"Only the noble of heart..."

I suppose we can take it as a given that, when beloved books are made into movies, people get offended. Some people are happy, and some are very much not.

My response to seeing the new 3D film version of C.S. Lewis' "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" was not so extreme. I try to avoid giving the standard response of "the book's better". Some might even say that the film was better than the book - those who found the book a bit too imperialistic (the film definitely got rid of the "submission to Narnian authority" bit early on in the story) or fragmented (the film adds a new thread which unifies the narrative, and reorganises the stories to fit that framework better). Some who find the act of reading a bit dull, or find Lewis' distinctly British style of storytelling too ponderous, will probably prefer to have the picture on the wall leak out torrents of water right into their 3D glasses. It was certainly a highlight of the experience. And most people would have to be happy with how the film visualises the frontier into Aslan's country - less hokey than the 1990 BBC version but just as touching and serene.

So I can accept that, when adapting books to films, scenes come and go, and some people might think Eustace should have been fatter while others might think he was perfect as he was. This is all part of the adaptation process. But I noticed one subtle but key omission, and one subtle but key addition. The omission was: grace. The addition was: the gospel of good works and self-esteem.

Yes, the film kept Eustace's conversion experience, but it came much, much later in the story, and only after he had already made himself a hero by saving the ship from many perils, befriending Reepicheep and gaining his respect, and taking a sword for the team. His first act, after becoming a boy again, is not to become a better person (he's done that already, while stuck in a dragon's body) but to save the world. Tick.

The film also tells people to "be themselves" and to "see their own value". These are not, in and of themselves, bad things to tell anyone - they can be very valuable in their place. But they take the place of love and respect for Aslan, something that the original stories placed very highly. In the novel, and the BBC series, when Aslan growls at Lucy for wanting to be Susan, it isn't because she fails to see her own value (though she does), but because she has become envious and despises her sister for her beauty. In the movie, her sin - resentment of a sister; covetousness - becomes the subject of a self-help book. Apparently Lucy needs to learn to value herself, more than she needs to love her sister, and love and trust her creator (for it is distinctly as her creator that Aslan appears to her at that moment in the original story).

And finally the film tells us that "only the noble of heart" can enter Aslan's country and that "no-one deserves it more" than Reepicheep. Deserves it? Whoever said anything about deserving it? Yes Reep is noble, and Aslan values his nobility - perhaps a bit too much for 21st century hipster Christians' comfort - but no-one ever deserves to get into Aslan's country. No-one ever gets there by their own merits. Which, if you're Eustace, or Edmund, is an exceptionally good thing.