Fantasy The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass (2007) - IMDb

"It was no ordinary life for a young girl: living among scholars in the hallowed halls of Jordan College and tearing unsupervised through Oxford's motley streets on mad quests for adventure. But Lyra's greatest adventure would begin closer to home, the day she heard hushed talk of an extraordinary particle. Microscopic in size, the magical Dust- found only in the vast Artic expanse of the North -was rumored to possess profound properties that could unite whole universes. But there were those who feared the particle and would stop at nothing to destroy it. Catapultedinto the heart of a terrible struggle, Lyra was forced to seek aid from clans, gyptians, and formidable armored bears. And as she journeyed into unbelievable danger, she had not the faintest clue that she alone was destined to win, or to lose, this more-than-mortal battle..."
 
OMG! I am so excited for this, you don't even know.
These books... sigh. LOVE them.
Here's some cast (James Bond!!!!!!)...


Daniel Craig ... Lord Asriel
Nicole Kidman ... Marisa Coulter
Eva Green ... Serafina Pekkala

Sam Elliott ... Lee Scoresby
Dakota Blue Richards ... Lyra Belacqua
Adam Godley ... Pantalaimon (voice)

Simon McBurney ... Fra Pavel
Magda Szubanski ... Mrs. Lonsdale
Tom Courtenay ... Farder Cordam
Jim Carter ... John Faa
Nonso Anozie ... Iorek Byrnison (voice)
Clare Higgins ... Ma Costa
Bill Hurst ... Trollesund Captain
Hattie Morahan ... Clara
Ben Walker ... Roger
Jack Shepherd ... Master
Jason Watkins ... Bolvangar Official
John Franklyn-Robbins ... Librarian
Charlie Rowe ... Billy Costa
Paul Antony-Barber ... Bolvangar Doctor
John Bett ... Thorold
James Rawlings ... Passing Scholar
 
But did you like LotR? *winks*

You're not a true snob of literature to cinema conversion until you find yourself arguing that they should have made the LotR films perfectly accurate, lasting thirteen hours each and fully explaining and including every nuance and detail.

As for modern cinema, I am so very disappointed in this long dry spell of good films. Remakes, remakes, and more remakes. All of them horrible. When an original movie does come out, they turn it into a trilogy with each new film degrading the franchise more than the last. By the end of the third, it hardly resembles anything from the first.

~Dune~
 
And so it was written, "...that in the 21st century there should come a time when the public shall take leave of their senses and witness every production, no matter how pathetic or sad, and fund all future productions freely with no regard to true enjoyment, quality, or sanity. And the mass media shall look upon this time, give themselves raises, and call it good."

The Book of Gates -1037 CE
 
I hear there are Christian boycotts of this movie.

*tries to resist going on a tirade*

...Ok I think Im under control now.

Well anyways the movies usually tend to be worse than the books but I think it should be ok. Most of the movies I would probably really like if I hadn't already read the books. I plan on seeing this eventually but I'm not to into movie-watching and might not get around to it until it comes out in the "cheap theater" for $2. lol
 
The movie was true to the book, granted it left out ALL of the "controversial" topics out completely. But as a movie alone, not comparing it to the book, it was TERRIBLE.

1. No character development was shown at all. Every last one of them was a static and flat as possible. Granted the movie follows Lyra, none of the side characters seem to really be given depth or made in the least bit interesting. (With the exception of one.)

2. They squished a 4 hour movie into 2. She was in a different location every five minutes, but worst yet, it never gave the viewers a good reason as to how the hell she kept ending up in these situations. It almost ended up a comedy as to how everything was going bad to worse, but the main character had a perfectly drone "go with the flow" attitude with it all.

3. Incredibly ugly child actor for Lyra's Friend.
 
I hear there are Christian boycotts of this movie.

The Southern Baptists finally decided to lift their boycott of Disney. They were offended by Disney G-a-y (forum filter) Days at their theme parks, so they boycotted everything Disney. But it was eventually lifted not too long ago because no body seemed to actually care.

