Gresham Calls Caspian/Susan Kiss ‘Nonsense’
ChristianityToday has posted an interview with Douglas Gresham (co-producer, Lewis’ stepson). You can read it here.
There is one part of the interview I would like to comment on:
CT: There were early rumors that Eustace, after he becomes a dragon, would fight with the sea serpent. That’s not in the book.
Gresham: Some folks were attracted by the idea that the dragon—Eustace—would earn his redemption by having a huge fight with the sea serpent. But I don’t think that earning one’s redemption is possible. It’s a free gift from Jesus. So that scene is not in the movie. That was a nonnegotiable point for me. [Since this interview, CT has seen the film, and would contest Gresham’s assertion that the dragon Eustace doesn’t have a “huge fight with the sea serpent.” Looked pretty huge from our seat.]
Putting this in context, and keeping past reports in mind, it seems much more likely that Gresham was not denying that DragonEustace fights a sea-serpent. Rather, he was saying that the idea of Eustace earning his redemption was removed from the film. We already know that the writers originally wanted this, but Michael Flaherty (Walden Media president) set them straight (report).
The most interesting part of the interview is when Gresham talks about the controversial kiss between Caspian and Susan at the end of Prince Caspian. He mentions an interview he did with NarniaWeb where he famously advised fans to worry more about global warming than a C/S romance. “I knew there wasn’t going to be a romance,” Gresham says, “but I wasn’t going to say so.” CT mentions the kiss, and Gresham responds: “[…] I agree that it shouldn’t have been in the movie; I think it was nonsense. But it wasn’t something I was going to dig my heels in and scream and bite the carpet about.”
Thanks to ‘Jo-Anna/johobbit.’
I really dislike that part of PC! I agree with Gresham it IS
It is WHAT?
NONSENSE!
Yeah it begins..A fact in the movie is Caspian's love to Susan.It's a reasonable fact too
Sadly, Caspian does not fall for Lilliandil in the VDT film… at least not in the early version… this was one of the changes that my purist side remains stubbornly angry with, while I can even so love the film as a film. No Ramandu & what they do to the attitudes of the Dufflepuds are the other, but that is all I will say of that.
Well I get what you are saying but if you remember in PC nobody was exactly a darling little angel either. Prince Caspian wasn't really sweet. He had tons of fights and anger. I wouldn't really call Suspian fake. And Susan was just confused and just trying to get on in school. In my opinion it was just a goodbye kiss saying that maybe if she stayed things would have been different. People who saw that movie took it to a completely different level.
I know! I laughed at that so hard! LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SAME HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally! Somebody who agrees with me!!!!!
I think he means that the 'love thing' with Susan won't continue in the movie.
I love this man. 😀
I especially love how he mentioned that Eustace didn't earn his redemption in the film. A lot of people were nitpicking about that and it's nice to hear from the man himself that that was NOT what was going on in the dragon vs. Sea serpent fight. I didn't get the sense of that at all–the previous scenes with Eustace feeling guilty (as a dragon) about how he acted and wanting to make up for it by listening to Reepicheep and by pulling the ship toward's Ramandu's Island showed that he did those things not as a way of earning Aslan's salvation but because he truly was beginning to change. Aslan never came up to him in the movie and told him that he had to save the DT in order to be redeemed. Eustace did that out of his own free will.
Also, I love how Mr. Gresham talked about the Suspian kiss–although I was insanely upset about it when the film came out, now I can understand why he says that the purists who were enraged about it were as far off the mark as the people who saw it as a "romance." I just love his attitude–yes, it did bother him, but it wasn't anything that drastically impacted the story so he wasn't going to throw a fit. That's how I think we all should view it. If we continue to whine excessively over the kiss, then that little scene becomes WAY more important than it should be, and therefore people will continue to pay more attention to it. We should all adopt Mr. Gresham's attitude and just let it pass, then maybe the Suspianites will actually become less rabid.
As for Lilliandil, I wish VDT had given her more screentime, but the interest between Caspian and her was just enough to believe that over time the two of them might actually fall in love. Lucy did ask in the beginning of the film whether Caspian had found a queen, and he answered "none to compare with your sister" but that was IT and Suspian was never brought up again. I just LOVE how that was handled. The film did not make a big deal about the issue at all and we just see Caspian (almost humorously) referring to the incident in PC as a mere crush. But it also set up the fact that apparently Caspian has not really found anyone he's interested in, which sets the stage for his meeting with Lilliandil, where he finally finds someone who actually sparks that interest. Of course, I wish that whole story arc had been developed more, but it was enough to put Suspian out of the question, because once Caspian sees Lilliandil, you can tell he doesn't have anyone else on his mind anymore. LOL
hey i agree with you about it 'making aslan look foolish' cause after the kiss it shows aslan and hes like, smiling, as if hes thinking, 'ahh isnt it wonderfull children'. sorry that was weird the way i said it. i think they could have just stuck to the story line and it would have been just as exiting.