PWJ: S3E39 – VODT – “Voyage of Dawn Treader Movie” (Part 1)

Last week Matt and I discussed the book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Today we team up with the guys from The Lamp-Post Listener podcast to discuss its movie adaptation.

S3E39: “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Movie, Part 1” (Download)

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Time Stamps

00:00:00 – Introductory music
00:00:13 – Welcome
00:00:41 – Introductions
00:03:00 – Drink-of-the-week
00:04:59 – Quote-of-the-week
00:07:29 – Patreon Toast
00:08:29 – The Lamp-Post Listener
00:12:47 – Adaptation Review
00:17:14 – Fun Facts
00:18:49 – The movie begins
00:23:55 – Pulled into the picture
00:31:20 – Caspian’s Cabin
00:33:05 – The Lone Islands
00:43:20 – Back onboard
00:44:50 – The Duffers
00:50:16 – Coriakin’s Exposition
00:53:41 – The Tempest
00:56:22 – Lucy’s Spell
01:00:10 – “Last Call” Bell
01:01:06 – Closing remarks

YouTube Version

After Show Skype Session

Rather than recording a video with Matt, today I spoke to Joseph Pearce about his book, Further Up & Further In:

Show Notes

• Today I was joined by Matt “I’m not going to give you name” Bush, as well as Daniel and Phil from The Lamp-Post Listener. This was our version of an Avengers cross-over episode. Matt and I had met Daniel and Phil at the C.S. Lewis Symposium in North Carolina last year:

• Matt lamented that he looks more like Captain America rather than Tony Stark. Naturally, we teased him mercilessly for this humble brag. I agreed that Matt does indeed look like Captain America, but Steve Rogers before he takes the Super Serum:

• For the drink-of-the-week, I was drinking Captain Morgan Rum again and Matt was drinking Wild Turkey American Honey. Daniel was drinking Apple Cinnamon Mead from Charm City Meadworks and Phil was drinking Pukka Three Ginger Organic Tea.

• The quote-of-the-week was from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie:

“Stop flapping your wings like a drunken pelican!”

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Movie-only)

I encouraged listeners to work this sentence into their conversations sometime this week!

• I suggested that I am like Henry Higgins from the movie My Fair Lady, trying to teach Matt (Eliza Doolittle) how to speak:

• We toasted one of our upper-tier Patreon supporters, Peter Cavnar:

Peter, in life you will have some successes… much like the movie adaptation of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” …you will also have some times where you face some troubles… much like the movie adaptation of “Prince Caspian”… but I pray that if you ever face real disaster… much like the movie adaptation of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”… that you will call upon the Great Lion… and hope for a brighter future someday with Netflix… Cheers!

Toast for Peter Cavnar

• Daniel and Phil introduced themselves and their podcast, The Lamp-post Listener. We reminisced about our first meeting in North Carolina at the C.S. Lewis Symposium. Matt noted a very similar dynamic between the two of us and between Daniel and Phil. We alluded to our roles as Pinky and the Brain.

• We briefly discussed which Narnia book adaptations we had each seen, as well our thoughts regarding adaptations. Matt spoke about his dislike of the movie adaptations of Les Miserables.

• I shared a few fun facts about the movie: it was the 12th biggest grossing film of 2010, it was 20th Century Fox’s biggest grossing film that year, and it was the first Royal Film Performance (attended by HRM The Queen) to be screened in 3-D.

• After describing this move to The Rise of Skywalker of the Narnia series, we began working through the movie beats…

• Although I wasn’t a fan of Lucy’s hair-tucking, we all liked the opening. I noted some of the nice touches, such as the lamp-post ornament in the scene where Susan is in America writing to her siblings:

I enjoyed the greater emphasis on the different kinds of books the children have read. Although the humour was rather hit-and-miss, I did enjoy the humourous exchanges between children in Lucy’s room, such as “You won’t be able to see the picture on the other side of the door” and “I found the sweets you stole and licked them all”).

• The transition into Narnia was superb, although I was a little disappointed that Lucy doesn’t kick off her shoes:

Still, she kept her head and kicked her shoes off, as everyone ought to do who falls into deep water in their clothes.

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Chapter 1)

I also criticized the movie’s dialogue, where the Narnians say that they’re in Narnia when they’ve actually left the land, and when Caspian calls Lucy and Edmund “high king and queen”.

Daniel wasn’t a fan of the age difference between Caspian and the other children.

