VDT Fan Edit Experiment
Posted: Apr 18, 2018 10:31 am
Hello, to all of my awesome and unaffectionately profound friends of the forum! I am conducting a little creative experiment on the VDT film adaptation, and thought I would share my ideas with you guys. Opinions, thoughts, and general suggestions are welcome!
So, it's pretty common knowledge among all of us that the VDT film was...well, not the best. Obviously, the film failed miserably to capture the joy, atmosphere, themes, and overall point of the character-driven, Odyssey-like journey the late great Lewis intended for the original novel. It barely feels like anything remotely related to Narnia, as the generic (yet commercially viable) "save the world" plot line is the primary focus. These are all complaints that we have discussed to death, and likely will continue to talk about.
However, what makes the movie much worse in my opinion, is in it's filmmaking; the dialogue is cringe-inducing. "You know I'm braver than both of you!" "Ohhhh, THAT mansion", and so on. It somehow sounds childish and cheesy, and not intentionally. Cinematography is sloppy, shaky, uneven, and feels less like a cinematic experience and more like a made-for-tv film. Nearly every single close-up of the characters is shaky, awkward, and takes you out of the film. The editing is rather choppy and a bit too fast at times. Musical score is uninspired and rather bland, especially in comparison to the first two films. The pacing is INSANELY rushed. It is barely four minutes into the film before the kids are already in Narnia, with barely any atmosphere or character beats established before that. Aside from the basics, such as Eustace being a brat and Lucy wishing she looked like Susan. But everything is so rushed, the viewer barely has time to process it before they are sucked into Narnia. The tone is ridiculously all over the place, due to it's frantic plotting.
Long story short, the fact that the film barely makes any effort to resemble the original book is a disappointment. But what really adds salt in the wound is how frantically unfocused the filmmaking seems to be. The aforementioned issues with the directing, editing, dialogue, cinematography and so on make the viewing experience confusingly dull at best, and annoyingly crime-worthy at worst. I think the film wouldn't bug us so much if it was just a slight bit more watchable and...well...competently made. Nothing against Apted, he clearly was managing a production that was out of his wheelhouse. He has on many occasions, discussed his disdain for the original novels. A fine filmmaker, but he was perhaps the wrong man for this job.
In my spare time, I have been attempting to experiment with creating a fan-edit of VDT. I realize I can't change the plotting, lack of focus, and passionless script. However, I am wondering if it's possible to retool the finished product into something slightly more watchable. Examples being trimming lazy and cringe dialogue, changing the score in various sequences to establish a more direct and fitting tone and overall mood, and perhaps adding various other elements to enhance the overall quality of the piece and slow down the pacing a bit. It's only an experiment, but I would love to get some of your thoughts and suggestions.
This is the original opening:
https://youtu.be/odbB9a9tLnA
This is my version:
https://youtu.be/HijT7E4mqlQ
Again, discussions, thoughts, suggestions and opinions are more than welcome!
So, it's pretty common knowledge among all of us that the VDT film was...well, not the best. Obviously, the film failed miserably to capture the joy, atmosphere, themes, and overall point of the character-driven, Odyssey-like journey the late great Lewis intended for the original novel. It barely feels like anything remotely related to Narnia, as the generic (yet commercially viable) "save the world" plot line is the primary focus. These are all complaints that we have discussed to death, and likely will continue to talk about.
However, what makes the movie much worse in my opinion, is in it's filmmaking; the dialogue is cringe-inducing. "You know I'm braver than both of you!" "Ohhhh, THAT mansion", and so on. It somehow sounds childish and cheesy, and not intentionally. Cinematography is sloppy, shaky, uneven, and feels less like a cinematic experience and more like a made-for-tv film. Nearly every single close-up of the characters is shaky, awkward, and takes you out of the film. The editing is rather choppy and a bit too fast at times. Musical score is uninspired and rather bland, especially in comparison to the first two films. The pacing is INSANELY rushed. It is barely four minutes into the film before the kids are already in Narnia, with barely any atmosphere or character beats established before that. Aside from the basics, such as Eustace being a brat and Lucy wishing she looked like Susan. But everything is so rushed, the viewer barely has time to process it before they are sucked into Narnia. The tone is ridiculously all over the place, due to it's frantic plotting.
Long story short, the fact that the film barely makes any effort to resemble the original book is a disappointment. But what really adds salt in the wound is how frantically unfocused the filmmaking seems to be. The aforementioned issues with the directing, editing, dialogue, cinematography and so on make the viewing experience confusingly dull at best, and annoyingly crime-worthy at worst. I think the film wouldn't bug us so much if it was just a slight bit more watchable and...well...competently made. Nothing against Apted, he clearly was managing a production that was out of his wheelhouse. He has on many occasions, discussed his disdain for the original novels. A fine filmmaker, but he was perhaps the wrong man for this job.
In my spare time, I have been attempting to experiment with creating a fan-edit of VDT. I realize I can't change the plotting, lack of focus, and passionless script. However, I am wondering if it's possible to retool the finished product into something slightly more watchable. Examples being trimming lazy and cringe dialogue, changing the score in various sequences to establish a more direct and fitting tone and overall mood, and perhaps adding various other elements to enhance the overall quality of the piece and slow down the pacing a bit. It's only an experiment, but I would love to get some of your thoughts and suggestions.
This is the original opening:
https://youtu.be/odbB9a9tLnA
This is my version:
https://youtu.be/HijT7E4mqlQ
Again, discussions, thoughts, suggestions and opinions are more than welcome!