Dawn Treader Screened in New York

A thirty minute series of clips from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was screened in New York on Monday night. The Examiner website has posted an in-depth article by Carla Hay on the event.

You can read the full article here.

The first portion of the article is spoiler free, but there are descriptions of each of the nine clips shown with extensive spoilers. Scenes with the Pevensies, Eustace, and Reepicheep are all described.

A third trailer is also mentioned. The Examiner reporter calls it “a visual feast.” She also said of the film as a whole that “looks like it fully delivers the magical excitement in that classic story.”

Here are some highlights from the scene descriptions and interviews:

• Susan is seen writing a letter to Lucy and Edmund near the beginning of the film.
• During a food shortage on the ship, Reepicheep catches Eustace stealing an orange.
• Lucy is kidnapped by the Dufflepuds and taken to the magician’s house to say the spell.
• The seven swords must be placed at Aslan’s feet in order to destroy the Dark Island.
• Lilliandil introduces herself as the daughter of Ramandu.
• DragonEustace fights the sea-serpent.
• Lucy asks Reepicheep to let her hug him before he leaves, and he reluctantly consents.

Michael Apted:

Q: What’s the real story on re-casting the voice of Reepicheep for “Dawn Treader”? At first Bill Nighy was supposed to do the voice, and then Simon Pegg got the role.
Apted: Well, I did it with Bill, first of all, but it turned out that he was perhaps a little too old for it. He was great. I loved it. I did record him, but then we looked at it very carefully, and thought, “Well, it doesn’t quite have that energy.” He has more drollness of a slightly older man. And he was very disappointed, and I was upset. But you know, Simon came in, and we auditioned a lot of people. Simon was very good. He came in and just nailed it.

Q: Can you clear up any rumors about why Eddie Izzard was not asked to reprise the role of Reepicheep?
Apted: I wanted to make some changes. I changed Caspian’s accent. And I wanted to change [the voice of Reepicheep], because I thought we’d get more humor out of it. It was just my choice, really.

Mark Johnson:

Q: What lessons did you learn from working on “Prince Caspian” that you took with you in working on “Dawn Treader”?
Johnson: it’s really the books. People almost want us to apologize that “Prince Caspian” took us away from the world of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” It’s in the books. We had to the one next because of the kids, or we would never have been able to do it. I did learn that it’s very important, this whole notion of Narnia and Narnia creatures and being back there, as opposed to being more earth-bound. We learned to embrace the magic and the wonder of Narnia, as opposed to being more concrete, I think. And this [“Dawn Treader”] book really leant that to us.

Q: I know you get asked this question a lot, but I’ll ask anyway: Will there be a fourth “Narnia” movie?
Johnson: Keep in mind that the two youngest Penvensie kids, Lucy and Edmund, don’t come back, so the next movie will have Eustace. We could do “The Silver Chair” or we could do “The Magician’s Nephew.”

Thanks to icarus for the story!

UPDATE: ComingSoon.net has posted their report, and it includes more spoilers. The biggest one by far is that Caspian needs to find the seven swords in order to prevent the White Witch from returning!