My Compass, It is Golden
Dec. 10th, 2007 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkingsoupSoooo, yeah. The Golden Compass, as everyone knows, came out on Friday and has stirred up a massive controversy for various reasons. The book was similarly heralded with controversy and debate, and continues to be a source of strife with some people. That's what you get for writing such a blatantly anti-religion book, I guess.
Anyway, those of you that know me know that I cherish the His Dark Materials trilogy. The Amber Spyglass is my second favorite book ever after House of Leaves. Every time I read it it brings tears to my eyes, and not many books can do that. I grew up with these; they're close to my heart.
And I've been waiting for this movie for about three years now, and ever since I heard it was being made into a movie I've been worried that they'd kill it. So I'd been kind of bracing myself for disappointment.
My final verdict?
Okay. In all honesty? It was decent. Certain things they did quite well. Other things not so much.
Let me start with the good.
The casting was perfect, especially for Lyra. Dakota Blue Richards was exactly as I imagined Lyra to be. She was absolutely wonderful, and I can see how she managed to win out against all those other girls who auditioned for the part. It's like Phillip Pullman had her in mind when he wrote Lyra.
Serafina Pekkala, Lee Scorseby, Lord Faa, Lord Asriel, and Ms. Coulter were similarly perfect. Nicole Kidman could not have done a better job, and I'm so glad they found Eva Green for Serafina. I was worried about Serafina's portrayal, but she absolutely nailed it, in the way that Dakota nailed Lyra. Even the daemons were perfectly cast--Pantalaimon sounded as I imagined him, as did Hester. And even though Ms. Coulter's daemon never says anything--he never says anything in the book, either--the way he acted was wonderful.
I have a little bit of a problem with Iorek Byrnison only because I kept hearing Gandalf in him. I wish they had kept the original voice actor, Nonso Anozie, who you hear in the previews. Still, Ian McKellen does a superb job and I was really pleased, since Iorek is one of my favorite characters.
The movie also looked awesome. Everything from the vision of the world itself to the portrayal of the daemons to the action scenes was excellently done. Lyra's world was pretty much as I had envisioned it, and they managed to incorporate all the technology effortlessly without really having to draw attention to it (I fucking loved the zeppelins). Lee Scoresby's balloon didn't...look at all like I envisioned it, but still. (As Kate said, "I wasn't expecting his ship to look like a giant pair of testicles").
The daemons were brilliant, at least visually. The way they shifted back and forth so fluidly, and the way that they died was very, very well done.
The action scenes didn't pull any punches. I was worried about the battle between Iorek and Iofur (whose name they changed to Ragnar in the movie, and I didn't even notice! I'm so ashamed...) because there's a pretty gruesome scene in the book where Iorek knocks Iofur's lower jaw off. But they kept it in in the movie, and their battle was absolutely wonderful. The battles between the Tartars and the gyptians, Lyra's flight from the gobblers, and all the others were also really awesome.
And here's where everything changes.
Sure it all looked awesome, and sure the characters were perfect. But that's about all this movie had going for it. It's like they became so enraptured with the visuals that they forgot about the actual story.
First of all, the ending (lol).
WHAT THE FUCK. The entire theater exploded when we realized that the movie was ending. Anyone who hasn't read the books won't understand, but everyone who had was absolutely howling. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen, the most bastardized ending of a book-to-movie ever. It's a goddamn travesty is what it is.
Here's the problem, for people who haven't read the book. The first book ends with Lyra and Roger meeting up with Lord Asriel. Lord Asriel then takes Roger, severs his daemon thus killing him, and uses the energy to pretty much rip a hole in reality so that he can travel to a parallel universe. The book ends with Lyra walking up a bridge into the aurora and into another world.
The movie ends with Lyra and Roger on the ship heading for Lord Asriel, Lyra assuring Roger that everything okay, and the alethiometer telling her that she is "brining Lord Asriel what he needs."
NO. JUST NO. You cannot add a line of that significance and then END THE MOVIE. That ending pissed me off more than anything else about this movie. I mean, the second book begins with Will, and it's this big deal because suddenly you're transported from a different world back to our own. It's interesting because you can compare the similarities between the two, and track this new and interesting character as he also finds out about parallel worlds. The book is pretty much all about Will--his past, his personality, his relationship with Lyra, his relationship to the multiple worlds, and his relationship to the Subtle Knife itself. I don't understand how you could possibly start the second movie with a cataclysmic event like Lyra's best friend being killed and then move on to Will. It would be incredibly jarring; the audience wouldn't be able to follow it. There's a reason they call it the climax, goddamn it, because it's the HEIGHT of the action and the tension!
