One Eternal Day: Faithful to Lewis?
Reepicheep is the very embodiment of this longing. At the beginning of the film, we hear Reep reciting his lullaby. He then talks to Lucy about his hope and desire to make it to Aslan’s country. When he finally arrives there at the end, the scenery is breathtaking. Reep delivers an incredibly moving speech to Aslan about his longing and desire for his country. I won’t ruin it for you, but it draws heavily upon the passage in The Problem of Pain where Lewis writes about something we “were born desiring,” and that even our greatest moments have been but “tantalizing glimpses” of it. When Reep abandons his sword and bravely sets sail in his little coracle, it will send shivers down the spines of all friends of Narnia.
Finally, there is the critical scene of Eustace’s undragoning. We had a nice workshop during the script development about grace being something that cannot be earned – it can only be given. So we wanted to make sure that this critical concept was conveyed with the undragoning, but we added a battle between Eustace the dragon and the sea serpent.
Here is the way it plays out: Reepicheep encourages a very reluctant Eustace to do battle with the Sea Serpent. Reep makes it clear in a way that only he can – that there must not be any retreat or any surrender. To do so would spell certain death for everybody aboard the Dawn Treader. Yet after some initial fighting, Eustace retreats to protect himself, despite Lucy pleading to him to come back to help them and despite his knowledge that he is most certainly leaving them to die.
Flaherty also says that whether Silver Chair will be filmed depends entirely on the success of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Assuming it is made, the next would be The Magician's Nephew.