Everybody discussing what type of accents the different character's have proves my point that it was simply very unwise to introduce the accent in the beginning! It is really hard to be consistant with an accent that isn't your own, and isn't really like any other that you know.

BTW Maugrim's American accent bothered me as well. (And I'm American )

Second Rose, I don't think a Spanish accent was necessarily a bad idea to begin with. But changing accents mid-stream highlights any inconsistencies. I would have much preferred if they had just given everyone British (and/or Irish) accents from the start than try and change things now.

GB

I honestly liked the accent because it made the Telmarines a different culture form the Narnian's even more. It was more than just a physical difference to show they are a new culture that invaded Narnia (physical as in costumes, hair, dark skin, ect.) I don't like this idea of loosing the accents in VDT because its loosing continuity which I think is key when flowing from film to film and connecting the stories.

I can understand with a different director the movie will look incredibly different but I am thinking back to Harry Potter 3 and how much different that was from the first two films. If Caspian goes from a thick accent his normal accent... I just don't see how this is a good idea and how this is going to work...

But if Caspian is the only Telmarine we are seeing then I can go with it because he is the King of Narnia and has had the throne for three years so I can see that he has picked up the Narnian accent but he should still have some of his old accent and any other Telmarines I think should have the accent. I need to re-read VDT because I can't remember all the characters now...

I totally did not notice that Maugrim had an American accent.
The only thing I really noticed about the accents was that Caspian's came and went and it sounded to harsh. I also never could understand all the names of place when they were pledging their troops. Well, now that I think about it I might have noticed that Glenstorm sounded kind of different and I think the Beavers have a different English accent then some of the others. To be perfectly honest, I have trouble sometimes hearing different sounds, especially if they are more subtle. I can't always tell the difference between a British English accent (and yes, I realize there are regional variations) and an Australian one.
I know in America there is an accent that is used for broadcasting, etc. Germany has something similar too. Does England have the same thing too?

I think three years would be plenty of time for the Telmarine accent to soften.

I like the idea of all British accents, simply because it "feels" more Narnian to me.

To me too. I grew up on the BBC's CoN so I heard the characters with British accent.

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.

That second line really bugs me. (Although the word stupid is used in the book. In fact in that scene, Lucy says to Trumpkin, "Oh don't be so stupid."). That scene was written in dialogue form, they didn't need to change any of it. (Don't even get me started on Peter's lines ) I think "I'm not mad" would be better than "I'm not crazy."

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.

I still think English accents are the best way to go. The language is so unmistakable English that it seems to fit. (both the old English type and the expressions they use). The Calormens are descended from the Archenlanders who are descended from Helen and Frank who are from England so it would make sense that they could have the accent still. I know that all of the time between that would be plenty of time for them to have changed accents but it doesn't mean that they did.

In the end, as long as the accents aren't ridiculous (Lucy with a German accent, Eustace in a southern drawl, etc.) or obnoxiously coming and going (worse than Caspian's), I don't care what they do with them. The plot, characters, themes are far more important than the accents.

I once watched a movie that was set it Virgina USA but most of the actors and actresses had Australian accents.

*weighs in*

I wont even remotely notice one way or the other. I doubt anyone really notices away from the fan sites. Zero impact on box office results.

That second line really bugs me. (Although the word stupid is used in the book. In fact in that scene, Lucy says to Trumpkin, "Oh don't be so stupid."). That scene was written in dialogue form, they didn't need to change any of it. (Don't even get me started on Peter's lines ) I think "I'm not mad" would be better than "I'm not crazy."

Yeah, i agree. "I'm not mad" would have been a much better line then "I'm not crazy". And "i ended up looking pretty stupid". I just really hate that line. It is so much better in the book. "Well there's just this. When we first discovered Narnia a year ago - or a thousand years ago, whichever it is - it was Lucy who discovered it first and none of us would believe her. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet she was right after all. Wouldn't it be fair to believer her this time?"

Work with what you have. Don't make it so modern sounding that it sounds off.

I am very disappointed by this news. In my opinion, whether I like the accent or not (which I do) it ruins continuity. It's such an obvious change, no one can help but notice, even if they don't put their finger on it straight away. Now I know they're trying to get a British accent, which is not an entirely bad thing as long as they'd done it in PC. Which they didn't! However the accent in PC gives the series depth and diversity, adding another dimension. The only thing with trying to attain a British accent and hiring Aussie actors is that their accent is going to butcher the film. (Sorry Aussie's.) Not so much the fact that they have a thick accent, but that it's very different from the Brits and so that's another inconsistency within the movie.

To give an example of how this can wreck a movie I shall mention a recent experience of mine. I watched an absolutely fantastic movie, great cast, story etc. but in it one of the extra's mispronounced a name and as I notice little details like this it affected the movie a bit for me. Not majorly, but as VDT is likely to have many more instances of this kind of thing it would wreck it. In a movie, imo, it is important that even the extra's acting and pronounciation is of such a high-standard so that the movie can be the best it possibly can. LWW and PC have been like that, I hope VDT doesn't ruin that image.

Sorry all for my long, negative spiel but I can't cope with change!

