While it had its moments, and was based on a provocative and interesting series, I wasn’t that impressed with The Golden Compass movie adaptation. Still, I’m disappointed that the decision has been made that the subsequent books will not be filmed. It apparently did very poor box office in the US, so it isn’t a surprise, I suppose.
I have to compare it to the Narnia movie, though. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a great gilded turd, an awful piece of poor storytelling and suspension-of-disbelief shattering illogic, with nice cgi. The Golden Compass had a story that was given short shrift in the movie, was kind of a mangled mess, but was better than C.S. Lewis’s fairy tale for the inane; it also had better and more imaginative graphics. Which one of those series is going to be inflicted on us many times over, though? The one with the comfortable Christian themes, of course. It had a guaranteed undiscerning and credulous audience.
Bummer.
I was sort of hoping that they’d do the equivalent of chucking out Chris Columbus for Alfonso Cuarón, and that The Subtle Knife would be the rockin’ sequel to the bleh, had-its-moments original. All the more so, actually, because I know I’m not alone in thinking that the first book of the trilogy was the best, and that the others (particularly the third) were “spongy” enough that they needed a revision or an adaptation to let their good parts really work.
According to the post linked by PZ, “it did fairly well overseas, but unfortunately for New Line Cinema, that didn’t help because it pre-sold those rights”. Maybe a better adaptation will come out of Europe someday?
I agree that the Chronicles of Narnia wasn’t very good, but at least the story made sense. I hadn’t read the Golden Compass beforehand and I was completely lost throughout the movie.
Now we get to sit around and watch the conservative blogs explode in orgasmic Schadenfreude over this news. Someone should tell them that probably the majority of the movies they enjoy were likely written by agnostic and atheist screenwriters.
BUM …
Particularly as I was hoping for more work out of the sequels (as an extra).
It was fun making it, as well ……
I have to wonder if “The Golden Compass” would have done better if it had stayed truer to the books.
Avoided by the religious because their leaders told them not to go and avoided by the fans because the message was diluted.
In trying to please everyone they pleased no one.
So far I have to agree that the first book was the best.
I am about halfway though the third book and it seems to have gone off the rails.
I am tempted to stop reading it but I have a hard time giving up on a book.
I have to say the first film absolutely RUINED the entire series. I’m not surprised that they decided to discontinue it. With all the major revelations ruined it would’ve been flimsy moving forward.
I’m just upset at how much they changed it from the books, and I’m frankly annoyed at the christian response to it. If any single one of them took the time to read it they would realize that it is about keeping an open mind rather than death to the Pope. (Which frankly I’m not sure would be a bad thing.)
Gyah… it just makes me so, very, angry.
I think it bombed, beyond any boycott, because it was panned for suffering a major flaw: if you didn’t know the story, you couldn’t follow the story as it’d been filmed and cut. On a more positive note, at least they may try to salvage the story with a two-and-one-half hour director’s cut version.
I notice that Kyle doesn’t cite a source for the claim that there will be no sequel. He’s probably right, but I want to see some sort of external confirmation of the fact.
Ugh. This is roughly equivalent to adapting Animal Farm as a trilogy, cutting it off after the first installment, and being left with a chipper kid’s movie about talking animals winning their freedom from evil farmers. It will be praised for the quality of its CG.
Bad news all around. First a Christian blockade of an “athieist” film succeeds, showing everyone who’s got the muscle…
… and now I learn that it’s too expensive to be an atheist.
*sigh* What are those of us without faith to do?
Trust (in God) that it will all turn out all right?
Of course there won’t be a sequel. They changed the ending, plus there’s almost no talk of religion. The other two books wouldn’t make any sense if all the religious themes hadn’t already been introduced in the first one. A huge part of the plot of the second and third books is that Lyra is ‘Eve’ and Will is ‘Adam’, and the church is trying to prevent a second Fall. Dust is supposed to be the product of original sin, as explained by Mrs. Coulter in the first book – they watered that down so efficiently in the movie that it would be impossible for sequels to be made – they’d have to completely rewrite the plot, and it would be about something very different and less profound. that’s why i hated the movie so much – the important themes were completely lost.
Sorry if this is an incoherent mess….I’m feeling rather sick and incoherent myself at the moment…
Frankly, I much preferred the Narnia series to His Dark Materials. Maybe it’s just because I have fond memories reading Narnia from my childhood. I found the Narnia world to be much more filled with wonder and magic than Materials, which was cold and mechanical. Christian imagery aside, I just enjoyed it more.
I’m disappointed to hear that the series won’t continue. Contrary to most others, I actually enjoyed the movie. After hearing that it was incomprehensible to people who hadn’t read Pullman’s novels, I went to see it a second time, paying close attention for the express purpose of trying to judge it as a standalone cinematic drama, although I had read the novels. It seemed to hang together quite well and I enjoyed it again. But perhaps I knew too well what to watch for. It was not a casual popcorn-chomping adventure, and I’m sure that detracted from its success. Certainly they tried to hard to compress it and pull the fangs of Pullman’s original work. Bad idea, although it seemed defensible for now-discredited commercial considerations.
that’s a real bummer.
~C
You know, that’s fine. Despite the pans, there was enough in the movie to lead me to read the books, and I intend to do just that. Perhaps in another twenty years someone will re-do it, someone who loves the story enough to do it well.
I must disagree: I thought that the Narnia movie was really good. At the very least, it held true to its original story (with only one or two slight deviations), was well-paced, and had some nice design work (not just the CGI). A friend called it the best adaptation of any book that she ever cared about, and I am inclined to agree.
Now, it must be said, I care about the Narnia books only because I see them as fantasy entertainment, and I can ignore their obvious Christian apologetics. They are certainly not up to Tolkein’s high standard, but I do not think them a waste of time to read, either. (They make much better reading than the Bible!)
Y’know, Narnia kind of gets short shrift from the anti-Xian crowd. Maybe I have a unique perspective on it because I was raised as a Unitarian Universalist pagan, and I knew the books well before I knew the Christ myth. A couple of things one has to keep in mind:
The Xians we particularly dislike–the biblical literalists–are at least as pissed off about Narnia as they are about Harry Potter or the Golden Compass. Christ as a lion bothers them at least as much as witchcraft and anti-authoritarianism.
The sacrificed god story and the return of the king are central themes of Western literature. They were so well before Christ–that’s part of the reason the Christ myth explores them, as they aren’t any great part of the Hebrew prophecy. Analyzing Narnia in ignorance of its author, one can’t really say they follow the Christ myth that much more closely than, say, the Matrix trilogy (which was actually a closer approximation of the Arthur myth, but I digress).
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is really the most in line with contemporary Xianity. It’s the only one that explores the god’s self-sacrifice–which is one of only two new testament stories that the Xians seem interested in these days. The Last Battle is an end-times narrative, I’ll grant you, exploring the other new testament theme. It also gets quite nasty at times–I remember being shocked when I read it as a child, and I hope to see that it stays that way. I’ll be interested to see whether the film version has the two key themes from the book: that one must doubt religious authority, and that it doesn’t matter what lip-service one pays as long as one’s heart is true.
