Release is scheduled for December, in plenty of time for the War on shopping Christmas, which of late has formed such an endearing part of our Holiday season here in the States.
The Christianists are going to hate this one, and they’re going to go even more batshit than they usually are.
Why? Here’s a profile of the author, Philip Pullman:
[Philip Pullman] is one of England’s most outspoken atheists. In the trilogy [His Dark Materials], a young girl, Lyra Belacqua, becomes enmeshed in an epic struggle against a nefarious Church known as the Magisterium; another character, an ex-nun turned particle physicist named Mary Malone, describes Christianity as “a very powerful and convincing mistake.” Pullman once told an interviewer that “every single religion that has a monotheistic god ends up by persecuting other people and killing them because they don’t accept him.”
Monica Goodling, of course, would be very happy in a world where The Magisterium ruled, and would happily serve as, say, a functionary for the Consistorial Court.
I heartily recommend His Dark Materials to everyone. Not only is the story gripping, but the characters are great, and lead lives where moral and ethical questions and actions are central: But there is no God yammering—except, of course, by the villains. How refreshing.
UPDATE Here’s a review of the His Dark Materials adapted for the theatre, naturally from the New Yorker:
Pullman’s title, “His Dark Materials,” is a phrase from “Paradise Lost.” [T]he books are intended as an answer to Milton, and an attack on Christian theology and the Church. This is not something that has been missed by the Church, of course. The Association of Christian Teachers, in England, pronounced the show “blasphemous,” and called for it to be banned. In Pullman’s story, the death of God is a good thing, a step forward for the universe. It releases the teen-age heroes, Will and Lyra—played by two excellent young actors, Dominic Cooper and Anna Maxwell Martin—from a world of guilt and oppression and phony purity.
This is a work of fiction, right?
Front page
The Golden Compass is very
The Golden Compass is very good. The trilogy His Dark Materials runs down as it progresses (what’s good is the ambiguity, but it sometimes gets out of control and becomes just illogical), but is worth reading all the way to the end.
while no movie is ever as good as the book
new line are probably the best company for the job.
as for chris weitz……umm…….the co-director of “american pie”, and director of “about a boy”?? odd choice……
i’m also worried about how very, very much CGI there is. maybe i’m not good at suspending disbelief visually, but when i look at CGI, all i see is the CGI, not what it’s supposed to represent……
CGI made LOTR hard to watch for me
It had that porno-burnished sheen of a Thomas Kinkade collectible…
OTOH, it’s hard to see how orcs could have been rendered in any other way, especially en masse.
The same thing with daemons: There’s a daemon in the trailer, and when I saw it, I said: “So that’s what CGI is really good for….”
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
So I went to B&N at lunch
and bought the trilogy. I’ll read it this weekend (probably) and let you know what I think.
Jake
As for CGI
the climactic battle scene where the horse riders sweep down into Sauron’s forces has to be the best massed battle scenes ever.
And it shortly followed by the best scene in the movie, and among the best ever. That’s the scene where Eowyn kills the king of the Nazgul.
“I am no man”
Love that scene.
Jake
Funny...
Actually, I never did see part 3 — I saw the earlier parts, in Berlin, in German. Which certainly was a unique viewing experience. (Since I know the story and the dialog by heart, I didn’t need subtitles.)
That said, the CGI porno-look applies, I’m sure, to all three parts; it was like every blade of grass was airbrushed. Though of course the trade-off is that you can’t—except possibly in China—get a massed battle scene of sufficient scale without CGI.
But the funny part is that I quoted from the same scene just a few days ago. I love the way JRRT makes the Nazgul speak—it’s as if they speak an archaic language, thousands of years old; which is true, in fact.
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
I read your quote when you posted it
but I forgot where it came from.
Cool.
Jake
The Golden compass
Thank you for the tip Lambert. I naturally doubt the movie will be out in major film outlet unless, of course, Pat Robertson gets his buns in a twit and causes it to become a national blockbuster (while being condemned by Westboro and all other Baptist Churches. But then you know human nature being what it is, many faithful will “sneak out” and see what all the commotion is about after a few hours in prayer and an extra tithe to the church post scene.
Anyway, I was really waiting to see “Jesus Camp”, but alas, it only made it here ONE DAY, giving me less and less things to laugh at. {{sigh}}
Still, Pat, James, and who’s that new guy in Texas?, provide many hours of religious entertainment.
