[Movie] The Golden Compass

I'll have to see it again (as with Stardust), because I seriously can't watch a movie after reading the book its based on - the whole time I'm just criticizing all the things they did wrong and could have done better.

Which is very much the case with The Golden Compass (movie). Especially considering that His Dark Materials is probably my all time favorite trilogy ever written.

As soon as the movie started I was seriously having trouble not crying "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!?" at the screen. Why, in the name of anything holy, did they do that craptastic intro to deamons and OTHER WORLDS WHICH DON'T COME INTO PLAY TILL THE SECOND BOOK!?! Way to spoil the enjoyment of discovery. I just pray it was the studio execs who have the misconception everyone is as stupid and useless as they are, because if that was the director's decision, he needs to be flogged.

It was ridiculously fast paced in the beginning, but to their credit there's enough in The Golden Compass alone for a full trilogy, so it is a challenge to deliver the vital information. Personally I wished they stripped the whole thing down to the basic and essential ideals and rebuilt it from the ground up into a film, maybe using the lost art of subtlety instead of shoving a tube down my throat and force feeding me plot points.

But I'm still on the fence.

As for religion, they only difference i noticed was the substitution of MAGISTERIUM instead of CHURCH ("What, no! I didn't say GOD was evil, i said, um, the AUTHORITY was evil. Definitely NOT the SAME."). If zealots are that easily fooled, then why the hell do they give us so much trouble?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

depends on what sexual elements you're talking about. In the last one, at least in the version I read (year's ago) Lyra and Will essentially have sex, though not in a normal biological sense (they stroke each other's deamons). That's about the only highly sexual act. There's some other seduction type stuff with Coulter, but nothing too riské.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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