The Narnia stories are fundamentally about taking initiative. Prince Caspian is a prime example of this. The story is motivated by the characters’ decision to take their fate in their own hands. The supernatural intercedes on their behalf, true, but not to “make everything okay,” only to give them the tools they need. In this, Caspian is in stark contrast to the first book, where Aslan roars and everything is put right. In subsequent books, there’s even less of this godly deus ex.
The only real theology, or objectionable theology perhaps, as such I see nakedly articulated comes in the fourth book, where one of the characters has a speech about choosing to believe in the world as he knows it, rather than the dark and unpleasant one that’s being pitched to him. But everybody does that–it’s consciousness of the decision that’s unusual here. For example, I prefer to believe in a world where people are intelligent and can, ultimately, be persuaded with rationality; this in stark contradiction to the observable reality in which people are obnoxious and bloody-minded.
Finally, Narnia is a clear gateway to an examination of faith. It’s a Xian story presented as a story, a fable, a fantasy. This is probably the heart of what annoys the biblical literalists about it. To the fundamentalist, examined faith is not worth having–so anything that motivates him to examine his faith is a Good Thing in my book.
All is not lost. The only criteria the movie makers have is money, money, money. If they can figure out a way to film the sequels and make money, it will eventually happen.
There is so little in the way of good, original material in Hollywood that anything worthwhile eventually gets picked up.
It may even end up on TV eventually as a miniseries.
Notably there is nothing about how much money it made in the article I read. Movies get money for DVD sales, movie channel rights, TV rights, overseas rights, etc.. It all adds up.
Actually, this is not really bad news. The books are so much better than the movie that I’d rather have kids read the books than see a bowdlerized and thus incomprehensible movie. And it is a lot easier to read a book without your parents figuring it out than it is to see a movie that your parents are freaking out about.
Movies, even good ones, are best for lazy and weak minds anyway; a good book can have a much more lasting effect.
That’s too bad — I was looking forward to seeing what they did with the rest of the story (and I re-read the trilogy after seeing the movie). I agree, though, that if you haven’t read the book, the movie didn’t do a great job of telling the story. It was sort of like illustrations to the story, rather than the story itself.
Usually if I`ve read the books, i tend to avoid watching the movie, but not in the case. Even worse I finished reading the book not a week before I saw the adaptation, and spent most of the movie muttering under my breath because everything was moved around (ie event wise) Not only that, but the made Iorek sound like a pussy, rather than someone who had been dupped/framed…
So really I’m not terribly sad that the other books wont be made into movies, although I wish the same could be said for Narnia. Quite possibly the most gawdawful thing I’ve ever seen, so bad I remember the parody Epic Movie better than the actual Narnia… Anyways a sad loss either way, no semi-decent movie and lots of shitastic christian based woohoo. Yay world!
I had slugged through the Narnia trilogy and am slugging through the “Compass” trilogy. I have not seen any screen adaptation of either.
After reading the “Narnia” trilogy, and now halfway through the last of the “Compass” trilogy, I would not promote nor recommend either. They are, at best, lukewarm reading materials for the young. They are NOT the “great read” as so many have been lead to believe and/or promote.
As if my opinion counts, I give both a C-. Judging from the reviews of the movies made based upon these 2 books, it seems a C- may be generous.
I wouldn’t be too bummed; remember the first Lord of the Rings movie? The horrendous, Bakshi-rotoscoped abomination from the 70’s? A few decades later and we had Jackson’s version, and if the original movie did any damage, it was swiftly undone. HDM just needs to wait a decade or so for its own Peter Jackson to take up the helm.
I wonder what’s going to happen to the last three chapters that they shot. Probably end up as deleted scenes on the DVD and that’ll be that.
Really too bad that no one involved in the project seemed to have any respect for the audience, because everything about the movie was great except for that whole script business.
The Golden Compass had a story that was given short shrift in the movie, was kind of a mangled mess, but was better than C.S. Lewis’s fairy tale for the inane
I don’t agree. In terms of pure storytelling quality and writing, Lewis has it all over Pullman. The Narnia books rock, if you’re a kid.
Yes, the Xtian subtext is annoying. So just convince yourself that Aslan represents Zoroastrian Mithras, if you must. I read the Narnia books over and over as a kid and actually never gave a fig about the whole Xtian reference at all; I didn’t notice it. Is Obi-Wan Kenobi’s after-death plot involvement an annoying Xtian subtext, too? It’s ironic that some of the folks on the blog make fun of the Xtiantards for being so touchy about – well, the same things PZ is being touchy about.
I read Pullman and I doubt I’ll re-read them. There are some wonderfully drawn characters in Pullman but I thought the plot was meandering and pointless.
I enjoyed the books and didn’t bother with the movie when I read that it had been neutered. So I think you’re right. If they’d amped it UP then the controversy could bring in audiences just curious to see what the fuss is about.
ZOMG! I almost brought that up but though nobody would remember it but me and a few stoned hippies! Unlike Jackson’s movies which went book-by-book, the first Lord of the Rings was supposed to be in two parts.
I really didn’t like the roboscopic-animation/animation hybrid aspect of the movie. It was just weird. But, as weird as it was, it made a lot more money ($36 million) than it cost ($4 million) and I’m still a confused why they didn’t finish Part II.
LeeLeeOne, given that there are SEVEN books in the Chronicles of Narnia. Would you care to elaborate on the “trilogy” that you found “lukewarm”?
I am new to the Dark Materials series and read it in a big hurry this summer trying to get to the controversial stuff and figure out why the Catholic League was in such a twit. After reading The Golden Compass I was bewildered at what they were so upset about. The really hard hitting smacks at religion come in the third book. Shortly before the movie came out, I reread the series and was not in the least bit disappointed by the film. Indeed, I liked it very much. True the director did not call it THE CHURCH, but there are plenty of visual allusions to churches in the buildings, clothing and even some of the manners of the “clergy”. Azriel being accused of heresy is also a religious term and Mrs. Coulter tells the story of Adam and Eve, albeit in a veiled manner.
The sequels are unlikely to be made, but I am waiting for New Line to say so, not some grumpy critic.
I did not like The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, but it was not from lack of wanting to. Despite being an atheist I have fond memories of reading the books and seeing the television series as a child and the movie was magical (I loved the beginning) right through little Lucy meeting Mr. Tumnis (sorry about the spelling) and then it fell apart for me. It was dull and silly. Loved the actress playing the witch but as in the book she was shallow in her evil and frankly disappointing as a bad guy. Give me Chris’s Magisterium or Jackson’s flaming eye any day.
