31 Witches | The White Witch

"You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill... And so, that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property." -- The White Witch, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The Adventures of Santa Claus [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, Pere Noel. Whatever you call him, he is a busy guy. Every year he has to make billions of toys and deliver them all in one night. When would Santa have time to have any adventures? Well, he gets around more than you'd think.

In 1901, L Frank Baum who had recently seen his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz sell well was looking around for another idea. Why not the story of Santa Claus? What child could resist a tale of Old St. Nick? What Baum produced was The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), a minor Fantasy classic in its own right, though it wasn't followed by multiple sequels like Dorothy's adventures in Oz.

Santa begins life as a foundling in the mythical forest of Burzee, home to Fairies, Knooks, Ryls and Nymphs. There, Ak the Master Woodsman rules and he allows the baby to be raised by the nymph Necile. He is given the name Claus, which means "little one", and "Ne" is added when he is adopted, "Ne-Claus" or Nicholas. In this way, Baum explains Christmas tradition after tradition, making up new and intriguing ways to explain everything from toys to mistletoe.

Now the plot could be pretty dull if Claus didn't have enemies to face. These are the Awgwas, creatures halfway between the fairy immortals and humans. They are giant in size and able to go from one place to another with magical speed. Their only agenda is to cause pain and suffering wherever they can. So, of course, they plan to steal Claus's toys that he makes to please the suffering masses of humanity.

This leads to a fantastic battle between Good and Evil (that Santa misses) with fire-breathing dragons, Goozle-Goblins, the Giants of Tartary, and many other fantastic monsters against Ak and his amazing ax. Baum doesn't give us Robert E Howard style blow-by-blow (the pity), but Good wins and Claus can go about his business of making toys.

The rest of the novel falls short of that great battle scene but Santa slowly figures out how to deliver the toys all in one night. When he reaches old age, Ak gives him immortality so he can go on lightening the hearts of humankind forever. The episodic tale does a good job of blending a new myth with an old holiday.

Baum had one last chance with Santa when the Jolly Old Elf made an appearance, accompanied by his friends, in The Road to Oz (1909). In this odd volume, Baum ties all of his series together in a multiverse worthy of Michael Moorcock. Children's books would now feature Santa on a more regular basis, since Baum had opened the door, but CS Lewis's The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1951) is probably the most memorable. His Father Christmas gives out swords and bows, not just tea cakes. Lewis's battle scene between Good and Evil is much more detailed, though St. Nick doesn't take part.

But the kids weren't having all the fun. In January 1938, Weird Tales' popular author who usually wrote of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, presented what many consider his masterpiece, "Roads." Seabury Quinn builds his story slowly, beginning at the birth of Christ and ends in the 16th century. The story was illustrated by Virgil Finlay, and these drawings were used in the 1948 Arkham House edition.

Quinn tells the story of Claus in three parts. In the first section, "The Road to Bethlehem," we meet Claudius, a gladiator in the time of King Herod, a blond giant of a warrior. He wins his freedom in the ring and then wishes to return home. Before he can do this, he saves a baby from the purge that Herod's men are making. This is the baby Jesus, who makes Klaus immortal and sets him on a road to a great destiny.

In the second section, "The Road to Calvary," Claus, now a Roman Centurian, witnesses the death of the baby, now grown to a man. At the passing of Christ there is an earthquake, and Claus rescues the love interest of the tale, a girl named Unna. Quinn's action sequences take a page from Robert E Howard's prose style and spirit. Howard had been dead just eighteen months when Quinn wrote "Roads" and his red-dipped pen was sorely missed.

In the last part of the tale, "The Long, Long Road," we follow Claus and Unna, both immortal, as they move through history. Fleeing humanity's ills, Claus finds the elves and begins the last transition to becoming Santa Claus. As the baby Jesus tells him, his fate is not to die in battle but to become a person whom all children love and adore. Like Baum before him, Quinn peppers his tale with explanations on how certain Christmas traditions came about. Sam Moskowitz said that "Roads" was  “the greatest adult Christmas story written by an American.” Quinn had achieved for adults what Baum had done for children.

