The Golden Compass
I saw the movie with sesame_seed at the absurdly overpriced Loews New Brunswick. Golden Compass hasn't been getting very good reviews, either from newspapers or on livejournal, but you know what? I really liked it. (Chrissy politely opined that it was "okay".) It looks amazing, it's very faithful to the book, the acting is fantastic, and most of all, it's a whirlwind adventure story that carries the main character all the way across the map, from Alternate Reality Oxford to the Frozen North.
It felt like a solid adaptation of Pullman's work, and an imaginative children's movie in its own right. You have drawing-room conspiracies, sea voyages, hot-air balloons, research laboratories, ice palaces inhabited by talking polar bears. Animal-shaped pieces of your soul to keep you company. Dismissive adults and adults who pretend to be interested in you so they can control you and the rare, good adults who take you seriously. Escape and rescue and craftiness and courage! In fact, if you're a child with an imagination, this movie has everything.
Which of course was he problem, because The Golden Compass is only two hours long. The screenwriters put forth a heroic effort, but two hours just isn't enough time to cram in so much plot. I don't understand why the movie isn't longer -- some uncompromising studio exec put his foot down? -- because with a little bit of leisure to spend on scenes wholly devoted to setting and character, instead of those things having to be crammed in around the edges of the plot or conveyed (through very good acting) at the same time as the plot, the movie would have been so much better. Especially the first twenty minutes, at Oxford, should have been extended -- you hardly have a chance to see the world Lyra lives in before she leaves it behind.
Still. For the amount of time the writers had to work with, I think they did a fantastic job. After the first few scenes the infodumps are worked in almost naturally. I also think the movie was spectacularly cast. AND, I think that whoever was in charge of art direction was a huge fan, either of Pullman's books or of the Edwardian adventure/suspense novels he based them on, because the characters are all dressed fabulously; and the items scattered across (for instance) Lord Azreal's laboratory bench are suitably steampunkish; as are the pans across the skyline of not!Oxford; and in scenes where there wasn't enough time to cover what was in the book, like the scene where Lyra convinces the king of the Ice Bears to face Iorek in single combat, you can still pick up hints in the background (in this case, you can see the other Bears wearing shiny new armor, while Iorek alone wears the beat-up old armor that has an Ice Bear's soul in it).
The real question of this movie is: who's it for? The focus on children and how they are treated by adults, the daemons, and the over-the-top adventure plot all make it a children's movie, but it doesn't have the values of a modern children's movie. It doesn't advocate diplomacy and non-violent solutions, it doesn't advocate honesty (the opposite!), and if you are religious, well. Though names have been changed to protect the guilty, the movie is still obviously anti-religious (or at least, anti-Catholic). It's also full of stereotyped ethnic groups, from the Gyptians (gypsies) to the Cossacks guarding the experimental center. Also, people die in large numbers in this movie, although they die very prettily and there is no blood, and also (so far) only bad guys have died.
In fact I think the answer to the question "who is this movie for?" is children of the last century. XD; Barring that, children who have grown up reading Edwardian adventure and suspense stories. (Are there even any of these?) And barring that: me. ^__^ It feels so great being the designated audience for once!
You might have noticed that this review focuses on "things" and not on Pullman's philosophy, which by the way, is still there, even with the names changed. Well, that's because his philosophy is a bit broken. ^^; It was in the books as well. The goal of the villains (in the book: the Church, in the movie: the Magisterium) is the complete eradication of Free Will, which recent scientific advances have proven has a physical form: Dust. (In the book, Dust is linked to Original Sin.) The Magisterium come equipped with evil fascist military uniforms so you know they're the bad guys, if you weren't already tipped off by their plan to convert 90% of the population into mindless zombies, to which end they are conducting horrific experiments on children. As adversaries go, the Church is decent, though the institution is too monolithically evil to be really interesting. (Enter: "the Colter woman," who is interesting. By the way, the book (and movie) is ten times more hilarious if you picture Ann Coulter in every scene where her name is mentioned.)
Sadly, this Free Will vs. Determinism thing is not supported by the actual plot, wherein Lyra is a Special Child of Prophecy. Also, the world she lives in is one in which the rightful place of just about everyone can be determined from a glance at their daemons -- servants have dogs for daemons, witches have birds, members of the Church have snakes or insects, and so on. To make matters worse, daemons can be dominated by the daemons of stronger-minded individuals, lending a sort of natural hierarchy to human society. But I am not convinced that this daemon-driven determinism is completely a mistake, since it helps to explain the dominance of the Church in Lyra's world. (...Actually, the Church's plan to dominate all of the other worlds in existence may not even need to be thwarted, since it's hard to imagine them succeeding on foreign soil, with a foreign system of government, and rifles mounted on zeppelins for an air force. Not to mention, infinite worlds, how the heck are they going to scrounge up enough people for the invading/occupying force?)
