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Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 26th, 2010, 11:20 am
by postodave
I would guess Lewis was thinking of or remembering that other work which both is and isn't a Christian allegory 'Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner'. And it's the word Albatross not the image that does the trick I think. Is it a good visual symbol? Would the sight of an albatross take most people into sea lore or Coleridge.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 26th, 2010, 11:49 am
by Larry W.
An albatross would be good enough for a sea voyage. I kind of wish that Lewis had included some other talking shore birds like plovers, sandpipers, or terns. For this story it would certainly have been appropriate. :smile: Sea gulls aren't the nicest birds, but I guess they were in Narnia. I'm a bird lover, but I prefer the less aggressive species (the beautiful piping plover is endangered here in Michigan). I guess that since Lewis was a great lover of Nature his world of Narnia would have wildlife such as birds and animals that are endangered in Britain.

Speaking of the sea, was there a lighthouse anywhere in Narnia? (I collect miniature lighthouses :smile: ). Maybe in the Cair Paravel castle there was some kind of light for sailors. I don't know how the Dawn Treader could have navigated without the aid of beacons. :smile:

Larry W.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 26th, 2010, 2:01 pm
by postodave

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 27th, 2010, 2:09 am
by Larry W.
Thanks for the poem, postodave. The "keeper of the fire" would tend a Fresnel lens on Earth, although I don't know if they had those in Narnia. :smile:

Larry W.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 27th, 2010, 3:40 pm
by postodave
I was thinking of something much more primitive, a bit like the Pharos lighthouse but much smaller. Anyway all this talk of the sea inspired me to dig out a book called 'A Book of Sea Legends' by Michael Brown. It's one of a series published in the sixties and seventies which My wife and I sort of collect, that is we pick them up if we find secodf hand copies. They are all called 'A book of . . . ' 'A Book of Dragons' edited by Roger Lancelyn Green has work by Lewis and Tolkien and is very good. This one on sea legends is another good one and has some useful information on albatrosses. It explains that it was commonly believed among seamen that if one of them drowned his spirit would pass into the body of a seagull and that this was the basis for Colerige's poem. However before Coleridge the idea that bit was bad luck to kill an albatross is not found. He adds that it would be surprising if there was such a belief given that the Albatross is such a rare bird only found in the southern ocean between 40 and 50 degrees south. He also describes some rather cruel treatment of albatrosses by late nineteenth century sailors. This is an introduction to a very funny poem called the albatross by R. P. Lister. I don't think I can get away with another poem though.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 27th, 2010, 3:51 pm
by galion
Another albatross poem (not funny, however):

The Albatross
Sometimes for sport the men of loafing crews
Snare the great albatrosses of the deep,
The indolent companions of their cruise
As through the bitter vastitudes they sweep.

Scarce have they fished aboard these airy kings
When helpless on such unaccustomed floors,
They piteously droop their huge white wings
And trail them at their sides like drifting oars.

How comical, how ugly, and how meek
Appears this soarer of celestial snows!
One, with his pipe, teases the golden beak,
One, limping, mocks the cripple as he goes.

The Poet, like this monarch of the clouds,
Despising archers, rides the storm elate.
But, stranded on the earth to jeering crowds,
The great wings of the giant baulk his gait.
(Charles Baudelaire 1867 tr. Roy Campbell)

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 27th, 2010, 4:17 pm
by Larry W.
In Michigan, the Great Lake state, we have over 100 beacons-- many are traditional lighthouses, and some are just crib lights or markers at the end of a pier. Some of them have the schoolhouse architecture, simple yet elegant. Maybe a Narnian lighthouse would look like this simple one at Old Mission Point:

Image

Or perhaps it would be a castle (resembling Cair Paravel) like Old Mackinac Point:

Image

Or how about this "storybook" lighthouse at Eagle Harbor?

Image

I always imagined Narnia to be a lot like northern Michigan. :smile:

Larry W.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 27th, 2010, 6:47 pm
by Ticket2theMoon
The appearance of the White Witch disturbed me at first, but I didn't think of Dark Island. That would be just fine, totally fitting.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 28th, 2010, 9:09 pm
by postodave

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: June 29th, 2010, 12:48 am
by Larry W.
Thank for "The Albatross" poem. I always wondered what kind of birds those were that brought the fruit to take away a little each day from Ramandu's age. Maybe they were like cedar waxwings-- in fact, being social creatures, they will pass berries to each other while sitting on a telephone wire! :smile: Waxwings are found in Britain, and perhaps Lewis had them in mind. However, in the book they are just mentioned as large white birds that fly back and forth carrying fruit to Ramandu from the sun. Waxwings are usually olive green or yellow in color and are about the size of a sparrow.



Larry W.
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Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: July 1st, 2010, 5:53 am
by nomad
Oooh, thanks for posting. I wasn't looking for it yet. I don't mind the movies taking some artistic license... some is necessary because it's a different medium. Prince Caspian took that license waaaaay to far though, so I'm happy not to see anything in this trailer that seems way out of line. And, though the trailer isn't much to go on, it looks like there's more appreciation for beauty (referring to the look of the settings, not to Lucy's becoming-a-young-woman moment), and that is quite welcome. Very much looking forward to it.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: July 3rd, 2010, 7:43 am
by glumPuddle
Here is my video analysis of the trailer...

PART 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcVkCiAg0no
PART 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFwkCL02OCU
PART 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35eEFAGQA6I

The movie could still be good, but this is just an awful trailer.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: July 3rd, 2010, 10:44 pm
by Stanley Anderson
Hi all,
Haven't posted here in months, and don't have much time now, but at a quick glance I noticed the mention of lighthouses and Narnia connections. Years ago, an old-time Wardrobian, Scott Baxter, who also mused about the idea of Narnian lighthouses, sent me a picture he got from a newspaper article (I think, though I may be mistaken there) that he said looked like how he imagined a Narnian lighthouse would look like. So I thought I would do a quick post of it here. Not sure where it is from.

Image

--Stanley

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: July 4th, 2010, 12:15 am
by Larry W.
Thanks for the picture, Stanley. That lighthouse looks like something that Tolkien could have used for Middle Earth, though it certainly could have been built in Narnia as well. It looks very medieval-- something from a time long before the Fresnel lens was invented. :smile:

Larry W.

Re: VDT Trailer

PostPosted: July 4th, 2010, 4:09 am
by Matthew Whaley
That tower makes me think of "The Lady of Shalott." Thank you, Stanley. I love that poem.