Narnia Fans » Narnia Fans Mailbag http://www.narniafans.com Voyage of the Dawn Treader Narnia Movie News Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:39:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 NarniaFans Mailbag #37: Academy Awards, Publicity and Casting http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6995 http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6995#comments Thu, 04 Jun 2009 20:26:55 +0000 Paul Martin http://www.narniafans.com/?p=6995 This week’s mailbag is a little bit late, and I apologize for that.  I had some stuff to get done this week, and I’ve started doing a new project.  Not to mention that I have been a little sick, so I’ve gotten a lot of extra sleep lately.  Not that it has anything to do with this.  Anyway, let’s get to it, some interesting letters came in this week.

Q: When the list of eligible songs for the “Best Original Song” Academy Award was released, “The Call” was there but “This is Home” and the others weren’t. Can you explain this?

-Skulblaka_Shur’tugal

Paul: Good question.  I’m not sure the rules on this, and even the official site for the Oscars doesn’t have the rules for eligibility posted in this category.  There must have been a reason, but I just can’t find it.  Can anyone else?

Q: I want to say something about the most recent mailbag; Skulbaka had a question about Fox’s handling of Narnia, and mentioned that Eragon was a poor film compared to the book. While I haven’t read Eragon and haven’t seen the film, so I don’t know anything about it, I do know that Fox has handled STar Wars quite well (which I believe you mentioned). HOWEVER, Fox will not be responsible for what’s in the script, am I right? Michael Apted and the screenwriter(s) are responsible for what goes into the script; the studios (Walden and Fox) will handle the distribution, marketing and publicity.

I also wanted to ask a question: since Disney has bailed on the films, do you think there will be better publicity for Voyage of the Dawn treader, like there was for Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?

-Aravis Kenobi

Paul: Good additional points about the Dawn Treader script, and you are correct about that.  I think that there’s a good chance for better publicity than Prince Caspian had.  20th Century Fox wants to make this a franchise and they don’t want to do one Narnia only to see it fail.  Expect to see a lot in the way of publicity, this time around.

Q: Am I the only one who noticed the Narnia flag (rampant lion) on the opening shot of the Disney castle in the movie theater version of Prince Caspian? I was rather disappointed when it didn’t make the DVD.

Kelley

Paul: Now that you mention it, I sort of remember seeing it.  Anyone have verification on this?  I’m not sure I can find it.  It is interesting if it really isn’t on the DVD.  If I wasn’t watching the Ocean’s trilogy at the moment, I’d check the Blu-ray. :-)

Q: Any idea on when we’ll hear casting announcements?
Do you think/know if TCF/Walden will market VDT to faith groups?

Mike

Paul: Casting announcements, if filming indeed starts in late July, some time this month.  Keep your eyes on NarniaFans.com for these!  I think that that Walden will market VDT to faith groups again, and hopefully with as much stress as they did LWW.  The biggest problem is that the rest of the Narnia films don’t have as public a symbolic reference to Christ.  Nor the name recognition.  The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe could have been released under that name alone.  Calling it The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was pure marketing so that when future films in the series were released, people could see the name Narnia and remember the last film on the weight of that name alone.

And that’s it for this week’s mailbag. Keep sending us e-mails, and we’ll keep answering.  If you have any answers, feel free to comment below, or send us an e-mail and we’ll post it in future mailbags.

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]]> http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6995/feed 6 NarniaFans Mailbag #32: More Dawn Treader Art, and old letters surface http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6856 http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6856#comments Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:24:28 +0000 Paul Martin http://www.narniafans.com/?p=6856 For this week’s Mailbag, I looked in my inbox and realized a couple of things: first, there was only one e-mail for this week’s mailbag.  I could take this to mean that it’s not a good feature to bring back, but that would be ridiculous.  I enjoy the chance to answer e-mails and also to put my own voice into the site just a little bit.

On a related note, I share Andrew Adamson’s birthday.  Who knew?  Andrew, if you’re reading this, that must be the reason we have similar creative minds.

Anyway, let’s get to it.

