FAQ for
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499448/parentalguide.

Yes. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is based on Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia (1951), the second novel in The Chronicles of Narnia series by British writer and academian C.S. Lewis [1898-1963].

It depends. This movie is not as tame as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). There are darker themes (murder, assassination of the King, genocide of the Narnians), as well as more focused violence. It is a PG movie, which means it will likely be a little too intense for younger kids. It also has a few spooky/creepy parts. It appears to be more targeted to tweens and teens than to kids under 8. For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDbs Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian can be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499448/parentalguide.

Isacc Asimov, in his book on Shakespeare's plays, notes that a standard fairy tale plot involves a "wicked uncle" who is entrusted with a child nephew's property, but does not want to give it up when the child is old enough to claim it. Often he tries to kill the nephew, who must therefore fight both to defend his life and to reclaim his "rightful" property. Shakespeare used the plot in three plays: Richard III, King John, and Hamlet. Obviously the summary fits Prince Caspian as well. There is no Biblical background for these stories, however; they were based on medieval relationships, but CS Lewis was a professor of literature and would have been very familiar with them.

They are using the order in which the books were first published, not the chronological order in which the the books were later rearranged into. For an indepth discussion of the merits of both book orders, see here:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7SP57E3-3AE

In a letter written in 1957 to an American boy named Laurence, C.S. Lewis expressed a mild preference for Chronological order, but ultimately felt that it did not really matter which order they were read in:

"I think I agree with your order {i.e. chronological} for reading the books more than with your mother's. The series was not planned beforehand as she thinks. When I wrote The Lion I did not know I was going to write any more. Then I wrote P. Caspian as a sequel and still didn't think there would be any more, and when I had done The Voyage I felt quite sure it would be the last. But I found as I was wrong. So perhaps it does not matter very much in which order anyone read them. I'm not even sure that all the others were written in the same order in which they were published"

http://www.narniaweb.com/content.asp?id=10

Douglas Gresham, stepson of C.S. Lewis, and co-producer on the movies, commented that they were filming the books in "the most logically consistent order for filming."

http://www.narniaweb.com/questions.asp?MovieID=1

narniaweb.com has by far the biggest coverage of Narnia movie news, as well as having a series of behind-the-scenes set reports, and many cast interviews. The Narniaweb forums also contain a wealth of news and information. The official movie site, narnia.com, has also been running an exclusive production blog, which includes concept art and some behind the scenes footage

Miraz was already Regent, with the powers of the King if not the title. He could have killed Caspian, but up until that point it was believed that his wife (or him) was unable to have children - which is not good for anyone in a royal court and especially not a King. If Caspian had disappeared, there would have been suspicion, but there would also have been an uproar because Miraz was thought to be unable to provide an heir.

In the book where Miraz is already King, there is an exchange between Prince Caspian and Dr. Cornelius: "But why now?" said Caspian. "I mean, why didn't he [kill me a] long time ago if he wanted to? And what harm would I have done him?" [...]

"Listen. As long as he had no children of his own, he was willing enough that you should be King when he died. He may not have cared much about you, but he would rather you should have the throne than a stranger. Now that he has a son of his own he will want his own son to be the next King. You are in the way. He'll clear you out of the way."

Narnia had humans from the moment it was created.

Explained in "The Magician's Nephew": When Narnia is created by Aslan, a boy, a girl, and a Cab Driver are there to witness it. The Cabbie, because he is brave and noble, is named by Aslan the first king of Narnia. His wife (from our world) is transported there and they live happily ever after...The white witch will eventually kill the kings and queens (their descendants) somewhere down the line, after which the Pevensies step in....etc. Narnia is not the whole world, its just one country in that alternate world.

In the book, Prince Caspian is described as being a boy of about the same ages as Peter. According to C.S. Lewis' Narnia Timeline, Caspian is 13 years old, and Peter 14 years old, during this story. See: http://www.narniaweb.com/content.asp?id=8 However, since William Moseley (Peter) is now 20 years old and Ben Barnes (Caspian) is 26 years old, the age difference is not actually that much.

In the book, the Telmarines are said to be descended from Pirates who crossed over from our world into theirs. The filmmakers have elaborated on the Telmarines origins in many parts of the design. The accent is designed to reflect the Telmarines pirate ancestry, and to serve as a contrast to the those of the Pevensies and the Narnians. Production designer Roger Ford originally wanted the Telmarines to be French, as they had a confrontational history with the English, who are represented by the Pevensies. Andrew Adamson then suggested they take this a step further, and make them Mediterranean. The final accent ended up being a hybrid of Spanish and Italian, with an English intonation, due to the various nationalities of the actors involved.

The Telmarines are descendants of pirates from our world. Their origin, as described in the book, is as follows:

"Many years ago in that world, in a deep sea of that world which is called the South Sea, a shipload of pirates were driven by storm in an island. And there they did as pirates would; killed the natives and took the native women for wives, and made palm wine, and drank and were drunk, and lay in the shade of the palm trees, and woke up and quarreled, and sometimes killed one another. And in one of these frays six were put to flight by the rest and fled with their women into the center of the island and up a mountain, and went, as they thought, into a cave to hide. But it was one of the magical places of that world, one of the chinks or chasms between that world and this. There were many chinks or chasms between worlds in old times, but they have grown rarer. This was one of the last; i do not say the last. And so they fell, or rose, or blundered, or dropped right through, and found themselves in this world, in the Land of Telmar which was then unpeopled. But why it was unpeopled is a long story; i will not tell it now. And in Telmar their descendants lived and became fierce and proud people; and after many generations there was a famine in Telmar and they invaded Narnia, which was then in some disorder (but that also would be a long story), and conquered it and ruled it"

For the movie, the producers expanded upon this pirate heritage, and conceived the Telmarines as Spanish pirates.

