Oh boy. It would be better to have Aslan breathe Narnia into existence than to have him singing the way they did in the MN radio theater...that was so cheesy!! If they can't find a good way to portray singing, they should just leave it alone.

Well, I would perfer singing or huming but if they can't do it right I wouldn't mind them having Aslan breathing Narnia into existence.

Oh boy. It would be better to have Aslan breathe Narnia into existence than to have him singing the way they did in the MN radio theater...that was so cheesy!! If they can't find a good way to portray singing, they should just leave it alone.

Hmm. Why not combine those two things? Aslan could breathe the singing into existence, though it would be obvious that the singing is being controlled by/doing Aslan's will.

Oh, cool. Then it wouldn't have to be Liam Neeson's voice doing the scales( ), but we could still keep the singing. Which I would love, as it was such a big part in the book! Great idea!

How about Aslan singing in latin like they sometimes do in movie music? No one could tell what he was actually saying (unless your good at latin). It would sound sort of like humming but with more of a sense of speech. Or, maybe Aslan himself wouldn't sing at all. There would just be singing, with more of the THINGS singing instead of Aslan. In the book the stars were singing too, not just Aslan.

Oh, the stars signing could be a gorgeous sound track!! I hope they make it sound like stars, but not a copy of Ramandu's Lilliandil's Island.

Maybe he could sing in elvish?

I say it should be a mixture of breathing and singing. But we shouldnt "see" Aslan sing. But more hear it slightly in the background. I do like the idea of singing in Latin.

I don't think it should be any particular language. I mean, Latin is undeniably cool, but it's been done to death. Has anyone ever heard Carl Nielsen's famous "Espansiva" Symphony? The middle movement has two singers, but they don't sing any actual words. Here it is on Youtube:

... 09409AD351

The singing starts at about 5:40. Listen from then onwards. Glorious stuff, and EXACTLY the kind of thing I imagine for the creation of Narnia.

^Well, I was hoping for a little something more word-like. Still, for lack of a better alternative, that could do at a pinch.

Thanks for bringing up the point on the timeline. Those two years could definitely be an explanation for as to why Eustace has grown so much.

And I definitely agree that they will find a way to bring the White Witch back in the Last Battle.

Honestly I don't have much emotion about this movie right now. Hope for a fresh start and paranoia are pretty much on equal terms.

I would love to say that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is entirely Michael Apted's fault and as soon as we get a new director things will go back to normal, but I'm not sure that's true. I wonder if, after seeing how Adamson handled Prince Caspian, Walden Media gave the director less creative freedom and vowed to never let the movies Lose The Magic(!) again. Think about it- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader definitley seems the most like a typical Walden movie of all of them (think Waterhorse or City of Ember).

This has me despairing. That, even if we get the best director in the world, it won't be enough. However that is equally balanced by the idea that Apted just didn't understand Narnia and maybe the next one will.

^I'm more concerned about the writers. After all, Apted hired Will Poulter didn't he?

Yes I am also concerned about the writers. I can understand, too, that Magician's Nephew will be one great big flashback if it isn't done first of the series. It also has to be done in such a way as to provide a little continuity between the films which came before and for the ones that come later.

One problem with the Narnia series is that in LB, the very last book of the series, there is no explanation of how the seven Friends of Narnia got together. Susan in VDT is in America, Lucy and Edmund are staying with Eustace, whilst the Professor hasn't been mentioned at all for two movies. Unlike the book, the VDT movie didn't mention that Peter was at that point staying with the Professor, who had become his tutor for University entrance, and not with Susan and their parents in America.

To read LB, or to see a movie from it, without hearing or seeing MN first - and don't forget that the child Digory and the child Polly won't be appearing in either HHB or SC - is to wonder where older Polly Plummer came from, how the Professor and Polly Plummer came to meet Eustace and Jill, and to wonder what Peter had been doing all this while. Not to mention to be startled that Susan, whom we have seen in every movie so far, is so pointedly left out of the final film.

If the Narnia series is to have any future at all, it really depends on this MN movie, and how it can link up with the already completed VDT and then either HHB or SC afterwards. Didn't someone say that SC can't be done without the War ending first, since when SC starts it is plain that Lucy and Edmund are no longer staying with Eustace? Can't this time be used to do MN at any rate?

This really depressed me (from the new interview on the front page).

“Yeah, and this is the paradox when you want to do faithful adaptations. That book is a dark war kind of novel. And we actually pulled back a little. In one scene, Peter beheads a couple of people [laughs]. At the end they run into some Greek gods who give everybody wine and they get drunk. So it’s amazing because I think a lot of us, in our minds, have this perfect image of these Narnia books because we grew up with them. But there are some elements in there that are a little tough, and Caspian is the darkest, and Silver Chair is pretty dark too… physically and tonally. A lot of it takes place underground. That’s why, for the next one, we’re really hoping to go in the direction of The Magician’s Nephew.”

Is that it then? Are we stuck with this "Return to magic, return to hope" mentality for the remainder of the series? I'm going to cry now...