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Golden Compass
The motif -- child prophesied to be the savior of the world who gets plunged into it before ready and (I presume) becomes world-wise and triumphant in the end -- is pretty common, so any particular instance sinks or swims based on its own storytelling. The movie had interesting storytelling at the micro level, but the whole did not seem to hold together all that well for me. We got references to world-building but not so much actual world-building, and I guess that's part of it. (Who are the sailor dudes? How obscure are the fairies? How many people know about the armored bears?) I'm told the books are much more nuanced (yes, I will read the books, but didn't want to do so right before seeing the movie); a little of that came through in the movie here and there, but in general it was told in pretty broad strokes. The Magisterium is obviously pure evil in the movie; I hope it's not really that black and white and that there's some hint of "misguided leader who really truly believes he's doing good" in amidst the corruption and evil. We'll see. Similarly, I hope we see some more complexity in the lead allies as time goes on. We're starting to see some complexity in Lyra; her tricking of the usurper bear-king was pretty clever. Mom is way too cookie-cutter so far.
It seems like too many people know what the compass is and (broadly) how it works. It makes sense in some cases, but didn't the king of the sailors tell her stuff about it? What's his connection to this? Lyra is being a little too free with showing that thing around, but I attribute that to her being a kid who doesn't yet know better. If it is not significantly taken away from her once before the end of movie #3, I will be both surprised and disappointed.
The compass felt a little too deus-ex-machina-ish to me, especially toward the end of the movie. Maybe I just needed to see her asking the questions a little more explicitly; a lot of it came off as "pop out the crystal ball and see what it tells you", rather than asking an oracle a specific question and trying to interpret a cryptic answer. (Oracles are supposed to be cryptic! That's why most people don't know how to read them.) I felt like she shouldn't have been able to check mom's credentials in real time like that, somehow. Even if (guess) she has a special talent bestowed by the gods (or whatever) that makes her uniquely able to read it. (That she is believed to have a unique ability was made obvious, but it seemed to come too easily.)
During the big climactic battle I asked Dani why there was only one bear there. He's king of the bears now, right? Doesn't he have an army? Dani said those scenes didn't come in that order in the book. Ok, I can see a case for them in either order; if the battle comes first that could give Yori the strength to defeat the usurper. But if he already has, there should have been more armored bears.
Speaking of the armored bears, was Yori faking that injury in the duel to lull the usurper into a false sense of security? Nice. If, err, that was supposed to be "Yori rises above his dire injuries to win the day", on the other hand, it diesn't convince me.
When I heard that they ended the movie before the end of the book, I thought they might be doing it to better tie up loose ends (or rather, fail to introduce new ones; I understand that dad isn't so squeaky-clean as he looks). This movie leaves plot threads dangling all over the place, though, so I'm not sure why they made that decision. If they don't make the other two movies this one will in retrospect be unsatisfying, after all.
I enjoyed it for what it was, but I know I'm going to have to read the books to get any depth.
Previews: a sorry lot, I'd say. The batch included The Great Debaters (yawn, and "based on a true story" can mean anything, so why bother saying?), Sex and the City (vapid preview; can't say for the movie or TV show), Love, Actually (I think that was the name), a comedy about a clownish basketball team, and maybe one other or maybe not (previews felt short). The pre-preview commercials included a long music video promoting the National Guard; a venue usually pays for videos and charges for commercials, and I found myself wondering which side of the ledger this one was on.
During the closing credits:
Dani (reading): No animals were harmed in the making of this film.
Me: No animals were involved in the making of this film.
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Read the books. No, really, read the books. I loved them. Actually, am loving...I'm currently reading "The Amber Spyglass". If your mind is even partially open, it's a great fantasy series, owing nothing to Tolkien (albeit quite a bit to Milton).
The film was a mildly diverting bit of throw-away fluff. The producers were in fear of Pullman's rep as a somewhat vocal atheist (which, judging by the books, he isn't, but more on that later). So they utterly emasculated the movie, in several ways.
The film's mysterious Magisterium is, in the books, quite clearly the Church. He's not coy about that at all. But the significance of the Church doesn't come into serious play at all in TGC. Oh, we find that there's an arm of the Church -- the General Oblation Board -- that is doing Very Bad Things, but that's as far as it goes until later on. So they could've done TGC without being so annoyingly wussy.
They left off the last three (I think) chapters of the book. Presumably, the film of "The Subtle Knife" (if there is one) will start there.
The Golden Compass (or more properly, the alethiometer) is not the all-important Central McGuffin of the books, despite what the film trailers imply. It's not at all the equivalent of the One Ring.
The Central McGuffin is, in fact, embodied in the overall series title. What might the phrase "His Dark Materials" imply? Hint: the theology that Pullman "promotes" later on is not atheistic at all. I would characterize it as a radical sort of Gnostic Deism. Gnostic in the sense of postulating that a mad demiurge is in direct control of the material universe. Deist in the sense that whatever Ultimate Thing is actually "out there" doesn't really give a hoot if you're saying your prayers...or stealing from the poor box.
The "sailors", by the way, are Gyptians, the Lyra's-world equivalent of Gypsies. In her world, they're maritime-based.
Lyra's World? You mean Lyra's World isn't ours? Well, of course not, but this is
way more than "well, it's a fantasy".
The Witches are far more important, and far cooler, than they were portrayed in the film.
Read the books. Really. As a fantasist, Pullman is way outside the box.
Read the books.
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