How would you do the opening scene in Prince Caspian?

[fantasia]

One of the more controversial changes that the filmmakers made in the Walden Narnia movies, was change up the character of Peter in Prince Caspian to make him bitter about no longer being a King. That topic has been discussed to death and I don't really want to discuss it again here, but interestingly enough, in both Walden AND BBC's version, the first scenes with the Pevensies show them sort of turning into bullies.
I think it's interesting that so many people want to paint them that way when I get a very different impression from them in the book.
So I'm curious to know how everyone else would start the movie Prince Caspian if they were director? (And if you agree that the Pevensies should be bitter, go ahead and say so.)

I would start out the movie with young child Caspian and his Nurse, with his Nurse telling stories about the Golden Age of Narnia with the four Kings and Queens maybe battling against the giants to the north or something like that, and then transition to the Pevensies at the train station. But rather than having them pick a fight, there are some bullies there picking on a random little kid. Peter intervenes to try to stop them, they question what authority he has to make them stop, Peter can't say anything, and just as things are about to turn into a fight, Edmund and Lucy show up to back up Peter (Susan prefers to avoid fights so she's guarding the luggage ). The bullies step away and leave them alone because Lucy is there, but not without laughing and jeering and such.
The little kid thanks them and then runs off, so it was all worth it, but there's a great deal of annoyance that they no longer carry the authority of being a King and Queen anymore.
And then transition back to Caspian finding out his Nurse has been sent away.

That's how I'd do it.

[shastastwin]

Fantasia, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I like your intro, but I'm not sure that's how I would do it. I might have to think on this one a bit and figure out exactly what I would want. I remember when the film came out everyone debated whether the film should start with Caspian or the Pevensies. I wonder if a film that started with the Pevensies and included the huge flashback of Trumpkin's story would work. Hmm...

[GlimGlum]

I like that beginning to movie PC, Watchful Admin. It makes Peter more like book Peter but without turning him into some kind of jerk. I also thought there should be more exposition about Caspian and Old Narnia so the audience who had not read the books would understand the changes to Narnia under the Telmarines.

I wonder if a film that started with the Pevensies and included the huge flashback of Trumpkin's story would work. Hmm...

I think the way fantasia_kitty has written it the opening would include only a slice of the flashback just used as part of the movie's beginning. That way the huge flashback could be avoided by using only a part of it. Maybe a short montage of it could show Caspian aging to his actual age in the movie.

I can't think of a different opening scene at the moment but I look forward to others who can.

[waggawerewolf27]

Odd that you (fantasia_kitty) mention the opening scene from Prince Caspian. I've just been listening to the two radio versions, that is to say, the Family Focus one, which starts with the four Pevensies being dragged into Narnia, then we go to Prince Caspian's story. Then there is the BBC radio play version of PC which starts with Prince Caspian and his nurse, like your scenario. The Pevensies in that play, in particular, Lucy, procrastinate about leaving for boarding school much of the way through the first disk, which also features the Professor talking to all of them.

One thing I really liked about all the Walden films is the way they preserved the WW2 background. Yes, it was a bullying age, with an entirely different outlook to what we see in today's young people. This was whole nations doing the bullying and also being bullied. And it was an age where both boys and girls weren't adults until they were 21, even if they were serving - and getting killed - in the armed forces. Teachers we had as children have gone on record to say that we post WW2 baby boomers were far less obedient and far more questioning than the previous pre-War generation of children. And, in turn, us baby boomers tended to be far more regimented than is the case with succeeding generations.

One of the more controversial changes that the filmmakers made in the Walden Narnia movies, was change up the character of Peter in Prince Caspian to make him bitter about no longer being a King. That topic has been discussed to death and I don't really want to discuss it again here....

I'm amazed that everyone gets Peter so wrong in the movie, since that was not what Adamson intended at all. Peter wasn't any more bitter about not being a king than was Edmund at the beginning of VDT, as far as I can see. I understand that Peter was well and truly in the WW2 teenage dilemma of having made grown-up decisions and, having performed very well as an adult, but back in England he then finds himself being treated as a child. Especially as it was the pushiness of the other boy which started the fight. And especially as Susan opines that Peter could have just walked away. Sort of like Neville Chamberlain did at Munich?

....but interestingly enough, in both Walden AND BBC's version, the first scenes with the Pevensies show them sort of turning into bullies.

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the BBC version - what there was of it. I didn't see the Pevensies as any sort of bullies in that version. Frankly I found them a bit tepid, especially when at the gorge, Edmund didn't side with Lucy as in the book and the film, and when Susan has nothing much to say or do at all. I'll have to watch the BBC version again - I suppose. And having just done so, I think what you must mean is Lucy et al rushing up to a four-seater bench on a country platform and knocking some poor girl off the seat onto the ground to make room for them all.

