The oddness of dragon Eustace

[MaidenofNarnia]

I have watched some commentary videos created by fellow Narnia fans. A common complaint is the strange "humanoid " like body structure of dragon Eustace . Its often said that his body is not liken unto an ordinary dragon. My theory is that the film makers may have drawn inspiration from dragon Eustace of the BBC series. There are some small similarities. At least I believe some exist. Take a look .This photo is not the best quality but you will see what I mean.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0nTK-Uved98/0.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTK-Uved98

Then check the new dragon Eustace here.

http://www.narniaweb.com/2010/11/offici ... oo-movies/

[aragorn2]

Eustace is more like the dragons you would see in a fairy-tale story book.
I think the main thing that makes him look strange are his arms and the bright gold color he is and he is really small. But if you look at him in the movie stills of the 4th trailer he doesn't look bad at all.

[Shastafan]

^Yeah, that's definitely true. Recently Dark Island came out on Narnia.com, and the picture of Dragon Eustace there is odd!

When I look at it as just a normal dragon, I do agree that the arms are different then I'd have liked(and why put the golden bracelet on the wrist? ), and the goldish color isn't usually a dragon color. But when I compare it to the story, I love how it reflects on Eustace's greed for gold(hence the gold color), and that I can see some of Boy Eustace's characteristics on it as well. And things like the "ridge on his back" and the "bat wings" seem to have been remembered too. The three things I wanted from Dragon Eustace(looking real, having traits from when he was a boy, and being able to show emotion) I think have been put in, but there's still some weird things about this dragon at the moment. All together, I think I'll love this dragon in the end!

(One other brief thing that bothers me is I can't really tell what his eye color is, brown or blue? Make up your minds, movie makers! )

[MountainFireflower]

Early on, I hated the way Dragon Eustace looked. In the LoESRM, we decided that he looked like a grasshopper-cow-goat-dragon-thing. That's probably because his CGI was unfinished.

Now I like him a lot. I think his appearance had to grow on me, or maybe it's because he looks more complete then he did before. Either way, I really like his appearance now. I do have to agree that his arms do look kind of strange. I think it's probably because the filmmakers wanted to keep in a bit of humanity to remind us that the Dragon really is Eustace. That's the only explanation I can think of.

I do agree that the arms are different then I'd have liked(and why put the golden bracelet on the wrist?)

Not sure what you mean here; I didn't notice the gold bracelet at all in the brief images we've had of him. The gold bracelet was higher on his arm in the book, but that doesn't bother me too much.

But when I compare it to the story, I love how it reflects on Eustace's greed for gold(hence the gold color)

Oh yeah, I didn't think of that! That actually really fits!

In the book, I always imagined him as a dark green. But I rather like the way he's turn out. I'm sure he won't seem as odd on the big screen. We've only seen a few pictures/clips of him, so our view of him in the movie theater will most likely be much more complete.

[aragorn2]

Shastafan wrote:But when I compare it to the story, I love how it reflects on Eustace's greed for gold(hence the gold color)

Well, the reason he is gold is probably because the island is a golden, brown color and a predatory animal like a dragon would be the color of his surroundings so he could blend in when hunting.

[MountainFireflower]

Shastafan wrote:But when I compare it to the story, I love how it reflects on Eustace's greed for gold(hence the gold color)

Well, the reason he is gold is probably because the island is a golden, brown color and a predatory animal like a dragon would be the color of his surroundings so he could blend in when hunting.

Oh yes, good point. I suppose a green dragon would have stuck out a little more than usual.

Let's just hope he doesn't blend in too much. I don't want to constantly be squinting at the screen wondering, "Where is Eustace?!?"

[Shastafan]

^That's very true! I didn't come to see VDT becasue of a camoflauge dragon!

What I meant by the golden bracelet is that if you look at the shot of Eustace touching the water and flying away from the ship, the bracelet is on his right foreleg's wrist. No, I guess it's not a big deal, but it sure doesn't look that painful as it might higher up on his arm.

And another thing about Dragon Eustace's color is that I love how someone mentioned that it sort of represents Eustace's personality: dull and plain(ironic, eh? ). At first, I imagined the dragon a green color, but after seeing what the movie maker have done with him, I absolutely love that they're giving us something that's very unexpected, but it works even better than I thought!

[PeterCharn]

I am also starting to come around to this Dragon Eustace in the VDT movie.
The animation is getting better and better with every trailer, so I hope that we are all blown away with how the dragon looks.
I really like the shot of dragon Eustace on the sand and you see the reflection of Aslan in his eyes.
I hope that the dragon has a lot of screen time....from the look of it, they keep him a dragon for a while because he fights the sea serpant.
I know that this isn't accurate to the book but I like this change and I think that dragons are cool.
Are there dragons in any other Nanria books? As far as I remember there aren't, but it it has been a LONG Time since I have read them. I read LWW and PC before PC Movie came out. And I just re-read VDT.

[stateofgreen]

I wasn't really familiar with fairy tale dragon images aside from cartoons. I think Dragon-Eustace looks pretty realistic for a dragon. I can't wait for Dragon-Eustace to interact with Reepicheep.

[Ithilwen]

He looks very odd from the footage we've seen, in my opinion. Although I have seen some pics where he looked okay. Hopefully the rest were just bad pictures, and he'll look fine in the movie...


~Riella

[Valiant]

Well I like some images of the dragon, but I dislike others. But in the end, it ony matters that I like it in the movie. I hope I do.

[stateofgreen]

Well in the recent KidzWorld interview Will said that CGI Dragon-Eustace was given all of his what he considered his worst features, LOL. Will has a nice sense of humour about himself.

[Ithilwen]

^^ Haha! Aww... That's funny. I wonder if he actually believes that, or if it was just a joke?


~Riella

[stateofgreen]

I have the personal half-opinion that he probably does believe it a little bit...aren't most teens sort of self-conscious about how they look? Anyway, I still think he has a healthy sense of himself enough to be self-deprecating. I think he's a bit appealing actually.

[Reepi]

I wonder why they had to make him a pretty typical Hollywood-y dragon, when at least Lewis description was different enough to stand out from other dragons.

[CharlotteRose]

I think he is great... the emotion that the dragon shows in CGI is awesome, so much so that you still feel so much emotion towards Eustace, even when he can't speak or anything like that. also, the colour matched the sort of colour scheme that VDT came with if you see what I mean? and i can see some resembalences between Will and Dragon Eustace (No offense ment!)
My only problem is how the bracelet ends up being so huge when Lucy removes it, but so small originally!? But this is move of an error and really not much to do with actual dragon, but as I was writing, i thought I might mention it anyway