Q: Is there more VDT concept art than meets the eye during the “Pre-visualizing Prince Caspian” DVD feature?  Look to the upper left at the 2:20 mark.  Is that red creature a dragon of some kind?  It has a similar shape to whatever is shown flying over water at around the 9:58 mark.  (This image appears again at 9:18 and 9:31.)  Also, look to the right at 9:31.  These images do not look familiar from PC and the colors are very different; could they be from VDT?

Mike

Paul: This question really speaks to me for more reasons than just being directed toward me.  And I think he knows what I’m talking about.  More than Meets the Eye.  Transformers.  Yes, I am a child of the 80s, and Transformers was a shot that I rarely missed.

Anyway, yes, that art is from the concept art for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  However, the thing about concept art that we have to remember is that not all of it makes it beyond the concept art stage.  One case that speaks to this is the Star Wars prequels.  I can’t tell you how much concept art I’ve seen that never made the cut.  Perhaps the most famous bit of concept art for a Star Wars film was painted by Ralph McQuarrie.

Star Wars Concept Art by Ralph McQuarrieAs he describes it: Luke is fighting Darth Vader in what was to have been a scuffle aboard the Rebel Blockade Runner soon after Vader’s Imerial captured the Rebel ship. Luke is wearing a king of breathing mask because Vader’s troopers apparently cut through a panel to get in, allowing the air supply to escape.

The Darth Vader costume – a grotesque breath mask and all sorts of other lifesupporting systems, computer readout, black cape and armor – was partly inspired by the impressive image of a Samurai warrior. George Lucas, in keeping with the idea that Vader’s whole being was to be mysterious, wanted the character to be entirely in black.

Now that the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is back in the early stages of Pre-production, new art will most likely be created to match new portions of the screenplay, while some art will be dropped from the slate as cuts are made.  While the prospect is great that the artwork seen might be a glimpse at what we’ll see in the future, and it is likely… it’s not something that I would work myself up about too much.

Now, let’s get going with the old letters.  These letters are at least 2 years old, and at most 1 year old.

Anna PopplewellQ: I heard that Anna wrote a book about being on the set of LWW or something like that, where can I find this book? I’d really like to know. Thanks!

-Ben Burton

Paul: I believe you’re referring to the journal she kept while on the set of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  It was published after the film’s release, but I don’t know if it has ever been released publicly.  If anyone knows more about this, please contact us!

Q: Why did they decide to skip ‘The Horse and His Boy’and are they ever going to film it?

-Smith

Paul: This is a question that I used to get every day or so when Prince Caspian began filming.  Prior to that, you could have replaced The Horse and His Boy with The Magician’s Nephew.  The answer to this question is the same as the answer to that one.  They haven’t really skipped anything.  If you look at the original publication dates of the books, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian were the first two books in the series.  Prince Caspian also carries the sub-title The Return to Narnia.

Are they going to film it, though?  There are a number of things that need to happen.  First, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has to be a mega-hit for 20th Century Fox.  Second, The Silver Chair has to also do very well.  If those films to well, then we can almost certainly count on the rest of the series being filmed.  Third, a script will have to be written that takes creative liberties with the characters based on some of the problems that it poses, with the portrayal of different cultures.  It simply may not fly, as written.

Q: I was just wondering what you guys were going to do when the main characters like Peter and Susan get to old to play their part. Are you guys to get other people to play their parts? If you did that would be horrible.

-Softballgirl

Paul: The cool thing about the Narnia books is the cycle of characters.  There shouldn’t be a time when an actor is too old to return to the role he or she originated, if or when the time arrises that they need to reprise that role.  If you read the entire series, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.  I’ll leave it at that.

Q: *spoilers* So, if not all of the original four siblings are in all the books, do you think the films will include them (such as Peter and Susan in VDT) in the films to please fans??? This would be awesome!!! But I’m just curious as to how they will handle this.