Unless there are two castings of Prince Caspian, as a young boy and later, as a teenager, it would be bad to start with Prince Caspian and his nurse. That is what was wrong with both the BBC and the Walden versions. They found it hard to deal with the age differences of Caspian growing up. The BBC had too young an actor for PC, and the Walden version had a young man dressed down to be a 14 year old, Ben Barnes. Prince Caspian in PC should be the same age as Peter, himself, as in the book, not some little kid smaller than even Lucy.

If I was a director I might not have started with the birth of Prince Caspian's cousin. But I would certainly have started with Prince Caspian and his tutor, Dr Cornelius, conversing on top of the tower whilst watching the spectacular conjunction of Tarva and Alambil. That way, some of the back story could be worked in as a sort of prologue, including any discussion of Caspian and his nurse, without having to have a much younger Caspian at all. I preferred the somewhat more dramatic Walden method of dealing with the new baby to the rather fake BBC way of dealing with it, with Miraz cocking an ear to the noise of a baby crying, following a scene of heavily pregnant Aunt Prunaprismia reprimanding Caspian.

[King_Erlian]

Interesting question. I would imagine that, had the film followed the book at the beginning, then we would have had a couple of minutes of the Pevensies sitting on a country station platform (not a London tube station as in the Walden film), just talking among themselves, then all of a sudden appearing on Cair Paravel Island, and it would have been quite a while before Trumpkin turned up and we started to get into the story. We needed the Pevensies to discover where they were and get some idea of the passage of Narnian time before Trumpkin appeared, so that Susan could have had her bow and arrows with her in order to rescue Trumpkin. So it would have been a rather slow start to the film, which I imagine the film-makers wanted to avoid - hence the dramatic chase from Miraz's castle.

From the book of PC, I'd imagined Caspian to be about Edmund's age - old enough to fight, at least a bit, but younger than Peter so that he was in awe of him. By the time of VDT, Caspian would then have been about Peter's age. That was my biggest grievance with the Walden film, that they made Caspian too grown-up. Although Ben Barnes was very good in the part.

[Glumpuddle]

My opening scene:

Caspian and Miraz's conversation where Caspian says he wishes he could have lived in the old days, and Miraz saying that's all nonsense. As Miraz is talking about how the four Pevensies never existed, we would transition to the Pevensies sitting on the platform.

Hopefully, this would accomplish a few things:

1. Introduce a key concept right from the start: The Pevensies are now considered mythical characters
2. Establish that many years have passed in Narnia.
3. Form a vague connection between Caspian and the Pevensies.
4. The conversation would effectively serve as a prologue to LWW. Caspian essentially recaps all the events of that story. Lewis opens PC with a kind of prologue too.

Now, when the Caspian flashback begins, we aren't being thrown into something totally new. We met Caspian in the opening scene, and a vague connection between him and the Pevensies has been established.

I don't think I would use Trumpkin as a device for a flashback. Wouldn't work well on film. I would want to find another "reason" to flashback. Maybe something like kind of like Fight Club: The opening scene is actually the end, then suddenly we flashback...and spend the rest of the movie catching up to the opening scene... Then the audience goes "ah ha! That's how they got there." Inception, Iron Man and Thor used similar devices with their opening scenes. Not exactly the same as what you'd have to do in PC, but do you see what I'm getting at?

[wolfloversk]

I kind of like the movie version (though I would omit the train fight scene), but I like gP's point too...

I guess the only two changes I would have done would be to: 1) try to incorporate either the professor's lesson with Caspian in the tower, or I would of had him dreaming about his boyhood and the nurses stories right before he woke up and 2) replace the train fight scene with something that would give Peter a little more dignity yet still get his struggle across... (so that's what they were doing at the beginning of the BBC version... sorry I just had to look that one up- that scene was always confusing to me: this is the first time I realized they actually stole the bench). Maybe I would have had someone older than him talk down on him or "patronize" him at the train station... then have him actually walk away and use the incident to show how they miss Narnia and how they feel about going from being Kings and Queens back to kids... I guess it'd be something like the opening VDT scene, but with better dialogue and a different tone than that which Edmund had... and I wouldn't have him try to sign up for the army either

Edit almost forgot- I would also include some way for Trumpkin to actually figure out who Caspian is, so he can tell the Pensevies, so Peter's guessing who Caspian was later would make sense... maybe have him overhear a conversation between Glozelle and Miraz?

[Balin]

For those who advocate using Caspian's nurse or other methods to do a historical recap, do you envision this as a full-blown prologue sequence, or more of a quiet intro?

[wolfloversk]

For those who advocate using Caspian's nurse or other methods to do a historical recap, do you envision this as a full-blown prologue sequence, or more of a quiet intro?

Kind of in between? I'd rather it be a small scene... just enough to get the point across about the state that Narnia is in

[waggawerewolf27]

For those who advocate using Caspian's nurse or other methods to do a historical recap, do you envision this as a full-blown prologue sequence, or more of a quiet intro?