I would wager that other than the fangurls who worship the ground Ben Barnes walks on, the average viewer of the films will either not notice the change or not care. It's only the die hard fans who will be squabbling over this for the next couple of years.

Words fail to describe the level of hatred I have for many of the dialogue choices. When they went to such effort to make everything else accurate for the period, I really cannot understand why they went with such cheesy modern dialogue. And when they actually used dialogue from the book, half the time they reworked it or had another character make fun of it. Susan's "That doesn't really rhyme" line still irritates me almost five years after the film came out.

^^ oh, the die hard fans will talk of it.....we on narniaweb seem to do that with everything!

I think modernizing the dialogue was supposed to make the characters more relatable to a younger audience and when done in moderation it's not that big of a crime. I have pretty much erased from my mind Susan telling Caspian to give her a hollaback.

I would wager that other than the fangurls who worship the ground Ben Barnes walks on, the average viewer of the films will either not notice the change or not care. It's only the die hard fans who will be squabbling over this for the next couple of years.

I think the average viewer will notice if they've seen PC but if they care is another story. Hollywood convention has taught the audience to simply accept that all fantasy and historical pieces should be done in a British-English accent. Alexander is a great example of critics picking on an actor for using Irish for his Macedonian character when others were using English for their Athenian ones. Maybe this was a hangup on top of Alexander having other shortcomings while Gladiator escaped with Oscars in tow. The point being...why should these characters be using British-English when Greeks and Romans aren't British-English to begin with? I think there's more flexibility with a fantasy film that isn't completely tied to historical ground, it's always a risk to defy convention but it's what makes a production seem more imaginative to me if they can make it work. And yet How To Train Your Dragon made bank with their American accented protagonists in a Norse inspired setting.

HM Swanwhite, admittedly I was thinking the same thing about the Aussie actors! Some of them can emulate a British accent just fine, others not so much.

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

Off-topic, but I'm so glad you think so! I complained about that here when the movie came out, but no one would hear me. One moment I was in Narnia, then Maurgrim opened his mouth, and I was in an American cop movie or something.

I'm all for the accent change. Like Apted and some of the other members around here who also grew up with the BBC videos and the Focus on the Family radio dramas, I always hear British accents whenever I read Lewis' dialog to myself. And continuity doesn't bother me in the slightest, at least not in this case. In fact, any way we can separate the new movie from the sub-par Caspian sounds good to me. (I know, I know, I'm a terrible person. )

I'm all for the accent change. Like Apted and some of the other members around here who also grew up with the BBC videos and the Focus on the Family radio dramas, I always hear British accents whenever I read Lewis' dialog to myself. And continuity doesn't bother me in the slightest, at least not in this case. In fact, any way we can separate the new movie from the sub-par Caspian sounds good to me. (I know, I know, I'm a terrible person. )

Yeah - I liked PC but even I have no problem distancing the new film from it. It's a new vision and that's half the reason I'm so excited about it.

The Harry Potter films changed significantly in artistic style and approach as the series went on, and that's the sort of thing I want to see with Narnia: an artistic evolution.

Right from the beginning when I first found out that the Telmarines in PC were going to have foreign accents, I knew (or at least hoped) that if more movies were made, the accent would be dropped at some point. I mean, I don't think anyone expected to, years from now, go see The Last Battle and hear Tirian speaking with an accent; and I think an accent would have been out of place even as soon as Silver Chair. It's just not what we think of when we think of Narnia. Admittedly, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader being only three years after Prince Caspian, it does seem a little soon for people to lose their accents... but all in all, it makes sense. The accents were used in PC to express a sort of foreign sense about the Telmarines; in Voyage, the whole idea is that they are now just as Narnian as the next guy, and to that extent the accents would be working against that. Losing the accents sort of symbolizes how Narnia has moved past the Telmarine occupation, and moved on to new heights. After all, the story is about the first Narnian sea voyage since the Golden Age.

I was expecting most of the Telmarines to lose their accent, but I never thought Caspian would; up till now, I thought he would either have the full accent, or maybe a slightly watered down version of it. So this news did surprise me; but I don't mind. In fact, I'm kind of glad, for the reasons I described above.

And like so many people before me have said, I hardly think anyone besides us avid fans will even notice or care about this change. If they do, well, I will humbly stand corrected.

EDIT: I want to clarify... I said above that losing the accent symbolizes "moving on to new heights". I want to make sure everyone understands that I'm not demeaning the accents used in PC or the people who speak that way. It's just that Narnia is a British series, so British accents would be the most natural in that context. Just making sure I don't offend anyone...

Imagine you've been hitting yourself over the head with a hammer for a while, and then you decide to stop. Sure you loose continuity... but doesn't it feel a whole lot better?
Let's hear it for the British accents! Huzzah!!!

As VDT takes place only 3 years later in Narnian time from PC, I think it does disrupt continuity a bit to change the accents at that point. I would've waited till Silver Chair to make the change if I were directing.

Still, it's likely not such a drastic change that I can't get over it. I'm good at filling in continuity gaps with my imagination (elocution lessons for the Telmarines ).

By the way Lys, "American cop movie" was exactly what I thought too when Madsen's voice came out of Maugrim's mouth . But it was the only weak spot in LWW, so I can overlook it.

GB