Karley, Jackson may have improved on the Bakshi animation, but he added many of his own vulgar embellishments to the films that leave a sour taste in my mouth. I wish he had stuck to making horror films.
The film may not have done well in the USA, but it is picking up a lot of money elsewhere. There seems to be a reasonable chance it will make a profit in the long term. Films don’t necessarily have to do well in the USA to make money. An example is The Fifth Element, which did badly in the USA, but was pretty successful overall.
The problem is that film companies usually need to get the money back quickly. Films are not long-term investments!
Forgive me for double posting, but I wanted to add the film did not do well in the United States but it has been a big hit in the rest of the world. We (in the U.S.) do not have a corner on good taste.
I think the reason the film failed in the U.S. had several sources:
1. The controversy was not limited to Roman Catholics. I heard a good number of protestants refusing to see the film because “they kill God in it”.
2. Bad reviews. Films sometimes made loads of money even when the the critics hate them, but coupled with the religious hysteria and
3. the rumors that the movie had been neutered kept people away. This is obviously a different crowd than those who thought god got bumped off.
Of course not everyone is going to like a movie but this is actually a good film and it deserved more of a chance than I think it got here in the U.S.
While the Golden Compass didn’t do well domestically (hitting that ZOMG! ATHIESTZZZ! speedbump), it still pulled in $310 million+ worldwide. Probably was only JUST getting to pulling even after all costs were factored in, but they still have DVD sales and HD sales for ages to come, and they have the resources and vision crew and familiarity to pull off the sequels for less cost if they wanted to.
It’s no “license to print money” the way a Harry Potter or a Narnia is, but it’s not a pointless or fruitless endeavor–especially if they already had the celebrities locked into a multi-picture possibility.
The problem is that film companies usually need to get the money back quickly. Films are not long-term investments!
Exactly. Although films are usually one among many revenue streams for contemporary media conglomerates, the are the centerpiece of these product packages. The opening weekend is central to the perceived success of a film. Although the international markets, peripheral products, tie-ins, and later releases via subscription services and DVD/Video, the opening weekend still maintains a certain mythological status. It’s what creates a “blockbuster” (see the efforts by the “Expelled” folks to buy a first weekend success).
An exceptionally well done piece of TV journalism about this is the “The Monster that Ate Hollywood
” episode of frontline. Croteau and Hoynes’ “The Business of Media” is a pretty good book tying together these factors with economic forces (it’s a text I use in my intro to media courses–so it’s written in that sort of text-book style–decent overview though, if you can get past feeling like a college freshman)
Nadeen,
Some good point. I didn’t go to it. I don’t have a lot of disposable cash, so my movie money gets reserved (esp as movie-going becomes more expensive). I’m not a huge fantasy buff (did enjoy LOTR, but I read those like 9 times each as a kid), so something that gets fairly bad reviews, in a genre I’m not inclined toward in the beginning, when spending limited funds…well, other movies are probably going to win (esp documentaries or anything by Almodovar).
I’ll prob do a Netflix thing with it.
Shit, take Julia Sweeney’s “Letting go of god” narrative and turn it into a screenplay. That I’ll go see.
“I heard a good number of protestants refusing to see the film because “they kill God in it’.”
That’s exactly what I encountered when I went to see it. Getting popcorn, I was making small talk with the woman with a gaggle of kids in front of me. I asked if they were seeing it, and they went totally apeshit on me. The kid almost cried, the woman nearly bit my head off. “Whyyyy would they kill God, mommy?”
Most uncomfortable popcorn line ever. Don’t know if they were Catholic or Protestant, but whatevs.
On the topic of Bakshi’s LotR, here’s an amusing critique;
http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/bakshi/bakshi.htm
(Fun fact: When I went to see Sweeny Todd, I bought a ticket for tGC and snuck into the former’s theater. Just to help the latter’s box office. Lame, no?)
You know what’s funny? The Golden Compass was the first movie I’ve seen in a theater in seven years. I took my wife and while neither of us was blown away, we liked the overall story and we love the cast.
So, they won’t be making the second and third films.
No big deal. I guess I can put off that next trip to the theater for a long time.
That said, I’d never read the Pullman books and was holding off so that I wouldn’t be judging the film in comparison to them.
I guess I can go read those books now.
totally OT, but someone over on the ‘Thumb posted a link to a colloquim published by PNAS a few months back:
http://www.pnas.org/content/vol104/suppl_1/
the articles are free, but many of them have some pretty abusive titles:
Michael Lynch
Colloquium Papers: The frailty of adaptive hypotheses for the origins of organismal complexity
the paper itself isn’t much better.
can somebody tell me what the point of PNAS publishing this collection was?
if anything, it seems destined to be endlessly quotemined by creobots.
My elder daughter (now aged nine) has read the Narnia books, and The Golden Compass. The Christianity in the Narnia books, and the anti-religion themes in The Golden Compass went right over her head. She just loved the stories. (I’m holding the last two Pullman books back for a year or two – some of the themes and events in them are just too dark for a nine year old.) I’m betting that the Christians who support the Narnia films but not The Golden Compass on the grounds that they will affect precious young minds have no idea that kids don’t even “see” those themes, and really just enjoy the story.
So… I wouldn’t worry too much about trying to convince yourself that Aslan is an incarnation of Mithras.
I think PZ was comparing the merits of the movies, not the books. I used to love the Narnia books as a kid too, but I doubt I’d enjoy them if I read them for the first time today, and I thought the movie sucked.
I never read the Narnia books as a kid, and as an adult I found them to be mostly crappy and eye-rollingly nauseating. I read it when I was looking for a gift set of books for my niece and I hated it. And I resented the fact that I’d actually spent money on it. So I didn’t give it short shrift or anything it didn’t earn, except my own hard-earned money. Maybe a kid wouldn’t notice it, but I did and I have my own conscious to answer for.
I threw the damn thing out* and ended up getting her the Little House series, which, while probably just as full of silly religious stuff as Narnia, still were better stories imo and had the advantage of being actually kinda true-ish.
That said, I didn’t expect that the other movies would be made, but I was still kind of hoping. I really enjoyed the movie, and I think the criticisms of it not being followable mostly (no offense) result from people expecting to be spoon-fed a one-two punch kind of story line. It’s a complex story that is by nature going to be difficult to condense, but I can’t help but quote of my Calc 1 Professor (from India, so read this with the accent): “Stop thinking! You are thinking too much!”
And it seemed like nearly everyone forgot that it wasn’t until the second and third books that the whole “let’s go kill god, and holy crap, are those angels gay?!” thing became apparent. It shouldn’t make perfect sense and there should be unresolved questions because, and I fear I need caps, it’s a trilogy. Well, that and it’s a work of fiction. The series is just beginning and not everything is explained from the outset. That’s a plot device which is meant to make you want to read more, not a reason for huffing and puffing about how some vague “unresolved issues” made it a bad film. If you don’t get it then read the god-damn book already and stop bothering us with your infernal questions! The witches have prophesies, the Gyptians are very wise and noble, Dust is sin and the fucking Magisterium is the bad guy. Any more questions? Shut up, stop worrying about the god damn destination and just enjoy the trip! ;)
And no, the Balrog does not have wings!