I think I would go with Wolfy's idea of amalgamating the Tower lesson scene and the birth of the baby. If I were Dr Cornelius, I would have guessed that Prunaprismia was in a certain delicate condition, and would have been ready for the birth of a baby and its likely consequences. I might even have got wind of what Miraz intended if the baby was a boy, perhaps being a dab hand at eavesdropping. Frankly, even in the movie, I found the portrayal of Dr Cornelius on his way to wake up Caspian somewhat sinister, and was glad I knew what the story should be.

So even if it is only the Astronomy lesson Dr Cornelius had been promising Caspian for a while, it would still make sense to make Caspian dress warmly, and to disguise the bed so that it looks like someone is still in it. Also, for Dr Cornelius to have a spyglass at hand, if not a proper telescope. That Tarva and Alambil scene, with the two heavenly bodies looking like real stars, not the BBC's artist's impression, would be a spectacular backdrop for a conversation which gives the audience all the historic information needed, including:

1. The tales Caspian heard from his nurse about the Pevensies were the truth

2.Why Miraz sent Caspian's nurse away

3. Dr Cornelius' half-dwarf heritage

4. That it wasn't Dr Cornelius who was about to attempt to kill Caspian

5. The mess Miraz was making of Narnia, that Caspian was the true heir, and that Miraz had got rid of any friends of Caspian's father. Also, that Miraz had killed Caspian IX.

The point of going to that tower, even if it did not give the best view of the conjunction was the privacy and emptiness of the rooms beneath. Since the other tower could be seen, sudden lights in its windows would give Caspian and Cornelius warning that something was about to happen. Dr Cornelius could swing his spyglass around to see what he could see. Cut to baby boy's birth. Cut to Miraz being informed by Grozelle, and Caspian and Cornelius observing the guard being dispatched to Caspian's room.

Cornelius tells Caspian the child is definitely a boy and so to flee for his life. They are already in the stables where Dr Cornelius had Destrier's saddlebags ready for a trip earlier that evening. Caspian gets away. He doesn't wind the horn until after he has met Trumpkin properly. After all, the pursuit would not be up until after the horse returned to Miraz's castle.

[spartan5]

I have always thought Adamson's decision to completely remove the Nurse from PC was a mistake. She was a big part of how Caspian came to know Narnia, and their reunion at the end of the book was a nice surprise (in the book).

Re-reading PC (the book) prior to the film's release, I looked forward to a scene featuring Caspian and Cornelius at the top of a castle tower at night, looking out over the expanse, telling stories of Old Narnia. Done correctly, it would have been a decent way to work in a little exposition and maybe even do some cool effects, which could transition to the Pevensie's in England. Or, it could have served as a prologue to Caspian's interaction with Miraz.

A less intensive opening to the film might have been a better introduction to all the walking that inevitably followed. Actually, anything but a screaming woman would have been an improvement.

[Balin]

A less intensive opening to the film might have been a better introduction to all the walking that inevitably followed. Actually, anything but a screaming woman would have been an improvement.

Well said, my friend. Although I do perceive some difficulty in not opening with a chase scene if the filmmmakers portray Caspian as any older than the book (which I concede that they would in any Hollywood adaptation). Especially with Miraz being as sinister as in Adamson's adaptation, it seems that the guards would have some advanced knowledge about the plot or at least alert Miraz after his departure. I know in the books that Destrier's return betray's Caspian's flight, but does anyone recall what Miraz thinks before the horse returns alone? (I don't have a copy of the book anywhere nearby.)

Going back to fantasia_kitty's original post, I like the idea of portraying Peter as an interventionist. The idea of offense seems to work, but bullying is not fitting for a king, no matter how frustrated he is.

[Lion's Emblem]

Hmm, as for specific shots and details, I'd have to think on the matter for awhile longer (PC really doesn't open itself very easily to film, does it? ). I've got more thoughts on transitions really.

Somehwere along the line, maybe not necessarily the very opening scene, we see Caspian in his history lessons- with different illustrative elements from his books and what not (like the book pages in Cornelius' chamber in the film). Then maybe Caspian talks about the old days, with Miraz entering and shunning the idea or Cornelius warning Caspian not to talk about such things, and the history pages are scattered. We then focus on the pages, working through the different images (starting with the Telamrine era and working backwards) as the opening credits roll, and, as well go further into the past, we see the image of the Pevensies sitting at their thrones in Narnia- looking regal and elegant. This would then morph into the actual footage of the Pevensies sitting at the train station, only they are more "worn out"- a far cry from the Narnian kings and queens. After the Pevensies intro., there would be some sort of transition back to Narnia- either a morph of an image, dialogue of a thought, or a sound reference (I absoultely loved the transition of Susan's horn to the car horn in the film). Then of course the sound of the horn would pull the Pevensies into Narnia.

