Critical Review of Walden Media's The Dawn Treader

[Narnia-and-the-North]

Since Walden Media's production of The Dawn Treader first came out, a number of members in this forum have given brief reviews of the film, or made comments on specific issues raised by the film. With the approval of this forum's moderators, Lady Arwen and Tirian, I am posting (below) a link to a pdf article (by me) entitled Narnia at the Movies: A Critical Review of Walden Media's Production of C. S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader With Some Suggestions for Future Films.

In this article I explore several of Walden's plot changes in comparison to Lewis's book (both their additions and their subtractions) and I also comment on the moral, spiritual, and theological consequences of these changes in the light of Lewis's other writings. Issues addressed include: 1) the nature and role of moral courage in Lewis's stories, 2) the importance of Aslan's transcendence and supernatural role, 3) and Walden's mislaid emphasis on notions of "family values" and "believing in one's self" as a substitute for Lewis's larger vision.

I took my father to see the movie when it first came out, but was thoroughly disappointed with the hodge-podge of syrupy fairy tale that Walden produced in this case. My article also includes references to J. R. R. Tolkein's much more bracing view of the values and virtues of fairy tales at their best.

Wouldn't it be great if Walden (or someone) could combine the wonders of modern graphic technology with the personal depth and spiritual wisdom that Lewis built into his stories? The link for the article is as follows:
http://faithandarts.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/narnia-at-the-movies.pdf

[ericnovak]

Craig,
Excellent article. For a moment, reading your post and the beginning of the .PDF, I thought you were going to be a one-hit-wonder with an article that lumped Lewis and Walden into one category.

I think you'll find that on this forum, many of the original members are purists who would have loved for the film to go in a different direction. However, the powers at be chose otherwise and we end up with a film like VoDT, that I can hardly stand to see associated with Lewis' name.

If there is another Narnia film, I hope that the producers and developers, find your article and the words of many other Narnia fans and create something that Lewis would have been proud of.

Welcome to the forum!

[Narnia-and-the-North]

Eric,

Thanks for the note and for throwing some more light on the background of this forum. I am still looking for other places where I might post the article. The chances may not be great that anyone at Walden will find it and change their approach; but, feeling as I do that they have missed so much in Lewis, it seems only right to give them a chance to consider things. Let me know if you know of any other forums where the article might reach an appropriate or a differently interested audience.

Thank you again for taking the time to look at the article. I'll watch for your thoughts in the forum as I get acclimated.

Craig

[Narnia-and-the-North]

Hansgeorg,

Thanks for the thoughts and remarks. What I take from your remarks overall is the sense that the Narnia movies have tended, in one way or another, to miss the specific values which Lewis saw fit to place in his stories (whether santi-slavery, the critique of modern educational theories, or the value of loyalty as a virtue in its own right) and to replace these values with other things (such as "excitement").

If I am reading your post correctly, I agree. Lewis was a great defender of the classical Christian virtues and moral values, and his stories have a wonderful way of showing how these values and virtues are at stake in the human choices and motivations of his characters. This seems to be one of the main places where the movie's script writers have needed help: that is, with discerning what these values are and how they are evoked in the details of Lewis's stories.

One phrase in your note on which I am not clear as to its reference or meaning: "anti-school-compulsion." I take this to refer to Lewis critique of modern educational theory (as in his book The Abolition of Man, and alluded to in the Narnia stories as well). That modern theory in his day included replacing the classical educational model (learning Greek and Latin for example, and reading the classics), the model in which he was trained, with something far more losse and free-form.

Of course he himself remained an advocate of classical learning, at least for those who were called to it like himself. And his students report that he maintained a no-nonsense atmosphere in his tutorials. Could you clarify what you are alluding to with the phrase "anti-school-compulsion"?

Many thanks again for your thoughts and remarks.

[waggawerewolf27]

Actually I am not really familiar with Surprised by Joy, not having had access to it since I got married.

There are some parts of LWW, PC, HHB (if it ever gets made) and VDT which will never be put into any film and they are all to do with education and what C.S.Lewis says about it in these books. As you say, hansgeorg, there is the school compulsion you mention as the White Witch and King Miraz both favouring and from which the Pevensies and Aslan freed unwilling their unwiling subjects.

Wherever there is an insistence for children to attend school compulsorily there will be government schools to follow. Sometimes attending government schools is compulsory as well, especially if there is no alternative allowed. Sometimes it is more the case that 'alternative' schools demand of their government that their worldview is the only one that is taught. Sometimes this compulsion as to who attends school and who doesn't is applicable only to certain groups, most notoriously girls or people with a particular background. I'd imagine that the White Witch would want to use fauns etc to do her dirty work, being sentient beings and being able to hold a pen. And so what organisation or person controls the government gets to determine what the children are to be taught and what they are not to be taught.

