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NarniaWebber Emma writes: “I visited the The Voyage of the Dawn Treader sets at Movie World today! The tour ran for about a half hour and we were shown inside Sound Stage 5 where the Dawn Treader ship is housed. The tours will run for four weeks so make sure to check it out because it’s worth it!!!!!
You can check out more pictures on my Facebook account here.” Thank you Emma!

The New Zealand Herald has a small story about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader filming at White Island. “White Island Tours marketing executive Patrick O’Sullivan said the filming, which was done without the cast, took place just before Christmas. ‘We went out there with a film team, and left one guy with them to ensure they did not fall into any holes.’” NarniaWebber icarus found a picture of the filming unit while they were just off the coast of White Island. It can be seen here.

myartismylife and shamonalive have both sent us more pictures from their visits to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader set. myartismylife includes of a lot of scale photos and shamonalive has several different pictures of the costumes and closeups of details aboard the Dawn Treader.

You can see the remainder of shamonalive’s photos on his flickr account here.

Huge thanks to myartismylife and shamonalive for sharing!

Here are myartismylife’s photos from set pieces of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader at Movie World.

Thank you myartismylife!!

You can also view some pictures on Jin-Tao’s flickr account here.

Thanks icarus for the find!

We have received a report from ‘myartismylife’ who has been aboard the Dawn Treader on the Movie World tour. There’s a lot of interesting description of the carvings and details found aboard the ship. Here’s the report:

Hi, I have been to Movie World and have been on the tour. It is of the Dawn Treader herself!

The main body of the ship is in a huge hanger. The tail sits to one side (the left of it) and the head to the right. The mast is in three pieces, one on the ship and two sections standing on the floor next to it. The ship is so big they just couldn’t get it all in in one piece.

People are allowed to go up onto the actual deck and walk around. The front and back (sorry don’t know the proper names for that part of the ship) are roped off.

You can see by the photos the level of detail that has gone into the craftsmanship. There are just empty rooms in the body of the ship. Other sets were made for those rooms. Interestingly, around the main mast (the one on the ship) are the following words “All Narnians, with grateful hearts may we give thanks to the crew of the mighty Dawn Treader for their strong minds and artisan hands.” There is a date (I think in roman numerals) but it did not come out well on the photo.  Under this banner are three large bands of many, many names which I am assuming are the names of the people who have worked on the creating of the Dawn Treader.

In the middle of the ship’s deck are two statues of a faun with two beavers at its feet. They are holding a large stick on their shoulders and suspended from that is a large golden bell that has carvings of the seven lords that are lost with their names above their heads. Real lead light has been used on the glass doors and windows. You can see by the detail of the little soldiers that have been carved (resin) to hold the ropes that this type of detail is everywhere on the ship.

I was allowed to spend as much time as I liked looking around and taking photos and asking questions of the tour guides. At the moment it seems that the Dawn Treader is on show for four weeks at Movie World and then she shall be scrapped! They said that companies shall probably purchase bits of her for other shows or museums etc; and the rest shall be dumped. What an absolute disgrace!

On the floor of the hanger besides the head, tail and the two sections of the mast there are five round rocks, two tv screens showing a time lapse film of the building of the Dawn Treader. I asked if they would have a copy of this film for sale but the guides did not know. It just would be so interesting to see. Anyway there are sections of railings at one end of the hanger and three VERY tall statues of kings, holding their heads, and six very large bells are hanging in the air with one bell crashed on the floor of the tiles. They come from the “Bell Tower”.

The whole ship is situated on stilts so that you can see the construction underneath with is just amazing.

Thanks to ‘myartismylife’ for the great report.

UPDATE: Here are a few pictures from the Flickr account of Jin-Tao. You can see them here.

On behalf of all the staff, moderators, and news posters at NarniaWeb we want to wish you all a very merry Christmas! In the spirit of Christmas, we wanted to share with you an essay penned by our friend Devin Brown, who writes about C.S. Lewis’ views about the Christmas season (“I send no cards and give no presents except to children.”) and on finding real joy and mirth this season. Click here to read the whole article.

We’ve received two spy reports this morning saying that starting on Boxing Day, Movie World will open its doors for public tours. Nicola sent us a copy the email announcement she received which says, “From Boxing Day, guests to Movie World will have the opportunity to go behind the scenes and visit the set of the Narnia movie series’ latest epic The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Tours of the Narnia studio will run regularly throughout each day. Tours will run for a limited time only and are included as part of everyday Movie World admission.” Andrew followed up letting us know that this lasts for four weeks. If you get a chance to visit the set, we’d love to see your pictures!

NarniaWebber andrea sent us a link to a new video where a Sunrise News team in Australia got to visit the set of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The two women tour the set inside of Movie World where you can see a really good shot of the Dawn Treader built up inside the studio (and includes the first shot we’ve seen of the oars).

But the most interesting bit is there are some statues and bells that they say stuntmen slide down and attack Caspian and his crew. We have no idea where this might fit into the movie. Perhaps Gumpas’ castle?

You can view the video on Yahoo’s website here.

Thanks to andrea and Lucy P. for the heads up!

Running time: 32:37

It’s almost Christmas, but Rilian, glumPuddle and Warrior4Jesus just cannot resist discussing the situation of the (now five) islands or even whether Peter will now appear in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In the meanwhile, Merry Christmas to all!

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Dark Horizons is in the process of reviewing the notable films of 2010. They have picked Dawn Treader as one of them. Some highlights from their story:

“The budget has been cut to a still substantial but more reasonable $140 million which means less pressure to perform but a tighter control on production. Fox Walden also isn’t as strict as Disney on sanitising the product so the film will hopefully take more risks – that could be one of the reasons Disney opted out (they cited ‘creative differences’). The release is back to the more suitable December slot, while director Michael Apted is a far more skilled hand at both drama and action/adventure than previous helmer Andrew Adamson.

The only downside here could be Walden itself which has been keeping production rather quiet and didn’t have any set visits to the film, even for locally based journalists like myself which has surprised more than a few people. A decently updated production blog is online which is a nice start, but the buzz needs to begin early to make sure this doesn’t go the way of ‘Caspian’. Lets hope the film becomes the hit it could be, because the next book ‘The Silver Chair’ is also one of the best of the series and deserves a big-budget adaptation.”

You can read their full review on their website here.