The idea of an heroic Santa, sword-swinging and powerful, a Hyborian Claus if you will, appeals to me on so many levels. And I'm not alone. Sony Studios is producing a new version of Baum's novel (now in the public domain) called Winter's Knight, featuring an ax-wielding Santa like you've never seen. This isn't the quiet Rankin-Bass adaptation from 1985, nor the less interesting Robbie Benson cartoon of 2000. It's not even the boisterous Santa of William Joyces's Rise of the Guardians (which borrows the spirit of Baum). It's a Roadsian version, a Howardian version, filled with violence and magic and blood. I can't wait.

Viking Santa art above is by Caio Monteiro. Art below is by Jakob Eirich.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (2008)

Who's in it: Pirate vegetables.

What's it about: A flawed trio of servers at a pirate-themed dinner theater are pulled back in time and asked to help a princess rescue her brother from their evil, pirate uncle.

How is it: It's impossible for me to review this objectively. I'm hugely fond of writer/filmmaker Phil Vischer and the VeggieTales DVD series he co-created with Mike Nawrocki in the '90s. They're hilarious, the songs are great, and the retellings of Biblical stories are inventive and fun. One of the best features of each DVD was the "Silly Songs with Larry" segment in which Larry the Cucumber comes out and sings a silly song. And the best of these was "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything."

The animation was crude - especially by today's standards - but it was hugely popular and when Vischer and Nawrocki finally made the big screen feature film, Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie in 2002, they included the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything in the supporting cast. It didn't come as a surprise that several years later the trio got their own movie a year after the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy concluded.

Despite the fact that TPWDDA seems sort of genetically engineered to appeal to me, I not only didn't see it in the theater, but I didn't even see it at all until this past week when I got the hankering to start watching some pirate movies again.

The most surprising thing about it is that - like the "Silly Songs" segment of the original show - it's pretty secular. TPWDDA teaches values, but they're not specifically Christian values. The flaws that the heroes have to overcome are things like fear and laziness, issues that everyone can relate to. And they succeed by deciding to embrace adventure and do the right thing regardless of the consequences. There is a weird bit at the end in which the princess and prince's father presents himself as sort of an Aslan-like character who may be an analog for God, but it's a speedbump in an otherwise fun, piratey adventure.

The animation has come a long way since the DVD series, but it doesn't stand well next to Pixar, DreamWorks, or really any of the major animation studios. And while the story is romping (lots of shipboard adventure, island hopping, and killer cheese curls!) and the songs are great (I especially love the "Rock Monster" parody of "Rock Lobster" over the end credits, but there are fun, original songs too), it's neither as meaningful as WALL-E or as raucously awesome as Kung Fu Panda, both of which came out that same year. As a movie for VeggieTales and ocean adventure fans though - of which I am both - TPWDDA is thoroughly enjoyable.

Final Grade: B

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)

In the first few minutes of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's obvious that the film's going to be taking some liberties with the book.That's okay though.Thanks to Peter Jackson, I've been trained for this. I've even learned to appreciate and often enjoy the changes that screenwriters and directors make in adapting literature to the screen. So, though it's not always an easy job, I determined early on to judge Dawn Treader for what it is instead of how closely it adheres to the book. Unfortunately, it doesn't measure up very well that way either.

Make no mistake, the movie also skips too quickly past or entirely drops some of my favorite sections of the book, but even if we grant leeway to that, it still fails in capturing the point of the novel. And I could even perhaps forgive that if the movie was able to find an alternate point and make it well, but it doesn't do that either.