That said, the world would be a better place with more actual Christians who really follow the teachings of Jesus. Instead we've mostly got a bunch of uneducated bigots and hypocritical traditionalists who bible-thump and raise a ruckus. And for some reason we let these people get away with calling themselves Christians, when they're so very against the teachings of "love thy neighbor", "turn the other cheek", etc, etc.

~Dune~
 
An extract from my SFF blog:

The current Christmas fantasy blockbuster, this is based on Northern Lights (known as The Golden Compass outside the UK), the first volume of Philip Pullman's highly successful His Dark Materials trilogy. I read the trilogy a few years ago and, while I wouldn't call myself a fan, thought it worth the fairly considerable time involved (there is a total of nearly 1,300 pages). Although marketed for children, Pullman did not write for this audience - the marketing decision was based on the fact that the principal characters are children - and in fact the tale is rather grim for the young.

For those unfamiliar with the story, a brief background: this is an unusual and complex fantasy, involving a parallel world (of approximately late-Victorian technical development) with people whose souls are housed outside the body, in talking animals called daemons. The story focuses on a 12-year old English girl – Lyra Bellaqua (very well played in the film by 13-year old novice Dakota Blue Richards) – who becomes the focus of interest of the powerful religious Magisterium and its ally, the formidable Mrs Coulter (an excellent performance by Nicole Kidman, with just the right blend of beauty, charm and reasonableness covering evil intent). In this first part, young children keep disappearing and Lyra, with the aid of a truth-divining pocket-watch like device known as the alethiometer (the Golden Compass of the film title), becomes involved in trying to discover what has happened to them. Lyra's journey takes her to an experimental station in the far north, and encounters with giant talking polar bears, who wear armour and live for fighting.

When making a film of a long and complex book (six or seven hours of reading, condensed into a couple of cinematic hours), the film-makers can either cut out many characters and large chunks of the plot, or can try to include all of the key elements but treat them rather briefly. In the case of The Golden Compass, the later course has been selected. The film starts with a long, voice-over infodump to try to get the audience up and running, then (as far as I can recall) remains more or less faithful to the book thereafter, but with each scene cropped in a way which keeps the story moving quickly. This works well enough for those familiar with the plot, for whom it acts as a kind of visual refresher, but may I suspect prove confusing and even irritating to the uninitiated. On the credit side, there are many visually spectacular scenes and the CGI is as good as we have come to expect. The acting is also very good from a strong cast, including the Casino Royale pairing of the rugged Daniel Craig as Lyra's "uncle" Lord Asriel and the beautiful Eva Green as the witch-queen Serafina Pekkala.

The trilogy has attracted controversy because of its anti-religious content, which becomes stronger in the later books. Not surprisingly, the Christian churches have reacted rather badly to the success of the series, although this aspect has been played down in this first film. I presume that films of the other volumes will follow if this one is successful (which so far it seems to be, although less so in the USA).

Overall, a good effort and I will certainly be watching the sequels, if they appear.
 
I didn't read the book (whoops), but I did see the movie.

It was alright. I agree it felt a little flat character-wise, but overall, not terrible. I can't put my finger on it, but as I told my wife, it was missing some ingredient.

Like when you make dinner and it's, you know, not bad, but it's just missing that dash of something?

I usually just use salt.

Not touching the Christian thing since I'm in company colors, despite having a lot to say on the issue.... O.o
 
I kind liked the movie, though it mixed up the order of the events in order to ensure a cinematic continuity that'd last 2 hours and not go on too long. The world was beautiful, and they did the daemons well, which was my favorite part of the books as a kid. When read the books I didn't really care too much about the church/political stuff, it got in the way of the awesome armored bears and daemons, and I guess that was part of the moviemakers' aesthetic as well.

I thought the acting in it was well-done, esp. Lyra, though I agree, I wish there had been more development in some of the other characters. That's harder to do in a movie than it is in writing since it's more jarring to have many different narratives going on at the same time during a movie than within a book.
 

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