-Marie

Paul: This is a great question, and one that many are still wondering about today!  When it comes down to it, movies have a way of changing things to include cameos.  These appearances are fun for movie fans, and can be used to serve a few purposes.  First, it can establish why a character isn’t a major part of the story, such as Peter leaving for the Professor’s, or Susan leaving for America.  Second, it can also give fans a little treat.  Third, in a series such as this, it gives the actors a chance to reconnect with the cast that they’ve come to know as a surrogate family.

Personally, I would count on seeing both Peter and Susan for even a brief moment, though they aren’t going to tell us anything about that, and most of us will have to wait until the film’s release on December 10, 2010!

Q: What order are the books being made into movies?

-Nikki

Paul: It appears they’re doing it in the original publication order of the books.  If they can complete it, The Last Battle will be EPIC!

Q: Why did it take you so long to start filming the second movie, Prince Caspian; but work is already started on the third, Voyage of the Dawn Treader?

-Togciadc64

Paul: This question was posed on June 2, 2007.  At that time, Disney expected Prince Caspian to do at least as well as LWW.  As we all know, now, it didn’t.  We Narnia fans could have told them that.  Prince Caspian isn’t a very well known, or even very popular, Narnia book.  They decided to start early on Dawn Treader, because they planned on created what was then called The Caspian Trilogy.  It would be composed of the three films that comprised Caspian’s story.  But why did it take so long after LWW?  Because they were waiting to get the Box Office receipts for it.  They wanted to be sure it was successful.

Q: According to the book “The Magician’s Nephew” two trees – a gold and silver tree – were planted by Andrew Kirke near the lamp-post. But in the movie, when Lucy arrives on the first night, and also after many years before returning to England, they pass the lamp-post but the gold and silver trees are not seen. Why is it so?

-Manasi Lad

Paul: There are a few possibilities.  First, it had been many many years since the planting, so the landscape might have changed by then.  Second, they weren’t mentioned in the book, which may have been a result of Lewis having not planned on writing seven books.  Third, the book doesn’t actually specify how close the trees are to the lamp-post.

Q: In “Evacuating London” from the LWW soundtrack there is someone singing in some parts of the song. I can’t distinguish the lyrics… do you know what they are or where I can find them?? Thanks!! Love the site as always :D

-Marie (same one as a few letters above)

Paul: I had the same question, so I went straight to the source, Lisbeth Scott herself!  She responded with the lyrics, which you can find here: Evacuating London.

That’s all of the letters I had time for this week.  Stay tuned next week, as I dive into the archives again for more of the letters from 2007, as well as more letters from all of you, over the course of the week!

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]]> http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6856/feed 15 NarniaFans Mailbag #31: Screenwriters on the Dawn Treader, Will Poulter, Special Effects and Casting http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6776 http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6776#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:23:55 +0000 Paul Martin http://www.narniafans.com/?p=6776 This week’s mailbag is where we break loose. We’re going to tackle some pretty heavy questions about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and more!  It’s going to be fun.  By the way, I just saw Disneynature’s Earth and I highly recommend it.  The visuals are unlike anything I’ve seen before, and it was entertaining, funny and sad and everything in between.  I’m looking forward, now, to their next Disneynature release: Oceans.  That one is due out on Earth Day 2010.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get started!

Michael PetroniQ: I have a question for the mailbag.  The question(s) is/are: Do you know how far along they are with the script?  Was Michael Petroni brought in to revise LaGravanese’s draft or did he start from scratch?  (Is the situation as it was for LWW, with Ann Peacock writing a draft with rewrites by Adamson and Markus & McFeely?)

Mike

Paul:  When it comes to the script, they’re as far as they are.  :-)  That’s my way of saying that I don’t know.  But what I do know is the following: the current re-write is draft six or seven of the script.  This is typical of just about every movie to come out, however.  I have never heard of a movie released based on a single draft of a script.  Michael Petroni was brought in to revise LaGravanese’s draft.

