His Dark Materials stills up

[prog]

colorwheel notes that some publicity stills of The Golden Compass are available. Either they are rushing to public with them, before letting their FX people drop some daemons into the shots, or the film treatment is mangling how the daemons are supposed to work. ("You can only see them when they want to be seen" or some shit.) Look here I'm already being a

Comments

[aspartaimee]

i know a lot of people are stoked, but i have to say i don't get His Dark Materials. i read the first and half of the second.

come to think of it, i didn't read all the dunes either.

[taskboy3000]

I second this opinion about both Dark Materials (read the Golden Compass), and Dune (the first and second ones were compelling reads, the others trash).

What am I missing about the Dark Materials saga? I should also point out that the Harry Potter saga fails to capture my imagination.

Am I just getting to old for fantasy?

[ruthling]

Thirded. Thought Golden Compass was ok, the other two boring and infuriating by turns.

Don't remember how much Dune I read. Too much, no doubt.

I don't think it's an age thing, but I'm not sure what it is, as I have friends on both sides of this issue. (then again, I have friends who liked AI)

[jtroutman]

Mmmh. AI was an interesting movie. Flawed in many ways, but it does a very good job of wedging into your brain, and I found myself thinking about the various plot twists and statements on humanity long after I had watched it. I recall that after watching the movie, I had to immediately watch something else because I didn't want that to last thing I had seen before dreaming that night.

There is so much fiction of all genres out there now, and most of it is just dreck. I just don't have the time to wade through all of the crap fantasy and sci-fi out there like I did when I was a teenager (I used to read 5-10 books per week). I do enjoy the good ones, when I get enough pointers from other people to know they are worth the effort.

[radtea]

I never got through the first chapter of Dune, and felt HDM was not quite there. I've enjoyed the Harry Potter books. For what it's worth my kids (ages 12 and 14, and big fantasy fans) weren't too keen on HDM either.

Personally, I have long had a rule that I don't read books with pronouns in the title--it's just way too cheap a narrative hook. I forgave Pullman that because it's a quote from Milton and all, and lots of people raved about the books. But they just lacked something, and I've never been able to figure out what it is. One aspect may be the relative lack of humour. Maybe I'm just superficial, but stories that take themselves too seriously, even ones about the end of the multiverse, don't grab me much.

All of which is too bad, because I think Pullman's crypto-gnostic theology is pretty cool.