why is there so much hate for these movies online?

and these same people go from movie to movie to movie venting their spleen. If you don't trust me, go see what they said on the following discussion boards: Green Lantern, Super 8, X-Men, Thor. You would have thought they were the worst movies ever made. But they are not. They are all decent movies, some of them really, really good.

Late to the fight, but am watching it right now and it so dissimilar to the books. Readers who see movies that destroy or trivialize the book tend to HATE the movie.

The movies are good family films and do well on their tv showings. They just did not show Harry Potter type of box office. Just because they are popular books does not mean sky high takings in the box office although they performed reasonably well.

Its that man again!!

^THIS.

These films (or at least the guy who made them) show no respect for the books, or for the fact that films were ALREADY made.

1) Director made a huge deal about "this is the first time the Narnia stories have EVER come to life on screen" and that it's "never been done before" which is a complete lie. The first four books were adapted by BBC in the late 80s/early 90s and those versions were GREAT. Most of us who grew up on the books also grew up on those films and they were beautifully done.

2) I was looking forward to the remakes/new adaptations until I read a Q&A with the director before the first film was released, in which he literally responded to EVERY SINGLE QUESTION with a reference to Lord of the Rings (ie. "the special effects will be a lot like LoTR; the score will sound a lot like LoTR; the directing style will be a lot like what Peter Jackson did with LoTR") and that immediately turned me off because he's clearly more interested in pulling in the big bucks by riding the Lord of the Rings wave than on capturing the spirit of the books.

3) Casting someone in his 20s to play Caspian (instead of him being a young boy like in the books) just so they could add in an incredibly tacky and unnecessary romance with Susan...an all time low.

4) Modeling the new films after Lord of the Rings and turning it into an obnoxious typical Hollywood crapfest instead of coming up with an original way of capturing the beautiful atmosphere created within the books. LoTR was an incredible trilogy and the style in which it was done worked when adapting THOSE books. However, Narnia is very different in its approach and the new films should've respected that, as the original films did, instead of being lazy and unoriginal by simply copying a recent success.

Those reasons, among others, are why I can't stand these new films. I watched all three of them hoping to find something enjoyable or nostalgic but instead they're almost insulting to the books.

This, exactly.

My biggest issue is the film's insistence on dragging the White Witch back again, and again, and again, ad nauseum. In the books, she's dead and gone. There's a brief reference in PC that she might be brought back, but she never actually is. Ever.

Also, the movie version of Voyage of the Dawn Treader completely missed the point of the book. It's an episodic quest; Lewis drew inspiration from, among other things, Pilgrim's Progress. It's in the tradition of other great "quest" pieces of literature, where the story arc is the growth of the characters, not necessarily a central physical conflict (though the voyage itself could be the conflict). The idea of having the Darkness follow them about like a shadow is just ridiculous, and having it be caused by the Witch is such a departure that the movie lost me at that point, because again, it's missing the point of what the Darkness was, what the Witch was.

The whole Eustace plot arc was sadly skewed as well. Parts were rather well done, but jumbling up his dragon episode with the sea serpent thing reduced greatly the book's development of his character (in the book he's already un-dragoned when he attacks the sea serpent, a much braver move than doing it as a dragon).

It's not a bad movie, in and of itself, but it's more "inspired by" the original work than an adaptation.

I personally minded the adaptation of PC much less. I liked the actor that played him and didn't mind that he wasn't twelve. The book indicates he was the same age as Peter, who's probably about fifteen at the time of the book, and incidentally older than Susan. The actor would be a believable seventeen-to-eighteen-year-old, as is Peter at this point in the film, meaning they've been relatively consistent. And no matter how old Caspian was, he WAS older than Susan (being the same age as Peter) and therefore, old enough to kiss her. The romance of course was a departure, but I sort of liked it as I always had a crush on Caspian and sort of imagined a relationship between him and Susan; however, I get why this would annoy some fans.

It's hard to differentiate between the camp that just doesn't think they were good films, and the ones who are just furious at any changes made from the books. You'll get that with any adaptation - where if there's too many changes then there will be an uproar. Case in point: after the fourth Harry Potter film came out, there was an explosion of controversy over Hermione wearing a pink dress (she wore a blue one in the book). The film's IMDB page was even in an edit war over it.

I've been a fan of the books since my childhood - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was practically my life. And I love the films. I understand that some changes had to be made since films are different mediums than books. But the spirit of Narnia is there, and I adore the first film. Personally I found the second book to be quite bland, and the film really improved it. This one isn't as good as the others, but I find that more down to certain script and pacing choices - instead of changing details from the books.