A bit of history about the Ann Peacock screenplay: It was turned down.  Markus and McFeely started from scratch and very little, if anything, was kept from the final draft that Ann Peacock turned in.  Did LaGravanese start from scratch? It’s likely that he did, but not very probable.  More likely than not, he took the existing script and made the changes that the Lewis Estate and producer Mark Johnson proposed in their presentation to 20th Century Fox.  Now Petroni is working clean-up, like a pitcher brought in to close out a win in a baseball game, or a batter ready to clear the bases with a grand slam home-run (Go Tigers!).  From what I understand, Petroni is a favorite screenplay finisher at 20th Century Fox at the moment.  But, needless to say, I know it’s in good hands.

Will PoulterQ: Do you think that actor from the ‘Son of Rambow‘ movie well qaulified for the part as Eustace? What do you think? I have only heard/seen him on Narnia Movie News. I’m not so sure.

-Bookworm

Paul: I’ve seen Son of Rambow and I do believe that Will Poulter is qualified for Eustace.  He’s definitely a great actor for the role and will fit the character well.  I suppose that’s all that I can say!  Look forward to it.  He’ll perform well and fits the cast perfectly.

Q: What are the chances that the series’ changing hands (Disney to Fox) will adversely affect the movie’s effects department capacities?

And what sort of Narnia-related events are available to attend in the southern US right now?

-Lily_of_Archenland

Paul: Question 1: Not much, if at all.  Disney didn’t handle any of the effects in the film.  They hired effects houses to take care of all of it.  And there were even different ones that handled The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe than those that handled Prince Caspian for the most part.  In short: the effects should be at least the same level.

Question 2: Narnia Events in the southern U.S.  I took a look around, and didn’t really come up with much.  However, be sure to keep your eye on the C.S. Lewis Society of California’s event page.  They keep things up to date, and you’ll be able to find events all over the world.  I’ll try to keep up with that as well, here on NarniaFans.com!

You_are_a_mouse: I have another question- Do you know anything about the Dawn Treader Cast?  Apart from our lovely returning cast and Eustace, is there any news, talk, rumours, speculation at all??? I’m desperate to know who Drinian is!

Paul: Nothing yet, but news should start appearing soon, if they are truly to start shooting in three or so months.  It’s coming up fast, and that means we’ll soon have casting announcements coming out of our ears!

And that’s it for this week’s mailbag!  Keep the e-mails coming!  Also, be sure to check out our new Narnia Social Network!  There you can blog, chat, and make friends among other fans of Narnia!

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]]> http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6776/feed 2 NarniaFans Mailbag #30: Is Michael Apted qualified? Dawn Treader Promo Material? Caspian missing scenes? http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6747 http://www.narniafans.com/archives/6747#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:18:55 +0000 Paul Martin http://www.narniafans.com/?p=6747 Now for the thirtieth edition of the NarniaFans Mailbag!  It’s good to be back, and I’m having a great time at this so far.  I just need more letters.  Then my esteemed team will be able to help answer questions (the earlier you ask them, the better).  It gives us more time to do research and give you the best answer possible on the Thursday release date!  This week’s questions cover the qualifications of Michael Apted, if there is any more Dawn Treader promotional material and scenes that a reader feels were missing from Prince Caspian.

Michael AptedQ: Do you know much about Micheal Apted’s previous work, and with that in mind how do you think his approach will be different to Andrew Adamson’s?

-You_are_a_mouse

Paul: I do know a bit about Michael Apted’s previous work.  Enough to know that he’ll do a great job with the film.  He’s directed 67 previous titles, amounting to 100 previous projects accounting for all films and episodes of tv shows combined.  This is his 101st film project.  He’s got a James Bond film, episodes of Rome and Amazing Grace under his belt within the last 10 years, among other projects.  He’s definitely qualified for it.

By contrast, Andrew Adamson has directed four films total.  This includes Shrek, Shrek 2, and both Narnia films.  He served as co-director with Vicky Jenson on Shrek, and Kelly Asbury and Conrad Vernon on Shrek 2 prior to working lead on the Narnia films.  Did this make him less worthy of the Narnia films?  Prior to the start of filming, I remember people were a bit concerned that the director of the Shrek films would be handling Narnia.

It’s understandable that you’re concerned for the future of the series, however, as a new director could take things into directions that you did not expect, or use a style that is so different from before, that it’s almost unrecognizable from prior films in the series.

