Reep vs. Reep vs. Reep

[starkat]

Reepicheep was played by Warwick Davis in the BBC PC and VDT. He was played by Eddie Izzard in the Walden PC and Simon Pegg in the Walden VDT. (If you want to add in any vocal roles like the Focus on the Family or BBC radio versions to the discussion, that's great!)

Here are a few questions to get the thread rolling:

1) What did you think about each individual performance?
2) Who was your favorite actor?
3) If you could pick the best parts of each version of Reepicheep to combine into one portrayal, what parts would you pick and why?


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1) Davis - Pretty much straight out of the book and probably the best that could be done in a full body costume like that. Acting in that much costume would not be easy and Davis' line delivery was about as close to the book as you can get. However, I much prefer him as Nikabrik in the Walden PC as his acting had grown considerably and his vocal range fit that role better than it did Reep.

Izzard - got the swagger of the character correct and came close to getting the chivalry down. His voice was more what I always thought Reepicheep sounded like. He wasn't as chivalrous as Pegg was in VDT.

Pegg - nailed it. He had Reep's caring side down completely without losing what made him a knight of Narnia. He got the swagger tempered with the humility that Reep had learned when Aslan restored his tail. It showed in the scene where he and Eustace "dueled" by turning it into a sword fighting lesson instead of an actual duel. I always thought that was a fantastic addition to the movie.


2) Probably Pegg would be my favorite out of the three. He got handed a bit of a crazy script when it came to talking about Aslan's country, but the reverence came across clear in his voice.

3) Pegg's voice - I liked his vocal range as it was higher than Izzard's, but not as mouse-like as Davis'.

Davis' lines - as the were straight out of the book

Izzard's cockiness - he managed to pull off the pride of the character quite nicely, but was also respectful of his ranking superiors.

[shastastwin]

I would add that I didn't care for the voice of Reep in the VDT FotF drama. Too squeaky for my taste.

Other than that, I pretty much agree with what you said, kat. I loved Pegg's voice and take on the character. If we could have had him speaking more of the book's lines, he would have been perfect.

Izzard's Reep did have a lot of the swagger, and his lines about people being original as he beat them were fun. ("You people have no imagination!")

I loved the BBC productions, so Davis' portrayal is pretty highly rated in my book. He's not infuriatingly squeaky like the FotF actor, and he has a good grasp of the character as well. He's also not a bad Glimfeather.

[Louloudi the Centaur]

I really liked Simon Pegg's portrayal of Reepicheep the most, but all of them did an excellent job. Maybe it's because it's how I imagined Reepicheep's voice the most, but I like his take a lot better than Eddie Izzard did. In spite of some places in Walden's VDT where Reep went randomly missing during scenes, I enjoyed the Walden VDT Reepicheep the most.

[De_De]

I never saw the BBC Narnia movies so I can't say anything about Warwick Davis. Although I'm planning on watching soon, so I'll write about him later

I really didn't like Eddie Izzard in the Walden PC. He just didn't seem right. He seemed fake and not at all what I imagined his voice to be like. I mean in the book Lewis said that Reep had a shrill voice...didn't really notice anything shrill in Izzard's voice. Another thing I noticed is that it didn't sound like a mouse talking. I sounded like a human talking and the mouse just mouthing it. Somehow with the other animals it worked. I mean look at Trufflehunter, his voice just matched. But with Reep it just didn't work.
Now Simon Pegg did a better job, although again not what I imagined. I liked him a lot better than Izzard. I don't remember his voice so well 'cause I watched the movie in Russian more times than I did in English. But I remember the first time I saw it in English Pegg's voice just seemed right.
Although I have to say I quite disappointed with the Walden Reep. For some reason he didn't really live up to the book. I somehow expected more from him, but I can't really say what. Because technically everything is fine, but something was missing, but I can't put my finger on it