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Mark your calendars! Set your schedule! Ask for the day off! Do whatever you have to do! Just find a way to be in front of a computer…

NarniaFans is reporting that the highly-anticipated trailer for “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” will be online on Thursday, June 17 at 12:00pm EST!

The trailer will also be appearing in front of “Toy Story 3,” which releases the following day. It is possible that, if you go to a 3D showing, the trailer will also be in 3D.

Considering there is now less than six months to go until the release, we have seen very little of the film. A poster and a few pictures… that’s pretty much it. Perhaps with the release of this trailer, Fox will finally let us in on what we can expect from Michael Apted’s vision.

See you then! (We’ll have screen captures)

The 'Matthew' will become the Dawn Treader later this year

A life-size replica of the historic ship ‘Matthew’ will be used later this year to help promote The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

It hasn’t been announced exactly how the ship will be used, but apparently it will be outfitted to look like the Dawn Treader. The production could be planning to use the ship during the premier.

The Matthew is a replica of John Cabot’s ship which set sail for Asia over 500 years ago and first discovered Newfoundland. You can find out more about the ship at matthew.co.uk. The Matthew is usually anchored in Bristol but can sail to other locations.

Here are a few more pictures of the ship:

Thanks to Icarus for the tip.

HarperCollins has updated two of their websites to launch the “Read It Before You See It” campaign for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The first one is the familiar HarperCollinsChildren website that Narnia.com was redirected to for so long. Aside from the “Read It Before You See It” campaign details, you can enter a sweepstakes to win a full set of the Narnia Chronicles, and play other various fun interactive games. Also, fair warning, it’s got a giant “Watch the Movie Trailer Here” box, but then when you click on it, it says “Coming Soon.”

The second site is DiscoverNarnia.co.uk, which also updated to promote the Dawn Treader “Read It…” campaign.

Thanks icarus for the heads-up!

We received a spy report from ‘John’ who attended the C. S. Lewis & Friends conference at Taylor University this past weekend. The conference was hosted by Dr. Devin Brown, and to the surprise of the attendees, some footage from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was shown. Be warned, there are a few new plot spoilers in this report!

I just wanted to send everyone at NarniaWeb a heads-up. This past weekend (Jun. 3-6), I was privileged to attend the Seventh Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends, held at Taylor University in Upland, IN.

One of the keynote speakers at the colloquium was Dr. Devin Brown of Asbury College, author of Inside Narnia and its two sequels. As faithful followers of NarniaWeb will know, Dr. Brown was one of those who, along with NarniaWeb’s own Tirian, were present at the unveiling of the VDT super trailer.

http://www.narniaweb.com/2010/02/the-first-dawn-treader-footage/

As a gracious and oh-so-welcome treat to attendees of the colloquium at Taylor, Walden sent a DVD with the super trailer to the house of one of the professors on the planning committee. The disc was then handed over to the care of Dr. Brown, who hosted a viewing of the super trailer on Saturday, Jun. 5.

The trailer was about five minutes long. Although the footage from VDT was the same as has been detailed elsewhere (http://www.narniaweb.com/2010/05/narnia-super-trailer-at-the-biola-media-conference/), I thought it would be worth sharing some additional insights that I had (a good many of them suggested by Dr. Brown in an almost shot-by-shot discussion of the footage; we were allowed to watch the trailer SEVERAL times).

*. Dr. Brown claimed that the spires in the opening shot of the super trailer are the spires of Cambridge near the home of Eustace and his parents. There are indeed lion gargoyles, just as there was a lion statue near the railway station in PC. Deliberate, surely!

*. Before the three kids are “washed” into Narnia, Lucy is seen staring at herself in a mirror. Dr. Brown believes this is a deliberate foreshadowing of Lucy’s temptation at the magician’s house, when she is sucked in by the beauty spell.

*. When the painting begins spewing water, Dr. Brown pointed out that in his fear, Eustace screams “Mother!” instead of calling her by her first name, as he is wont to do according to the book.

*. When Lucy opens the magician’s book and snow begins to fall, the expression on her face is almost identical to the one she had when she first entered Narnia in LWW. A very nice touch!

*. Dr. Brown also suggested that the “blue star” the Dawn Treader is told to follow may actually be Ramandu’s daughter. If I remember correctly, in her bodily appearance to the crew later on in the trailer, Ramandu’s daughter is seen with a glowing sphere of blue light inside her body, so this connection seems very likely to me.

*. At one point, I think it’s the magician who says “To defeat the darkness out there, you must defeat the darkness in yourself.” This certainly happens with Lucy, doesn’t it?

