I love your sense of humor. Keep it up.

I enjoyed the post...it made me laugh. And I have not been having a good day so far. Thank you.

Wow, that's great.

Reminds me of the review on Amazon for the movie House that described how House M.D. evolved from it. Ahaha.

This is the first of your posts I've seen, and while at first my reaction was negative, things changed dramatically once I got in on the joke. I agree entirely, by the way--while there is a place for dramatic license when making a movie based on a book, there comes a point where they're just ripping the story to shreds (the movie of The Two Towers is a pet peeve of mine). Thanks for brightening up my day a little.