Possible Island Order on Narnia.com?
Posted: Jul 17, 2010 1:52 pm
Last week Narnia.com updated its Island Map to included new "Coming Soon" messages for 5 of the islands on the map, as well as 1 for Aslan's Country. At the time i felt this was perhaps a very big indication as to the possible final 5 islands in the movie, due to the fact that any additional content that is to be "Coming Soon" for each of those islands will almost certainly be movie based content (e.g. perhaps in a similar style to what we had on the Prince Caspian website where you could explore various movie based locations and find hidden characters). It could surely also not be a coincidence that it was 5 islands they picked out, given that we already know they had "consolidated seven islands into five".
Now however, i believe Narnia.com has now given an even bigger clue as to the order of those islands. If you go to the map page now, when you now click on the map to search for treasure, the spin wheel now has all the icons activated. The 6 icons that were once inactive now allow you to zoom to the aforementioned 5 islands and Aslan's Country in a single click. However, the islands on the wheel are NOT listed in the order in which they appear on the map (the map itself being almost completley based on the books), they are instead listed in a completely different order. Given that its unlikely that they would just stick them up in a totally random order, and given that the order matches up with quite a lot of the other evidence we already have with regard to the island order, i would have to believe that this will probably be the order of the final 5 islands as in the book. To start with....
1. Narrowhaven, The Lone Islands - Pretty obvious really. I couldn't really see them ever changing that as there is pretty much no way you could tell the story without it being first. And of course we already had a quote from Producer Mark Johnson in one of the behind-the-scenes TV reports from the Narrowhaven Wharf set where he said that this was the first location they visit on their voyage, so no issues here...
2. Magician's Island - Narnia.com has this island second on its list. Had you told me this a year ago i would of failed to believe it, but given everything we have learnt in the past few months from the Biola screening and even the trailer, it seems fairly obvious that this was going to be very early in the movie (though not before the Lone Islands) as Coriakin seems to be providing the characters with lots of exposition as to the journey that awaits them, showing them maps of the journey ahead, and of course warning the characters that they are all about to be tested, which wouldn't make sense if they had already visited deathwater, dragon island etc. Also the fact that they have given the island the name "Magician's Island" seems to suggest to me that this will be the "Official Movie Name" for the island, as it is not a name which appears in the book (The chapter title refers to it as "The Island of the Voices" whilst the Pauline Baynes map refers to it as "Land of the Duffers")
3. Goldwater - Again, another island name which clearly has an "Official Movie Name". Its probably for the best really, since the name "Goldwater" does come first in the book, and it is marginally less spoilery than the final name of "Deathwater" as given to the island by Reepicheep. I would also be fairly confident in saying that Dragon Island has been merged into Goldwater as it does not appear on this list, and we have the prior evidence that they were at one point considering merging these two islands in the Video Game Adaptation. Also its worth mentioning that when we first heard the "we've consolidated seven islands into five" quote, most people's gut reaction was to suggest that Dragon Island and Deathwater would get merged (with Burnt Island dropping out completely). I personally thought at the time that such a combination would prove to be too many curses for one island to sustain, especially since both "curses" operated in completely different manners and that it would be overly confusing. However i've since come to accept that it is by far the most logical combination. Its also not surprising to see a Deathwater/Dragon Island come in right in the middle, as most people here had already pointed out that Eustace's Dragoning and Undragoning occurs far too early in the book to fit in with a typical movie 3-act character arc, where such a radical character transformation would usually occur at the end of the second act
4. Ramandu's Island - As with the big change in the positioning of Coriakin's Island, i would never have believed you if you told me a year ago that Ramandu's Island will be anything other that the final island in the movie. However, given everything we've heard about the plot recently, this does not really surprise me either. If the finding of the Seven Lords and their Seven Swords is now a crucial objective of the mission to "defeat the darkness", then it means that all Seven Lords and their respective Swords have to be found at or before the next island, in order for the entire concept of that plot line to work...
5. Dark Island - Narnia.com's selector wheel has this island listed as the last island before Aslan's Country. Again however, this is not really a suprise given that this fits in exactly with what we have been hearing over the last few months about the Dark Island being the principle threat of the movie. It seems very much that defeating the Dark Island is the key objective of the voyage, that finding the Seven Swords will somehow help them in this objective, and that the fate of the missing Narnian Slaves that Gael and Rhince and presumably everyone else is searching for, is somehow tied into the Dark Island plot. Therefore it is very easy to see why this The Dark Island will be the finale of the movie. For all intents and purposes it seems to be the "villain" of the movie, and defeating it will provide the story with a "final battle" that the movie makers so obviously feel the book lacks.
