Narnia Adapted for the Screen in 'Prince Caspian'

ANDREA SEABROOK, host:

The new "Chronicles of Narnia" movie hits theaters this week. It's called "Prince Caspian." The series is adapted from the beloved books for kids by C.S. Lewis. They start with "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe." This movie, "Prince Caspian," is darker, more violent than either of the books or the first movie.

Andrew Adamson directed both Narnia movies and he's with us now from New York. Hi there.

Mr. ANDREW ADAMSON (Director, "Prince Caspian"): Hi, Andrea, how are you?

SEABROOK: Good, thanks. Now, this movie's rated PG but it's a movie about war. Let's listen to a clip.

(Soundbite of movie, "Prince Caspian")

SEABROOK: A lot of violence on screen there and yet it's a kid's movie, Andrew Adamson.

Mr. ADAMSON: You know, I would say it's a lot of action. I was interested in your comment you said it was more violent than the book, and yet I remember very well reading the book as an eight-year-old and the line where Peter strikes out his legs and with the backstroke of the same sword stroke wallops off his head. I mean, it's a little more violent than anything that I put in the movie.

But the action is definitely more intense than the last film. At the same time, the killing of Aslan in the last film was a very dark moment, and something I think was quite scary for little kids. But I think kids like to be scared as long as you don't leave them in that state for too long.

SEABROOK: There's a lot in the movie that's not in the book. A big battle sequence at the evil King Miraz's castle. Why did you decide to include it in the movie?

Mr. ADAMSON: I wanted to expand upon the book. You know, I said in the beginning of the last one that I wanted to make my memory of the book rather than the book itself. And my memory had expanded the book over the years so that when I went back and read it, it was much smaller than I thought. And every occasion I try to draw from the book and expand upon that.

SEABROOK: You created new emotional storylines as well. There's Caspian's conflict with Peter and what seems to be sort of a budding romance with Susan.

Mr. ADAMSON: Yeah. In the same ways I wanted to expand on the locations, expand on the action, I also wanted to create a three-dimensionality to the characters. You know, last time through I found that when I read the book Edmund was a bad boy and I wanted to investigate why he was a bad boy. And he came upon this idea that his father was away at war, he was resenting his older brother.

In this case, it was sort of the same thing. It was how could I find a three-dimensionality to these characters that also fitted the story? And what I tried to do is treat it as if this was an event that had really happened of which C.S. Lewis wrote a children's book. And I was going to make a movie of the real event. And that meant that the characters wanted to behave more like real characters with more dimensionality.

And the kind of interactions you would expect with kids that have grown up a little bit. You know, people have asked me about the element of an attraction between Caspian and Susan. Well, Susan's 16 years old, Caspian's, you know, 17 or 18. They're both cute. It would be really odd if they weren't attracted to each other.

(Soundbite of laughter)

SEABROOK: You know, I felt like Peter, Edmund, Susan, Lucy, the main four characters in the Narnia books, are definitely more three-dimensional in this book. If anything, it's Caspian that's the least developed character.

Mr. ADAMSON: Caspian's dealing with, I think, sort of a more symbolic issue. I think (unintelligible) have more subtle issues they're dealing with. You know, Peter dealing with the fact that he was king of Narnia 15 years and he had to go back and do his homework all of the sudden. That was a pretty life-changing event. He's trying to reclaim his glory days.

Susan with a slightly more subtle idea of not wanting to accept Narnia again 'cause it was so hard for her to say goodbye last time. Caspian's story is a little more Shakespearean. You know, he's somebody who finds out his uncle's trying to kill him to gain his throne, and throughout the film learns that his uncle also killed his father.

It's sort of a bigger darker issue to deal with in some ways that sort of sets off the tone of the film being darker. But you're right. It's a little harder to relate to as a daily experience. Most of us, fortunately, don't have to deal with those kinds of issues.

SEABROOK: Now, C.S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, is a co-producer in the Narnia movies. What did he think of the changes you made?

Mr. ADAMSON: He was always very good with them. The only thing I think that Doug and I ever really argued about on both of these films was about the role that I allowed women to play in the film, or particularly girls, to play. In the first book Father Christmas gives Susan the bow and arrow and says I do not intend you to use them. And I found that incredibly disempowering, the fact that I have two young daughters and have a lot of strong women in my life. There was no way I was going to tell that story.

Basically, I thought Father Christmas should have probably given her a knife and plate and said, there you go, go make sandwiches. Because in the book that was all she was allowed to do. And I just wanted the female characters in the story to be as empowered as the male.

SEABROOK: And Douglas Gresham did not?

Mr. ADAMSON: He felt like I was deviating from C.S. Lewis's ideas, which is true. But C.S. Lewis wrote these books a long time ago, and I also pointed out that he wrote the first few of these books before he met Doug's mother, 'cause Doug's C.S. Lewis's stepson.

And when you read some of the later books in the series, like "Horse and His Boy," he does actually have stronger female characters than he did in his first few.

SEABROOK: Now, the Christian themes are really clear in the C.S. Lewis books. Do you think about those themes when you're putting this on screen?

Mr. ADAMSON: I'm certainly aware of them. I'm aware of them from the point of view of not wanting to take anything away too much from people who love them because of the theology. At the same time, I read the books when I was eight years old before I even knew what the word allegory meant. And I read them for what they were, which is great adventures based on, in many cases, a lot of mythology.

And that was first and foremost what I wanted to stay true to. Is just kind of being true to the book and then letting people interpret the movies in the same way that people have interpreted the books differently over the years.

SEABROOK: It's interesting that Aslan plays such a small role in this book. The lion of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe."

Mr. ADAMSON: Yeah, he's a small role in the book and in some ways a slightly smaller role in the film, although I think he has a lot of presence in the film and is certainly an awareness of him throughout. There's less actual screen time and it was one of the problems I came to adapting it.

I found that in the movie if Aslan showed up too soon and didn't do anything, there was just that big question of why these even going to war anymore? Why doesn't he just come in and save the day? So, we sort of had to come up with some solutions to get around that, which did mean that he doesn't really show up 'til later in the story than perhaps he did in the book.

SEABROOK: And yet that's part of the point, isn't it? It's about having faith in Aslan - getting back to those Christian themes.

Mr. ADAMSON: That's certainly - yes. Faith and belief in something beyond yourself is a big part of the story.

SEABROOK: Andrew Adamson directed the new movie, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Thanks very much for speaking with us.

Mr. ADAMSON: Thank you. Nice talking to you, Andrea.

SEABROOK: "Prince Caspian" hits theaters this Friday. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.