If they do it in flashback form in the second movie, I swear I'm never seeing a book-to-movie again.
The ending aside, this movie had myriad other problems. The daemons certainly looked and acted brilliantly, but the movie completely removed the significance of touching another person's daemon, and also downplayed the severing to the point that it didn't even freaking matter.
How the hell do you justify downplaying the removal of a person's soul? When Lyra found Billy he didn't act differently enough for us to realize that his fucking soul had been cut away. Also, in the book, Billy dies the morning after Lyra finds him. All they had to do in the movie was have Billy die, and suddenly it hits you, "oh my fucking god, these people are cutting off children's souls, and it's killing them!"
But no. No significance whatsoever. The cutting is seen as a tragic and awful separation, little more than that.
I don't really have a problem with the transformation of the Church into the Magesterium, because I can understand why that was necessary. America can handle a movie that consists entirely of people torturing Jesus Christ, but it can't handle a movie about atheism. And I don't mean that to sound bitter or sarcastic, because it's the truth. The director et. al. needed to make the movie palatable to a wide audience. And even if they're calling it the Magesterium, you can tell that they're actually the Church, so it's not all that much of a departure.
But, really. If you're going to make such a dramatic switch, at least follow through with it. The Magesterium keeps referring to "the Authority," but this becomes confusing. There isn't enough emphasis on it to make people understand that they mean Authority with a capital A. You hear the word and it's like "the authority...of who? what? wait, what's going on?" You can't tell if they're talking about authority in an abstract or concrete sense. It's a simple matter of emphasis.
Also, what the fuck was up with that beginning? "Welcome to the theater. Now we're going to reveal the ENTIRE plot of the ENTIRE trilogy RIGHT NOW." In crappy, emotionless exposition, nonetheless. I was worried when I first saw the previews because Lord Asriel talks about the existence of other worlds. In the books, you don't really realize that there are countless other worlds until the very end when Lyra walks up into the aurora, and later in the second book when you're introduced to Will and the Subtle Knife. I don't mind the fact that they decided to reveal it early on, but did they have to hit us over the head with it? By the end of the first book, you know that there is at least one other universe out there--it's not until the second book that you realize there are whole bunches. They could have gradually built up to that, but instead they decided to reveal it to us in the first five minutes.
Dust is the only part of the overarching trilogy plot that they did well. In the first book, you're not supposed to really know what Dust is or its significance, and they did a really good job of being very subtle about it--from the portrayal of Dust flowing down into the man in the picture that Asriel shows, to the internal workings of the alethiometer (though they could have forgone that zoom into the alethiometer every. single. time.), to the moment when the daemons disappeared in a cloud of golden dust (Dust). That's exactly how it was in the book, and I'm pleased that they at least decided not to smack us in the face with Dust right away.
One last thing--they completely cut out Will's father. This is enormously significant since it draws the connection between Lyra and Will, and between their two worlds. In the very beginning, Asriel shows a photograph of a man and his daemon with the Dust (I just talked about it) standing next to a severed child (which they also cut out). The man, it later turns out, is Will's father. The least they could have done in the movie is give the guy in the picture a freaking name and give him some smidgen of significance. The book certainly didn't bash you over the head with "pay attention to this guy, he comes back later!" Like in everything else (except of course the portrayal of religion) the book is subtle. But it's subtle enough that when you find out the truth later, you look back and say, "whoa, wait--holy shit! That was foreshadowed way back in book one!"
But, nope. No Will's daddy. He's going to end up just being some random guy when we do finally meet him. No build-up or significance.
And this is kind of a nitpick, but the book never once refers to the alethiometer as a "golden compass." It's an alethiometer. A truth-measure. That's all.
Gah. This movie could have been so awesome. It could have been brilliant, on par with Lord of the Rings. But they just haven't been able to replicate the success of Lord of the Rings. They managed to transcribe that perfectly, though of course the sacrifice was that the movies were godawful long. As if to make up for that precedent or something, this movie was extremely fast paced, to the point that it was like, "oh now we're--wait, didn't something--and now something new is happening, wait, I can't keep up!" They could have tacked on another half an hour, added a few things in, fixed the ending and the movie would have been excellent.
*sigh* Fortunately, I saw this coming, so I'm not going to let this movie color my opinion of the book itself. The book is so far beyond the movie it's not even funny.
Score: 4 out of 10.
In other news, Sophia, Julie and I have finished watching the Anne of Green Gables trilogy, which is brilliant and awesome.
The year is coming to an end. Four more days of classes, then it's finals week.
