Better late than never, it’s Into the Wardrobe’s bit Comic-Con Report, talking about the Disney presentation and the adventure there at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con. Let’s get to it!
Expect the unexpected: that would be advice to offer someone before they ventured into Narnia, and this was also the case for Comic Con 2007. Yet, in meeting other Narnia fans I’ve talked to online was like coming home, despite the number of strange people surrounding us all day. I flew in to San Diego Thursday and stayed with the wonderful TDL/NW member, Ninaruth. First thing Friday, I was whisked off to Comic Con by Jen, and met up with Kristi from thelionscall.com immediately. We headed straight for the Disney booth, dodging people in strange costumes all the way, and we noticed a wall on part of the booth dedicated to Prince Caspian. The display had the concept art picture of Caspian on Destrier, a large screen TV playing director, Andrew Adamson’s original blog entry and the trailer for the Prince Caspian video game. Disney was also giving away Prince Caspian gift bags with the Telmarine Castle on the front and back and then more concept art on the sides. It was a wonderful day of spending time with other Narnia fans. Gymfan15 from NarniaWeb joined with us later and we spent the rest of the day scouting out where we would have to go for the Narnia panel on Saturday. By the end of the day you would have thought that we had known each other for years.
Saturday Kristi, Gymfan, Nina, Jen and I all met in Hall H to make sure we’d get a seat for the Narnia panel. With six hours to kill before the Narnia feature would be shown, Kristi, Gymfan and I spent the morning putting together goodie bags for the panel members with items that the admins of thelionscall, narniafans, and narniaweb contributed. We also brainstormed extra questions to ask the Narnia panel. When the panel was about to start, Nina and Jen were planted close to the front to take pictures and notes and Kristi, Gymfan15, and I all went to ask questions and were the first 3 in line. Richard Taylor from WETA led the panel, followed by producer Mark Johnson, creature supervisor Howard Berger, costume designer Isis Mussenden, and producer Dean Wright. Director Andrew Adamson joined via satellite and the surprise of the day, Ben Barnes, joined with Andrew. It was the middle of the night for them, but they got up for the panel anyway. Bless them all! They are still trying to finish the last three weeks of filming on Prince Caspian. At first there were problems with the audio where Andrew could hear us but we couldn’t hear him. Andrew proceeded in mock-sign language gestures till his audio came through, which was only a minute later, but it was funny. When we could hear him, his first plea was to the panel members to come back and all would be forgiven them.
They first showed some pre-viz footage, which is basically animation of what they want the live footage to look like, not all of which will be in the film, seeing as they were paying some tribute to Lord of the Rings, Mission Impossible, and maybe the Matrix. But it gave the gist of what was going to happen. It was of a midnight raid on the Telmarine castle. Gryphons carried everyone in, starting with Edmund. Ed then used his flashlight in some kind of morse code to signal to the others and they were killing off Telmarines all over the place. Lucy came in with her bow ready. Susan was fully armed as were Peter, Caspian, and Trumpkin. Three mice went in the castle as well, one of which I’m sure is Reepicheep. He was lighter than the other two. Their first order of business for the mice was to tie up the yellow tabby cat that looked sort of like Puss in Boots so that they would be unencumbered when fighting Telmarines. Trumpkin started falling off the battlement tower and Susan caught him by the beard which was apparently the Lord of the Rings tribute. The mice were opening doors and dropping from the ceiling with ropes tied around them. Peter and Edmund were in their standard Narnian armor and Caspian’s armor resembled that of the Telmarines for the most part.
The second video was next and it included pre-viz, I think Andrew said some on set footage, and of course movie footage. Several scenes were featured, including the kids exploring Cair Paravel in their school clothes, a boat ride with Trumpkin the dwarf, a dwarf tied up and roughed up(we’re not sure if it’s Trumpkin or Cornelius), a Telmarine charge, battles…and so much more. The kids’ school clothes were like what was seen in spoiler pictures before, but the boys had blue sweaters and the girls had bright red ones. There was a shot of Peter finding a large medallion with Aslan’s face on it. In some battle scenes we see Peter fighting in his old leather jerkin outfit rather than the armor and Susan had a sword and was wailing on the Telmarines. Her bow and arrow were on her back, but it was strange to see Susan fighting like that. The last shot was of the four kids with Lucy in front, Susan to her left and a bit behind, Peter to the right and a bit behind, and then Edmund in the back in Narnian clothes in a darker shot and their expressions said something like, “Don’t mess with me.” In that shot the girls were in dresses, Susan’s was I think purple, and Lucy’s was bright red on the sleeves and collar and then the bodice was gray. It wasn’t a rusty red color at all so I’m not sure if it’s the same dress she was caught riding in months ago or not. Caspian was not seen in the footage that we saw. There was a concept art flash of Reepicheep. He looked white on his tummy, and golden to a brown color on his back and head. Aslan will be bigger in this film. We were in awe when it finished and it was amazing. I tend to be a bit harsh as a critic, but it was incredible. At the end of it Andrew asked if the screams he heard were a positive response which brought him an emphatic yes from Mark.