The movie's primary mistake is that it expects its audience to be more invested in the Pevensie kids than is healthy. Listen, I love Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy, but any fan of the Narnia books will warn you not to get too attached to them. It's hard not to get attached, but as the series progresses, Lewis gently, but firmly moves us away from them. And Dawn Treader is where he does a lot of that work. He gives us one last adventure with Edmund and Lucy to ease the transition, but the hard work in the novel - all the growing and changing (you know, what the story's about) - is done by the new character, Eustace Scrubb. Dawn Treader is Eustace's story and the movie steals it from him in order to give it back to Ned, Lucy, and even Caspian.

If you're not familiar with the story, the plot is simple. Ned and Lucy are having to spend a summer with their self-centered, bullying cousin Eustace when the three of them are transported to Narnia through a painting. They immediately hook up with now-King Caspian and learn that three years have passed in Narnia since the events of Prince Caspian (only one year's gone by for Ned and Lucy). Having brought peace and stability to Narnia, Caspian is now able to turn his attention to searching for seven lost lords who were sent on an exploratory ocean voyage during the reign of Caspian's uncle. Ned and Lucy are of course thrilled to join the adventure. Eustace is significantly less so and spends the early days of the voyage crying, complaining, and threatening.

As the ship travels to unexplored islands - meeting pirates, sea serpents, wizards, dragons, and merfolk in the process - Eustace gradually learns that he's been acting poorly and is able to improve. He does this so much that by the end of the book readers aren't as sorry as they might otherwise be to learn that this will be Ned and Lucy's last adventure in Narnia. Eustace has faced so many threats and become so endearing and heroic in the process that even noble, chivalrous Reepicheep the Mouse considers him a kindred spirit. Because of this, you really can't wait to begin the next book and see Eustace return to Narnia for another adventure. The biggest disappointment of the movie is that it fails to create this response.

Eustace does go through a transformation, but he has to share equal time with Ned, Lucy, and Caspian who have their own growing to do. Ned wants to become a man, Lucy wants to be beautiful like Susan (something that's mentioned in the book, but far more quickly resolved and moved past), and Caspian is grieving for his father to the point of having a minor death-wish. Because the movie spends so much time resolving these fabricated flaws, Eustace's story isn't given enough time to be convincing. More pity: neither are any of the others. In trying to lend unnecessary weight to characters who are moving out of the story anyway, the film contrives defects for them that can't be satisfactorily resolved by anything that happens in the plot. Ultimately, the character flaws have to disappear as quickly and awkwardly as they showed up. And in the meantime, Eustace - the only character with a real flaw to grow out of - has been sidelined.

Character flaws aren't the only "improvement" the movie creates. The original story doesn't have a real villain, so the movie gives it one. The antagonist in Lewis' story is Caspian's mission. It's enough. There's plenty of danger in the sea and on its islands without concocting an evil fog to control everything. Tony Scott's Unstoppable lost not an ounce of energy or excitement by not having a bad guy. It's too bad that Dawn Treader's screenwriters didn't have as much faith in the story they were adapting.

But again, I could've gotten on board with a villain had they created a good one. The green fog has no motivation. It's just evil because it's evil. And the way the heroes are supposed to stop it is just as bland. Defeating an evil mist and freeing its captive slaves by collecting seven magical swords isn't CS Lewis. It's the plot of an '80s swords-and-sorcery flick.

As much as I've complained, Dawn Treader isn't a horrible movie. There are too many minotaur sailors and sea serpent battles and cool islands for that. Also, Simon Pegg makes an awesome Reepicheep and the other actors do great jobs as well. It's a good-looking movie too. It's just too bad the story isn't up to the rest of it.

Movie News Roundup: "Tell It to the Cleaning Lady on Monday"

Pirates 4 gets Rushed



Barbossa's back for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I would've bet on that early on (in fact, I could've sworn it had already been announced), but all the focus on casting Blackbeard and his daughter made me wonder if Barbossa was out. Glad to see he's not. By At World's End, I liked him even better than Sparrow. [/Film]


Voyage of the Dawn Treader trailer



The quality of the trailer isn't real good, but the movie looks fantastic. As I've said before, this ought to be my favorite in the series. [/Film]

Cleopatra



Angelina Jolie is working with producer Scott Rudin to develop (and most likely star in) a movie about everyone's favorite Egyptian queen. Apparently, this is of some concern to people who don't recall that Cleopatra was, in fact, Greek and not African. [/Film]

After the break: Musketeers, Spies, Oz, and rock'em sock'em robots.

