In the past, Doug Gresham has defended the recent Narnia films as faithful adaptations of the books or, alternatively, he has defended the changes that were made to the stories as a necessary part of the adaptation process. So it is interesting to see his latest comments regarding the upcoming film version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, posted at NarniaWeb.com:
Ian Kath: These movies, how well are they sticking to the originals, the books?
Douglas Gresham: Well, The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe was very close to the original book because the book was written in such a way that lent itself to being transcribed into the film medium. Prince Caspian we had to make some fairly major changes because the book isn’t written that way. In this movie there are a lot of differences in it also to, as Hollywood says, “derive the plot”. I’m ambivalent as to whether they’re necessary or not, I don’t really think so. But thats the way they wanted to do it, and it was either that or not make a movie, so I said “well go ahead and do it”. It will be very interesting to see the audiences reactions.
…..
Ian Kath: It’s an amazing amount of work that we’ve put into this, and I just love what we’ve done, and if the story is as good as the work and the passion that we’ve put into it..
Douglas Gresham: I think the story in the book is better but it’s still a great story.
For what it’s worth, I still haven’t listened to the original audio recording of this interview, but I think the person who transcribed the bits above may have misheard the phrase “drive the plot”. Although, given the way these films have turned out, “derive the plot” would certainly be one way of putting it!
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