That's a good way of looking at it, Gymfan. Always the eternal optimist!

I wouldn't call it optimism. I'd call it realism. It makes perfect sense that all they want to accomplish with this poster is to let people know that the Narnia franchise isn't dead, and that Reepicheep will be in the movie.

Which is why the poster sucks. It may be an effective piece of marketing, but it's a dumb poster.

It shows how much Aslan will be present in this film, I think.

Aslan only has two or three scenes in the book. Do you think they'll change that and show him more?

glumPuddle, I think that the production realizes that they helped ruin Prince Caspian by removing him (even more) from the film. I think that they will try to make up for lost time from Prince Caspian. So, in a word, yes.

Hmm, not feeling like overanaylzing this at the moment. I think it's a lovely poster.

Is it perfect? Nah. But, it's a good, simple poster. It gets the details across to the audience they're trying to woo very well.

I don't like Reep's placement, nor the 3-D, but as Gymfan said so well, it's about getting the info—that we've been soaking up for so long that it seems stale—out there. The details need to be put out to the general population. Fans alone cannot make a film a blockbuster, though we can help.

glumPuddle, I think that the production realizes that they helped ruin Prince Caspian by removing him (even more) from the film. I think that they will try to make up for lost time from Prince Caspian. So, in a word, yes.

Aslan does not appear very much in the books. I'm not sure why everyone is convinced that he does.

In the PC book, we don't see Aslan (except for a brief encounter with Lucy) until the end. In the PC movie, we don't see Aslan (except for a brief encounter with Lucy) until the end. The stories are not about Aslan. They are about the characters' relationship with Aslan. Lewis rarely tells us what Aslan is like. Rather, he tells us what the characters think he is like. The central character struggle in the PC movie is Peter's struggle to trust in Aslan rather than himself. This struggle to trust Aslan is everywhere in the book. In the movie, they chose to emphasize Peter's struggle.

I'm hoping they'll stick to the book with VDT, and give Aslan few appearances. I see no reason to change this. His character works best this way.

Why do you say they ruined Prince Caspian by removing Aslan? Of all the things wrong with that film, you think the reason it was ruined is because Aslan only had a few short scenes? Hmmm.....

Anyways...I just don't see why they didn't show the ship (I'm sorry, but non-narnia fans are not going to notice a small shadow of a ship in Aslan's eye). Unless they are afraid people won't realize it's a Narnia film without Aslan being on the poster??? (That doesn't make any sense at all to me considering the word NARNIA would be in big letters on the poster so it's probably unlikely). Wouldn't it make more sense to show the actual main characters everyone is used to in addition to Eustace? Although they did that with the marquee and it came off really.....well, "kiddie".

Deep marketing analysis aside... I love the poster. It's likely going on my desktop background for awhile.

It does everything a teaser poster needs to do. Get fans excited. There ya go. There will probably be another poster later to get the non-fans excited. But for now, the production wants us, the fans, to know that they are returning to the first film's roots and getting away from Prince Caspian.

And I'm pretty sure there will be another poster. Notice the very fine print at the bottom of the high-res download. "Ver.A" Version A? Guess that means there's at least a B.

Anyways...I just don't see why they didn't show the ship (I'm sorry, but non-narnia fans are not going to notice a small shadow of a ship in Aslan's eye).

I think I disagree. Putting something in the eye of a character in a poster seems like a bit of a cliche.

I for one don't really care about the deep marketing analysis right now. I read all five pages of discussion and poster bashing and I thought that I could at least give an artistic criticism.

First off: Great design. The problems that I have with the posters for LWW and PC is that they've always been too busy for me. They try to wodge in about a zillion different things to catch your eye. The reason that they don't need complexity now is that the main idea of the Narnia franchise has essentially been established, and we're only adding (we hope just one) one new major character. Simplicity works.

Also on the note of simplicity, it's great for the casual movie-goer because you see it and stop, trying to look for more. Then you see the ship. It's a neat thing.

Second: Aslan's eye (not ship) is bothering me. As Robbie said, it looks a little bit like a fish eye, and I think that they seriously need to look at more lion reference pictures. The ship there is great, though, and it's nice, subtle, and simple. The Dawn Treader does not need to take care of all of the marketing with its awesomeness. The little ship in Aslan's eye is just beautiful and simple.

Third: Reepicheep? It just looks weird. I don't much care about the marketing side, remember. This is mainly an artistic criticism. He's out of place and the blending is just off. Plus Reepicheep's coloring does not match the tawny look of the image. Bad idea.

Coloring in general is a bit blah. It doesn't pop, and I would have to get used to it. If they upped the saturation or something like, I think it would be more beautiful. Especially if they had it looking like the sun was playing across his fur in beautiful lights and shadows. That would be great.

All in all? I like it. There are things that I would change, but its a solid effort on the whole. No, I don't care if it "copies" anything. My critique is for the poster, artistically, on its own. It's a nice poster. The end.

