The Golden Compass Movie Discussion
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Based on the book by Phillip Pullman, its expected to come out this December.
From Wikipedia:
The story begins when Lyra Belacqua—an orphaned, eleven year old girl residing at Jordan College—secretly enters the Retiring Room, despite resistance from her dæmon—an animal-formed, shape-shifting manifestation of her soul. Inside the room her uncle, Lord Asriel, tells the resident scholars of the mysterious golden particles called Dust. Shortly afterwards Lord Asriel leaves to head north, and Lyra continues with her normal life.
And then after that everything just goes crazy. Seriously. Basically you have to imagine Lyra's world as a bizarro version of our own. Its cleaner steampunk in some ways, and other things just defy explanation, such as the witches and the panzerbjorn (giant armoured polar bears who have their own country), and the entire concept of daemons, for example. However, big themes such as the idea of a second war in Heaven, the issue of original sin, and the power of the Church in the original series make it much deeper than simply a children's book.
The cast includes luminaries like Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, Daniel "James Bond" Craig as Lord Asriel, Sam Elliot as Lee Scorsby. Pretty inspired casting if you ask me, and the trailer is fucking glorious to behold.
I don't know about anyone else, but between this and the Transformers movie, I'm a pretty happy camper.
I'll try to post more updates as they come out, but sorry about the brevity of the OP for now.
Teaser Trailer
Wikipedia Movie Page
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Any truth to this?
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You had me with Talking armored polar bears
All three are good, but the first is just fucking sublime. Touching, incredible, breathtaking.
Please, please, please, everyone read The Golden Compass if you haven't already. Please.
That's awesome.
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Hmm... I was expecting Ioreks armor to be a bit more red than that, but the way it looks sort of mashed together works quite well.
They'll probably speed up the beginning stuff a bit, before she sets out on the journey.
-edit-
Hey there is an explanation of Daemons on the movie site!
http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/
And a quiz to find out what yours is.
-double edit-
Mine's a bigass tiger named Onthia!
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I liked the books and armored bears are always awesome so I'm going to see this movie.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I read these books a few years ago on holiday, and while I liked the plot I missed most of the religious subtext (my brain had shut down for the summer). Hopefully the films will be the same - subtext for those that want it, and bears in armour for the rest of us.
that kinda sucks.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Yeah, boo.
Though I'm not suprised. It was pretty out there.
I do hope they don't 'edit' it to shreds.
I'm sorta dissapointed by the trailer. The books had some fantastics themes and, morover, some truly fucked up things that the books honestly wouldn't have been the same without.
Haven't read the books in years. Must dig them up.
The books? Aweosme. Ridiculously awesome. Better than phat epix. But there's no way in hell they'll ever be faithfully translated. Issues: sexuality, gore, and the omnipresent anti-religiosity. I mean, for fuck's sake, Pullman said "[organized religion], That is the religion I hate, and I'm happy to be known as its enemy."
I mean, in the Amber Spyglass,
There's no way any of the good bits will remain intact. No way at all. The trailer really just cemented it.
It's all the book is about. It's like re-making "Ever which way but lose" without the orangutan. Or remaking star wars and setting it on present day earth.
But seriously read the books. They are one of the best trilogies ever written.
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IIRC, it's less inextricably tied to the plot of the first book than it is to the sequels.
This is about where I am, though Lyra did grow on me over the course of the two minutes. I always saw the Golden Compass homeworld as being a little less flashy. Still, the only thing that really says 'ouch' to me is that blimp. Like, what were they thinking when they designed it?
edit: Aspadora, female Hare daemon. And -5000 awesome points for removing the religious subtext, though you're right that it was a lot less ...moralizing? in the first book than in the others.
What was in the first book? A little hinting that
It didn't get super religiously-themed until the second and third. The first book is an adventure story, one of the best ever written.
Regardless, Church-as-nemesis probably isn't going to fly too well around here. Never mind that it's more or less a pagan religion.
Yeah. But I just don't see how they could cut out the Church being a symbol of oppression if they're going to do the movie at all.
I don't mean to start an argument here, but do you watch any movies at all?
In that regard, I'm more worried about the way daemons were basically ignored in the trailer. Magical shapeshifting animal companion, anyone?
What are they going to do? Daemons are a fairly complex idea, and one that it takes a couple of chapters to understand, and a whole book to appreciate. If the first chapter had opened with
no one would have cared, because we would have not been introduced to Pan or daemons sufficiently.
I think putting it into the trailer would have just confused people. They would have been like "Oh, it's a talking cute companion animal movie. I'll leave it for the kids to see then."
Course, the part where Iorek talks is still a little painful to watch.
Yeah, I'm hoping they're playing normal little girl magical adventure games to get people into the theater, then they're gonna blow our minds with all kinds of subtlety. Just... don't wanna get my hopes up for nothing.
Me too. The movie might not be that great. It's hard to pull it off.
The trailer did have two daemons snarling at each-other for a moment towards the end.
He's completely unconnected. He licensed it, but said that although he hopes the movie is good, and he loves the girl who is playing Lyra, he has washed his hands of the movie. He says he envisions the story in book form, and nothing more.
If the movie happens to be good, he'll approve, obviously. But he's not connected with the movie-making process in any way.
There's been more daemon parts in the footage shown to the press. The CGI isn't fully finished on them, hence their relative absence from the trailer.