* Ok. I actually recycled them, but that doesn’t really sound as good.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who despised the movie “Lion Witch Wardrobe”. Thanks to PZ for coming up with the wonderful description “great gilded turd”. I didn’t find anything in the plot made sense, even if I accepted that the wordrobe was a portal to another world. I absolutely hate movies and books where the rules of logic and physics can be rewritten at the last minute to provide more a tear-jerking moment. Feh!
I threw the damn thing out* and ended up getting her the Little House series, which, while probably just as full of silly religious stuff as Narnia, still were better stories imo and had the advantage of being actually kinda true-ish
My parents live one block from the “Laura Ingalls Wilder Memorial Highway.”
I can’t find any other source for this. Anyone heard anything else, or was the original author just mistaken?
btw, at SF Reviews there are positive reviews of the Narnia books from a non-believing point of view (I don’t mean to say that anyone here needs these reviews to make up their minds, but for some reason I enjoyed them.)
In Minnesota, MAJeff? Hey, I though MA had something to do with Massachusetts?
“I threw the damn thing out* and ended up getting her the Little House series,”
The Chronicles of Prydain. Excellent at any age.
In Minnesota, MAJeff? Hey, I though MA had something to do with Massachusetts?
I live in MA; mom and dad are still in MN. I can see the highway from the bedroom when I visit my parents’ house. Unfortunately, it’s so rural that it’s too quiet for me to sleep.
Gotta love a guy whose pseudonym is “Narc”.
Leni-you are my new hero! You said exactly what I tried to and 10 times better.
MAJeff-I am not trying to make people feel guilty. It is just like PZ said the film had a hell of a lot of baggage dragging along behind it and it got judged for being and not being things it wasn’t and was never intended to be.
Hell, we are probably just lucky that the first film got made and that (with the fury from all the different groups)the theaters didn’t get burned down.
:)
MAJeff-I am not trying to make people feel guilty.
I don’t feel guilty in the least–and that’s not what I was implying. Movie audiences are fickle things. Unfortunately, movie producers are simple thinkers.
The Chronicles of Prydain. Excellent at any age.
Seconded. + Susan Cooper’s ‘The Dark is Rising’ series.
Ah I see. I have that problem when I visit mine too. Can’t even get NPR in on the radio. So much for the soothing British voices… All you get is the certainty that if you were murdered in the night, no one would ever hear your screams, and even if by some miracle your cell-phone actually worked and you were able to reach 911, the ambulance would never find you. At least not while you were alive.
Hope that helps you sleep next time you’re visiting the Big Woods >;D
Man, I’m pretty sure I could not have paid my niece to read that, lol. I mean, it looks like a neat story and all, but the Conan dude on the cover? Kind of a non-plus for most grade school girls. Especially an uber-girlie one like my niece.
Hope that helps you sleep next time you’re visiting the Big Woods >;D
Eh, I got til next christmas. I’ll forget by then and have a laptop full of movies for background noise (I tried to hijack neighbors’ wireless signals, but no luck, so no email). Until then it’s ambulances and drunk undergraduates to serenade me to sleep.
And car alarms. Don’t forget those.
And maybe by then The Golden Compass will be out on video, so you can re-watch it and stay up late and ruminate about what the witches actually do with their cloud pine switches when they fly.
And fret about how that was never properly resolved in the film ;)
I read the Narnia series as an adult (along with the Perelandra trilogy — but not yet Lewis’ other works of fiction, like Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man). Except for very evocative description of scenery, Narnia was definitely a preachy kid’s series. And Perelandra was excruciatingly tedious.
His Dark Materials I read about two years ago, due to a confluence of recommendations from my daughter, a friend, and this blog. I thoroughly enjoyed it and don’t see why it’s classified as a kid’s book.
My daughter wanted to see Narnia when it came out, so we went. I hated it, it was so smarmy, not to mention puzzling (for instance, Edmund was a traitor? to whom? and how was he to know?).
My daughter was also excited about the movie version of The Golden Compass, and we all enjoyed it.
On the other hand, I have some good friends who go to every grade-Z eat-em-up, but didn’t go to The Golden Compass or Serenity.
No accounting for taste.
Don’t assume I disliked Narnia because it’s a Christian allegory — it isn’t that simple. I disliked it because it made no sense. The lion sacrificed himself, and then pulled out a magic get-out-of-death-free card, and this was supposed to be good? A story with such a blatant deus ex machina just bores me, I’m afraid.
Of course, it might be indirectly related to Christianity — I think you need to be thoroughly indoctrinated in Christo-illogic before you can find the major plot points of the movie at all satisfying.
It made ~250 million overseas which is 80% of its total gross. That percentage is unheard of for a blockbuster. To have stood a chance the spit needed to be something like 60:40.
On the plus side millions more books have been sold. I believe the series was number 2 on Amazon.com over Christmas.
It made ~250 million overseas which is 80% of its total gross. That percentage is unheard of for a blockbuster. To have stood a chance the spit needed to be something like 60:40.
Media conglomerate translation: Not a blockbuster. Those audiences are nice, but don’t justify the kind of advertising and marketing expenditures that are primarily targeted toward American audiences.
On the plus side millions more books have been sold. I believe the series was number 2 on Amazon.com over Christmas.
Media conglomerate translation: Books are a nice plus. Now, what Will Smith sequel can we make?
Of course, it might be indirectly related to Christianity — I think you need to be thoroughly indoctrinated in Christo-illogic before you can find the major plot points of the movie at all satisfying.
hmm, considering that one of my oldest friends used to try to convince me to become a xian by reading “Chronicles” when we were teenagers, I’d guess that applies widely. Evidently that series was quite instrumental in maintain or developing his “faith”.
never did get around to ever reading them myself.
somehow, I don’t think I would have found them illuminating.
Now, what Will Smith sequel can we make?
too easy:
Irobot 2: Son of Sonny
Irobot 2: Son of Sonny
I was thinking MIBIII
I enjoyed the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, and was quite able to ignore the Christian apologetics. I haven’t seen the movie of the Golden Compass, but bought the trilogy of books and read them – I found them disappointing in that they aren’t terribly well written, don’t grip me with the narrative, nor are they thought provoking. Run of the mill alternative history science fiction, of which far far better examples would be Keith Roberts’ ‘Pavane’, Edmund Cooper’s ‘The Cloud Walker’ and Kingsley Amis’ ‘The Alteration’. Now a curious point comes up – why does the catholic church feature in so many alternative histories? Protestant paranoia I suppose.
Actually, I had heard that all three of the books were already filmed, and could be released at any time.
Don’t believe everything you hear, or read, seek proof.
