There's Many a Slip Twixt the Book and the Movie

Lars at Brandywine Books points out a major flaw he noticed in the adaptation of Prince Caspian for the movie world ... and why it matters.

[...] What set me off was a statement that director Andrew Adamson decided to make Susan Pevensey a warrior in the battle (in the film), though Lewis had made it a point to keep her out of it (in the book).

The more I think about this, the more it bothers me. I understand that I’m touchy and obsessive on the subject, but there are times when madmen (like me) can see the truth that sane people can’t, because we look where nobody else is looking. If it’s true that the truths that are most important to defend in any age are precisely those that are most despised, then madmen are sometimes the bloodhounds who smell out what the truth-hunters don’t see.

The decision to kick aside a plot point that mattered to Lewis, just because it’s unfashionable, is not a minor matter (or so it seems to me). In this situation it’s a declaration that there is no special calling for a man to be warrior and protector in the world. Nobody seems to see this, but to me it’s obvious—such a view has dangerous, catastrophic consequences, not only for boys and men but for society as a whole. It’s an assertion (one at which Lewis would have snorted in contempt) that there is no essential difference between men and women; that there are only interchangeable hominid units. [...]

Read it all here.