So anyway, Narnia.com is seemingly offering up that order as a possible ordering for the 5 islands in the movie, and given how well it fits in with the knowledge we already had about the movie which as i just described, i would probably assume that this will be the order of the 5 islands in the movie. Thoughts? Would people object terribly if that were the final island order? Can anyone see it panning out any differently?
Now however, i believe Narnia.com has now given an even bigger clue as to the order of those islands. If you go to the map page now, when you now click on the map to search for treasure, the spin wheel now has all the icons activated. The 6 icons that were once inactive now allow you to zoom to the aforementioned 5 islands and Aslan's Country in a single click. However, the islands on the wheel are NOT listed in the order in which they appear on the map (the map itself being almost completley based on the books), they are instead listed in a completely different order. Given that its unlikely that they would just stick them up in a totally random order, and given that the order matches up with quite a lot of the other evidence we already have with regard to the island order, i would have to believe that this will probably be the order of the final 5 islands as in the book. To start with....
1. Narrowhaven, The Lone Islands - Pretty obvious really. I couldn't really see them ever changing that as there is pretty much no way you could tell the story without it being first. And of course we already had a quote from Producer Mark Johnson in one of the behind-the-scenes TV reports from the Narrowhaven Wharf set where he said that this was the first location they visit on their voyage, so no issues here...
2. Magician's Island - Narnia.com has this island second on its list. Had you told me this a year ago i would of failed to believe it, but given everything we have learnt in the past few months from the Biola screening and even the trailer, it seems fairly obvious that this was going to be very early in the movie (though not before the Lone Islands) as Coriakin seems to be providing the characters with lots of exposition as to the journey that awaits them, showing them maps of the journey ahead, and of course warning the characters that they are all about to be tested, which wouldn't make sense if they had already visited deathwater, dragon island etc. Also the fact that they have given the island the name "Magician's Island" seems to suggest to me that this will be the "Official Movie Name" for the island, as it is not a name which appears in the book (The chapter title refers to it as "The Island of the Voices" whilst the Pauline Baynes map refers to it as "Land of the Duffers")
3. Goldwater - Again, another island name which clearly has an "Official Movie Name". Its probably for the best really, since the name "Goldwater" does come first in the book, and it is marginally less spoilery than the final name of "Deathwater" as given to the island by Reepicheep. I would also be fairly confident in saying that Dragon Island has been merged into Goldwater as it does not appear on this list, and we have the prior evidence that they were at one point considering merging these two islands in the Video Game Adaptation. Also its worth mentioning that when we first heard the "we've consolidated seven islands into five" quote, most people's gut reaction was to suggest that Dragon Island and Deathwater would get merged (with Burnt Island dropping out completely). I personally thought at the time that such a combination would prove to be too many curses for one island to sustain, especially since both "curses" operated in completely different manners and that it would be overly confusing. However i've since come to accept that it is by far the most logical combination. Its also not surprising to see a Deathwater/Dragon Island come in right in the middle, as most people here had already pointed out that Eustace's Dragoning and Undragoning occurs far too early in the book to fit in with a typical movie 3-act character arc, where such a radical character transformation would usually occur at the end of the second act
4. Ramandu's Island - As with the big change in the positioning of Coriakin's Island, i would never have believed you if you told me a year ago that Ramandu's Island will be anything other that the final island in the movie. However, given everything we've heard about the plot recently, this does not really surprise me either. If the finding of the Seven Lords and their Seven Swords is now a crucial objective of the mission to "defeat the darkness", then it means that all Seven Lords and their respective Swords have to be found at or before the next island, in order for the entire concept of that plot line to work...
5. Dark Island - Narnia.com's selector wheel has this island listed as the last island before Aslan's Country. Again however, this is not really a suprise given that this fits in exactly with what we have been hearing over the last few months about the Dark Island being the principle threat of the movie. It seems very much that defeating the Dark Island is the key objective of the voyage, that finding the Seven Swords will somehow help them in this objective, and that the fate of the missing Narnian Slaves that Gael and Rhince and presumably everyone else is searching for, is somehow tied into the Dark Island plot. Therefore it is very easy to see why this The Dark Island will be the finale of the movie. For all intents and purposes it seems to be the "villain" of the movie, and defeating it will provide the story with a "final battle" that the movie makers so obviously feel the book lacks.
So anyway, Narnia.com is seemingly offering up that order as a possible ordering for the 5 islands in the movie, and given how well it fits in with the knowledge we already had about the movie which as i just described, i would probably assume that this will be the order of the 5 islands in the movie. Thoughts? Would people object terribly if that were the final island order? Can anyone see it panning out any differently?