Thus where there is a tyrant in power compulsory education will always be an occasion for indoctrination and a distortion of history to suit the tyrant, be it the White Witch or Miraz. Even more benevolent powers that be, if they have anything to hide, won't want that subject on the curriculum, or only the accepted government version. Thus Miraz, at any rate, could deny to his people the existence of previous inhabitants of Narnia, the existence of Aslan and the Pevensie rule - which was in the film PC even if it wasn't in the BBC version.

There have been many examples of distortions and lies taught throughout the world, including the suppression of native languages or the rights, even the very existence, of first peoples, as in the Narnia books, and so 'what do they teach in these schools' has become a real hot potato. Eustace's studies of geography could be regarded as containing similar untruths, especially when only a few 'important' countries are included in its teaching whilst other countries are ignored.

Can you really imagine a film-maker putting any such explosive material in any film? Of course not. I am merely grateful that the VDT film saw fit to include Eustace's award for personal hygiene and his efforts to check out the laws about impaling nuisance cousins. And, hansgeorg, I do appreciate your drawing an analogy between Narnian compulsory teaching, and education in communist states.

Gwendoline was the girl in the false history lesson conducted by Miss Prizzle. Miss Prizzle's school would of course be horribly conformist, especially in the teaching of Narnian history according to Miraz.

Even mathematics can be an occasion for indoctrination. The teacher trying to teach those piggy boys mathematics was probably being forced to use examples of mathematics glorifying Miraz and his works. Just as when I was growing up I got the idea that mathematics was definitely considered men's business, one reason why I hated it. By the way, that is a good example of C.S.Lewis' views on sexism: I find it hilarious that the unruly boys turned into young pigs - male chauvinist piglets? They were certainly rude and 'boarish'. This was another instance of C.S.Lewis' attitudes to education which filmmakers might not like to include in a film.

The beater of the boy in PC who was turned into a tree wasn't a teacher. Merely someone abusing his authority. As was Miraz abusing his usurped authority. But hey, unlike the White Witch, he wasn't out to enslave his own people, was he?

[Narnia-and-the-North]

Reply to Hangeorg's thoughts on school compulsion.

I am still wondering what in your view is the alternative to compelling children to attend school; that is, making them go to school even when they don't want to (whether their resistance is for a few days, or a few weeks, or . . . ?). Is the alternative that we should let children decide for themselves if they want to go to school? And, if so, how often should children be allowed to exercise this option? Daily? Weekly? Continuously? And at what age should they be given this option?

As for Lewis's views on this subject (even in the light of his own bad experiences with several schools when he was growing up) I think we probably need to make a distinction between his sympathy for children in bad school situations (such as Miss Prizzle's school In Prince Caspian or his own experiences at "Belsen") and a fully formed positive principle (such as seems implied by your phrase "anti-school compulsion") especially if this implies that children should be left to themselves to decide whether or not they want to attend school, even a good one. Surely he can be against bad educational practices (including abusive and poorly disciplined models) and we can sympathize (from our own experiences with his opposition) without going all the way over to the view that children should decide for themselves how, and whether or not they wish to be educated.

Lewis does speak in his essays of how a school boy may not understand in the early going how the drudgery of learning Greek grammar will later pay off in the ability to read Homer or other classics; but he doesn't seem to suggest by this that the school boy should be released from the drudgery. Likewise, I know of no effort on his part to give the Gresham boys, once Joy Gresham moved to the Kilns, an option of not going to school. So he can certainly be sympathetic to children in bad school situations, and he has very strong criticisms for certain modern theories of education (as in The Abolition of Man); but this is not the same thing at all as thinking that children should be allowed to decide for themselves if they want to go to school.

If your phrase, "anti-school compulsion," implies something other than what I have suggested, I guess I still wait to be enlightened as to its real import. If, on the other hand, it implies giving children an option simply to avoid education, I can't imagine Lewis fully supporting that view. Such a view would ultimately go against his most basic description of the human condition (as given for example in The Problem of Pain) whereby all of us, (children and adults) as fallen human beings, must go through certain kinds of painful discipline in order to be restored to the way of life in God which will make us truly happy.

[waggawerewolf27]

That would be very obvious. Using functional geometrics for Miraz' buildings and ridiculous arithmetics for the transactions between supposedly fabulous Old Narnians, would be in line with the worst we have heard about Communism.

Yes, this is just what might be meant about indoctrination, and I also accept your later point about mathematics and science, very much so. But in C.S.Lewis' time and afterwards, girls' education rarely included how to use a slide rule and what it was for. You don't need one for cooking and needlework, though maybe it just might be handy for dressmaking. These subjects would be done concurrently with boys learning woodwork, metalwork and technical drawing, where a slide rule would be useful before today's ubiquitous pocket calculators. But I think that this discrimination between two sorts of pupils, ie boys and girls, can also be considered distortion and indoctrination, as well as downright sexism.

