Well, I did see Voyage of the Dawn Treader and I now know that Eustace is "You-Stace" and the actor playing him was one of the bright spots of the movie. Visually it was close to how I'd always imagined the book, too. As for the rest... hmm.I did make an interesting observation about characterization watching the movie. The audience's attention focuses on Eustace almost as soon as the adventure portion of the movie begins, in spite of the fact that he's an unlikeable character. Long before he becomes a likeable one, we're identifying with him, even to the exclusion of Edmund and Lucy, who seem rather flat. (This is true in the book, too, but to a lesser extent, as Lewis is able to jump around more easily between the minds of the characters.) The transformation of an unlikeable character to a likeable one, and particularly getting the reader to identify with that character even before the transformation is a nice challenge for a writer.
I guess I'm a bit late for the Be Jolly blogfest so I'm not going to link to it but I'd like to post a picture of my tree. A long time ago I went a little stir-crazy one December and starting making ornaments -- first extremely intricate snowflakes and then posterboard animals. I didn't expect them to last, given the material, but we still put them up every year. For Christmas dinner my husband is going to make the only thing he knows how to make: seafood marinara. It's not really traditional but I don't eat meat anyway so it's been years since I had a Christmas turkey. And if you want a stretch a point, Italians (my husband's heritage) traditionally eat fish on Christmas Eve. (For my in-laws, this is preserved in an annual ritual known as "going to Red Lobster.") So on Christmas Eve day I'll bake cookies and probably take my kid Christmas shopping and we'll eat early and go to the children's Christmas Eve service and I'll try to catch the "The Bishop's Wife" -- one of the more obscure Hollywood Christmas movies -- on TCM.
And it wouldn't be Christmas without music, so I'll share my latest favorite: the Pipettes' version of "In the Bleak Midwinter."
1 comment:
"There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
You've gotta admit, that's Lewis's best first line evah. :-)
I thought it was interesting how they attempted to make a plot arc for Dawn Treader, which is the most episodic of the Narnia books. I still walked away slightly puzzled about the source of the mists (their addition), but overall I think the scriptwriters did an OK job making an exciting adventure story that transforms one character deeply.
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