After this it was time to ask questions. Each person could only ask one. Kristi was first up and she greeted them on behalf of thelionscall.com, then she asked what the most challenging creatures were for them to create and work on. Aslan was the first mentioned, as getting the emotional expressions right for him were difficult. Reepicheep was also mentioned. Also, the scene of the Gryphons carrying the kids was tough to make look realistic. The Telmarines and dwarves were also mentioned by Howard and Isis for their departments. Dean and Howard talked a bit later about how they created the creatures in the last film and have more room to experiment now, they’ll have dwarves, fawns, and centaurs that are young and old, fat and skinny, male and female, different colors. There were between 50 to 100 creature types that had to be created.
I got to ask the next question on behalf of narniafans.com in front of 5,000 people with a camera on me plastering my face on about 10 huge screens…frightening…but I asked, “Now that you’ve done LWW, PC, and have VDT ready to start in January, are you going to do the last four books, what’s the timetable for that, and do you all want to be involved? Andrew replied first, even with the two second delay. He said he did want to be involved in all the films even if not directing. Mark responded to the rest. He said that if they all get the response LWW did, they would proceed to make one a year each May till they were done making all seven! He said that VDT would start filming in late January or early February. Isis talked later about how they all want to be involved and how they’re a close family group.
Gymfan15 got to ask her question on behalf of NarniaWeb and she asked if there were any funny stories or memories from the filming that they had to tell. Andrew replied that they still had 3 weeks left and that they weren’t done yet, but then changed his mind and told stories anyway. He said that greeting the 5-7 Telmar Lords in the morning was interesting, since he had to do it in languages from Spain, Italy, Czech, Kiwi, and French just to name a few. Andrew also talked about filming the scene where Aslan tells Peter and Susan they’re not coming back. Shane Rangi had to stand in for Aslan in an all blue suit that covers the face which Andrew said made him look like “The Tick,” and he was told to talk about what the experience had meant to him and how he would miss everyone..stuff like that. Well, after a little bit Andrew looked over at Shane in the blue suit and saw these dark streaks in it where Shane had been crying too which made the suit look funny. Richard then talked about bringing his 5 year-old son to the set. The little boy didn’t grasp the fact that they were actors. He thought he was going to Narnia for real. He met the Pevensie rulers and he met Prince Caspian. Richard said that Ben never broke character and made it a special day for his little boy and publicly thanked Ben for that. They were all very wonderful and gracious with the child. Isis talked about how the kids were siblings in every sense and said that the last fittings with Will and Anna were emotional ones. They were a family group. All who worked on LWW were invited back for PC. They’ve learned from each movie and expect each to get better as they go along.
Two other people got to ask questions and that was it. The next was about the continuity of the books with the movies and the movies with each other seeing as they’ll have different directors. The panelists said they’d stay true to the books and embellish here and there. They want and are aiming to stay faithful to the stories and have a great love for the stories. The stories are so different from each other, so it won’t be too tough with different directors to keep a Narnian feel to them. The panel was expecting Ben to get a lot of questions and he wasn’t asked anything. But then, no one knew he was coming so they didn’t naturally prepare any. At about that time, Andrew said their signal was going to run out and that they were going to get to bed. Richard piped up and told Andrew that he was going to bed and Ben was going clubbing. He looked at Ben and said, “It’s past Ben’s bedtime.” While Andrew was speaking Ben was sarcastically making gestures to Richard and the rest of us that yeah he was going out clubbing. Andrew replied to Ben with, “But you need your beauty sleep.”
The panel talked about a lot of things after that. It was said that the plan was for Georgie, Skandar, Anna, and Will to play any future roles in HHB or LB when they come up since they’ll be old enough by then. Howard snuck a head of the good satyr, Tyrus, in with him. He plugged the head in and played with the animatronics. When he had Tyrus at the table, there was a point where the bust of Tyrus replaces Isis as far as the screen shot was concerned. It was funny since the bottom of the bust was yellow and Isis was wearing a yellow shirt, they just blended in together. They brought out a Telmarine soldier as well with a sword that I think was bigger than me. The helmet was very conquistador like and there’s a face mask. Dean, Isis,and Howard discussed the 330 person army that they had to outfit. The inspirations for the outfit were from Tibet, Greek Mass, Byzantine, Pirate and other cultures. They made 2500 swords most were water-jet cut and others were hand ground by Richard I think. Miraz’s costume is said to be rich bronze, emblazoned with pictographs telling the history of Telmar. They talked about the kids coming back into Narnia with an overwhelming sense of entitlement. The film is described as darker, more mature, and with more action. The footage we saw lived up to that description. Isis said it is four times the scope of LWW.
Howard closed things out with the act of throwing out t-shirts to fans that only the cast had previously. There was a blue one with a stick figure Prince Caspian on it and then there was a brown one with a 70’s style faun with a huge afro on it. When he did this mass hysteria started and security was going nuts. Gymfan15 caught a blue shirt. When microphones started falling over, they wrapped things up pretty quickly.
We booked it back to the Disney booth where the guys there promised to get the goodie bags to the panel members, and I’m glad that they did receive them. Andrew and Ben will be sent their goodies soon. It was a blast to get to spend time with the members from the various Narnia sites where we could work together and have a common goal, helping each other out. There was no us and them we were one big team. Hwin from NarniaWeb and her family also stopped by the table to say hi as well after the panel. I didn’t expect to make so many new friends or have so much fun with the Narnia panel, considering the insanity surrounding us that was Comic Con. However, I did and was truly blessed.