But if you look at other film series as an example of changing directors mid-stream, you’ll see it can result in great results.  Star Wars (1977) was directed by George Lucas, while directing duties for The Empire Strikes Back (1980) were handled by Irvin Kershner, and Return of the Jedi (1983) by Richard Marquand.  Many feel that Empire is the greatest of the original trilogy, while I like Jedi best.  Either way, it was a different director each time.

Harry Potter has been a sticky point with many fans of the franchise.  I’m in the strange position of having never read the books (only listened to the book on CD for the seventh book).  The first two films, like Narnia, were directed by one director.  Chris Columbus created a paint-by-numbers pair of Harry Potter films, and was followed by a director that I felt was more than capable of taking over the series, and would welcome him to the Narnia series whole heartedly.  Perhaps for The Horse and His Boy. Alfonso Cuarón was the director of A Little Princess, and because of that, was more than capable of handling the third Harry Potter film.  The film, as I understand it, skips some of the book’s plot points that are “extremely important.”  However, as someone that never read the book, I found the story lacking nothing.  It was a complete movie and the first Harry Potter story that actually captured my interest.  I felt that the fourth film regressed back to Columbus style drab, but the fifth film was more the style of the third.

The Lord of the Rings is another great example.  Prior to the release, everyone was worried because Peter Jackson had never directed a major blockbuster.  They were giving a novice director a budget of close to $300 million, and three release dates, and he was filming three movies at the same time.  If the first one bombed, they still had two more films scheduled and near complete, save for pick-up shots.  It was a major risk that turned into my favorite motion picture of all time (I don’t consider them as three separate films any more).  Now they’re working on The Hobbit, and Guillermo del Toro is directing it.  People are now saying that only Peter Jackson should.

It’s the same mentality that people have about actors.  When casting the Joker for The Dark Knight, everyone was saying that Jack Nicholson could never be topped as the character.  Then they cast Heath Ledger in the role, and the internet went crazy with people furious about it.  People expected Ledger to be terrible in the role and were wondering why him.  The answer was clearly evident as Ledger gave an Academy Award worthy performance as the Joker.  Now people are saying that nobody could ever play the Joker as well as Heath Ledger.  Really?  If Ledger could top Nicholson, surely someone else could top Ledger.

I know this was a long and rather scatterbrained answer to the question, but I needed to put it all into perspective.

Q: Now, for a serious question–besides those two pieces of concept art I and my brother spotted in the PC extras (Magician’s house and Dawn Treader painting), are there any known verifiable movie spoilers of promo-material which have been released for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader yet?

-Lily_of_Archenland

Paul: Great question, Lily!  Nope!  Nothing yet.  I’ve got some information that I can’t share, but that’s all it is: information.  As for promotional products or images or anything, perhaps later on this summer we’ll start seeing promotional photos of actors in costumes, set pictures, and all of that.

Lucy and AslanQ: One quick question: why did they cut out the precious moments between Aslan and Lucy? And Aslan and Trumpkin, and Reepicheep, they did not quite put it the way the book did, and it completely ruined it? is it in the Deleted scenes? (I really need to get BLU-RAY!!!)

-Madison

Paul: Yeah, you should get the Blu-ray.  It’s pretty spectacular, and looks amazing.  As for your question, though, I suppose it’s a matter of perspective on whether or not it completely ruined the movie for not including those scenes.  I felt the scenes with Aslan and Lucy that were included were brilliant and well done.

Showing Aslan tossing the dwarf Trumpkin into the air?  Is that what you are referring to?  Apart from looking rather cheesy, it would have also been very expensive to create, with the effects that would have been required to accomplish such a shot.  I’m also not sure what scene between Aslan and Reepicheep that you’re referring to.  It’s late and I don’t have the book on me to look up what it might have been.

Perhaps others have a better response than that?

That’s it for this week’s mailbag!  Sorry I went long on the first answer.  It is something that I find I am talking about fairly often, and have a lot of great examples to back up my points. :-)   Contact us with our contact form, or e-mail us with the subject “Mailbag” to get a question in!

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