At least the books are doing really well on Amazon…just behind Harry Potter.
I can’t recommend His Dark Materials, but thought the movie was well done, except for an annoying, heavy handed musical score.
I didn’t find the books either clearly written or pro-rational. The concept of Dust, as particles of consciousness emanating from the stars, or pouring between multiverses, is not atheist. Multiple souls, and a world of the dead? Not Christian, but certainly not atheist, either. Pullman has a kitchen sink approach to characters and plots that I found unnecessary and distracting. His Lord Asriel, in The Golden Compass, is a rich explorer/scientist, and in The Amber Spyglass he’s a Master of the Universes, battling Metatron for control of Everything – that’s inconsistent. A polar bear kingdom on an otherwise normal Earth?
The mulefa and gallivespians are interesting concept peoples by themselves, but Pullman should either have invented several more species or just used fairly normal humans.
Speaking of great fantasy books that become execrable movies: the Earthsea miniseries. A butchered plot, wooden acting, cheesy CGI — there’s just about nothing that they did right.
Definitely up (ie. down) there with Bakshi’s LOTR.
Or it could be because there’s a rather obvious historical point of divergence not too far back in time, so the writer can use many familiar elements and doesn’t have to invent a society from scratch. But don’t let this explanation get in the way of your conspiracy theory.
Dkew, it’s a fantasy story. Get a grip, will you?
Polar bear on an otherwise normal earth? By *normal*, I expect you mean something like ours, except for the fucking deamons, Magisterium, dust, witches, and polar bears with opposable thumbs?
Go away. Maybe there is a balrog site somewhere that is better suited to your needs.
@jfatz:
The Golden Compass has taken in $313,500,000 so far (sans DVD sales/iTunes) and cost $180,000,000 to make
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=goldencompass.htm
=$133,000,000 profit
His Lord Asriel, in The Golden Compass, is a rich explorer/scientist
Actually he’s a poor explorer, as a result of having his estates stripped.
I agree with him suddenly zooming up to Great Power status in the second book, though. Wtf?
Leni,
My point was intended to be that HDM isn’t good fantasy, nor do I see why it has atheist support. Anti-authoritarian and even anti-clerical motifs are not rare in literature.
I will almost certainly buy it on DVD, and hope there is a director’s cut. There is a great deal of potential in the movie with better editing.
Pullman is not an easy read but certainly thought provoking. While not a classic hero’s journey, I think it is much more close to what actually occurs in a soul searching experience. I read it at a dark time of my own life and it was very helpful to me.
Well, darn. Count me in as being rather sad now as well. I’d have liked to have seen the rest of the story, even if I’d have still said that the books were better. At least now I can read them to my significant other, rather than waiting until the movies come out.
I don’t know how productive it is to blame the fundie boycott, though. Perhaps the story really doesn’t translate that well; maybe it would work better with a smaller budget and a smaller audience. And hey, at least people are picking up the books.
And speaking of the books…
Dude, he tears open the sky with his huge Will to Power. Acquiring money and temporal might aren’t really big challenges for the guy.
As for Narnia, while Eric S. Raymond has been wrong about many, many other things, he’s dead-on in his critique of Narnia; the world never rises above being a puppet show, because an Aslan Ex Machina always shows up at the end, like Dumbledore on steroids, to explain things and point out that everything happens because of him. The characters are, at best, puppets.
I’m still going to see the next one for the effects, though. I won’t complain when they keep making them, though I’m going to be very, very curious as to how they fit another, bigger, mass battle into each successive movie.
After reading them approximately forty-eleven times as a child, I reread the Little House books as an adult (OK, maybe multiple times), and one of the themes that caught my interest was Laura’s anti-authoritarian streak, which occasionally manifested as opposition to established religion.
*In Little Town on the Prairie, I think, Laura is forced to go to a series of revival meetings. (Nellie Olson tells her “People who don’t go to revival meetings are atheists! She goes quite against her will and finds the whole thing stupid.
*Laura generally amuses herself in church by reconstructing the preacher’s sentences to improve their grammar.
*When Laura and Almanzo plan to marry, one of Laura’s conditions is that “…and obey” be left out of her vows. Almanzo goes along with her wish without a fuss.
*There are no instances of Providence stepping in and helping anyone anywhere in the books. All the good things that happen to the characters are the result of loyalty, determination and hard work.
So I’ve been able to enjoy reading the books aloud to my children without having to stop and explain away any objectionable theological foolishness as I have with many other “classic” children’s novels. Bonus!
Y’all must have watched a different movie than I did. Sure, I found the explanations for actions or characters rather thin at times, but it was complex and multi-layered (with parts for the kids and parts for the adults), so I was willing to suspend disbelief for a few hours. Then I read the three books. Frankly, I was disappointed. I felt that the movie story line was far better grounded than the books’. (eg. How does Lord Asriel go from begging for money from his alma mater for a trip to the Arctic, to being the leader of a hugh, well funded multi-species, multi-universe rebellion (complete with a well establish “Q”-style research arm) in just a few short months?) I thought that the movie nicely changed some of the more awkward plot twists of the book. I’m very disappointed that they won’t be making any sequels.
EWI,
while the way you interpret the box office numbers is logical, actual film profit/loss is even more illogical than Jonah Goldberg. Part of this is because generally quite a few people get shares of the net profits but few get shares of the gross movie take. Thus, the payback structure for the loans used to make the movie (and pay for the promotional campaign) generally have balloon payments due such that there are never any net profits unless the film makes huge money initially.
The movie kinda sucked. Having the Magisteruim badie do the poison rather than the Master of Jordan do the poisoning made it too much good guys/bad guys. Also changing the sequence where the bear fight came before the Bolvanger sequence really confused me, and the whole Bolvanger part was too short. I think they originally intended to folow the sequence of the book. My gf asked me “Why didn’t other bears come to Bolvanger?” Well, that’s cause in the book Iorek isn’t king yet.
Plus leaving out the final scenes of the book where Asrael opens the gateway, kills Roger and has a showdown with Mrs Coulter was just criminal.
As for Asrael’s transformation in the second to Master of Universes makes perfect sense. If aliens came to our world, they’d have a lot of influence. Asrael is that alien to many worlds, though there’s no mention that he came to our world. Even so, some of the weapons he has and the “flyers” mentioned in the second two books make me think he acquired friends here or in nearby possible worlds. I would be his ally.
I didn’t read the Narnia books until I was 26. I slogged through The Magician’s Nephew and Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe before stopping in disgust at the sentimentality and pointlessness. Then again, I read the Lord of the Rings in high school and wasn’t greatly impressed by it. Which was unfortunate, considering I liked The Hobbit.
The Narnia movie wasn’t great either: a lot of chest-thumping, jingoist garbage where the good guys win not because they’re smarter, or stronger, or because they’re right; they win because they’re wearing the white hats, end of story. Thoroughly unsatisfying.
