Movies, weird.
Last night I watched two movies (weird, I never watch movies): Prince Caspian and The Golden Compass. I watched The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe last night on TV, and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to see the sequel.
I do wish I had watched it second, though, because I was a little disappointed in The Golden Compass. I think they did their best to fit the story into a 2-hour time frame, but I also think they dumbed it down a bit. Also, I always imagined Lyra (in my head, pronounced similarly to "lyrics", but that may be an AmEnglish/BritEnglish difference) as shorter and more cantankerous in general. And Mrs. Coulter with a black Louise Brooks-style bob. BUT I know that's just me.
In particular, I hate how they portrayed reading the alethiometer. Seriously, I groaned every time they did that zoom-in-floating-images thing. They made it seem as though the alethiometer was a tool that helped you actually SEE the truth. No, it took an ability to interpret how the needle was stopping on the symbols. And Lyra was special with that. She could delve into each symbol's meaning without even trying.
Oh, well. I'm not sure if I consider it a good movie without the book/movie gripes. To me, I think they could have made it a little "smarter" and longer, and been able to explain and frame the story better without the weird introduction at the beginning (which I suppose they did so they didn't have to spend a lot of film time explaining things). But it was odd to me, because Lyra isn't supposed to know all the things we do at the beginning of the film. The plot is one of discovery, and I kinda felt with the explanation at the beginning, it ruined that part. A little time using the characters to explain new and strange things (like, I'm sorry for this, the novel does) and I think the flow would have been much better, and it wouldn't have been such a disappointment. It kinda made me feel like I was too stupid to catch something in the middle of the film. FYI, screenwriter, neither children nor adults are stupid. If they are, they probably aren't watching The Golden Compass, anyway.
I do wish I had watched it second, though, because I was a little disappointed in The Golden Compass. I think they did their best to fit the story into a 2-hour time frame, but I also think they dumbed it down a bit. Also, I always imagined Lyra (in my head, pronounced similarly to "lyrics", but that may be an AmEnglish/BritEnglish difference) as shorter and more cantankerous in general. And Mrs. Coulter with a black Louise Brooks-style bob. BUT I know that's just me.
In particular, I hate how they portrayed reading the alethiometer. Seriously, I groaned every time they did that zoom-in-floating-images thing. They made it seem as though the alethiometer was a tool that helped you actually SEE the truth. No, it took an ability to interpret how the needle was stopping on the symbols. And Lyra was special with that. She could delve into each symbol's meaning without even trying.
Oh, well. I'm not sure if I consider it a good movie without the book/movie gripes. To me, I think they could have made it a little "smarter" and longer, and been able to explain and frame the story better without the weird introduction at the beginning (which I suppose they did so they didn't have to spend a lot of film time explaining things). But it was odd to me, because Lyra isn't supposed to know all the things we do at the beginning of the film. The plot is one of discovery, and I kinda felt with the explanation at the beginning, it ruined that part. A little time using the characters to explain new and strange things (like, I'm sorry for this, the novel does) and I think the flow would have been much better, and it wouldn't have been such a disappointment. It kinda made me feel like I was too stupid to catch something in the middle of the film. FYI, screenwriter, neither children nor adults are stupid. If they are, they probably aren't watching The Golden Compass, anyway.