...I got a little off-topic. Anyway, I think Pullman's themes are a little silly, though I can appreciate that he has themes, and isn't just writing an adventure novel. On the other hand, I really love his world-building, as well as his devotion to the children's literature of a bygone era, and in those areas, I think The Golden Compass is a perfectly good film adaptation.
It felt like a solid adaptation of Pullman's work, and an imaginative children's movie in its own right. You have drawing-room conspiracies, sea voyages, hot-air balloons, research laboratories, ice palaces inhabited by talking polar bears. Animal-shaped pieces of your soul to keep you company. Dismissive adults and adults who pretend to be interested in you so they can control you and the rare, good adults who take you seriously. Escape and rescue and craftiness and courage! In fact, if you're a child with an imagination, this movie has everything.
Which of course was he problem, because The Golden Compass is only two hours long. The screenwriters put forth a heroic effort, but two hours just isn't enough time to cram in so much plot. I don't understand why the movie isn't longer -- some uncompromising studio exec put his foot down? -- because with a little bit of leisure to spend on scenes wholly devoted to setting and character, instead of those things having to be crammed in around the edges of the plot or conveyed (through very good acting) at the same time as the plot, the movie would have been so much better. Especially the first twenty minutes, at Oxford, should have been extended -- you hardly have a chance to see the world Lyra lives in before she leaves it behind.
Still. For the amount of time the writers had to work with, I think they did a fantastic job. After the first few scenes the infodumps are worked in almost naturally. I also think the movie was spectacularly cast. AND, I think that whoever was in charge of art direction was a huge fan, either of Pullman's books or of the Edwardian adventure/suspense novels he based them on, because the characters are all dressed fabulously; and the items scattered across (for instance) Lord Azreal's laboratory bench are suitably steampunkish; as are the pans across the skyline of not!Oxford; and in scenes where there wasn't enough time to cover what was in the book, like the scene where Lyra convinces the king of the Ice Bears to face Iorek in single combat, you can still pick up hints in the background (in this case, you can see the other Bears wearing shiny new armor, while Iorek alone wears the beat-up old armor that has an Ice Bear's soul in it).
The real question of this movie is: who's it for? The focus on children and how they are treated by adults, the daemons, and the over-the-top adventure plot all make it a children's movie, but it doesn't have the values of a modern children's movie. It doesn't advocate diplomacy and non-violent solutions, it doesn't advocate honesty (the opposite!), and if you are religious, well. Though names have been changed to protect the guilty, the movie is still obviously anti-religious (or at least, anti-Catholic). It's also full of stereotyped ethnic groups, from the Gyptians (gypsies) to the Cossacks guarding the experimental center. Also, people die in large numbers in this movie, although they die very prettily and there is no blood, and also (so far) only bad guys have died.
In fact I think the answer to the question "who is this movie for?" is children of the last century. XD; Barring that, children who have grown up reading Edwardian adventure and suspense stories. (Are there even any of these?) And barring that: me. ^__^ It feels so great being the designated audience for once!
You might have noticed that this review focuses on "things" and not on Pullman's philosophy, which by the way, is still there, even with the names changed. Well, that's because his philosophy is a bit broken. ^^; It was in the books as well. The goal of the villains (in the book: the Church, in the movie: the Magisterium) is the complete eradication of Free Will, which recent scientific advances have proven has a physical form: Dust. (In the book, Dust is linked to Original Sin.) The Magisterium come equipped with evil fascist military uniforms so you know they're the bad guys, if you weren't already tipped off by their plan to convert 90% of the population into mindless zombies, to which end they are conducting horrific experiments on children. As adversaries go, the Church is decent, though the institution is too monolithically evil to be really interesting. (Enter: "the Colter woman," who is interesting. By the way, the book (and movie) is ten times more hilarious if you picture Ann Coulter in every scene where her name is mentioned.)
Sadly, this Free Will vs. Determinism thing is not supported by the actual plot, wherein Lyra is a Special Child of Prophecy. Also, the world she lives in is one in which the rightful place of just about everyone can be determined from a glance at their daemons -- servants have dogs for daemons, witches have birds, members of the Church have snakes or insects, and so on. To make matters worse, daemons can be dominated by the daemons of stronger-minded individuals, lending a sort of natural hierarchy to human society. But I am not convinced that this daemon-driven determinism is completely a mistake, since it helps to explain the dominance of the Church in Lyra's world. (...Actually, the Church's plan to dominate all of the other worlds in existence may not even need to be thwarted, since it's hard to imagine them succeeding on foreign soil, with a foreign system of government, and rifles mounted on zeppelins for an air force. Not to mention, infinite worlds, how the heck are they going to scrounge up enough people for the invading/occupying force?)
...I got a little off-topic. Anyway, I think Pullman's themes are a little silly, though I can appreciate that he has themes, and isn't just writing an adventure novel. On the other hand, I really love his world-building, as well as his devotion to the children's literature of a bygone era, and in those areas, I think The Golden Compass is a perfectly good film adaptation.