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A Further Perspective
Thoughts on the Dawn Treader
You’ll be discussing dragons with your child all the way home.
My seven-year-old thought The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was “awesome,” and I agreed. We discussed dragons all the way home, and the first thing I did when I got there was to telephone a friend who designs and builds yachts, and who had been looking for ways to make boat-building more creative, to tell him to see it at once. The ship as well as the effects, I told him, were, well… “awesome.” The storm scenes are wonderful.
The good Minotaur in the Dawn Treader’s crew, and of course that murine D’Artagnan, Reepicheep, are completely convincing. The moment when the Eustace-dragon fights the monstrous sea-serpent — the first brave thing he has ever done — is genuinely thrilling. As Casablanca and countless other tales show us, there is something in everyone who is not completely spiritually dead which answers, if it is properly done, to the spectacle of the cynic or the bad guy coming good in a crisis.
Further, the story kept pretty close to the spirit of C. S. Lewis’s book. This is true even though a few things were put in and a few were left out: in the book the corrupt Governor of the Lone Islands is thrown out by the good King Caspian and replaced by a Duke. Perhaps this was thought too feudal for an American audience, although the success of the preceding Narnia films, as well as The Lord of the Rings, shows that there is market for tales of good kings and nobles among modern children as well as, apparently, among adults.
My main quibble with the film might strike some people as minor, but I think it goes fairly deep: when Eustace Scrubb, who at that time is a spoilt, objectionable brat (he later reforms), is wandering away from the others on an apparently deserted island, he comes upon a valley — actually the slot leading to a dragon’s den — littered with treasure. There is also a human skeleton, wearing an arm-ring, apparently the remains of one of the missing lords the king has set out to find. One would think Eustace, who seems to be about 12, would be frightened on the skeleton. However, he simply pushes it away and takes the arm-ring for himself. Well, we need not be surprised at Eustace’s selfishness and callousness at this stage, but when the good people come looking for him and find the skeleton, they also simply push it out of the way.
This is not Narnian. There is no such incident in the book, but if there were, I venture to suggest the bones would be reverently collected and decently buried, not for any particular reason, except that that is how noble people behave. It would never occur to kings, knights, and nobles of Narnia to do anything else.
Certainly, Lewis would not have approved of idealization of a dead body for its own sake. In his splendid autobiography, Surprised by Joy, he wrote of his experiences in the First World War: “Familiarity with both the very old and the very recent dead confirmed that view of corpses which had been formed the moment I saw my dead mother.… To this day I do not know what they mean when they call dead bodies beautiful. The ugliest man alive is an angel of beauty compared to the loveliest of the dead.” He would, I think, have found it as odd as I did to see the skulls and skeletons of saints guilded and on display in a German Catholic church (though I would not mock the practice if it is an aid to faith). But revering corpses and leaving them under the open sky like rubbish are not the only, or even the obviously right, courses of action.
Further, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader King Caspian was seeking seven lords his wicked uncle had banished lest they support his rightful claim to the throne, and he was seeking them because he felt under a obligation to them. If the only way he could have discharged that obligation was to give one of them a reverent and decent burial, he would have done it.
It may be thought that I am making far too much about a minor aspect of a children’s film, but I think this particular context justifies it. The seven chronicles of Narnia were written to introduce children to Christian ideas, with the lion Aslan representing Christ, but also to introduce them to the whole penumbra of chivalry and knighthood. In the essays “On Three Ways of Writing for Children” and “The Necessity of Chivalry,” Lewis said that since children were growing up in a world of secret police and nuclear weapons, let them at least know of knightliness. The knight was an artificial creation: the brave warrior with ideals who did the right thing.
Otherwise, well, I am off to see it again as soon as I decently can.
About the Author
Hal G.P. Colebatch’s “Immram,” Counterstrike, is being published by Australian publisher Imaginites.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
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VAcogito| 1.25.11 @ 7:02AM
This is the first movie that I saw a second time since "Fellowship of the Ring".