Of course, Michael Moorcock (when will his books be made into movie blockbusters?) told us what we needed to know about Lewis and Tolkien.
I just finished the narnia books adn from a fantasy standpoint, I enjoyed them. I had never heard of the golden compass, I’ll probably pick up the books eventually. But I’m thinking that generally, anytime the church tells people not to see a film it results in greater numbers actually going. So, if the church opposed it and it still did that badly, it probably just isn’t worht going to see
I thought that the Narnia books were great. I loved the stories and characters. Forgive me, but I loved the movie too, and the BBC series that was on 15-20 years ago. When I was in 5th grade or so, my friend and I loved playing Narnia, in which we would step inside a closet, then step out into our imaginary kingdom, with magical rules .
I saw the Golden Compass with my 8 year old and my husband. I thought he would find it boring, but my husband loved it as much as my daughter and me. The book is offered in this month’s Scholastic book order, and I am ordering it. The only problem will be to see which one of us gets to read it first! I really hope they make more of these movies.
Of course, Michael Moorcock (when will his books be made into movie blockbusters?)
I think the closest hollywood will ever get to the fantasy anti-hero is “Riddick”.
based on that, I hope they leave Moorcock’s stuff the fuck alone, thankyouverymuch.
{shrugs}
I find myself remarkably indifferent to this news. I’ve seen the first movie (after a great deal of persuading) and wasn’t all that impressed. Not bad, but not brilliant by an stretch.
I haven’t read the books and I don’t have any intention of doing so any time soon, and it’s for the exact same reason that I don’t re-read the Narnia books despite having read the entire series a couple of times over when I was younger (though I will always have fond memories of Tom ‘4th Doctor’ Baker’s portayal of Puddleglum)
I find that, in speculative fiction, regardless of the author’s personal ideology, if they write something with a blatant axe to grind it makes for rather inferior story-telling.
If the church bans a movie and it still doesn’t do well–That’s a pretty good sign that it wasn’t very good to begin with
I think that in the fullness of time some European, probably but not necessarily British outfit will film an animated serial of the books being faithful to the text. I suspect that is the best we will get apart from our own imaginations.
As for filming Moorcock, I agree. How do you film the Dancers At The End of Time? If you leave out Mistress Christia, the Eternal Concubine you will eviscerate the amoral heart of the society and her and the Lat are just an absolute hoot, and absolutely X-Rated if you wanted to film it.
In the other installments of The Eternal Champion there is far too much blood and not anywhere near enough pleasant resolution to make acceptable cinema. They would be turned into nothing more than slasher flicks. The Byzantium trilogy is an no-no, the protagonist is an anti-semitic fascist. Mother London might be filmable, but too much of the London he writes about is gone perhaps. Pity Michael Gambon is a bit too old to play the mad guy…
as much as I like Elric, my thoughts always stray back to Corum as being my favorite.
but then, maybe that’s just because the first Moorcock books I ever read (about 30 years ago) were the ones comprising the Swords Trilogy.
I just can’t envision 99.99% of hollywood screen writers as even understanding the core of the books, let alone being able to flesh out a workable film version.
meh, I might not be giving them enough credit, though.
who knows? maybe someone will work out some sort of “adventures of Corum” thing…
which will probably star an aging Schwarzenegger and totally ruin it anyway.
holy crap, i have to bite my tongue:
http://www.multiverse.org/fora/showthread.php?t=2492
there apparently is a possibility there’s going to be an Elric movie!
maybe i missed something earlier in the thread, since it sounds like some of the same crew that is involved with Golden Compass is involved in this too?
or is that just a weird coincidence?
It’s too bad they have decided not to continue the series, I personally thought it had potential, yes they left out some things but no movie based on a book ever survives intact. I just finished re-reading the entire series last week and I count it among my favorite books now. For all the christians out there who felt the story denegrated your religion, the reason you feel that way is because your faith is weak. If you truly believed the things you preached then your faith couldn’t be shattered by a work of fiction. Thats why you fear stories like the DaVinci code and His Dark Materials, you are too afraid that you will see something that will make more sense to you and cause you to question your beliefs, I find that rather pathetic.
I’m shure that in the future someone will attempt to do this series again, I look foreward to that.
your faith is weak
you just don’t understand the POWER of the dark side…
LOL
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=20694
hopefully this’ll pave the way for someone to make a better, fuller version in future.
“The Golden Compass” was probably the most utterly pointless movie adaptation I’ve ever seen. Incomprehensible to anyone who hadn’t read the books and infuriating to those who had.
On the plus side millions more books have been sold. I believe the series was number 2 on Amazon.com over Christmas.
Isn’t this a delicious irony: Donahue’s whole point with the boycott was that the film might encourage children to read the book trilogy — he implied that he didn’t really care so much about the film itself, which he (correctly) presumed would be softened. But now, while he’s busy gloating about the supposed failure of the film, Pullman’s books are flying off the shelves!
The only people who may be suffering as a result of this boycott are certain executives at New Line Cinema — specifically whoever made the decision to sell off the foreign distribution rights. Pullman certainly isn’t hurting.
By the way, PZ: as at least two other commenters have pointed out, there has been no announcement (or even so much as a sourced rumor) about sequels. Kyle Smith’s remark seems to be nothing more than his own prediction based on the box office numbers. It’s a prediction that people have been making for the past month — Smith’s blog entry does not add any information. (Even the dust-up between Hanna Rosin and Chris Weitz is old news — a month old, to be exact.)
The Jesus themes in Narnia were very obvious, ad neausam almost, but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the books themselves. If anything, it highlights Lewis’ childish desire to incorporate Jesus into a children’s story. Looked at from this perspective, I think it is amusing (the Aslan as a lamb part was my favorite joke).
#63
“Actually, I had heard that all three of the books were already filmed, and could be released at any time.
Don’t believe everything you hear, or read, seek proof. ”
I saw a trailer for the first movie online which included scenes that were obviously from the second movie!
“”The Golden Compass” was probably the most utterly pointless movie adaptation I’ve ever seen. Incomprehensible to anyone who hadn’t read the books and infuriating to those who had.”
I saw the movie without having read the book and THOUGHT I understood it. But maybe I was mistaken.
I haven’t seen The Golden Compass — I’m waiting for it to come onto Sky Box Office, and I’ll probably use the intervening time to read the books.
I thought The da Vinci Code was really poor. Angels and Demons might have transferred better to film, since the action is taking place in a more contained space. But I still can’t forgive Dan Brown for the plot holes in Digital Fortress. One-dimensional characters, engendering sympathy for the real enemy, an abject lack of understanding of computers and cryptology which fatally undermines the entire premise of the story, but for me the absolute lolly-stick in the dog turd was getting the name of the Spanish currency wrong.
Well since a movie sort-of corresponds to a short story in length, maybe it would be better to do the trilogy as a TV series/miniseries instead.