*. Dr. Brown pointed out that Reepicheep is paunchier and slightly gray. Since Reep is so concerned with personal appearance in PC, one might argue that this is a foreshadowing of his willingness to toss away his honor and dignity (in the form of his sword) at the end of the story. After all, how could a mouse concerned with dignity let himself go to seed like that? Only one who has learned a bit of humility, perhaps?

*. As reported at the earlier super trailer screening, Aslan utters his famous allusion to Christ that takes place near the end of the book. I tried very hard to write this down word-for-word, and I’m 90% sure I got it right.

Lucy: “Will you visit us in our world?”
Aslan: “In your world, I have another name. You must learn to know me by it.”

Just to compare, here is the line from the book.

Aslan: “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.”

As you can see, very much alike! Nearly brought a tear to my eye, it did.

Aside from what I’ve added here, I’m happy to confirm the rundown given by “subjectofthehighking.”

http://www.narniaweb.com/2010/05/narnia-super-trailer-at-the-biola-media-conference/

Much of this will already be known from other recent updates, but Dr. Brown confirmed that Toy Story 3 will feature the theatrical premiere of the VDT trailer. He also talked a bit about the plot additions. For instance, the filmmakers have added, in addition to the quest to find the sleepers, a quest to find seven swords (I’m pretty sure this was reported before).

Early in their voyage, the crew will arrive at an island that is nearly deserted, because people have been disappearing from it. Gael’s parents were among those who disappeared. Apparently, finding the seven lords and seven swords will help recover the missing individuals.

This is pretty much everything I learned from the screening and the discussion afterwards. It was very enlightening, very thrilling (needless to say), and as I said earlier, very gracious on Walden’s part to send the disc to the good folks at Taylor University!

There was of course a watermark on the trailer with Dr. Brown’s name on it, and no cameras were allowed, so unfortunately I don’t have the visual evidence to back up what I’ve said here. However, here is a link to the colloquium’s website, which confirms Dr. Brown was a keynote speaker.

http://www.taylor.edu/academics/supportservices/cslewis/colloquium/

You will not find the VDT preview on the colloquium schedule, because it was meant as a last-minute surprise by the planning committee.

I should mention that apart from the sneak preview, which alone made the weekend worthwhile, this was an excellent conference, which I also had the chance to attend in 2008. Other keynote speakers included Inklings scholars Peter Schakel and Joseph Pearce.

In 2012, Taylor’s colloquium will be merging with another C.S. Lewis conference (the name of which escapes me at the moment), so it should be bigger and better than ever (maybe by that time we’ll be watching a preview of The Silver Chair). I highly recommend the experience to all fans of C.S. Lewis and his fellow Inklings.

Thanks to Taylor and Walden for a memorable weekend!

John, thank you so much for your report!

Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop is now Sir Richard Taylor after he was knighted today for the NZ Queen’s Birthday honours. Sir Richard was in the kitchen cutting up an onion when his wife handed him the letter informing him. On behalf of NarniaWeb, congratulations Sir Richard Taylor! You deserve it.
More can be read on this story here and here. Thanks coracle for letting us know!

Narnia Fans is reporting that we could see a trailer for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in about two weeks. Check out the article here for the full details.

As always, we will be sure to post the trailer along with a full set of screen-caps and the transcript.

This may also mean that the trailer will premiere in front of Toy Story 3 as that’s the most appropriate movie set to release in two weeks. Can’t wait. Sail on Dawn Treader!

UPDATE: Kristi at The Lion’s Call reports that Walden has confirmed the trailer will premiere in front of Toy Story 3!

We were contacted by someone within the production who shared a few tidbits of information with us regarding the character of Ramandu’s Daughter.

First, the lovely actress who was the stand-in for the character of Ramandu’s Daughter is Stefania Duncan; 21 year old model and actress from Queensland Australia. Her profile can be seen on StarNow.com here.

Second, the character has been given a name for this movie: Lilliandil. Tirian can confirm this name from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader footage he saw a few months ago. He also mentioned that Douglas Gresham was the one who created this name. Very pretty!

According to the official Facebook fan-page for Tony Nixon (Rynelf), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will have it’s first official cut viewed in LA next week!

No more details other than that though. Whether this will be shown to a random group of Californians who happen to be at the right place at the right time, or if this is only going to be shown to the higher-ups in the production, we don’t know.

One thing’s for sure, this will be a VERY rough cut of the movie. A lot of visual effects will certainly still need to be completed. But the good news is they’re moving right along with a full six months of tweaking still to go!

Thanks to ‘Tony Nixon – Official’ for the news!