The ice on the ground this morning was ridiculous. Here's hoping that we get more snow instead of freezing rain.
I want to open a hot chocolate/tea shop.
Anyway, those of you that know me know that I cherish the His Dark Materials trilogy. The Amber Spyglass is my second favorite book ever after House of Leaves. Every time I read it it brings tears to my eyes, and not many books can do that. I grew up with these; they're close to my heart.
And I've been waiting for this movie for about three years now, and ever since I heard it was being made into a movie I've been worried that they'd kill it. So I'd been kind of bracing myself for disappointment.
My final verdict?
Okay. In all honesty? It was decent. Certain things they did quite well. Other things not so much.
Let me start with the good.
The casting was perfect, especially for Lyra. Dakota Blue Richards was exactly as I imagined Lyra to be. She was absolutely wonderful, and I can see how she managed to win out against all those other girls who auditioned for the part. It's like Phillip Pullman had her in mind when he wrote Lyra.
Serafina Pekkala, Lee Scorseby, Lord Faa, Lord Asriel, and Ms. Coulter were similarly perfect. Nicole Kidman could not have done a better job, and I'm so glad they found Eva Green for Serafina. I was worried about Serafina's portrayal, but she absolutely nailed it, in the way that Dakota nailed Lyra. Even the daemons were perfectly cast--Pantalaimon sounded as I imagined him, as did Hester. And even though Ms. Coulter's daemon never says anything--he never says anything in the book, either--the way he acted was wonderful.
I have a little bit of a problem with Iorek Byrnison only because I kept hearing Gandalf in him. I wish they had kept the original voice actor, Nonso Anozie, who you hear in the previews. Still, Ian McKellen does a superb job and I was really pleased, since Iorek is one of my favorite characters.
The movie also looked awesome. Everything from the vision of the world itself to the portrayal of the daemons to the action scenes was excellently done. Lyra's world was pretty much as I had envisioned it, and they managed to incorporate all the technology effortlessly without really having to draw attention to it (I fucking loved the zeppelins). Lee Scoresby's balloon didn't...look at all like I envisioned it, but still. (As Kate said, "I wasn't expecting his ship to look like a giant pair of testicles").
The daemons were brilliant, at least visually. The way they shifted back and forth so fluidly, and the way that they died was very, very well done.
The action scenes didn't pull any punches. I was worried about the battle between Iorek and Iofur (whose name they changed to Ragnar in the movie, and I didn't even notice! I'm so ashamed...) because there's a pretty gruesome scene in the book where Iorek knocks Iofur's lower jaw off. But they kept it in in the movie, and their battle was absolutely wonderful. The battles between the Tartars and the gyptians, Lyra's flight from the gobblers, and all the others were also really awesome.
And here's where everything changes.
Sure it all looked awesome, and sure the characters were perfect. But that's about all this movie had going for it. It's like they became so enraptured with the visuals that they forgot about the actual story.
First of all, the ending (lol).
WHAT THE FUCK. The entire theater exploded when we realized that the movie was ending. Anyone who hasn't read the books won't understand, but everyone who had was absolutely howling. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen, the most bastardized ending of a book-to-movie ever. It's a goddamn travesty is what it is.
Here's the problem, for people who haven't read the book. The first book ends with Lyra and Roger meeting up with Lord Asriel. Lord Asriel then takes Roger, severs his daemon thus killing him, and uses the energy to pretty much rip a hole in reality so that he can travel to a parallel universe. The book ends with Lyra walking up a bridge into the aurora and into another world.
The movie ends with Lyra and Roger on the ship heading for Lord Asriel, Lyra assuring Roger that everything okay, and the alethiometer telling her that she is "brining Lord Asriel what he needs."
NO. JUST NO. You cannot add a line of that significance and then END THE MOVIE. That ending pissed me off more than anything else about this movie. I mean, the second book begins with Will, and it's this big deal because suddenly you're transported from a different world back to our own. It's interesting because you can compare the similarities between the two, and track this new and interesting character as he also finds out about parallel worlds. The book is pretty much all about Will--his past, his personality, his relationship with Lyra, his relationship to the multiple worlds, and his relationship to the Subtle Knife itself. I don't understand how you could possibly start the second movie with a cataclysmic event like Lyra's best friend being killed and then move on to Will. It would be incredibly jarring; the audience wouldn't be able to follow it. There's a reason they call it the climax, goddamn it, because it's the HEIGHT of the action and the tension!
If they do it in flashback form in the second movie, I swear I'm never seeing a book-to-movie again.