Caspian’s Spanish accent is gone in this movie! Although it gives rise to a loss of continuity, I though it was a good change though. I particularly liked the set of Caspian’s cabin and the text written on the walls, “Once a king or queen of Narnia…”:

Unfortunately, the dialogue is dumb-down from the book. When Caspian gives back Lucy’s cordial, his dialogue changes from “Take back your own, Queen” to “Of course, they’re yours”. I liked the reintroduction of Edmund’s flashlight/torch, although Matt didn’t remember it.

I was also annoyed at Caspian pining after Susan.

It is at this point that there’s the first major plot change. We are told that the Lords fled to the Lone Islands, rather than being sent away to explore. Reepicheep’s quest is presented as a minor riddle that’s mostly ignored.

• Aside from Matt, we didn’t like the events of the Lone Island. There were so many questions. Why did they bring Eustace? What was the point of doing an ambush?! Why did Edmund bring his torch? Why did the slavers split them up? Why was Lord Bern in prison? Why was Lord Burn in prison?

• The mist was weird. We find out that the Lords went to find the source of the mist.

• Matt noted that Douglas Gresham had a brief cameo:

• There’s a stupid fight and it completely ignored the cleverness of the book. I wasn’t a fan of them picking up Rhince, but Daniel was glad to have something to distinguish him from some of the other characters.

• The Lord Bern hands over a sword which Caspian’s father gave him, which he had safely hidden in an easily-accessible-yet-hidden cave. We’re told that there are seven swords which were also somehow gifts from Aslan… Didn’t the Telmarins kill the old Narnians? Why is Aslan handing out swords to Telmarins? Why did Bern stay on the Lone Islands when the others left?

• I commented on some of the bad acting.

• The duel between Eustace and Reepicheep was driven by an orange rather than water and the fight was more slapstick (“period, exclamation mark” – bad grammar!), but we were generally okay with it . Reepicheep seems to be using it more as a teaching moment rather than a matter of justice and honour. I found the Gael’s role rather boring – it seemed to be introduced just to give Lucy something to do.

• The Island with the Duffers was a mess. Why does they think the island uninhabited? Why did they go ashore so late in the day? Why not set a guard? How the heck do creatures who can only hop manage to not wake anyone up?! Even the duffers pretending to be giants was dumb because it was clever and Duffers are not mean to be clever. If the house is invisible, shouldn’t the land appear completely flat? Following all of these criticisms, I referred to this scene from the Simpsons with Lucy (not “Lindsay”) Lawless:

• We generally liked Lucy in front of the Book of Incantations. It had a very strong Harry Potter vibe, but I did really like the Snow Spell which was a nice callback to “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”. I didn’t like that the green mist is blamed for everything, rather their own character flaws. I didn’t like that Lucy rips out the spell, but did admit that the Visibility Spell was rather clever:

“Like the P in psychology, the H in psychiatry, invisible ink and the truth in theology. The spell is complete. Now all is visible”

The visibility spell (Movie-only)

• Coriachin becomes visible (not Aslan) and he then proceeds to give a massive exposition dump. Coriakin says that he made the Dufflepuds invisible to protect them from “what lies behind the mist”. Does that mean that what Lucy did was therefore a bad thing to do? Why does the Wizard make the crew invisible to go fight the green mist? He says he directed the six Lords towards the Dark island… WHY DID HE LET THEM CONTINUE WITHOUT THE SEVENTH SWORD?!

Finally, Coriachin tells them that they have to follow the blue star to Ramandu’s Island and place all the swords on Aslan’s table, with the cringe-worthy line:

“Don’t fall into temptation. To defeat the darkness out there, you must first defeat the darkness inside yourself”

Coriachin (Movie-only)

• When they’re battling the Tempest, Drinian wants to turn back, but Caspian asks him how they could possibly tell Rhince that they’re abandoning the search for his wife. What about the hunt for the rest of the Lords? What about the evil to save the land of Narnia? What about Aslan’s country?

• During the night Lucy says the spell she stole. The goal of the spell has changed:

“Transform my reflection. Cast into Perfection. Lashes, lips and complexion. Make me she, whom I’d agree holds more beauty over me”

The “Beauty” Spell (Movie-only)

Lucy walking through the mirror was a nice callback to the wardrobe. We liked the Wonderful Life idea of see what the world would look like if you had never existed. If Lucy had never existed, they’d have never gone to Narnia.

• The mist bad dreams The mist seems to give bad dreams …aaaand suddenly the storm is over and they’re on Goldwater Island!

• Daniel ended by saying that, despite all its faults, he’s glad that this movie exists.