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The Golden Compass Review
Dec. 8th, 2007 12:30 pm*Minimal spoilers - I think you can risk it*
Ok I don't know what happened there. Either that movie was horrifically edited, or the scriptwriters made some serious mistakes in attempting to rush us through the story. For example (and this isn't really giving anything away), when the Texan character Lee Scoresby turns up, he seems to approach Lyra (the main character) straight away without any introduction and instantly presumes she is the group's major descision maker. No explanation is given - and it's almost as if Lee Scoresby is meant to be the kind of guy who often approaches little girls *gulp*.
Another example is where Lyra first hears about 'dust' (very central to the His Dark Materials series). Straight afterwards she appears to work out through pure guesswork that the dust has something to do with why children's demons change while adult's demons do not.
As for the changes to the religion aspects, the Magisterium still feel like a religious group (what with their constant pronouncements on heresy), but the difference seems to be that they have no power. One of the first events to take place in the book is where the master of the university along with a member of the magisterium decide to poison Lord Asriel's decanted wine. Why is this? Because the master is frightened not to! In the movie? The magisterium representative, having no influence on the master, secretly poisons the wine as an act of desperation. If the magisterium is so powerless one is caused to wonder why they are so very important. They seem to have little more power than the Roman Catholic Church today - if not less!
And, while holding back the end of the book until the next movie might not seem like the worst crime they could have committed, it does make the ending seem distinctly bland and dull. Good thing they didn't call it 'Northern Lights' as the Northern Lights only really appear once, in a photograph. What could have been a really cool 'Empire Strikes Back' style ending, instead becomes a rather dull 'things'll be a lot more interesting in the sequel' style ending.
It's all a bit of a pity because the armoured bears are VERY cool....
Ok I don't know what happened there. Either that movie was horrifically edited, or the scriptwriters made some serious mistakes in attempting to rush us through the story. For example (and this isn't really giving anything away), when the Texan character Lee Scoresby turns up, he seems to approach Lyra (the main character) straight away without any introduction and instantly presumes she is the group's major descision maker. No explanation is given - and it's almost as if Lee Scoresby is meant to be the kind of guy who often approaches little girls *gulp*.
Another example is where Lyra first hears about 'dust' (very central to the His Dark Materials series). Straight afterwards she appears to work out through pure guesswork that the dust has something to do with why children's demons change while adult's demons do not.
As for the changes to the religion aspects, the Magisterium still feel like a religious group (what with their constant pronouncements on heresy), but the difference seems to be that they have no power. One of the first events to take place in the book is where the master of the university along with a member of the magisterium decide to poison Lord Asriel's decanted wine. Why is this? Because the master is frightened not to! In the movie? The magisterium representative, having no influence on the master, secretly poisons the wine as an act of desperation. If the magisterium is so powerless one is caused to wonder why they are so very important. They seem to have little more power than the Roman Catholic Church today - if not less!
And, while holding back the end of the book until the next movie might not seem like the worst crime they could have committed, it does make the ending seem distinctly bland and dull. Good thing they didn't call it 'Northern Lights' as the Northern Lights only really appear once, in a photograph. What could have been a really cool 'Empire Strikes Back' style ending, instead becomes a rather dull 'things'll be a lot more interesting in the sequel' style ending.
It's all a bit of a pity because the armoured bears are VERY cool....