The ending aside, this movie had myriad other problems. The daemons certainly looked and acted brilliantly, but the movie completely removed the significance of touching another person's daemon, and also downplayed the severing to the point that it didn't even freaking matter.
How the hell do you justify downplaying the removal of a person's soul? When Lyra found Billy he didn't act differently enough for us to realize that his fucking soul had been cut away. Also, in the book, Billy dies the morning after Lyra finds him. All they had to do in the movie was have Billy die, and suddenly it hits you, "oh my fucking god, these people are cutting off children's souls, and it's killing them!"
But no. No significance whatsoever. The cutting is seen as a tragic and awful separation, little more than that.
I don't really have a problem with the transformation of the Church into the Magesterium, because I can understand why that was necessary. America can handle a movie that consists entirely of people torturing Jesus Christ, but it can't handle a movie about atheism. And I don't mean that to sound bitter or sarcastic, because it's the truth. The director et. al. needed to make the movie palatable to a wide audience. And even if they're calling it the Magesterium, you can tell that they're actually the Church, so it's not all that much of a departure.
But, really. If you're going to make such a dramatic switch, at least follow through with it. The Magesterium keeps referring to "the Authority," but this becomes confusing. There isn't enough emphasis on it to make people understand that they mean Authority with a capital A. You hear the word and it's like "the authority...of who? what? wait, what's going on?" You can't tell if they're talking about authority in an abstract or concrete sense. It's a simple matter of emphasis.
Also, what the fuck was up with that beginning? "Welcome to the theater. Now we're going to reveal the ENTIRE plot of the ENTIRE trilogy RIGHT NOW." In crappy, emotionless exposition, nonetheless. I was worried when I first saw the previews because Lord Asriel talks about the existence of other worlds. In the books, you don't really realize that there are countless other worlds until the very end when Lyra walks up into the aurora, and later in the second book when you're introduced to Will and the Subtle Knife. I don't mind the fact that they decided to reveal it early on, but did they have to hit us over the head with it? By the end of the first book, you know that there is at least one other universe out there--it's not until the second book that you realize there are whole bunches. They could have gradually built up to that, but instead they decided to reveal it to us in the first five minutes.
Dust is the only part of the overarching trilogy plot that they did well. In the first book, you're not supposed to really know what Dust is or its significance, and they did a really good job of being very subtle about it--from the portrayal of Dust flowing down into the man in the picture that Asriel shows, to the internal workings of the alethiometer (though they could have forgone that zoom into the alethiometer every. single. time.), to the moment when the daemons disappeared in a cloud of golden dust (Dust). That's exactly how it was in the book, and I'm pleased that they at least decided not to smack us in the face with Dust right away.
One last thing--they completely cut out Will's father. This is enormously significant since it draws the connection between Lyra and Will, and between their two worlds. In the very beginning, Asriel shows a photograph of a man and his daemon with the Dust (I just talked about it) standing next to a severed child (which they also cut out). The man, it later turns out, is Will's father. The least they could have done in the movie is give the guy in the picture a freaking name and give him some smidgen of significance. The book certainly didn't bash you over the head with "pay attention to this guy, he comes back later!" Like in everything else (except of course the portrayal of religion) the book is subtle. But it's subtle enough that when you find out the truth later, you look back and say, "whoa, wait--holy shit! That was foreshadowed way back in book one!"
But, nope. No Will's daddy. He's going to end up just being some random guy when we do finally meet him. No build-up or significance.
And this is kind of a nitpick, but the book never once refers to the alethiometer as a "golden compass." It's an alethiometer. A truth-measure. That's all.
Gah. This movie could have been so awesome. It could have been brilliant, on par with Lord of the Rings. But they just haven't been able to replicate the success of Lord of the Rings. They managed to transcribe that perfectly, though of course the sacrifice was that the movies were godawful long. As if to make up for that precedent or something, this movie was extremely fast paced, to the point that it was like, "oh now we're--wait, didn't something--and now something new is happening, wait, I can't keep up!" They could have tacked on another half an hour, added a few things in, fixed the ending and the movie would have been excellent.
*sigh* Fortunately, I saw this coming, so I'm not going to let this movie color my opinion of the book itself. The book is so far beyond the movie it's not even funny.
Score: 4 out of 10.
In other news, Sophia, Julie and I have finished watching the Anne of Green Gables trilogy, which is brilliant and awesome.
The year is coming to an end. Four more days of classes, then it's finals week.
The ice on the ground this morning was ridiculous. Here's hoping that we get more snow instead of freezing rain.
I want to open a hot chocolate/tea shop.