In the movie, they are depicted as a race with dark hair, thick beards, and very much Spanish or Italian accents. The actors that play as Miraz and his General are both Italian. No mention of their exact ancestry is told but they are mentioned to be the descendants of pirates. At the end of the film Aslan tells them that they are descendants from Earth, the same one that the Pevensies are from.

There are no hints of any Caspian/Susan romance in the books. It was something added for the movie. In the book, Susan (and Lucy) don't even meet Caspian until the very last chapter (Chapter 15) and even then, they have barely any form of interaction whatsoever.

For the most part, the Night Raid is an entirely new sequence, created especially for the movie, to act as the main action set-piece for the second act of the movie (in the same way as the Frozen Waterfall sequence was added to the first movie). Director Andrew Adamson felt that the concept of mythological creatures attacking a medieval castle was quite an interesting visual, and one that had never been seen before. However, in many respects, this scene does have some grounding in the book...

In chapter 7, during the Dancing Lawn scene, Reepicheep and his mice "said that councils and feasts could both wait, and proposed storming Miraz in his own castle that very night". And later on, during the same chapter, after the Narnians have arrived at Aslan's How, Lewis comments that "there was fighting on most days and sometimes by night as well; but Caspian's party on the whole had the worst of it".

It could be argued therefore, that since the Narnian's had considered raiding Miraz's castle at night, and that since it later mentions that many battles took place, and that some of these battles did take place at night (and that they didn't go too well) that the Night Raid sequence is a logical expansion of a pre-exisitng plot point, albeit one that Lewis skims over in his narration. The only "change" therefore is that the Pevensies are present, which stems from the result of the descion to have the Pevensies meet up with Caspian much earlier in the story than they do in the book.

Between the events of "The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian", one thousand and three hundred years have passed in Narnia. Mr. Tumnus, and every other Narnian character from "The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe" (except for Aslan of course) has long since died.

For this movie, creature effects producer Howard Berger wanted to introduce a greater range of diversity and variation into the look of the Narnian creatures. In the first movie, he felt that the majority of the Narnian army ended up being 23 year-old, male, New Zealanders, due to the budgetary constraints they were working under. This time he wanted to introduce a greater variety of ages, races, genders and sizes - as a result there are now children centaurs, old aged fauns, heavy set characters, and a family of "African-Narnian Centaurs" consisting of lead centaur "Glenstorm" (Cornell S John) his wife, "Windmane" (Lejla Abbasová) and their three children, "Ironhoof" (Yemi Akinyemi), "Suncloud" (Carlos Da Silva) and "Rainstone" (Ephraim Goldin).

Aslan is the only character to appear in all seven books (although only prominently in The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe). But although his role varies in size, it's always crucial to the book in question. Like all of the books, PC touches on issues of Christianity. One of the themes of PC is that humans must have great faith and personal strength to maintain belief in a mysterious God (represented here by Aslan) who is not always present. Lucy was the only one who saw Aslan, but even she lacked enough self-confidence to go to him C.S. Lewis said that Aslan was a Christ figure but not in the traditional way. He is an alternate portrayal; the same character who follows differing paths. Little is written in the Bible about Jesus' childhood, and at Pentecost the disciples felt abandoned by God and cowered in fear of persecution until the Holy Spirit descended upon them and gave them new courage, hope, skills and, in a way, a reason to live. Aslan is not always there, and yet he is. Whether it is a memory, a rumor, legend, love or long lost superstition he is always there, even if not as a physical manifestation.

No. In Narnia, Jesus is represented by Aslan, and God is represented by the "Emperor over the sea." The River God in Prince Caspian is merely the spirit of the river - 'god' here is used in a mythological sense, not in our religion sense. He is the ruler of that river and the naiads that live in it, but he is not God.

It is not a direct Allegory of a story like LWW was, but it takes a few cues from the Bible and contains "Christian Themes."

Prince Caspian has more in common with stories from ancient mythology, of which C.S. Lewis was very fond. However, with regard to the comment above, I would say that some of the other Chronicles have a very direct relation to biblical stories. The Magicians Nephew in particular has many features of Genesis (a beautiful garden, a forbidden apple, a temptation, the first man and woman). The Last Battle has much in common with the Book Of Revelations, and LWW has a lot of features in common with the Gospels, not just the fact that Aslan died for Edmund's sake. C.S. Lewis was raised a Christian and then turned away from all forms of religion for much of his life. The writing group he was a part of, "The Inklings," eventually returned him to Christianity when he was in his adult life. C.S. Lewis said himself that the books were intended to echo stories from the Bible; however, they're enjoyable books in their own right, you don't need to be a Christian to enjoy (or understand) them.

"The Call" by Regina Spektor.

Although the first film featured a brief additional scene part-way through the credits, this movie does not.