Movie News: Drew Barrymore and Flying Monkeys

Dawn Treader poster



Saw this poster at the movie theater last week. It's been so long since we've had any updates that I'd almost forgotten about the movie. Which is a shame because it's my favorite Narnia book and so by all rights should be the best film in the series. These things take so long to crank out though that I'm skeptical about the chances of the series' continuing far past this one. Hopefully it'll do really well as the holiday release that Prince Caspian should have been and the next ones will get fast-tracked. [/Film]

Another 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea



Because it's not tough enough keeping track of two Three Musketeers films, now there are two 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea movies in development as well. Disney's (captained by David Fincher) and now one by Ridley and Tony Scott; written by one of the guys who wrote the Clash of the Titans remake. The Scotts' version will be set in the future to connect it more closely with Jules Vernes' scifi intentions than with his actual nineteenth-century setting. I can't say that I'm excited about that. [The Hollywood Reporter]

After the break: a sea monster, Alpha Flight, Empires of the Deep, the Robin Hood post mortem, Three Musketeers, Hitman 2, Salt, and after Oz.

And Now the News: Some Dude Hunting Treasure

Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Photos



The Narnia Facebook page has three stills from what ought to be the best of the Narnia films. If you're not on the Facebook though, /Film has also got 'em. Also, according to the Facebook page, shooting wrapped a couple of weeks ago in Australia. The film's still on schedule to hit this time next year.

Drake's Fortune: Writers



The movie version of the Drake's Fortune game will be written by the guys who've written the new Conan movie. Even though I'm not real excited by what I've heard about Conan, I'm not as invested in Drake's Fortune. As long as it's some dude hunting treasure in exotic locales, I'm in.

The writers are also the fellows who wrote the screenplay for Sahara, for what that's worth. I'm one of the few who really like that movie.

Looking Glass Wars: Concept Art



You can see the other three suites of card warriors at /Film.

How to Train Your Dragon: Trailer



I wasn't real excited about How to Train Your Dragon until someone pointed out that Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch) is directing it. And the trailer looks awesome.

Aslan is on the move

And Now the News: Thor's willingness to share

Here's what went on this week in adventure news.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 update



Filming on Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is planned to start early next year so that the movie can be released in 2011. They're hoping that it'll be the first of another trilogy.

Also - and I've lost the link to this, unfortunately - word is that they're going to tone it way down from the first trilogy. They can't get bigger than those movies, so they're making a conscious decision to go smaller. They've even gone so far as to call it a "reboot" (man, Hollywood loves and overuses that word) even though it'll still star Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader update



Shooting has begun on Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which should be the best Narnia movie yet based on story and subject matter alone. Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, Ben Barnes, and Liam Neeson are all back as Lucy, Edmund, Caspian, and Aslan respectively. Not sure if Eddie Izzard is still the voice of Reepicheep, but it looks like Will Poulter from Son of Rambow is still playing nasty cousin Eustace as once announced. Guess we'll find out soon enough though. It's still scheduled to come out next year.

Undersea heroes profiled



The Aquaman Shrine just finished a cool and informative Undersea Heroes Week looking at Namor, Undersea Agent, Shark-Man, and Pirana. He's already got a nice list going (including Marrina! Yay!) for another week at some point, so I'll be impatiently waiting for that.

Kong: King of Skull Island update



Apparently, the movie based on Joe DeVito's illustrated prequel/sequel novel Kong: King of Skull Island is now going to be produced by Spirit Pictures instead of Fantastic Films International as previously announced. And it's being planned as CGI motion-capture animation.

