What next? (After The Silver Chair)

[hansgeorg]

Re: India, you do have a number of nations with a large variety of skin tones in their inhabitants, even among groups of inhabitants who have been there a very long time. It's possible that the Calormenes in VDT were a different ethnic group than the dominant group in the region where Shasta was born...

I'd say Calormenes are, as per book canon, dark skinned. Whatever the reason. Not just as per "Aracor" mixed race couple, but also because in LB Tirian, Jill and Eustace dye their faces to look Calormene.

(Speaking of "Aracor", it adds up to 440 in upper case ascii code).

[Lily of Archenland]

I'm not denying that darker skin is probably quite common, but if it were the entirety of Calormen's population, then aside from the improbability of there being no minorities of different skin colors settling locally when you have an empire fond of both conquering and trading with other nations and a sizable portion of the world's humans being descended from English folks, and besides having some memory (I would need to check specifics) of hearing of either a side-note or a draft saying ex-Archenland rebels were some of Calormen's early settlers, it would have been really, really hard for Shasta to have made his escape and gone into villages to purchase food with his would-be-buyer's stolen money and ride accross the countryside on a stolen horse without being really very obvious to all bystanders. "Oh, that one fellow lost both a new foreign slave and a pricey horse. Oh, there is the one pale-skinned boy in the entire countryside, riding a pricey horse he can't possibly own because he's a lone ragged foreigner and coming into villages alone without a master in sight to make purchases with good money. Hmm. I wonder what that means."

[ShiofNarnia]

They were definitely a let down compared to LWW... however, I just hope that the new crew is going to do it well! I loved the old actors but the whole Caspian and Susan thing turned me off and just some of the changes they made otherwise to VOTDT...

I feel like I have a lot higher hopes for it with a new crew. I hope it doesn't disappoint. I'm not really that attached to any of the actors, so I'm ok with a whole new cast. (Especially since most of these will be new characters anyway.) Yeah, I the Caspian/Susan thing was unnecessary, and I really don't like VODT at all. (No offense meant to anyone who likes the films.)

[hansgeorg]

besides having some memory (I would need to check specifics) of hearing of either a side-note or a draft saying ex-Archenland rebels were some of Calormen's early settlers,

I agree. Dark skinned works even a bit better for Telmarines than for Calormenes if you check origins.

Probably some Telmarine influx to Calormen, plus Telmarines of Narnia becoming light skinned through contact with Islanders and Archenlanders previous to not going out to sea any more?

OR, the family of historic-person-Tash (not same entity as demon, though identified as such by Tash worshippers) included some non-Archenlander? A new arrival from our world?

[Shield Maiden]

As much as a movie adaptation of HHB would be loved by the fans, I highly doubt they would be able to adapt it correctly for fear of being called racist and shot down for not being "politically correct".

I'm also really disappointed that they're not keeping the original actors, but is it too much to hope that they'll at least bring them back for cameos in the future?