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The Voyage of the Dawn Treader


Williamsfan301

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I always thought familiarity breeds contempt. Guess not.

Interestingly enough, I've really never found that to be true about anything. Usually, familiarity breeds fondness. Occasionally it will breed apathy and sometimes skepticism. But I rarely see it breed contempt.

That occurred to me, too, when i listened to Arnold's new concoction. :cool:

I will lend it an ear when it's fully released, so far it just sounds like what you'd expect: overly bombastic orchestration, no thematic depth, obnoxious action writing - but for some bizarre reason, such generic writing makes many filmmusic fans happy like clams. Arnold really is better with smaller-scaled or electronic stuff.

This is how I usually feel about Arnold. But people here go crazy over generic bombast. I personally can't stand it.

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Tilda Swinton on the cover, ugh

Wasn't the White Witch an addition to the movie? That's a steep career; she even got one of the bigger portraits on the cover ;-)

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You get stranger every day Koray.

I've always hated Arnold's non-Bond works. I think I caused quite a stir like a year ago when I trashed ID4.

I am the exact opposite. The only Bond score by Arnold I have wholeheartedly liked was Casino Royale.

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Arnold's got more pure orchestral chops in his small toe than Zimmer and the Zimmerclones combined.

You mean Nicholas Dodd. I really like Arnold in person, but his 'big' music always sounded like Joe Schmoe's idea of great filmmusic...big, empty and without an inch of economy or personal style.

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I think nobody thinks Arnold is inferior to his contemporaries. It is more of a question: how inspired is his effort to the Narnia movie. At this point it can be either back to glory or a simple self-rip-off? I'm going to buy this, but I'm not declaring victory yet.

Karol

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I think it is a smart move to keep Tilda Swinton as the prominent antagonist. It may disappoint fans of the books but movies are different - much more continuity is necessary or else you'll waste valuable screen time introducing too many new characters and scenarios in each film.

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I disagree. Harry Potter sucks because every movie has the same villain. It's boring, repetitive. Always take the opportunity to introduce colorful and unique new characters, especially villains. That's why James Bond is so great.

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I disagree. Harry Potter sucks because every movie has the same villain. It's boring, repetitive. Always take the opportunity to introduce colorful and unique new characters, especially villains. That's why James Bond is so great.

I agree that having new villains works with James Bond, but that's because the villain and the girl are virtually the only things that change from film to film. Bond is extremely formulaic. Harry Potter is already confusing enough as it is for those unfamiliar with the books, so having a constant villain is essential.

Plus, I disagree with the statement "Harry Potter sucks" regardless of the context. But that's a diehard fan's sentiment. :)

As for Narnia, you could be right - I've never read the books so I don't know how the films would play out if they had followed Lewis's blueprint. My previous comment was based on the understanding that most of the major protagonists are shuffled from book to book with little continuity. Based on that understanding, I would think changing the villain as well would be confusing.

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I disagree. Harry Potter sucks because every movie has the same villain. It's boring, repetitive. Always take the opportunity to introduce colorful and unique new characters, especially villains. That's why James Bond is so great.

But what happens to the villains at the end of each James Bond movie? They usually die, spectacularly. Maybe some got arrested, I don't know, I don't watch Bond movies. The villains are never seen again.

In Harry Potter, each movie does not have the same villain. Certainly Voldemort is the grand master architect of evil for the entire saga, just like Star Wars' Emperor and TLOTR' Sauron, but he is much more personal. He cannot be defeated in a two hour movie. The actions of this super-villain defined our protagonist and set the stage for his entire life, rather than just making the hero-villain relationship a random encounter or one brought about by external forces. And the cast of colorful and unique characters, good and bad, in Harry's life expands with each new school year (movie).

The first movie's villain is a helpless Voldemort attached to the head of a teacher, who poses a real threat to Harry. Lesser antagonists are rival students, who are later revealed to be children of Voldemort's former Death Eater disciples, as well as Professor Snape. It's not boring and repetitive for Harry to face these individuals each day in school. His mother's family is also antagonistic towards him, but I would hardly consider these, or any other Muggles, as villains.

Second movie's villain is the unseen Heir of Slytherin, revealed to be the essence of Voldemort stuck in a book that possesses a friend of Harry and compels her to do terrible things. The circle of Voldemort expands as we meet one of those former disciples, who places the book where it can begin its evil.

Third movie ignores Voldemort in favor of casting another former disciple as the villain. Only this time we learn that "disciple" was a framed man, and the real villain had been extremely close to Harry Potter for months and months. Snape remains as antagonistic as ever.

The fourth movie introduces another of Voldemort's disciples in a great "gotcha" moment, who works to return his master to human form to stay.

Ironically, the main villain of the fifth movie is not Voldemort at all, but The System. A corrupt government built on fear and suppression of knowledge ignores the evidence and places an evil woman in charge of Harry and the other students, in order to keep the public in the dark. This permits more of Voldemort's Death Eaters to be revealed, and finally the dark lord himself at the end.

Present-day Voldemort is largely absent from the sixth movie, and in his place, we see the machinations of Death Eaters and an evil student-professor team do his bidding. And by the seventh movie, we have met all of the Death Eaters and other evil people required to set the stage for the final showdown. But Voldemort is never the only villain that Harry faces. Just the toughest, best, and last.

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A story without conflict isn't a story! Where's the incentive to read/watch?

Dawn Treader, like all the other Narnia books, is primarily a theological analogy. The story is subservient to the meaning behind it. In the case of Dawn Treader specifically, the story element exists to somewhat of a lesser extent than in the other books.

While it still makes for a great read as a book, as a movie, it probably could use a bit of a story enhancement.

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You get stranger every day Koray.

I've always hated Arnold's non-Bond works. I think I caused quite a stir like a year ago when I trashed ID4.

Try "Changing Lanes", Koray. It's unlike anything Arnold has ever done, and it is my favourite score of his.

While it still makes for a great read as a book, as a movie, it probably could use a bit of a story enhancement.

Hence David Arnold!

I caught the trailer for this, waiting for Harry Potter. It looks as cheap as the first two, but a combination of Michael Apted, and David Arnold should make for interesting viewing.

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Nope. In fact, I nearly always wait to get them used. I'm just unusually psyched for this one.

Also, I'm in the middle of my one month free trial of Amazon Prime, so the free shipping helps. :unsure:

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I don't think it would actually save me money in the long-run, but I'm happy to take advantage of it for a month. :)

Depends on how often you order from them. 2 day and 1 day shipping can be pricey, so if you order a lot it's worthwhile.

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Depends on how often you order from them. 2 day and 1 day shipping can be pricey, so if you order a lot it's worthwhile.

The thing is that I almost always buy used, and most of the used Marketplace items don't qualify.

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Also, I'm in the middle of my one month free trial of Amazon Prime, so the free shipping helps. :mellow:

I decided to take advantage of that as well.

Do you know if you will be automatically unsubscribed when it runs out or will you have to make sure to cancel it to avoid being charged anything?

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Do you know if you will be automatically unsubscribed when it runs out or will you have to make sure to cancel it to avoid being charged anything?

Go to "Your Account" and then "Manage Prime Membership." From there, you can tell it to not upgrade automatically. By default it will, however, so make sure you do change that.

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Actually you can cancel the membership at anytime and they'll refund your money depending on how much of the year has passed. So if you cancelled after 1 day you'd probably lose like 1 cent.

When I got a year of free Prime with Amazon Student, they refunded me $14 since my initial year wasn't over yet.

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