And by the way, the poster is to get the word out about the Narnia movie, but as its also in 3-D, they kind of have to get word out about that too. Hence the words on the bottom. They could be prettier, but this isn't a poster to please all of the fans with its lack of advertising. It's a promotional poster, and that's what its gonna do: promote the film.

^ Someone on YouTube commented, "The teaser just looks like some fan poster that any fan with a basic idea of photoshop can probably create." I feel exactly the same way. Even with my limited photoshop skills, I could have found a high-res picture of Aslan, put the ship in his eye, slapped Reep on the logo, and taken that cheesy tagline from just about any other fantasy film. This looks very fan-made.

As far as marketing, it may get the word out that they're making another Narnia film, but don't they need to go beyond that? They also need to let people know this is going to be different from PC. Because of the negative response to PC, they're fighting an uphill battle with VDT. All this poster tells you is that Aslan and Reepicheep will be back.

I am agree with you glumPuddle, I was surprised on how simple the poster was and it really does look like a fan-made poster with a bunch of stuff slapped together. I was expecting something epic like LWW or the PC posters with all the blending and photoshop work that makes my stuff look like pre-school work! I do love how the ship is in Aslan's eye but I seriously hope that they make a poster similar to the earlier movie posters of LWW and PC.

I do, however, LOVE the tag line they added. I believe that it really shows that this is far different from PC and I can see how having such a simple poster is like a wall blocking your view and then when you see they movie you are blown away. But I would love to see a poster with the Dawn Treader as the main focus and then have Aslan on top like with the LWW poster, Have Reepicheep large and visible and then have Caspian, Ed, Lu, and Eustace in the background like with the first PC poster. I liked the bust posters for LWW and PC because it makes you give it a double take and stare at it for hours because you are always discovering something new in the poster.

I loved the idea of Aslan's eye! But why Reepicheep in the logo? There are two differents ideas in the poster and that's no quite good.
Obviously designers and Fox wanted to do something like Avatar... why copy the idea? they should make an interesting design, something different that people could easily remember!
I am very disappointed because i was expecting something really good. I love Narnia, but as a designer i just can say that is a bad poster.

I think people are reading wayyy too much into any Avatar comparisons. Like W4J pointed out earlier, there have been loads of posters before and since which have used a half-face close-up as its main image. And to dislike a poster simply because it conforms to a particular convention of movie poster design is ridiculous. Pretty much every movie poster out there falls into one of a set number of basic templates. I don't think that in any way diminishes the artistic value of any of them, it simply acknowledges the fact that like all modern media, the movie poster has certain basic formats to it.

Anyway, here are some recent movies which have used the half-face close-up as all or part of their poster:

The Day The Earth Stood Still
Iron Man
Avatar
Star Trek
"V"
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Watchmen
Aliens Vs Predator
The Bourne Ultimatum
Terminator Salvation

Why has the half-face close-up been such a popular convention of movie posters? Who knows. At the end of the day i think it just comes down to being a slightly more visually pleasing and interesting way to frame a face, rather than a full-on dead centre shot. Either way, i don't know why Avatar is even entering the equation here. It's no more relevant to VDT's poster than Iron Man 1 was to Avatar's.

glumPuddle, I think that the production realizes that they helped ruin Prince Caspian by removing him (even more) from the film. I think that they will try to make up for lost time from Prince Caspian. So, in a word, yes.

Aslan does not appear very much in the books. I'm not sure why everyone is convinced that he does.

In the PC book, we don't see Aslan (except for a brief encounter with Lucy) until the end. In the PC movie, we don't see Aslan (except for a brief encounter with Lucy) until the end. ... I'm hoping they'll stick to the book with VDT, and give Aslan few appearances. I see no reason to change this. His character works best this way.

I think the problem is not so much how much Aslan appears but how he acts when he appears. In the first two movie, he wasn't shown as powerful enough. In PC, his line about appearing bigger was changed. It bugged me that they left out the part when he tells Reep that part of the reason he gets his tail back is because of what the mice did for him at the stone table. In the book PC, Aslan also romps and goes through the town.

In VDT, I think the idea more is that Aslan is watching over them and is there when they need him. He undragons Eustace, stops Lucy from saying the Beauty spell and then talks with her once he becomes visible, appears at Deathwater to stop the fighting, talks to Caspian in his cabin (although we don't actually see this), and then has his closing scene.

That is why I like the ship in the eye because it suggests that Aslan is doing the same role he does in the book.

All this debate over a poster. How unbelievable. ITS JUST A TEASER POSTER!! Good grief. I like it, I think it does exactly what a teaser poster should do....TEASE! Now, if you will excuse me, its raining and I want to go out and jump in the glumpuddles.

I think it is too early to debate over a first poster. I'm just happy that we are getting marketing now instead of later later. I'm sure the final poster will come out great.

Hiya TeddyC!!
Welcome to Narniaweb!!