Golden Compass

[cellio]

Dani and I went to see The Golden Compass tonight. Spoiler-free pico-review: pretty, and some nice scene-length bits of storytelling in need of their connective tissue.

More comments, with spoilers:

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.

Comments

[cahwyguy.livejournal.com]

Just uploaded our Christmas day movie review. You reminded me I forgot to mention yesterday's previews, of which the only one that struck me was "Mamma Mia" ("27 Dresses" interested my wife). We also had the National Guard Music Video, which I didn't particularly like.

[rjmccall.livejournal.com]

Speaking of the armored bears, was Yori faking that injury in the duel to lull the usurper into a false sense of security? Nice.

Yes, at least in the book. Bears aren't supposed to be vulnerable to deception, but apparently the usurper had begun to ignore his second sense or something.

I caIn see why

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

The Vatican has (apparently) already denounced the movie; I see how the Magisterium could easily be mistaken for a catholic-like institution.

I know that Kidman's character is supposed to be slimy, but I have to confess that of all the various actors in the movie, I felt her performance was a bit off. Not sure why, but, there you go...

[hlinspjalda.livejournal.com]

I was pretty disappointed with a lot of aspects of the movie version of "The Golden Compass." All of us have read all three books. We all thought the adaptation was weak (much weaker than Harry Potter, and even weaker than Eragon in some ways) and gutted a lot of the basic conceptions of Pullman's worldview. Most of the issues commenters on this posting have raised are things the books make quite abundantly clear. The ending of the movie is very misleading too.

On the other hand, a lot of the visuals were great. I particularly enjoyed the architecture and the textiles. (Lyra had the cutest little knitted bonnet in one scene, and Lord Asriel's suit jacket was fabulously textured!) And we all -- perhaps predictably, given my family -- very much enjoyed Iorek Byrnison. I think the scene of Lyra riding across the snow on his back was my favorite in the whole film.

[sethg]

I want Spartacus to have a line in the credits saying "no slaves were harmed in the making of this film".

[dvarin.livejournal.com]

(Oracles are supposed to be cryptic! That's why most people don't know how to read them.)

The alethiometer _is_ cryptic... to everyone else. In the book there's an early scene with some cleric asking a question of it, writing down all the symbols as they go by, and then poring through some thick tome of the possible meanings of all of them to try to string together a coherent answer. Lyra doesn't do that, it essentially communicates with her by telepathy, and in fact this difference is mentioned and (sort of) explained in the third book.

The megisterium in the book seemed more like misguided fanatics than simple evil to me, but I was prejudiced in favor of its obvious real-life analogue at the time I was reading.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Since you said that you didn't read the "His Dark Materials" books, of which "The Golden Compass" is volume 1, some observations on book vs. movie....

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.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

I also found the movie version of The Golden Compass critically lacking in connective tissue. For what it's worth, I found the books immensely satisfying; they address many of the issues you raised. In general, the movie only gives you only a skin-deep (but beautiful) portrayal of the world and the peoples that inhabit it. The books do a significantly better job of bringing the world to life and allowing the story to flow at a more natural pace.