Night Mary movie



Rick Remender and Kieron Dwyer's Night Mary mini-series is being made into a movie. That's cool because it's a great, spooky story (sort of like Dreamscape, only scary), but I've got a personal - though tangential - relationship to this news. My medieveal vampire short story "Completely Cold" was published in the back matter of Night Mary #3.

Hangman preview



DC has a preview of their re-introduction to the Hangman character. This is written by J. Michael Straczynski, but I'm excited about it because it presumably sets the stage for the John Rozum stories that will follow. Also, that logo kicks twelves kinds of bootie.

Wolf Man update



Though Universal denies that it has anything to do with their confidence in the movie or the troubles they've had in making it, they've moved the Wolf Man remake from this November back to next February.

Wolves of Odin webcomic launches



The sequel to Grant Gould's Vikings vs. Werewolves graphic novel has begun. For free.

World War Robot movie



Jerry Bruckheimer has bought the rights to IDW's World War Robot series. I still need to read those stories.

Spacecaptain Blood



I wish this was actual concept art from Warner Brothers' planned Captain Blood in Space movie, but it's not. It is of course from Captain Harlock, a series that I'm long overdue in watching.

But back to Captain Blood: There will be those who complain that this is a bad idea and will cite Disney's Treasure Planet as evidence. I don't know what those people are talking about. It may not be an original idea, but space pirates are never a bad idea and Treasure Planet was much more entertaining than people give it credit for.

10 Favorite Movie Characters: Adaptation Edition

Siskoid started it this time. Since we both limited our original 10 Favorite Movie Characters lists to characters who'd originated in movies, he thought it would be fun to do a separate list of characters adapted from other media. And so did I.

I didn't start off with extra rules for myself this time, but in order to trim my list down to 10 (from an original 23) I decided that the final cut would be made up only of characters where I actually prefer the movie version to the original. I'll list the other 13 at the end without much in the way of additional comments.

Incidentally, I'm glad I waited to read Siskoid's list until after I finished my own. His would have heavily influenced mine since I also love - amongst others - Michael Caine's Alfred and JK Simmons' Jonah Jameson.

1. Robin Hood (Robin Hood)



I didn't see Errol Flynn's version of Robin Hood until I was an adult, so my childhood image of the character was shaped mostly by Howard Pyle's thorough, but mostly dry accounts of his exploits. As a result, I loved the idea of Robin Hood, but didn't truly fall in love with the character until Disney turned him into a dashing, cunning, swashbuckling fox (whom I still prefer to Errol Flynn, by the way).

2. Henry V (Henry V)



Kenneth Branagh is single-handedly responsible for making me fall in love with Shakespeare. His performance in Henry V is what did it. Until then I thought Shakespeare's history plays were pretty dull, dry stuff (I'd never seen one performed at that point), but Branagh brought it to life. He made it exciting to watch young, foolish Prince Hal transform himself into a competent and inspirational leader.

3. Gomez Addams (Addams Family, Addams Family Values)



Let's face it: Gomez Addams in Charles Addams' cartoons doesn't have a lot of personality. And though John Astin is funny and charming as the character, he doesn't equal the hilarious, manic insanity of Raul Julia's performance. Julia made me want to be Gomez. (Though Angelica Huston as Morticia didn't make the fantasy any less appealing either.)

4. Hawkeye (The Last of the Mohicans)



I couldn't make it all the way through James Fenimore Cooper's famous novel. Conversely, I can't stop watching the Michael Mann movie. One of my favorite things to do is watch Daniel Day Lewis play dapper, stuffy Cecil in A Room with a View and then immediately watch him as the iconically rugged Hawkeye. His range as an actor blows my mind.

5. Porthos (The Three Musketeers)



The literary Porthos is okay, but he's also an arrogant, vain blowhard. Platt's version, on the other hand, is a dashing pirate. I wish this production would've spent some money on costumes, because other than that it's my favorite adaptation of The Three Musketeers.

