The Golden Compass
 

Spoiler-Free Review

I just got back from the sneak-peak showing. As you might've figured out after that last thread I made, His Dark Materials are among my favorite books of all time, and I've been dreading that this film would suck. It doesn't. So, yeah, sigh of relief. Whether it's any good or not, though? I'm kinda uncertain.

The ending was changed. The climax of the book is not in the movie, and it worked about how I expected it to work. There was no cliffhanger, but on the other hand it was a lot less interesting (more like "The Adventure continues... in the next movie! fadetoblack"). Well, what can you do, right? Studio decision. I can only hope and pray this movie does well enough so that we can get to the good stuff in the second and third books. (Though I still don't think the ending of TGC will work as well stuck at the beginning of The Subtle Knife.)

The movie was surprisingly faithful to the books (barring the condension inevitable in book-to-film adaptations). There was only one main change that I noticed, and that was the statement that the Compass "was the last alethiometer" in existence. None of the condensing bothered me much other than a much-too-short and poorly edited montage sequence of Lyra becoming a London socialite. They also changed it so that the Svalbard sequence came before the Bolvangar stuff; it didn't seem to make much difference either way, which made me wonder, why change it? (I'm willing to believe there was a perfectly good reason; I just want it explained to me.)

Cast was perfect (though we didn't get to see nearly enough of Daniel Craig--the fault of the truncated ending) except for maybe Ian McKellen. Not that he wasn't great, 'cause he was, but I just couldn't help thinking, that's Ian McKellen, when I should have been thinking, holy crap, giant freakin' bear! The child actors were all tolerable, and sometimes even compelling.

I want to go more in-depth, but I think I'll wait until more people have seen it.

All in all, I just wish it had been longer. There was so much rich detail on the screen, and I wish they'd spent a little longer on the story and characters. So my fingers are crossed for an extended edition DVD.

I just want to see giant bears in armor.

You will not be disappointed.

Director Chris Weitz defends the changed ending in this interview:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Weitz QUESTION: My question is why did you have cut the ending of the first book? Why? Can you please give me a reasonable answer? ANSWER: Yes, I’ll try to give you a reasonable answer, and an answer to a lot of other people who have asked the same sort of question. First, I haven’t “cut” the ending of the first book. I have only moved it to the beginning of the second movie. Some people are distressed by this, citing that the end of the novel is beautiful. Yes, that’s true. “And Lyra and Pan walked off into the sky.” But this ending was posing a problem for the (relatively few) audience-members who saw earlier cuts of the film. What is plangent and beautiful in the end of a novel can be confusing or off-putting in the end of a film. For instance, people who hadn’t read the books (yes, these people exist! And they matter!) didn’t know if Lyra was in fact going to heaven. My job is to make sure that ALL of Pullman’s story will be told, not to flame out gloriously with one film. The juncture at which to leave audiences hoping for more was before Lyra sets off to find Asriel. She has fulfilled the intitial reason for her journey (to save her friend Roger), but there is a further tangible aim for her. Yes, I get that this means delaying some brilliant scenes from the book. But trust me, they would have been less brilliant if they had to meet the demands (as interpreted by the studio) of a movie-going audience for the end of the film. Whereas, difficult to handle/difficult to swallow material, which is to say dark material (no pun intended) can work perfectly well in the second film of a trilogy (cf. “Empire Strikes Back”). Trust me on this one, I was doing what I could to protect the integrity of these scenes and the overall story. Furthermore, I would not have done this without Pullman’s consent.

While I can't say I'm happy about it, it does at least make some sort of sense. Still, it wouldn't be an issue if not for the interfering studio.

And I don't think it's a spoiler at this point to say, yes, the bear fight is in it. And it is awesome, if bloodless. But it ends the same way as it does in the book, which is good. (I had been afraid they'd chicken out there.)

EDIT: Oh, yeah, the rest of that interview can be found here. It makes for interesting reading, especially regarding the toned-down religious aspects of this film, and how they'd handle films two and three.

I disliked how the books began, they would skip three months then go into flashback.

I'm with him. I just want to see polar bears, who are for reasons I don't know, in armor, who are for reasons I can't imagine, catching javelins that are, for reasons I don't even care about, being tossed at little girls who are, for reasons I don't understand, just standing still.

Yay armored bears!

Spoiler-free-pic
http://www.maniasarcania.com/wp-cont...bear_close.png

That would be a REAL armored bear.

Read the series, didn't like it very much... Actually I got so frustrated with his writing style that I didn't finish the third book. Yes, I'm a bad person. :P I'm not religious or anything- it just seems that after the first book Philip Pullman forgot how to write.

Maybe (for me, at least) it's better as a movie. It looks very visually intense.

I personally found the series too damn depressing! Damn! They die! They all die! Hey, I like this guy he's-BAM! DEAD!

There are more freaking bridges dropped on people than a 4 day encore marathon of Star Trek: Generations!


Then the book starts to get into the contrivity that plagued the Pern series where everybody gets their own "pet dragon" (equivalent) when it's quite obvious that many would be better off without the damned things lest a damned golden monkey mind control you...

And Lyra's parents? They're so much of a friggin rape/kick the dog (check tv tropes) that by the last book I personally didn't give a flying sh****** if they sacrificed themselves. Better their stupid, stupid heads than everybody else!

Lyra herself? Most ineffectual heroine ever, especially in the first and second book. Harry potter went and did stuff. He poked around, he made an imprint of his world. Lyra walks and round and sees stuff happen to her and is more like a talking camera for the reader. Now the guy with the knife, there's some character there.

Also, why can't the bears have souls? They're too damn bad ass not to have them! GRAAH!

I haven't yet seen the movie, so maybe it's more family friendly and not a pure butcher fest. I'll have to be careful though. One of my church's youth leaders works at the theater, and It's bad enough for me after that one driving practice in the church parking lot where I screamed the f word at the top of my lungs after nearly running over a cat.

Sorta stuff makes them give you funny looks on sunday.