The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian/The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Having reviewed The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe a little while back, I was both looking forward to and cringing at the thought of watching the follow-ups. Made in 1988, this series based on the popular novels of C. S. Lewis, sees the next two books of The Chronicles of Narnia transposed onto film for the BBC.

As noted in the above review of the earlier episodes, the special effects here are a little less than convincing when compared to the jaw-dropping CG animation available today, however the tales are a fun and frilly look at the fantastical world of Narnia all the same. The costuming is quite amazing when considering what sort of budget they probably had to work with, with some heavy duty makeup in effect converting humans to creatures like dragons and mice.

As part of an ongoing collection this sits ably alongside the first volume which contains the complete first novel of The Lion, The Witch. Here we get the shorter novel Prince Caspian serialised into two parts with the next book The Voyage of The Dawn Treader taking the last four episodes of this disc. Again we follow the adventures of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy Pevensie as they are returned to the land of Narnia to get the help of the spiritual Aslan to return a true king to power. However, Peter and Susan are banished from Narnia at the end of Prince Caspian because they’re too old to return. This then sees Lucy and Edmund return to Narnia in Dawn Treader dragging along awful cousin Eustace.

• Episode One: Heading home from their Uncle’s country home, the Pevensie kids are spirited away to Narnia to help a young prince. He has been lied to all his life by his Uncle Miraz and is actually the true Prince of all Narnia since the death of his father years ago.
• Episode Two: The Pevensie kids, once Kings and Queens of Narnia, come back to enlist Aslan’s help to reinstate Prince Caspian.

• Episode Three: A more grown-up Caspian sets out on an adventure to rescue the seven council members banished for supporting his father when he was King. Edmund and Lucy are drawn to help, bringing their crap cousin Eustace.
• Episode Four: After a storm at sea, the voyagers land on an island where Eustace accidentally becomes a dragon and learns the error of his crap ways.
• Episode Five: The group discover another Lord has passed away and get directions to meet the last four.
• Episode Six: The band of travellers all meet their true destinies at voyage’s end, which sees them split up many different ways.

If you or the kids enjoyed the first episodes (which my younger niece did, and she’s 11) then this is a satisfying continuation of the saga. The 2D animation is thankfully more limited than its use in the first disc, and while the special effects are still a little dodgy, the show definitely has its heart in the right place. For this reason alone, it is slightly more worthwhile as a feature, though if you’re unfamiliar with the novels, it would be recommended to check out the first disc in the series before commencing.

Our only real fault here is in the picture quality itself. This suffers some ghosting at times (particularly outdoors) and haze coming off white balances of the skin. There is also a familiar ‘light drag’ from things like candle flames and such which is another trait of indoor shoots for the BBC (Doctor Who used to have it by the bagload). Otherwise, the blacks are true, colours are even and flesh tones are true enough (though perhaps a little English pallid). Shadow detail is surprisingly good and there aren’t the issues with macro blocking that the last disc suffered. The whole delivery is slotted into the 4:3 aspect ratio of course, being made for TV in the ‘80s.

Being a Dolby Digital stereo delivery, this does a fairly adequate job. Dialogue is okay, although some characters stumble over their accents at times. Sound effects are mostly good, although some of the battle noises of swords and shields and arrows are a little hollow sounding. Music is scored by Geoffrey Burgon and is used sparingly here. He utilises a lot of mystical sounding pipes and orchestral/choral tones to bring whatever emotion is necessary for the particular screen action. It’s a fairly good and able sound delivery and made for TV we couldn’t expect (or get) anything more than stereo.

There’s a slightly bigger photo gallery than on The Lion, The Witch, with 24 pictures of behind the scenes and stills from the show. The animated menus are okay and themed in the same manner as the previous release with a nice 3D skinned parchment-type drawing and animation, though these are of course, short.

If the gang liked the first one, this is much of the same and picks up where the last storyline left off. This is a truly special set of books from C. S. Lewis and while the BBC haven’t obviously done the best job they could have wanted to, they have done the best job they possibly could and that does shine through for most of the production. As a stand alone disc it’s probably not recommended, but as a continuation, this one is even slightly better than the last.

Also, as noted last review, the director of Shrek, Andrew Adamson, is even now making a version of this book featuring a mix of live action and CG animation. These discs here will make a nice introduction to that event whenever it arrives.