Re; comment #83 ichthyic
I would mostly agree (“hope they leave Moorcock’s stuff the fuck alone”) as I can’t see anyone being able to realise most of it intelligently. However, if someone REALLY wanted to do an atheist-inspired movie then I can’t think of a better one than ‘Behold the man’.
That was, of course, comment #82 I ws referring to above (the coffe hasn’t quite reached my fingertips yet this Sunday morning).
I’m logging onto the web-feed of the radio-station in Minnesota, ready for the atheist programme later and just skimming the threads here to pass the time.
Didn’t watch the ‘Golden Compass’ film and have no intention of doing so. I read the books and thought they were the worst type of dreck (see a humorous thread here: http://richarddawkins.net/articleComments,1947,Fear-of-censure-deflects-The-Golden-Compas,The-Herald,page1#93774
comment #15)
“I saw a trailer for the first movie online which included scenes that were obviously from the second movie!”
I know (from friends that worked on the VFX) that the original ending was scrapped and redone at the last minute. So it’s quite possible that you saw unused footage in the trailer.
“I Am Legend” had the same thing in it’s trailer- a whole scene with Will Smith surrounded by mutants that’s nowhere to be seen in the final cut.
Maybe it’ll wind up on DVD.
Let me rephrase…
“It’s quite possible that what you saw was unused footage from part one in the trailer, not scenes from part two”.
The one with the comfortable Christian themes, of course. It had a guaranteed undiscerning and credulous audience
Well, it also has the guaranteed books-I-read-a-million-times-as-a-child audience.
Look for the good Golden Compass adaptations in thirty years.
To reiterate what several other commenters pointed out:
Kyle Smith offers no source for his claim that the sequels will not be made.
The blog post PZ links to is little more than a description of two selections – Hanna Rosin’s article, and Weitz’s response – both of which have been on The Atlantic’s website for well over a month.
The usual quick searches – official sites, google news, wiki, etc. turn up no corroborating evidence. (Any articles making similar claims found via search engines cite either Smith himself, or no source at all.)
You might consider amending the original post, PZ, unless someone can find additional evidence. At the moment it seems your post is echoing a rumor.
“It’s quite possible that what you saw was unused footage from part one in the trailer, not scenes from part two”.
Well, I know the books fairly well and the scene was almost certainly from Citigazze. Could be that they initially intended to go that far, but Citigazze was definitely in the second book, so I assumed it would’ve been in the second movie.
I was prompted to read the books by the campaign against it, so its true: There is no thing as bad publicity. Some hundred pages into it, I went to the movie because I wanted to see it on the big screen, but what a disappointment, not because of the “softening of the message”, but the storytelling was a complete disaster. It is simply a bad movie.
And btw, “god” is mentioned exactly once in the 1000 pages of the trilogy. So what are the religionists so upset about? Sissies.
Red Molly #75 wrote:
Those are some interesting observations and I’m glad to say that it sounds better than I remembered! I wish I had re-read them too, but I decided to just bite the bullet and hope for the best.
dkew #71 wrote:
My last quip was probably a little snottier than it needed to be, but I should think it would be obvious why a book that blatantly criticizes theocratic authority would be popular among atheists. That it’s not rare in literature strikes me as irrelevant. I am hard pressed to think of movies aimed at young adults with themes that blatantly critical of religious authority. Toy Story had some very uplifting humanist moments, but that’s not really the same. I’m probably forgetting some other good examples, but I think it is pretty unusual, if not in literature then perhaps in mainstream American cinema.
Also, because we live in a culture where anything deemed atheistic is treated like a thing of plague, it’s just nice to see it do well despite having the dreaded label. Even if it didn’t do as well as, say, Transformers did (which also was a “great gilded turd” complete with racist stereotypes and a sickeningly militaristic, pro-American fake patriotism).
Uh, no. Not even close. The take is gross sales at the box office. The studio typically takes a percentage – which can be as high as 100% (Revenge of the Sith) but is typically around 80%-90% the first week and significantly dropping each week thereafter. Usually, by week three or four, the Studio is making less than 50% of the box. Also there is marketing and distribution which are not in the “cost to make” calculation.
So, of the $70 million or so in US sales, they might have been lucky to get $50 million. They’d have gotten a lot of the Week 1 gross of $26 million, but they probably only got 50%-60% (weighted) of the rest.
Making it even more difficult to recoup the costs, New Line sold the European distribution rights off for a lump sum. So the European sales aren’t even helping them.
All-in-all, the Studio screwed up big-time, from script approval, then casting and all the way through rights management and distribution. At this point in time, they’ll be lucky to break-even when they include DVD sales. Which is why we probably won’t see the rest of them.
The one film I know of that comes from Michael Moorcock’s books is The Final Programme, made back in 1973. It captures a lot of the strangeness of the Jerry Cornelius books.
I saw & enjoyed, & thought I understood The Golden Compass without reading any of the books. I’ve deliberately not read them since I heard of the film, because I didn’t want the two to clash in my head.
I don’t understand what people don’t understand or find confusing about the story in the film if they don’t know the books. I can understand if you know the books and they’ve moved around or conflated or otherwise seriously changed bits, that would be confusing (which was what I was avoiding). Parts of it reminded me a little of The City of Lost Children (La Cité des Enfants Perdus), tho’ in a very different style. It did make me want to see ‘what happened next’, so I’d be sad if they didn’t make any of the rest of the story.
“Just why Mr. Frodo was selling his beautiful hole was even more debatable than the price…”
LOL, how come I never noticed that before?
I went to see Golden Compass yesterday, after it had been showing at a local multiplex for about six weeks, and more than half the seats were filled for the matinee screening.
Sounds like the producers may be giving up too soon – especially since they have the option of picking a better director next time…
To answer #27: “LeeLeeOne, given that there are SEVEN books in the Chronicles of Narnia…”
I was speaking out of faulty memory that is obviously getting worse by the day (damn the diagnosis!). I know there are 7 books; however, I had been the receiver of these books in 3 distinct groups, (gifted to me over 3 separate years of birthdays).
So I falter in my memory and chose to relate to them as a “trilogy.” My humblest apologies, and in absolute sincerity, I thank you for pointing this out.
Haven’t seen it yet, but my son watched it last night. I could hear frequent shrieks of “WHAT! THEY CUT THAT PART TOO??” coming from the other room. He wasn’t pleased with the adaptation.
It didn’t do well at our local theatres, who had it running in half their rooms the first week, and promptly dropped it. Nobody showed up. This is an atheist corner of agnostic Canada, btw.
If a sequel ever happens, they could always retcon any inconsistencies or plot holes in the first movie by saying that it was a story told by Lyra, who is on occasion known to embellish the truth. . . .
The Narnia Chronicles are OK, I mean, they’re way to derivative, but pretty enjoyable otherwise. Materials, I haven’t seen yet, or read. However, because of the movie I went out and bought the book-on-tape, so that’s something. Hopefully there will be many like me, those who will at least check out an atheist author.
