I saw a scene of Star Trek last night with Simon Pegg in it and was very encouraged by what I saw (and heard). I think he'll make a great Reepicheep.

Is it supposed to be Reepicheep speaking the 'you've got an extraordinary destiny, greater than you could ever have imagined' line?

I thought so too, but i think a few people had that down as Coriakin, even though to me it doesn't sound much like his first line in the trailer. But i've had a hard enough time convincing people that Eustace has two lines in the trailer, so i'll just wait and see with that one. lol

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to see what people's reactions to the recasting would have been if we had just gone straight from Eddie Izzard to Simon Pegg without ever being aware of the Bill Nighy step inbetween. I could imagine the whole thing wouldn't of been as much of a big deal as it was, as Izzard and Pegg's voices are so similar anyway that i think most people would have assumed that there was some sort of scheduling/contract issue that meant they couldn't get Izzard to return and so went with Pegg to match the voice. There wouldn't of been all the debate about different performance styles or as much fuss about continuity issues i don't think.

But throwing Bill Nighy into the middle there generated all sorts of debates about the way they might perhaps change the character from Prince Caspian, and many theories (and even semi-official reports from the preview screenings) that they had decided to make Reepicheep a much older, more serious character in this film. But if you look at the recasting as simply an Izzard to Pegg change, and ignore the Nighy casting inbetween, then its very clear that isn't the case. You don't replace a 48 year old comedian/actor with a 40 year old comedian/actor to make your character older or more serious - it wouldn't make even the slightest bit of sense.

Ah ... I never thought about Coriakin. Could just as likely be him, perhaps more so actually. Thanks icarus for pointing that out!

Yeah, the Nighy to Pegg thing does seem to undermine the Izzard to Nighy reasoning - who knows what's going on in this production. I happy with the decision, here's hoping I'll stay that way after seeing him in action.

My friend Cyclops at AslansCountry.com (I'm AslansLily there) reported that Reepicheep's profile page on Narnia.com says "TBA" -- again. That maybe Simon Pegg is being replaced by someone else? Another voice change? What I want to know is, has the Reep profile on Narnia.com ever said "Simon Pegg"? Or has it always said "TBA"? Does anyone know? Thanks.

http://www.aslanscountry.com/2010/08/re ... -recalled/

I could of sworn it did say Simon Pegg. I can see it very clearly in my mind. But now that you say it, i start to doubt whether or not it actually did say it. I'm pretty certain it did, since I seem to recall that it took them a while to update the page after he was announced, but they eventually did.

Annoyingly none of the screenshots of the page i had were of that particular period, and i couldn't get google cache or the temporary internet files to bring anything up, so i checked through a couple of the international versions of the website which might be slower to update - particuarly the international sites which are online, but still somewhat "work in progress" (and as such are not yet properly selectable from the "Country Selector" window), and sure enough the Brazilian version of the site still lists Simon Pegg...

http://www.narnia.com/br/#/characters/reepicheep

and so does Mexico:
http://www.narnia.com/mx/#/characters/reepicheep

Like i commented on your news story - if they did end up changing Reepicheep yet again, i think all i could do would just be to laugh at this stage

When starkat and I were talking about it last night, she made a very good suggestion. We both noticed that they had updated their character pages to include a lot less information (Like how everybody DIES). She suggested they accidentally pulled an old copy of the page to update rather than the most recent one. Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I simply can't believe they recast him. Pegg announced himself that he was the voice long after they finished voice recordings. (I'm quite certain that was his voice in the trailer saying "Your Majesties!" Though you know my record for correctly identifying voices. ) And they'd be too far into the animation by now to rerecord someone's voice and rematch the character animation to the lines spoken.

I still think it's Simon Pegg. But if they recast Reep yet again, I think I'm going to join icarus in laughing.

OK, so I wonder if I've hit on something. This is from the recent article on Comingsoon.net:

ComingSoon: Andrew Adamson acted out the CG characters for the cast. What's your approach?

Apted: I cast Reepicheep with an actor. I thought it would build a relationship with the actor. It could be done by a professional actor so that's what I decided to do. Whether or not I'll use that voice at the end, I don't know, but it is someone who will be there all the time doing that character. Plus I thought it'd personalize the character a bit more.

(Emphasis added.)

Here is what Bill Nighy said on "Frost over the World":

...I'm currently being a mouse in Narnia 3. Fans of the books, and indeed the films, will know that my name is Reepicheep, and I am a warrior mouse. I am a soldier, very high ranking. -Probably something in the region of a Brigadier I would think, or a Field Marshall. I'm probably second in command to Prince Caspian, that's how seriously I'm taken. And I'm very happy because it's a wonderful script, it's a beautiful film.

(Again, emphasis added. Notice he did not say he was voicing Reepicheep.)

Is it possible that Nighy was cast to be Reepicheep onset while Pegg was cast to do the voice over?

A very interesting idea.... but i'm pretty sure the actor he was referring to was Steven Rooke (Nausus the Faun) who we heard a while back had also played Reepicheep on set and read his lines.

My friend Cyclops at AslansCountry.com (I'm AslansLily there) reported that Reepicheep's profile page on Narnia.com says "TBA" -- again. That maybe Simon Pegg is being replaced by someone else? Another voice change?

Simon Pegg's name has returned to the Reepicheep character profile on Narnia.com. Panic over

http://www.narnia.com/us/#/characters/reepicheep

About time they got that settled. I really wish they would have kept Eddie though cause he was sooooooo good at Reepicheep But we will see how Simon is in VDT

yay! I am glad that they have finally figured out who is doing Reepicheep!

There's a new game on Narnia.com called Reepicheep's Sword Training Game. You get to hear him say things like "That's it! Come on!" and "Again!" and such. If this is really Simon Pegg, he sort of sounds like Eddie Izzard, but it still feels weird to me, probably because we haven't heard Reepicheep speak a lot yet. What do you think?

I really dislike the direction in which they have taken Reep. I know it would sound really weird but I wish they made him with a high pitched voice(which Lewis mentioned almost every time he spoke) He should say more words when he talks, that was one of he things I loved about him was the way he talked in such fine language(words like shut up would probably earned a tongue lashing from him) And he is overall portrayed for laughs rather than as a noble knight.

Q: Can you clear up any rumors about why Eddie Izzard was not asked to reprise the role of Reepicheep?
Apted: I wanted to make some changes. I changed Caspian’s accent. And I wanted to change [the voice of Reepicheep], because I thought we’d get more humor out of it. It was just my choice, really.

This surprised me. I think we suspected that Izzard was gone to give Reep a more serious tone, but it seems to be quite the contrary. Even though it's sort of the other direction, I'm still not thrilled. I loved Izzard and his rendition.

Poor Reep. His presence in these movies has basically been reduced to some cheap laughs.