Continuity is good, but we have a new filmmaker now and I don't blame Apted and his crew for seeing the mess the accents were in PC and not wanting to saddle their own film with all of that baggage. It's unnecessary and I think the film will be better for it. I want VDT to be the best it can be and I honestly don't care if they lose this kind of continuity. It might seem odd at first, but after a little while, people will accept it and move on to enjoy the film.

I think the accents were distracting in PC, so I think we can accept a little early distraction for those who even remember that there were accents in order to have a more Lewisian and Narnian film. Sail on, Dawn Treader.

(SO glad not to have any "Aye im prrrince Kispian" moments in VDT)

If the choice is between Shasta speaking with an English accent and him using a cheesy fake Arab/Indian accent, I'm going to pick the English accent any time. If they make an effort to hire a good dialect coach to train the Shasta actor in a proper accent, I'm all for it.

It's been long enough since the PC filming that I don't remember for certain, but wasn't Caspian's accent Ben Barnes' creation? No wonder if sounded so bad. So if in PC, they had taken the time and effort to get Ben trained in a realistic accent and bothered to unify the Telmarines accent, I'd be upset that the accents are being dropped for VDT. But instead we had people using obviously fake accents and pretty much every single Telmarine actor using a different accent. The Narnians all having different English accents is nothing compared to one Telmarine speaking English with an Italian accent and another sounding Spanish and another sounding Romanian.

Bookwyrm, Ben Barnes had a dialect coach for PC.

I really don't think it's "nothing" since I know an Englishwoman or two who have said the Pevensies' accents are incorrect for their time period and location as a family unit in WWII Finchley. But no one really catches on to that or even cares. No one criticizes the mixing of various English dialects (As long as it wasn't Scouse or Geordie?) or even the use of American English (Midwest? It definitely wasn't New Yorker?) as we saw with Maugrim or the accent Glenstorm uses (I confess I can't place this one). Why is there such a hangup over the Mediterranean accents? More than likely the complaints would still be the same if they'd varied the Telmarines by Andalusian, Castilian, and Basque.

DamselJillPole, I just wanted to say I see your point and completely agree with regards to diversity. If they have to change the accents at least please do not change the culture. I would have been happier with Caspian speaking with a light English accent if he got to stay tanned. It seems to me they've basically turned a Spanish character into an English one. I don't care how "closer to the book" that is, it's a direct retcon of what's been introduced. They should either make a movie as a continuation of an already established series or completely divorce VDT from the first two.

The other joke theory I came up with was because of budget concerns (the cost of dialect coach and tanning sessions on top of haircare and beardcare) they decided to just let Ben Barnes be what he was already born as; an Englishman.

Well, I never had any problem with the accent, probably because I watch the movie with dutch subtitles, so I don't really notice it when something isn't that clear. Although Barnes did a good job with the accent, I had the feeling that his performance in Stardust was sometimes better, as if the accent became sort of an obstacle. I was never annoyed by the accents, but I don't think I'll miss them. I mean, it makes sense, three years have past, and the telmarines might have changed their accents. And of course there will be some Narnian creatures aboard the Dawn Treader. I don't think anyone will notice it while watching.

I don't think you've been here very long if you think no one here has a problem with the American accents. We've griped about them for as long as I've been here and that's coming up on 4 years. I still consider them to be ridiculously out of place.

The Narnians accents are at least similar enough that it isn't that implausible that they could all co-exist in one country. After all, they do all exist (with the exception of the American accents) within the UK. However, the Telmarines appear to all be living in one small town and have lived there their entire lives, yet each character has a very different accent. Caspian's isn't even remotely similar to that of Miraz and Miraz raised him. So yes, I do think that's a far bigger problem than mild variations in the English accents used by the Narnians.

I know i have been annoyed with some of the dialogue from the Pevensies that seems very modern to me. I actually don't mind a few characters having American accents because there is a certain sort of American accent that really isn't all that different then an English accent. It is less the accent that is the difference then the words we chose. The words we chose are the biggest difference.

I mean there is a certain American accent that is similar to a certain English accent. The English accents are varied, of course, like our accents are in America. Some English accents are almost unintelligible.

Maybe it just sounded to strange when Ben said:
"I'm Ging Gaspian!"
xP

There was plenty of diversity and novelty in their accents without adding a bizarre mish-mash of real and fake Italian, Spanish, and Romanian accents and expecting us pretend they were all the same accent.

Here's an interesting question though - were we supposed to think they were all the same accent?

There is that bit during Miraz's coronation scene where it has the montage of the Telmarine army preparing for war, and voice-overs from all the different Lords pledging their troops - "Galma pledges its troops" etc, etc.

Given that this implies the various Telmarine Lords were all representatives of different areas of Narnia and its surrounding lands, might we be expected to assume that the difference in their accents was due to the different regional accents of their various lands?

Perhaps that's not what was intended, but it would be a convenient explanation if you perhaps wanted to justify it in your mind.

I'm sure that this was a thoughtful decison and they were well aware of the continuity issues. They probably just looked at the consequences of keeping it or not and decided that dropping it was worth the change.

But when VDT comes out, I would like to hear the actual reason the decison was based on.

I'm sort of indifferent about this whole thing. On one hand I like continuity and I didn't really mind the accent in PC, but on the other hand I like the idea of all British accents, simply because it "feels" more Narnian to me. All in all I guess I would have been fine with either decision.

No controversy for me here.

I'll always be a,
NL101

I thought the Telmarine accent was a fantastic idea. However, it ended up sounding absolutely ridiculous. Everyone in the cinema would crack up when Caspian said anything. So I'm pretty happy with this change!

I for one am not sad to see the accent go. American is not the way to go either though. Can't we just find a happy medium called British?

I can't vouch for the accuracy Barnes' "Spanish" accent, but I think the Telmarines would have had a Mediterranean accent so I was fine with it. For continuity's sake I would have preferred they kept it the same, but the argument that he was taking elocution lessons (possibly from Archenlanders) could explain his newfound British accent .

The only accents that WOULD be terribly out of place in Narnia would be American accents. Maugrim's accent DID seem distracting to me.

GB

There is that bit during Miraz's coronation scene where it has the montage of the Telmarine army preparing for war, and voice-overs from all the different Lords pledging their troops - "Galma pledges its troops" etc, etc.

Don't forget Ettinsmoor. So we have coastal Telmarines and mountainous ones. They also had the entire land of Telmar before moving east and there are some implications that the Telmarines had associations with Calormenes which would allow for an influence that I think would result in something Moorish.

Bookwyrm, as far as I know Maugrim is the only one with an American accent and I've only been lurking only since the PC film, but the vitriol against the accent rises the farther away one gets from British English. You have a point Miraz raising Caspian while they have differing accents is inconsistent, except he did spend time with nurse and Cornelius. This in addition to hanging out with Narnians is the only part that makes Caspian adopting a different accent plausible, but retconning the sound of an entire people is not.

decarus, I noticed the same thing, anachronisms! Although it's a shame the movies won't let Peter call someone an ass even though that's faithful to book canon.

I for one think Michael Madsen was a good choice for Maugrim but I associate his role as Mr. Blonde with it.

decarus, I noticed the same thing, anachronisms! Although it's a shame the movies won't let Peter call someone an ass even though that's faithful to book canon.

For me, everything about the conversation where they come back to the spot where Lucy thinks she saw Aslan seems very modern. Lucy says "i'm not crazy." Edmund says "last time i didn't believe lucy and i ended up looking pretty stupid." There are just times when their conversation seems too modern.

I know there was a lot of book dialogue in PC, but when it came to the important bits they need to work a little bit better at using that book dialogue.