Peace be with you.
(Seriously)
saw trailer for golden compass at POC3
wonderful Victorian steampunk, visually complex.
my favorite character— the polar bear— galloping with Lyra on his back
Iorek Byrnison!
Steampunk… Not sure I know what that is.
But Iorek is fantastic. He has no daemon, so when he makes his armor he makes his own soul (IIRC). Vague associations with Stephen Dedalus here.
Not sure I have a favorite character, because so many of the characters are so good. How about favorite scenes?
Perhaps the reasons for this may be all too obvious, but the scene in Mary’s laboratory where she communicates with Dust through the terminal gave me chills:
DO IT NOW AND GO AT ONCE.And, ditto, but the scene where Lee Scoresby and Heather hold off the Imperial soldiers is unbearably sad, because he forgets the sprig that Serafina Pekkala gave him until too late, and so they die (although for a good cause).
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
Steampunk
is a subgenre of SF/alt hist, the origin document of which is often (well, by me anyway) traced to The Difference Engine by William Gibson. The general setup is that the computer age dawns in Victorian England because Babbage gets his “analytical engine” to actually work. Luddites are not amused, Ada Byron gets to actually put her talents to use as they deserved, and an adventurous time is had by all.
Looking up that link I find that this has grown into such a subfield that it has its own magazine/comic. (I don’t think the “B is for Bondage” book is itself SP but illustrates that the word has entered the language for use by others.)
Golden Compass in particular would fit into this field, or at least the world of Lyra Belacqua would.
I read this because the library had the combined trilogy, meaning I had to read all of them at once and in some haste. But I think this can slide around the full Christianist
ire if they stick to the scenario presented by Pullman. The war is between different factions of angels after all, which is not that far off the beaten path traceable back to Milton anyway. What did happen to “God” in all this turmoil anyway? (scratches head and deplores failing memory.)
God dies
Having become senile. (Though I must say that the Metratron stuff, or whatever his name is, seems to me poorly concieved.)
And if the Christianists catch on that the two Angels in the stories are teh gay, well….
No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.
Clerks II via IMDB: Randal
Clerks II via IMDB:
Randal Graves: All right, look, there’s only one “Return,” okay, and it ain’t “of the King,” it’s “of the Jedi.”
Hobbit Lover: Oh, Star Wars geek.
Randal Graves: Oh, I’m the geek? Look at you two whipping out your preciouses.
Elias: You’ll have to excuse him, he’s not “down” with the trilogy.
Randal Graves: Oh, what the fuck happened to this world? There’s only one trilogy, you fucking morons.i
Hobbit Lover: You know what, maybe we should start calling your friend Padme, ’cause he loves Manakin Skywalker so much, right?
[in robot voice]
Hobbit Lover: Danger danger, my name is Anakin. My shitty acting is ruining saga.
Elias: [chucking] Yeah, you’re crazy Jar-Jar.
Randal Graves: Oh, I’m crazy? Those fuckin’ hobbit movies were boring as hell. All it was, was a bunch of people walking, three movies of people walking to a fucking volcano.
Randal Graves: And what’s with that gay fucking look, I thought Sam was going to saunter over Frodo and suck his fucking cock. Now that would have been an Academy Award worthy ending.
Hobbit Lover: Hey faggot, Sam and Frodo aren’t gay! They’re hobbits!
Randal Graves: And then after the Frodo and Sam suckfest, just before the credits roll, Sam straight up fucking bricks in Frodo’s mouth.
AJ- netflix, or bittorrent
fuck the local theatre horror. if you’re lucky you have an arthouse or university place to go, they usually are fine, but as you say, you have a day or two and that’s it. you have a computer, so you can watch dvds or downloads of movies. the cgi is just as lovely on a small screen.
i couldn’t push thru HDM. i tried, i was bored. it’s my training, but to have to read yet another story about yet another group of precocious english people during an already overly explored period in history/mythology…snore. i’ll try them again, but the point about monotheism isn’t so gravid to me. i guess that what makes these ’children’s books:’ figuring out monotheism sucks should be something every child realizes.
Changes to plot?
I heard that the director has changed the plot in order to take out the religious element. I’m not sure how this is possible without completely changing the plot and taking away the point of the trilogy.
Hopefully, they’ll just replace the word “church” with something less obvious, but something fans of the books will still get.