I dunno, I haven’t seen the Golden Compass yet, but I did see Narnia – I loved the books as a child, and quite liked the movie (though I thought the White Witch was far too 1-dimensional… In my mind in the books, she was always a lot more charming to Edmund, making it understandable that he might think she was one of the Good Guys. In the movie she was evil to the core, and just plain scary, even when she was giving him treats… Cool actress, though, and awsome costume…).
I was brought up Christian, and my brother (who is a fundamentalist) gave me my first copy of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for my 5th birthday. At age 5, the Christian themes didn’t worry me in the slightest – I didn’t notice them. The rules on a fantasy world could be whatever rules they wanted – and this old magic that demanded blood for stupid things was just a part of this world, as was the fact that the lion a) talked, and b) rose from the dead.
The one thing I *do* remember having problems suspending my disbelief over, even at that age, was the Professor’s attitude. Remember here that I hadn’t read the magician’s Nephew yet, so I didn’t know that the Professor had been to Narnia and knew about it, so the idea that an otherwise intelligent and well-educated adult would use an argument like “Well, if your sister isn’t mad and isn’t a liar then obviously she must be telling the truth!” seemed well beyond what my little mind was able to accept.
Honestly, if I were in the professor’s position, with a young child who was generally honest and not crazy telling me with 100% certainty that she’d been into a world that was full of magic and talking beasts and perpetual winter etc etc… well… I wouldn’t come up with that trichotomy. I’d be wondering how she could have got that idea into her head, and probably assuming she’d made some sort of honest mistake somewhere, or had a hallucination or something.
So, yeah, the whole resurrection thing? No problem. Magic world. Check. The whole professor thing? Ummm… not so easy for a kid to accept.
(p.s., sorry for the length…)
I have to put a vote in for enjoying the Golden Compass movie (before reading the book) – went with my kids who had read the series, and they enjoyed it too (while analysing the differences between script and book). I have now read the GC and will read the others. I also enjoyed the LWW as a child, but thought that the Dark is Rising series was superior (refused to see the first movie because they made it American!).
Just my A$0.02
Maybe someday (in a few decades), a talented person with the right kind of computer power could make good movies on hardly any budget. Like writing a novel, but with very, very advanced CGI. I think that only then will our favorite books me made into the movies we see in our heads, when they can be produced with few or no actors, distributed cheaply online, and broken up into many episodes like miniseries.
If the history of this genre teaches anything, it is that the imagined future takes a long time to render as film.
Since it took a half century to launch Tolkien & CS Lewis in Hollywood, expecting Pullman to take fire in under a decade may not be realistic- put this one down as the prequel, bearing in mind that despite 40 years and an honest-to-God jihad, Dune has only progressed from abortion to miniseries.
Paradise Lost has been looking for a producer for four centuries now , and Dante’s intra-terrestrial argosy for seven.
I just decided to dl and watch narnia again, to recall what i objected to about it (since the CGI animals were fine and dandy).
…and here it is, wrapped up in a simple two sentence interaction between the older girl and the professor, after the little girl first returns from visiting narnia and the older sibs don’t believe it:
Older girl: “Logically, there can’t be a forest in a closet!”
professor:”Tsk. What are they teaching in school these days? … You’re family, you’re supposed to believe her (the little girl)”
it’s the knock on logic in favor of patronizing another’s fantasies, simply because you’re close to them; a theme that runs throughout the film. As if somehow, if schools failed to teach fantasy as reality, they would doom a child’s imagination.
grated on me to no end.
…for a MUCH better take on fostering imagination in a child, i wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Finding Neverland instead.
I’ve never seen so much misguided commentary from so many evidently intelligent people – except in other threads also dealing with the transition of a novel to the movie screen!
The novel and the movie are two different but not necessarily “non-overlapping” magisteria (omigod he said it!). However, even if the former were routinely transitioned exactly from that medium to the other, people would still like/dislike the result according to their own preconceptions, expectations and tastes.
The novel is typically the creation and work of an individual. Movies never are – unless you happen to be the producer, writer, director, photographer, editor and sole actor in your movie.
But the inescapable fact is that even with the best will and deepest integrity in the world, there is no way anyone can convert a book which might take (for the sake of argument) eight straight hours of uninterrupted reading time and turn it into a two-hour movie and not have to tip paragraph after paragraph into the grinder.
The movie could, and should, have been longer, but even so, sacrifices had to be made. If the writer/director made the sacrifices you agree with, then you love the movie. If they didn’t, you don’t. You might even hate it. All of this is entirely subjective. It’s completely pointless, self-indulgent, and rather arrogant not to say juvenile to go on and on about it.
Last I heard the movie made almost $70 million in North America and an additional quarter billion (give or take) in the rest of the world. This movie is not a failure by any standard and the sequels will come, one way or another.
If there’s any failure it was in the studio execs who short-sightedly screwed themselves out of the overseas profits, but the biggest failure by far was in the small-minded theists who denied themselves a visual feast because of their asinine bigotry and cowardice.
The moral high-ground here is squarely under the feet of the atheists who will read a book or see a movie because it might be interesting or revealing. They’re not the ones who are quite literally hiding from these media for no other “reason” than abject fear that the medium might (even fleetingly) expose them to a belief system that’s different from or even questions their own spastic dogma.
The Golden Compass might have been comprehensible, but it wasn’t very good. From a pure script point of view it was too rushed, too small, to inconsistent and too jumpy to be a good film, even discounting the problems from an adaptation point of view. It had all the hallmarks of being comitteed to death, with the grand themes of the books being whittled down to a fairly trite Hollywood good guys vs bad guys fantasy flick. In their efforts to appease the crazy Catholics they managed to make the film more overtly anti-Catholic than the book – for God’s sake, they might as well have had Christopher Lee fiddling a choirboy in some of the scenes – and took the quiet menace and wonder of the universe away.
For this reason I’m not disappointed at all that the films aren’t going to continue. I’d far rather the trilogy lay fallow for a few more decades until someone who actually likes the books writes a screenplay.
Oh, and I think there’s a difference between criticising a book-film transition because it’s a good film that doesn’t do justice to the story by your own standards, and criticising a book-film transition because the film itself is bad. Golden Compass was a bad film with a terrible screenplay. No amount of “you just think it spoiled the book” can get past that.
I completely agree, McDuff. I liked the books, but the movie was a mess — it didn’t seem to have a clear singular vision like, say, The Lord of the Rings. There was no nuance.
And for the life of me I can’t figure out where they thought they were going to go for the next two films — given that they had removed the explicit religious elements, it would be kinda hard to then go and, you know, kill God.
It was a mess all around, and frankly didn’t deserve the sequels.
Anon Ymous: Notice the parallel between that issue and the “lunatic, liar, or lord” false tricotomy …