You wait ages for one golden snub-nosed monkey and then they all come along at once!
Sunday evening was surely a historic moment in the television career of Rhinopithecus roxellana. Not only did it get a star part in the latest BBC Natural History unit production, but then one that had broken away from the chilly wilderness for an acting career got a key role in His Dark Materials.
Seven Worlds, One Planet is very much Sunday teatime fare, focusing on the beauty and behaviour of the natural worlds and its inhabitants rather than the mitochondria. But it has a serious message for all that: the pitch is clearly 'the natural world is wondrous, and we're fucking it up'. No climate change bit hived off into the extra ten minutes bit that can be cut here, it's watching walruses plummeting off a cliff because they ought to be escaping polar bears onto the sea ice, except it isn't there. See also albatrosss chicks, penguins, and Sumatran rhinos. Staggering footage, truly wondrous, truly we're fucking things up.
His Dark Materials - poor Northern Lights, it never gets a name-check, though possibly these days that would be assumed to be a murder mystery set in Tromsø. An excellent start to the adaptation of the Pullman trilogy. I saw the National Theatre adaptation many years ago, so thought that any television version would have to work hard to match up to that, but the fantastic visuals, strong acting (Dafne Keen as Lyra is certainly up to it, Ruth Wilson pretty much my dream casting as Mrs Coulter*), and above all the sense that the adaptation is working with the book rather than against it, is very promising so far. It is a long time since I read the books and I'm not sure how the Magisterium managed to control the entire world as opposed to e.g. China having its own daemonology, but whichever flash bank they've filmed it in is perfect, the compressed blonde wood a great combination of the UN in Geneva on steroids and the Star Wars senate - itself of course based on John Martin's illustration of Satan Addressing the Imperial Council, a connection I feel that Martin and Pullman, but possibly not Milton, would enjoy.
*Whose daemon provides the second golden monkey, though uniquely not a male one, which was spottable by anyone who had watched Attenborough two hours earlier, and confirmed by the Radio Times. Male monkey genitals were apparently felt a bit too much.
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Seven Worlds, One Planet is very much Sunday teatime fare, focusing on the beauty and behaviour of the natural worlds and its inhabitants rather than the mitochondria. But it has a serious message for all that: the pitch is clearly 'the natural world is wondrous, and we're fucking it up'. No climate change bit hived off into the extra ten minutes bit that can be cut here, it's watching walruses plummeting off a cliff because they ought to be escaping polar bears onto the sea ice, except it isn't there. See also albatrosss chicks, penguins, and Sumatran rhinos. Staggering footage, truly wondrous, truly we're fucking things up.
His Dark Materials - poor Northern Lights, it never gets a name-check, though possibly these days that would be assumed to be a murder mystery set in Tromsø. An excellent start to the adaptation of the Pullman trilogy. I saw the National Theatre adaptation many years ago, so thought that any television version would have to work hard to match up to that, but the fantastic visuals, strong acting (Dafne Keen as Lyra is certainly up to it, Ruth Wilson pretty much my dream casting as Mrs Coulter*), and above all the sense that the adaptation is working with the book rather than against it, is very promising so far. It is a long time since I read the books and I'm not sure how the Magisterium managed to control the entire world as opposed to e.g. China having its own daemonology, but whichever flash bank they've filmed it in is perfect, the compressed blonde wood a great combination of the UN in Geneva on steroids and the Star Wars senate - itself of course based on John Martin's illustration of Satan Addressing the Imperial Council, a connection I feel that Martin and Pullman, but possibly not Milton, would enjoy.
*Whose daemon provides the second golden monkey, though uniquely not a male one, which was spottable by anyone who had watched Attenborough two hours earlier, and confirmed by the Radio Times. Male monkey genitals were apparently felt a bit too much.
This entry was originally posted at https://nineveh-uk.dreamwidth.org/281253.html. Please comment there using OpenID.