6. Rogue (X-Men)



I've always been a big fan of Rogue and by all rights I should have hated the changes they made to her in X-Men. But Anna Paquin made me love her all over again as a completely different character by combining the least annoying parts of Kitty Pride with the pathos of Rogue. And Paquin is such a talented actress that I root for her so much harder than I root for the comics version (who, frankly, can be infuriating at times).

7. Boromir (The Fellowship of the Ring)



I hate Boromir in Tolkien's Fellowship of the Ring. He's a whiny, deluded, backstabbing bastard. I get that we're supposed to think he's more than that, but we're not given any reason to see him as more. Not until Sean Bean came along we're not. Thanks to him and Peter Jackson's script, Boromir becomes a tragic character that I deeply wish could've come to a different end.

8. Susan Pevensie (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)



I saw the Narnia films before I read CS Lewis' series and wow was I ever disappointed in Susan as Lewis wrote her. The film version of Susan is the most hesitant of the Pevensie siblings, but she eventually comes around and her early reluctance makes her final acceptance that much more sweet and powerful. I like her much more than Lucy who seems to come to faith so easily. Susan's more relatable because she has to work so hard. Unfortunately, Lewis' Susan never overcomes and becomes a symbol of lost faith. What a rip off.

9. Tony Stark (Iron Man)



Comics Tony Stark: Rich jerk who's only interesting when he's making me hate him for killing Captain America.

Movie Tony Stark: "I'm sorry. This is the fun-vee. The humdrum-vee is back there."

10. Scotty (Star Trek)



Absolutely no disrespect intended to James Doohan who eventually turned Scotty into a sweet, lovable character, but his young Scotty wasn't sweet and lovable. Maybe I'm missing the point (and let me know if I am), but as far as I can tell he was mostly there to fix the ship, run the transporters, and occasionally make us chuckle. Simon Pegg's Scotty, on the other hand, was the brightest spot in an already fun, bright movie.

Characters I like about the same as the versions they're adapted from:

• Ebenezer Scrooge (pretty much every version of A Christmas Carol)
• James Bond (as played in Doctor No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, Casino Royale, and Quantum of Solace)
• Frankenstein's Monster (as played in Bride of Frankenstein)
• Captain Blood (as played by Errol Flynn in Captain Blood)
• Jayne (Serenity, which is kind of cheating since it was the same actor playing the same character from Firefly, but still...)

Adapted characters I like, but have never seen or read about the original version:

• Lucy Honeychurch (A Room with a View)
• Amos Starkadder (Cold Comfort Farm)
• Mouse Alexander (Devil in a Blue Dress)
• Severus Snape (the Harry Potter films)
• John Rambo (First Blood)
• Cal McAffrey (State of Play)
• Mr. Knightley (Emma)
• V (V for Vendetta)

We can't waste more time on your ridiculous "Atlantis"

Google Ocean



Thanks, Otis!

Moby Dick



Golden Age Comic Book Stories has tons of great whale-huntin art by Mead Schaeffer.

Pirate improv

Siskoid was in a pirate improv and he can prove it.

Your 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Picture of the Week



By Édouard Riou.

Zeek!



More from Otis Frampton. He and his wife Leigh are working on an animated short film called Zeek!. I don't know what it's about yet, but from Otis' production journal I can tell that it'll have submarines, jungle islands, waterfalls, giant bug monsters, and at least part of it takes place in outer space. In other words: awesome.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie



Illustration by Matthew Clark.

The Dawn Treader movie sails along without Disney. It's got a writer and a release date already. I'm glad to see that it's going to be a Christmas film again. I think a huge part of Prince Caspian's problem was that they wanted it to be a summer blockbuster and it just wasn't designed to be that kind of movie.

"The Fake"



The fourth story in this long post at Golden Age Comic Book Stories is about a sailor who claims to have found Atlantis. The story's not that good actually, but the art is fantastic especially when the sailor goes into Atlantis to look around.