As it happened, having attended a co-educational high school, I did have a set of conversion tables. I did learn about logarithms, anti-logarithms, sines and cosines. Though I never got around to using tangents, which is where we are at I fear, since I think that education and Narnia might be a big enough topic for its own thread. But though I also learned French au lycee, and later followed it up as a University BA major, I doubt I can understand an explanation of logarithms (decimalisation of fractions) in that language any better in French than I ever understood it in English or even Latin. Especially when after so many years, the amount of French I currently speak is not really up to continuous lucid conversation in that language. My grasp of German is much worse, whilst my grasp of Swedish is non-existent.

Through parents by saying they are unhappy.

Between 7 and 14 boys used to go only in minorities to school: many farmed along pa, most in cities were apprentices.

If a boy was unhappy with that métier he begged his pa to make him apprentice of another.

That is Shasta's situation whilst with Arsheesh in HHB, and maybe the boy being beaten in Prince Caspian. It is also why Earl Shaftesbury stopped child labour in UK, such as children as young as five working in the mines and as cotton-frame attendants, and also why school originally became compulsory there in UK. Through plain simple Christian compassion and with the best of intentions. No doubt in the early 19th century, 'working with pa' or 'not liking that métier' explains why such children often found themselves in Botany Bay or worse. Including one or two ancestors of mine.

In Shasta's case, an escape from slavery didn't mean he escaped education. His own father said he had to learn reading, writing, heraldry, dancing, history and music. Probably enough maths to do the accounts, though Arsheesh might have taught him that.

If your phrase, "anti-school compulsion," implies something other than what I have suggested, I guess I still wait to be enlightened as to its real import. If, on the other hand, it implies giving children an option simply to avoid education, I can't imagine Lewis fully supporting that view. Such a view would ultimately go against his most basic description of the human condition (as given for example in The Problem of Pain) whereby all of us, (children and adults) as fallen human beings, must go through certain kinds of painful discipline in order to be restored to the way of life in God which will make us truly happy.

Although I agree that masses of homework can be painful, and that too much work means there is little leisure time for play, I don't think that C.S.Lewis was advocating children be exempt from school if they don't like that situation. I was thinking that what C.S.Lewis was pointing out that education is a lifelong experience, and there is education in play as well. That too regimented and conformist a school regime like in Communist regimes or worse, only benefits tyrants who want everyone to agree with them. For instance, in my weekly church magazine I read about a Christian pastor in Iran who is to be executed because he dared to suggest that Iranian education should include teaching other points of view besides Islamic values. I was startled to find out this case had also been mentioned in the previous Friday's daily newspaper.

There are also other forms of study, like home-schooling in America or UK or distance education which conforms to the demands of compulsory education and which includes home-schooling as well as Uninversity studies. which can be done at one's own pace. Basically I agree that traditional schoolwork is not for every taste, which is why we have technical & vocational education courses for apprentices which their employers recognise. I expect they have Polytechnics in Europe and UK now, but though technical education has been here since the late 1890's, having grown out of the old Mechanic's Institutes and Schools of Arts, I wonder if they had them in C.S.Lewis' time?

I do think that Walden's film did get Susan and Lucy very right for their time. It was all about a beautiful girl, having been flattered by adults, being vain enough to depend on making that attribute her fortune, including Susan's trip to America, which their parents thought Susan would benefit most from. I expect that Susan would have worked hard at cooking, dressmaking etc. and not at other things, which would have given her extra skills for the future if and when she ever needed them.

For an example of what I mean, do check out this movie. The wife in that pesky film, It's a wonderful life, if her husband hadn't rescued her from a fate worse than death, was supposed to become, wait for it , gasp! horror! a librarian gasp! horror!. I could think of much worse things for anyone to do if they needed an income. Especially as your friendly poster is one.

Instead of depicting how Lucy's envious wish to be as beautiful as Susan might cause trouble and devastation the way the book did, I even appreciated what Aslan was saying in the film. Lucy at times could be every bit as beautiful as Susan, as in the book. But she had her own attributes and skills to nurture. She should not waste time wishing these skills and attributes away as if she had never been born. I don't see anything wrong with telling people to be themselves and to make the most of who they are. I even saw nothing wrong with Lucy telling Gail that extra girl, that she would grow up 'to be herself'. I thought it was the only reasonable answer Lucy could give to Gail's childish fangirling her.

As Eustace was to say in LB, instead of going around saying that he wasn't clever enough, Puzzle could have tried to be as clever as possible. That, too, is important, however sorry for the LB donkey Jill and Lucy might be.

[coracle]

I don't want to delve into your whole debate, but nobody seems to have mentioned that the point being made in the Pevensie law on schooling is not that the child would have NO education, but that they would not be sent away to a school where they are unhappy.
Children in Lewis's time were often still taught at home; I recall from my History of Education course that England's education system sadly lagged behind those of Scotland and Germany and others. Plenty of children were given primary education at home, with or without a tutor. Others were sent away to boarding schools from as early as 6 or 7 years old.
Lewis's own bad experiences at school (and Edmund's in the background to the story) are assumed to be his reason for putting this law into the good rules made by the Pevensies.
The alternatives to boarding school are attending a local Board school or having teaching at home by a parent or other adult.