[Movie] The Golden Compass

I'm disappointed.

I really enjoyed all three books when I was a kid. It's been quite a while since I've read the first one, but I've recently started The Subtle Knife again and I still like it. So it has to be something with the film itself that bothers me, not the initial story.
I think it's that basically all scenes after Lyra leaves Jordan College seem so thrown together, with no connection between them at all. After the moment Lyra escaped from Mrs. Coulter's home, everything seemed like a big list with individual scenes that had to be ticked off.
"Introduction of Serafina"? Check.
"Fighting ice bears"? Check.
"Rescuing Roger"? Check.

And that damn wannabe-epic-feeling destroys all real emotion the source book had. The whole movie is like "Well, okay, guess I'm off to saving Roger then. I don't really have that much motivation, but a promise is a promise."


The delivery of in-universe information also was pretty crappy, it just seemed so damned unnatural.

Pan: "You do know that if you get a smack, I'm hurt too! There's absolutely no reason to tell you that right now, but weeeeell - whatever!"

Mrs. Coulter: "King Ragnar is desperate to have a dæmon in his home. This is totally irrelevant right now as I've been introduced to you just one minute ago, but remember that for later in the movie!


The ending was absolutely horrible. Would have been more effective if they played "Shiny Happy People" over it. How could they ever even think it would be good to have that outcome to the movie? If I had seen this film and didn't know the books, I would've found it boring and sure as hell wouldn't have watched the second one.


And to all religious fanatics bashing the movie because of its critisizing religions: You're batshit insane. Disregarding the "heresy" line, there are no explicit allusions at all. You'd rather buy your kids the books to make them turn against your church.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by whinehurst

Lyra and Will essentially have sex, though not in a normal biological sense (they stroke each other's deamons).

Huh? Will doesn't have a dæmon. o_O

Spoiler:

Disregarding kitty.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by KrelEN

Did you read The Amber Spyglass. Ever.

Yes, but it's been something like five years since then. Care to refresh my memory? Does he gain a dæmon in the third book?
If yes, then I completely forgot that.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by whinehurst

he always had a deamon, it was just not external like Lyra's until

Spoiler:

Will and Lyra cross the River Styx, which deamons can not cross. So Lyra has to leave Pan and Will's deamon emerges there on the dock next to Pan. It winds up being a cat when they settle, so I can see the confusion between Will's deamon (i forget her name) and the cat he takes care of.

Ah, thanks for clearing that up.
Totally banned this from my mind. Now that I think about it, I forgot a lot of things from the third book. But as I've just recently begun reading the first novel, I'll have that issue solved in a few weeks.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?