The Aquaman Problem



Dorian explains why there's nothing wrong with Aquaman's core concept and theorizes that the character's lameness is directly related to the amount that writers deviate from that core.

As much as I don't disagree with Dorian, I'd be really interested in reading a story like the one that J Kempf suggests:

"What if Aquaman wasn't a hero?" Oh, sure, he has done lots of heroic things, but what if he did them for terrible reasons? That's when I started to think that maybe Aquaman, as well as the rest of the Atlanteans, were further removed from humanity than we thought, and, if so, what it would be that they really want?

On the other hand...

This gal seems to like Aquaman just the way he is.

Oscars for Octopi; Money for Narnia

Congratulations, cephalopods in love!



You know how you always have to guess in your Oscar betting pool when you get to Best Animated Short because you've never seen any of them? Well, not this year, baby!

At least, not if you were reading this blog back in September. I missed that Oktapodi is one of the nominees when the announcements came out.

Dawn Treader's new studio

As predicted, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie has new financial backing after Disney dropped out. And as predicted, it's Fox. (Pay no attention to the prediction of financial disaster in that second link. I still believe Dawn Treader has a lot of potential to be an awesome, popular film.)

Master of the Seven Seas

Fresh Prince of Ocean Air



So, did you hear who McG wants to play Captain Nemo in his 20,000 Leagues prequel? I'm more skeptical and less open-minded than before.

I like Will Smith. He's got a lot of charisma and he's very entertaining to watch. But I have yet to see a single one of his movies that stuck with me past my walking out of the theater. I don't have a problem with fluff, but I would love for a 20,000 Leagues movie to be more than that. The original was fun too, but it was also a lot more than just a popcorn movie.

Dawn Treader still sailing

The LA Times reports that disappointing financial performance of the first two Narnia films isn't what made Disney drop out of the next installment, the sea adventure Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was an already bitter relationship between Disney and Walden based on disagreements over how to split the substantial Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe profits and how to market Prince Caspian.

In another LA Times article, TV critic Mary McNamara scolds Disney for being short-sighted about the potential for future Narnia installments, particulary Dawn Treader.

So, part two, Prince Caspian, didn't make a gazillion dollars. What a surprise. Prince Caspian was always the dud, relatively speaking, of the series. For fans who read and reread The Chronicles of Narnia, it was the one you could skip. The fact that Prince Caspian the movie did as well as it did was a miracle, and a testament to the filmmakers.

...Cinematically, Dawn Treader is a no-brainer. It's a sea voyage, for Pete's sake. There's a dragon and missing knights and a wizard and all manner of magic involved. The moral ambiguity of slavery, the deleterious effect of great wealth, the meaning of the afterlife are all dealt with in entertaining and thrilling ways.

Apparently, other studios are already interested in the movie with Fox being the front-runner and Sony and Warner Bros. close behind. This is good news because I totally agree with McNamara. Dawn Treader should be awesome whether or not Disney can see it.

Trilobis 65 Floating Home

Dave Campbell has exactly the right attititude about the Trilobis 65 Floating Home: "Give to me!"

I'm selling everything I have to buy this thing. If only I'd bought that copy of the Spider-Man/Obama comic so that I could now reap the sweet, sweet financial rewards of that investment.

Trilobis 65 has been designed on four separate levels connected by a spiraling staircase.

The top level is 3.5 metres above sea level. The next level is at 1.4 metres above sea level and hosts the daylight zone with all services and allowing outdoor access. The third level is situated at 0.8 metre below sea level, semi-submerged, and is devoted to the night-time zone. At 3.0 metres below sea level, totally submerged, there is the underwater observation bulb, an intimate and mediative place.

The shape of Trilobis 65 allows the annular aggregation of more modular units, creating island colonies.

Just in case you skimmed through the quote and missed that last part, you can use your awesome futuristic sea-home not only to rule the seven seas, but also to "create island colonies."

Watch out Aquaman. There's a new Ocean Master coming.