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The Golden Compass Movie Discussion
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Lewis is incredibly preachy throughout the Narnia books, from the Professor giving the children the standard "faith" argument in LWW to his immature criticism of "secularism" and "modernism" with his caricature of the school in the Silver Chair. Pullman is not all that preachy in the first two books but boy does it come out at the end of the Amber Spyglass. Mary Malone is his version of Lewis' professor—as a spokesperson for the author's views on religion and faith.
Maybe it's because I wrote my thesis in religious studies about these books, but I don't get people who say Narnia wasn't blatant Christian allegory/evangelism, and I don't get people now who say HDM isn't almost as blatant an allegory and argument for secularism and enlightenment moral values. Both of the authors have said as much in interviews as well.
I am tempted to read this series after the enthusiastic sales job in this thread
;-)
I kid because I loev.
No matter how small inkling of anti-religion sentiment is in anything, some Christian is going to be offended, and it's going to be 'contrversial.' This is why i laugh a lot.
Don't misunderstand - I think it's deeply critical of Religion, but just because it's anti-religion doesn't mean it's anti-God/pro-Atheism. I think Religion is in profound need of criticism though. Believing in God doesn't take much else than faith, believing that God will burn your soul for eternity if you don't give believe he sent his son to get put to the sticks by romans (based on a wildly inconsistent and contradictory book written by dozens of non-collaborating authors) takes faith and more than a little suspension of disbelief.
How bad could it be! Right?!
Republic. Not Kingdom. That's kind of the whole point, I thought.
That would go along with the entire theme of anti-totalitarianism.
I'm actually surprised that so many people seem to have come away with the word "Kingdom." This is important!
I blame Orlando Bloom.
But the children! THINK OF THE GODDAMN CHILDREN!
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE MOTHERFUCKING CHILDREN?!
As a Jew, I didn't notice any of the "anti-religious" aspects, because my faith isn't totalitarian. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we believe that belief in Judaism isn't required to gain reward for good deeds (that's one of the main differences between the faiths: Judaism doesn't care what faith you follow, and it is a common policy for rabbis to refuse to talk to you about joining Judaism unless you have already renounced your former faith, because trying to make people convert is an extremely punishable offence in the Torah).
Of course, my mom read Narnia w/o noticing any religious aspects, but that's more because the books assume you have grown up w/ Christianity.
Here's a good reason to think of the children before letting anyone bring their family to see it: the critics universally agree that the movie held tightly to the book except for neutering it and destroying the ending. Hence, they held strictly to a framework from which they had removed at least half of the columns. Even the most easily pleased children will be disgusted.
I was young at the time, and I was brought up reform, so I may have missed direct references. There's also the fact that Christian emphasis placement and interpretation is quite different. For example, origonal sin is not present in Judaism, and a return to Eden is affirmed undesirous every Yom Kippur, when we say that we would never stop death if it meant stopping birth too.
Although I am also highly against religious indoctrination from a young age, you could say the same about many 7 year olds going to school.
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Wha?! I- I got it wrong? God dammit!
Fuck you, memory.
Fuck you. :X
I think the movie should be all right. Fantastic? I just... I just can't see it happening.
Anyway has anyone seen the movie, I have a cousin who I want to take but due to illness she cant handle horror like scenes its to much for her. Thanks, if its action like Harry potter like its ok.
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!
I'd say, probably not if you boink dudes. Probably if you were transgendered, though, because your soul would reflect your gender and not your physical sex. This would explain why people with same-gendered daemons are so rare; there's a fair percentage of homosexuals in any population, but not so many transgendered people.
As for the movie, there was so much that I loved: the casting, the way daemons were visually implemented,
However, the rearranging of events/editing was so, so very sloppy, turning a coherent story into kind of a mess. There wasn't enough time to really "get" why daemons were so important, which sucks, because it removed a lot of the dramatic impact of some scenes.
It would also have been nice to have a little less rushing through the plot and more of the interesting, human things going on in the book; this would also have helped explain events without so much "okay, let's tell you the backstory."
The ending also removed a lot of Lyra's motivation and puts her squarely on Lord Asriel's side, blech. So much of the story depends on Lyra forming her own moral compass rather than just going along with someone in power, and not showing the end makes Lord Asriel the hero instead of just another side of the same coin.
Seriously. And what is dust supposed to be? I mean, clearly everyone knows about it, but chidlren don't. Is it basically what causes puberty?
Okay, how is this book not indoctrination? This is exactly the same as that anti-Jewish Mickey Mouse Hamas had last summer; promoting intolerance and discrimination of a particular group in young children. But I suppose its own indoctrination if its something you don't believe, isn't it?
This is a central mystery not fully revealed until late in the trilogy
Are you fucking kidding me??
Because it's criticizing authoritarians, not telling you to become a revolutionary.
Beyond this, it's criticizing authoritarianism, so I think Christians doth protest too much. It's like Mussolini banning Duck Soup: the Marx Brothers weren't targeting him, but they were still ecstatic when he took it as a personal attack.
Review:
Unfortunately the bads out weight the good. The pace of the movie was really bad and just basically went from scene to scene in record time without much chance to take in everything. Seriously many of the major scenes from the books lasted only several minutes Also things got really iffy towards the end with the weird scene arrangements, which was probably due to having to cut out the end. And of course taking out the end in general was pretty poor. So what if the ending is sad. THATS THE DAMN POINT, I don't understand why they had to neuter it for the youngins'. So it basically fell flat at the end with many people exclaiming "Thats It!?" as the credits rolled.
Other minor complaints:
I understand that the Magisterium are the bad guys but really...evil councils and plotting evil plans. Can you be any more blatant?
I love Christopher Lee, but don't get my hopes up for a 1 minute part.
Yeah the whole Billy thing didn't really have the 'umph' the book did.
Overall the quality reminded me a lot of the first Harry Potter film. It was entertaining but could have been so much more.
Random Musing:
So....how is the Sermon on the Mount taught in religious ed worse than that...?
Because it's telling you to join something just because while this one is telling you not to let people oppress you.
Yeah, if only that were actually the case. Pullman isn't encouraging free thought, he freely admits his trilogy is propaganda to encourage atheism. Hell, "telling you not to let people oppress you" could be applied to Liberation theology, the writings of Pius XII, or any other assload of Christian writers.