I have been thinking about this piece of information recently in light of new knowledge and a few bits and pieces crossed my mind:
Firstly, i am going to take the initial report here has being accurate - that they defeat the Sea Serpent by using the oars of the Dawn Treader to manoeuvre the ship and crush the monster up against the side of a large rock. Secondly i am going to take the quote from Michael Flaherty as being accurate - that they long abandoned the idea of having DragonEustace defeat the Sea Monster to
"earn" his undragoning. And thirdly i am going to take the quote from the onset interview with Michael Apted where he said there was a
"huge battle at the end with a sea serpent and a dragon" as being slightly misquoted, and that the "huge battle at the end with a sea serpent" part is a seperate and distinct point to the "and a dragon" statement, though im not ruling out Eustace possibly being a Dragon in the movie for much longer than in the book, possibly till much nearer the end, but thats a whole different debate.
So anyway, i think i have a basic idea of the general direction they are going with the narrative for this movie, but one thing im still not sure how it will fit in is the Sea Serpent. Since they are clearly trying to make it so that every episodic event from the book is now either part of the character-driven narrative (
the various "temptation" moments experienced by each of the main characters) or part of a story-driven narrative (
finding the seven lords/swords, defeating the darkness, saving Narnia etc) then i would have to believe that the Sea Monster, given it is going to be "at the end" would have to be part of the story driven narrative, and that it could not possibly be just an entirely "random" attack by a Sea Monster. It just wouldn't have any sort of emotional resonance with the audience if it was entirely random.
As stated by Michael Apted, the Sea Monster battle comes at the end. I believe however there are two further clues as to the placement of this scene. The first was one of the castings for a "Narnian Rower" which i mentioned in my first post - since that casting was a female, and the Dawn Treader crew contains no females besides Lucy and Gael, then i might have to conclude that she, and perhaps also the other rowers, are part of the rescued slaves. The second clue i might perhaps look to was a quote from one of the set reports which mentioned the below decks of the Dawn Treader as being
"where the slaves would row". At first we all assumed this was simply a mistake on the part of the reporter, assuming as with real-world historical ships that slaves would perform the duties of rowing the vessel. But what if he was actually correct and that the people who will be rowing the ship are as i believe the rescued Narnian Slaves?
With all that in mind you would assume that the Sea Monster battle is going to be after they have resuced the slaves, which in turn you would assume is going to be right at the end, and not just "near" the end. I have stated numerous pieces of information over in
this thread which i believe suggest the Dark Island will be the main dramatic finale of the movie and that this is where the Lost Narnian Slaves will require rescuing from.
So if you have managed to follow my logic so far - im basically saying that i dont believe the sea monster attack will be just a random thing, that i do believe it will be related to the plot somehow, and that it will occur after they have rescued the slaves from the Dark Island. So unless in the very unlikely event there is someone controlling the Sea Monster in a Davy Jones style manner, i might have to assume that the Sea Monster will in fact be merely a "nightmare", a product of the Dark Island, and not a real Sea Monster. I would find that to be pretty disappointing in a way, but can't really see how else they could make the Sea Monster relevant to the plot otherwise.