[waggawerewolf27]

A less intensive opening to the film might have been a better introduction to all the walking that inevitably followed. Actually, anything but a screaming woman would have been an improvement.

Well said, my friend. Although I do perceive some difficulty in not opening with a chase scene if the filmmmakers portray Caspian as any older than the book (which I concede that they would in any Hollywood adaptation). Especially with Miraz being as sinister as in Adamson's adaptation, it seems that the guards would have some advanced knowledge about the plot or at least alert Miraz after his departure. I know in the books that Destrier's return betray's Caspian's flight, but does anyone recall what Miraz thinks before the horse returns alone? (I don't have a copy of the book anywhere nearby).

Miraz didn't say or think anything according to the book. Dr Cornelius, who said it was Destrier that gave Caspian away, escaped as best he could before Miraz could put him to torture. As for a chase scene, exactly why is it needed if Caspian is over the age of 14? Even in the film the alert was given by the sentry, when Caspian rode past the portcullis, and then some guards gave chase. But in the book, Miraz's guards were terrified of the woods so would have given up after a while, even if they had noticed he was missing.

It would make sense that in a new adaptation that it is again, only the sentries who give chase before returning to their posts. The second foray into the woods, made in the film, when Trufflehunter gets injured, would be a much better occasion for Trumpkin to be taken captive. That way he has a chance to at least meet Caspian and know a bit about him when he later meets the Pevensies at Cair Paravel. Trumpkin then could be more precise about where the Pevensie party should go once he met them, and we would have a better reason for the hiking in the woods. Also, it would be a better time for Caspian to wind the horn, since he was on that occasion at least conscious.

Don't forget that it was Prunaprismia's newborn baby who gave Caspian's escape its urgency, even in the book, however Prince Caspian is filmed. I'd like a new adaptation to have a more informative and logical start and combining the Tower scene and Dr Cornelius's rousing Caspian to warn him to escape would certainly do that. It would also give Prince Caspian a genuine window of opportunity to get away, whilst they all are distracted by fussing over the baby, possibly Prunaprismia, herself, plus dispatching Caspian's assassins, before they all notice that he had escaped anyway.

Going back to fantasia_kitty's original post, I like the idea of portraying Peter as an interventionist. The idea of offense seems to work, but bullying is not fitting for a king, no matter how frustrated he is.

If we had more information about Caspian's situation in the first scene, a bit more reason for Trumpkin to know Caspian before he was captured, and if Trumpkin had therefore explained better who Caspian was to Peter and the other three, then maybe Peter might not have seemed quite so cranky. If Peter was really clear who Caspian was and why he had to try to meet up with him, as he was in the book, then Peter's and Caspian's eventual meeting might have been less snarky and more agreeable, for one thing.

In the film Peter seemed that he was most annoyed with Aslan for some reason. And touchy schoolboys fighting over very little seems to be more visually interesting than a nice Astronomy lesson.

[jesus-aslan freak]

If they ever rebooted the series, I would split Prince Caspian into two parts. Hear me out, the first part would be called "Prince Caspian: Return to Narnia" or something like that. It would cover from when the kids came back into Narnia to when they rejoin Prince Caspian and fight the hag and wolf. I think, though, there are dozens of ways to start the film. The second part would have to stray from the book a little to give another battle involving Peter and Edmund. However, this would keep the film from skipping Aslan's Holiday and other things that the Disney film had to rush through. It would also be neat to see Miraz banish the seven lords and to see the trees dance.

[Ithilwen]

If it was up to me, I would have made the movies a bit differently. And that would have changed the opening in PC.

I would have done them in a different order than either Publication or Chronological order. It would have gone: LWW, HHB, PC, VDT, SC, MN, and LB. Since HHB would be right after LWW, LWW would not have ended with the Pevensies coming back through the wardrobe. And the HHB film would have ended with them still being in Narnia as well.

At the beginning of PC, the audience would not yet know of the Pevensies' return to their own world. And, like FK, I would have the movie start out with the Nurse and young Caspian, talking about the legends. She would say how Narnia is so different now and that there used to be kings and queens of old. And Caspian would ask the same thing the audience would be asking, "What happened to those kings and queens? Why did Narnia change?"

Then I would have it go back and forth between Caspian growing up, and the Pevensies (not yet at the train station) as children once more in our world. There would be a sort of comparison of how the Pevensies can no longer fit in our world, with how Caspian (a lover of legends and old Narnia) can't fit into his world of Narnia under Miraz. That way, the audience would already feel a connection between Caspian and the Pevensie children, even though their paths haven't crossed yet.

When it came close to the time for the horn to be blown, I would show the Pevensies at the train station. That way, the two stories happen simultaneously, without any backtracking or cutting anyone's story short.


~Riella