Hello, hello.

I've read that Pullman's the Golden Compas is to be adapted for film and that they were to start Sept 2006. There was a photo released in November, actually. Nicole Kidman is Mrs. Coulter. Anyway, they said "late 2007" for release in theaters...anyone know particulars?????

Thanks!

jaem

I recently finished all the Dark Materials books. While reading them, I did some research about the background of the books and discovered the following: The Golden Compass Movie. I really enjoyed the books, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do with this first movie.

Oh my goodness- this makes me SO excited!!

Also... IMDB knows all.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385752/

Thanks for the heads up on this one. I can't, can't, can't wait for it.

Cher

Well, I got to see it tonight, and I loved it. Okay, so I was a bit disappointed by all that was left out, but I fell in love with the overall feel of the movie. Dakota Blue was excellent as Lyra and her connection with Pan was just as strong in the movie as in the book.

What I do find a yawn about the whole thing is the controversy between Xians and Atheists. Lord, it's a movie based upon book 1 of a VERY good trilogy. You should check out the troll wars going on over on the IMDB forums. What a hoot.

Anyone else seen it yet?

Cher, here's an excellent review by a professor of Victorian lit. It hasn't arrived to Santa Marta yet, but I look forward to seeing it myself v. soon.

Thanks for posting the above review, I found it amazing, well done!

Thanks!

Here's another review with a different conclusion:


Of course, this comes off as a bit heavy-handed seeing that it's a children's fantasy film, but it's an interesting point.

Well, I saw the movie today. As I mentioned before, I had a few free passes. Let me just say that I am so glad on so many levels that I didn't pay to see this film.

First of all, whoever converted the novel into the screenplay should have been fired. I know it's a very lush and multi-layered story what with all the exposition (which does not lend itself well to being pared down into a 2 hour movie), but still, it can be done--just look at the first LotR's film for proof. This is a dual gripe, however, because for everything that they left out, the entire film felt like I was being treated to the 90 mile per hour version. Everything felt rushed. And I would normally not mind having some things omitted, but they left out some of the best parts. And one of the most moving scenes of the whole book (Peter Makaros and the fish) was rendered practically impotent it was pared down so much. What a shame.

I did like most of the special effects, however, and there was a great feel to the film in the opening scenes, but with small exception, it got worse and worse as it went on.

And sadly, I felt that the little girl who played Lyra somehow forgot who she was playing right in the middle of the film. For the most part, she was great--especially for this being her first real acting job, but it felt to me that she lost some of the roughness of the character as the film progressed. And if nothing else, Lyra gets tougher at the end of the story, not nicer--part of this is the screenwriter's and director's faults I'm sure.

Anyway, I look forward to reading someone else's opinion of it too. I took my wife with me and I asked her what she thought as she elected not to read the book before seeing the movie. She said she felt so frustrated because the whole movie made almost no sense to her, and she couldn't wait for it to end because it was really just painful to sit through. I couldn't agree more actually.

My wife, daughter, and I saw this this today and we rather enjoyed it. I am the only person in the house that's read the books, but they both thought it hung together pretty well.

I'm a little late to the party on this, but I thought I'd throw my $.02 in...

I've read all of Pullman's work, and the HDM trilogy is one of the best collections of fiction I've run across in a while. Kind of like Harry Potter, except good. Yeah, I'm a hater. What can I say.

Actually, I think the HDM trilogy is such a welcome departure not only from Rowling-esque juvenille fiction, but from the type of fantasy novels that have been gaining (or more often RE-gaining) popularity over the last 10 years. For once, someone writing a book that is expressly for younger people has the cajones to say, "Hey kids, religion isn't all good...in fact, it's not even mostly good." Don't get me wrong: I love LotR and Narnia as much as the next fantasy geek, but Pullman's books not only manage to take a view of Christianity that is pointedly opposed to Lewis' and Tolkien's, but do so while still writing fantastic fiction and not just a heavy-handed atheist manifesto masquerading as a kid's book.

