My Northern Lights Rant
If you read the last post, you are aware of my growing concern over the success or lack of success of The Golden Compass, one of my favorite stories. The movie, for lack of a better word, sucks. It suffers from the same thing all books that are translated to movie suffer; it lacked the appropriate amount of time to convey the complicated nature of the story. The only movies ever given the necessary screen time to adequately depict the books are Tolkien’s trilogy. The movies were a lot like the books, in fact; I can recall Jackson’s camera movement spending so much time in one spot that I could memorize the details of the rocks around Frodo’s ring. Like the movie, Tolkien described each brief passing detail until you have read thirty pages and you realize that Frodo is still standing next to a stone statue that look like a goblin. I get it Mr. Tolkien, it’s not moss growing on the poor statue but its lichen and I also know this is odd because trees have lichen, not statues. I don’t recall if that’s the actual detail he starts ranting on but I’m sure it’s in there. It’s been a while.
I digressed… I hate when that happens. So, the movie is “shite.” It went by all too fast. Not to mention they changed around some order of events. If you have read about Phillip Pullman, his method of writing involves a lot of storyline structure planning via hundreds of post-it notes. I don’t think he settled on the series of events depicted in the book simply out of chance. He settled on it because it made sense. If you have any questions about my knowledge of his writing method, please visit www.hisdarkmaterials.com. You can be “in the know,” like me.
(SPOILER ALERT) Disregard this next several paragraph if you don’t want to get your shit ruined.
The movie starts out pretty closely following the book. I liked it as a matter of fact. Dakota, the girl who played Lyra was pretty fucking awesome. She hit the nail on the head. Also, according to some article I read in the beginning of 2007, she got approval from Pullman as a fit for the physical characteristics of Lyra. This sort of tells me that the people who made the movie may not have read the book. That’s also evident if you watch the film. Bastards!
I’m not sure if I should move my spoiler warning because that previous paragraph didn’t spoil anything but my train of thought. I derailed like a son-of-a-bitch. Okay, spoilers coming, I promise.
Alright, right into the meat. Lyra is supposed to be captured by the Inuit hunters and taken to the “Gobblers.” This makes sense because the hunters sell her to them. In the movie, they take her to the bears… WHY IN THE NAME OF GODS BASTARD SON (They weren’t married, technically a bastard.) WOULD THEY TAKE HER TO THE FUCKING BEARS? Bears don’t pay money to kidnap kids. Bears don’t give a shit about people in general. So once she was there, they did stay pretty true to the book with her deception and Iorek’s slapping off Ragnar’s fucking jaw. That was phat! Anyway, after this series of event cluster-fuck, they somehow proceed to deliver her to the “Gobblers.” They ruin this shit too. She was in and out in a few minutes… I’m not sure if she had time to even figure out what the fuck was going on. The remainder was pretty close to the book and pretty sweet. A giant polar bear smashing shit is fun to watch; I don’t care what you say. After this, the movie ends without getting to the actual climax which is when Asriel kills her friend, Rodger, to bridge the gap between the two worlds… Way to make me hate you, Hollywood. Also, with the movie sinking like the fucking Lusitanian, I doubt we will ever see the sequel. Funny thing is, I saw a commercial or something with the final scene of the book in it which makes me think they filmed it but simply pulled a Lord of the Rings type ending. Didn’t even get to Shelob? Really? Fuck you Jackson, fuck you Weitz. Well, Jackon at least delivered, eventually.
(SPOILER END)
Alright, now that I have ranted about my take on The Golden Compass movie, let me take one more second of your time while I polish Philip Pullman’s preverbal knob one more time. It’s a great trilogy and I like it better than any trilogy to date. I suggest you witless fucks out there take a few hours out of your, oh so busy, schedule to read them.
I digressed… I hate when that happens. So, the movie is “shite.” It went by all too fast. Not to mention they changed around some order of events. If you have read about Phillip Pullman, his method of writing involves a lot of storyline structure planning via hundreds of post-it notes. I don’t think he settled on the series of events depicted in the book simply out of chance. He settled on it because it made sense. If you have any questions about my knowledge of his writing method, please visit www.hisdarkmaterials.com. You can be “in the know,” like me.
(SPOILER ALERT) Disregard this next several paragraph if you don’t want to get your shit ruined.
The movie starts out pretty closely following the book. I liked it as a matter of fact. Dakota, the girl who played Lyra was pretty fucking awesome. She hit the nail on the head. Also, according to some article I read in the beginning of 2007, she got approval from Pullman as a fit for the physical characteristics of Lyra. This sort of tells me that the people who made the movie may not have read the book. That’s also evident if you watch the film. Bastards!
I’m not sure if I should move my spoiler warning because that previous paragraph didn’t spoil anything but my train of thought. I derailed like a son-of-a-bitch. Okay, spoilers coming, I promise.
Alright, right into the meat. Lyra is supposed to be captured by the Inuit hunters and taken to the “Gobblers.” This makes sense because the hunters sell her to them. In the movie, they take her to the bears… WHY IN THE NAME OF GODS BASTARD SON (They weren’t married, technically a bastard.) WOULD THEY TAKE HER TO THE FUCKING BEARS? Bears don’t pay money to kidnap kids. Bears don’t give a shit about people in general. So once she was there, they did stay pretty true to the book with her deception and Iorek’s slapping off Ragnar’s fucking jaw. That was phat! Anyway, after this series of event cluster-fuck, they somehow proceed to deliver her to the “Gobblers.” They ruin this shit too. She was in and out in a few minutes… I’m not sure if she had time to even figure out what the fuck was going on. The remainder was pretty close to the book and pretty sweet. A giant polar bear smashing shit is fun to watch; I don’t care what you say. After this, the movie ends without getting to the actual climax which is when Asriel kills her friend, Rodger, to bridge the gap between the two worlds… Way to make me hate you, Hollywood. Also, with the movie sinking like the fucking Lusitanian, I doubt we will ever see the sequel. Funny thing is, I saw a commercial or something with the final scene of the book in it which makes me think they filmed it but simply pulled a Lord of the Rings type ending. Didn’t even get to Shelob? Really? Fuck you Jackson, fuck you Weitz. Well, Jackon at least delivered, eventually.
(SPOILER END)
Alright, now that I have ranted about my take on The Golden Compass movie, let me take one more second of your time while I polish Philip Pullman’s preverbal knob one more time. It’s a great trilogy and I like it better than any trilogy to date. I suggest you witless fucks out there take a few hours out of your, oh so busy, schedule to read them.