Saying that, my beef with the movie was the characterization of Edmund, my favorite Narnia character as 'the Fallen, Redeemed.' I did not think we needed to revisit his desire to rule.
The actor playing Eustace makes that movie.
Appleby| 1.25.11 @ 7:03AM
I enjoyed the Dawn Treader more than I had expected to -- the appalling ignorance of the rising generation makes it *necessary* to dummy down everything instead of expecting them to rise to the material, apparently. The handling of the Mist was poor, considering how much ghastly terrorizing is done in the average movie these days -- it was a shortcut through a lot of interesting stuff. And I would definitely have put in the tale of how Eustace was un-dragoned, as it is central to his redemption.
Dantesque| 1.25.11 @ 11:11AM
Wow, what a fine review.
Lars Walker | 1.25.11 @ 12:00PM
Glad to see another (generally) positive review. A lot of people didn't like it at all; I thought they were overscrupulous.
Renaissance Nerd | 1.25.11 @ 12:44PM
This was my favorite book of the series--I must've read it twenty times before I was 15. This movie wasn't quite up to snuff, but it was good enough for a movie. I felt the same way about leaving the bones to rot, it just doesn't fit the milieu. Little pieces that don't fit often jar me out of the movie, something that happens a lot these days. In a fantasy especially it's important to make everything fit together properly because it's not the real world--it has to be just the right blend of reality and fiction. Movies almost never do it, because actors in general just don't have to seem the range to get outside our times and social mores. Perhaps that's the fault of the directors and writers, but you never know. In "Season of the Witch" they made such a glaring mistake at the beginning I couldn't do anything but laugh through the rest. They had to travel 300 leagues to get to this castle and the priest says 'that's a journey of 6 days.' No way you're going 900 miles in 6 days on horseback, I don't care if you're riding Buchephalas himself. And it's 300 leagues 'as the crow flies.' That could easily be 1100 miles by road, and over rough terrain you can't do better than 20-30 miles day especially with a huge wagon drawn by only two horses. Be lucky to get 10 miles a day with that monstrosity. It's just too ridiculous that some technical advisor or other couldn't have pointed it out, and unforgivable for a writer not to do the homework to know these things.
The other problem is that if you're in Styria that distance takes you to Moscow. Crossing the Germanies in those days would've been just plain impossible with the kind of party shown in the movie. That's the problem with mixing fantasy into a historical milieu--and the reason why I can't wait for the trend to run its course. Even in a fantasy setting, however, care is needed. Explanations are required for why things are different. Just saying 'things are different' doesn't do it, they need to fit together.
I reckon I'm expecting too much of Hollywood. Why expect art from people that are with few exceptions care only about mocking the society that spawned them?
BG| 1.25.11 @ 1:36PM
I agree with you, the author, and the other posts before. The prospects of art today of being faithful to the inspiration of Goodness is a rare one. But there must always be a faithfulness to consistency within the storyline if the story is to maintain merit.
Too many have forgotten what a "Story Teller" should do, when exalting their "own" art (self-importance) above the moral fiber of the Story Line itself. Today, actors and their stables of dependent "artists" have forgotten the privilege of telling a story, and why good and skilled story telling is so very important for all cultures..., and how, unless you stick to the source material, the story becomes off-tracked, it's original powers of teaching diluted, and the entertainment value thereafter thwarted and dulled. Without such care of maintaining internal consistencies, or play off the lack thereof so as to resolve the frustration down the line, the story and its meaning become sacrificed. Audience are increasingly repulsed when treated in such a manner, for it is indeed disrespectful at all levels of understanding.
Appleby| 1.25.11 @ 4:15PM
And children are much more intelligent than most people believe. My nephew was watching "The Day The Earth Stood Still" with me, and when Klaatu told how far he had travelled, Steven said immediately, "He's from Mars."
But that completely screwed up the whole Nazi-and-Atom-Bomb Paranoia speech at the end, since even kids knew the difference between the solar system and the galaxy.
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 4:48AM
is good
العاب | 4.11.12 @ 3:44PM
is very good