But my focus here isn't to debate Pullman's motives in writing what he wrote, but to talk about what a wretched, almost incomprehensibly awful job the filmmakers behind The Golden Compass did. Someone check real quick...Nicole Kidman has an Oscar, right? And the director of this travesty still got a mediocre (at best) performance from her? Congratulations, dude...you've earned a career directing USA-network specials. And the casting director definitely got the wrong Dakota for this role. Dakota Fanning would've been so perfect for the role that she might've been able to at least partially bail out this titanic flop, but alas, we get Dakota Who..er..I mean Blue, and a Lyra that could've been played more convincingly by most 10-yr-olds in your local community theater.

As a previous poster has said, you can't expect there not to be some significant story elements left out when adapting a book for the screen. Tom Bombadil was completely left out of Fellowship of the Ring, but Jackson still managed to make up for it with an amazing film. But (and I'm trying not to exagerrate), the storyline in this movie made it seem at times as though the screenwriter hadn't even read the book, or if s/he did, read it the night before filming began. A short list of ridiculous changes/omissions includes:

--Mrs. Coulter's hair is the wrong color. Pullman goes into some length about the qualities of her brunette hair.
--No background whatsoever is given as to why Lyra occassionally quarrels with gypsy children
--There are several aleithiometers left in existence at the start of The Golden Compass, but in the movie they say the Lyra's is the last one. If they intend on making the other 2 movies, this is going to cause some more story problems.
--The Master of Oxford college poisons the Tokaii, not the Friar. There was no reason at all to make this differnt in the movie...again, showing that perhaps the book wasn't even read thoroughly.
--The scene where the severed daemons are freed is left out, and then one of the gyptian mothers talks of "finding" the daemons.
--Peter dies in the book shortly after he's found by Lyra and the bear. In the movie, he lives and has a tearful reunion with his mother. Why? This contributes absolutely nothing to the story.
--Perhaps worst of all, they DON'T KILL ROGER at the end. This is enormously important to the overall story, and they just flat gloss over it. The movie ends with Roger and Lyra flying off together to save the day.

As the for religion theme, it is crucial to the story. No, the movie could not have been (was thus wasn't) made well by not giving due attention to the fact that the main story of the whole trilogy is the quest to kill God. It's not as though the books make a couple of fleeting jabs at established religion. Pullman had a definite aim with these books, and afer Hollywood watered down the main theme of the books beyond recognition, we're left with what amounts to a bland, mediocre, poorly acted Narnia-esque snoozefest.

Really, I love Pullman's books so much that it actually angered me to sit through this crime against humanity masquerading as a film. How many people will be turned off to Pullman's books now that their first impression of his work is this awful, awful movie. I sincerely hope that if plans are in the works to make the other two books into movies as well that they A.) fire the director, screenwriter, and casting director, and B.) completely remake The Golden Compass. Seriously. I think they should just issue a public apology for their first attempt, and actually go back and make the film right the second time.

There are dozens of other terrible (but totally true) things I could say, but I think you get the picture. If you have the financial means to do so, upon the DVD release of this movie, buy every copy from your local retailers and burn them. Being in theaters is bad enough, but distributing this movie for purchase en masse is tantamount to introducing plague rats into the heart of New York.

Actually, that character is not even Peter Makaros at all. They kept the scene (sort of) but replaced Peter for Billy Costa--which was lame...

Thanks, James for backing up most of my gripes on this horrible film.

My bad...thanks for clarifying that. All the same (as you said) it was a terrible injustice done to a poignant scene.

...so THAT's how that let Billy live, b/c it was actually Peter that died in the book. I see now...

I still love the look of the movie, but after starting a reread of the trilogy really hate that the content of the book was shredded so much. I am glad that I decided to wait until after watching the movie before rereading it as it's been a couple of years since I last read them. If they do indeed do sequels, I hope a better job of is done.

Cher