The Golden Compass

[IrrationalSanity]

I really hope Peter Jackson gets the chance to film The Hobbit or TCOTC is made because I'm frightened by what else Hollywood has in store. XANTH?

Actually, I heard that "A Spell for Chameleon" has been optioned, as has another PA series - "On a Pale Horse" from Incarnations. Actaully, Incarnations is pretty good material, and has alot of promise...

[matrixman]

Anyway, the moral is to go in to EVERY movie thinking it's going to be crap, and you'll NEVER be disappointed.

Yeah, reverse psychology can be a wonderful thing, but if I thought beforehand that every movie was crap, then I wouldn't bother to see any at all.

[Menolly]

*nod*

I think the difference is that when you work at a theatre, you can afford that attitude before entering.

[Reave the Unjust]

How much is New Line Cinema paying you?!

Sadly, not enough.....

I said good film btw, not GREAT.

There is a difference (I think).

The books were great.
The movie was good.
I thought it would be the opposite of good (very cr*ppy).

Need I remind anyone that Mr Jackson's version of LOTR was not exactly the same as the books (finishing and starting "chapters", leaving out sections, or adding parts here and there). But, it told the story.

I thought Golden Compass told the story, without confusing the issues too much. They could have lost the intended audience (i.e kids) if it was too wordy. Corporate media at work again.....
I wish it could have had all the little nuances of the book but that's one of the downsides of book-to-film translations.

God, maybe I should be getting paid to defend this bloody film....

[Cagliostro]

I managed to stay away from Stardust completely

Eh? I don't remember talking animals in Stardust.

[iQuestor]

I really liked the book, the film was OK at best. thaere was more divergence from the storyline than I would like and didnt like what they did to the end. Loved Sam Elliott!!

[Reave the Unjust]

I managed to stay away from Stardust completely

Eh? I don't remember talking animals in Stardust.

Now that was a great film!

[Zarathustra]

[Edit: spoiler alert!!!]

This is a horrible movie. I really wanted to like it, given that I support the author's anti-religious agenda. However, this was very boring, completely lacking of any depth or subtlety, and a rushed, nonsensical plot.

How it gets the characters moving to where to they go is a complete mystery. They all just seem to appear "in the north" where the bears are. All of them. Together. What a coincidence.

The bear battle was pathetic. You might as well watch walrus fight each other. Boring crap.

And then they immediately run out into the snow as the one bear is "crowned "king. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. He has the greatest fight of his life, his crowning achievement, revenge which he's been dreaming about for years (apparently), but in the very next breath he says, "Now I'll take you to such and such," and the girl jumps on his back for another (the second) five minute sequence of bears running through the snow. Good grief.

But it gets worse. There's a Final Battle where all these people you don't know come out of nowhere and have lots of "emotional" moments where they almost die but manage to kick ass instead. Witches literally drop out of the sky. What witches you may ask? Who the fuck knows. They just drop out of the sky and start fighting. Oh, and these Russian looking dudes in tall hats appear out of nowhere, too. You've never met them before, but goddamnit there they are, ready for battle. And of course the good guys are right around the corner, too. But we have no idea who they are; they've only been on screen for about 10 minutes total. It's not until this battle happens that you actually figure out what the point of the book is: rescue these kids from a threat that only gets about 2 sentences of explanation. You know that there's these "gobblers," and they take kids. And by coincidence, these kids are exactly where everyone is going (though I'm still not sure why everyone was going there). And that was the big danger of this movie. Kidnappers. But you don't learn that there are kidnappers until about a 1/4 of the way through the movie (a one sentence mention), and you never actually see any of them get kidnapped, but by coincidence all the main character's friends are all kidnapped.

Anyway, everyone meets up at the end, including people you know or don't know, and they all beat the shit out of each other, and the good guys win.

What's really bizarre is how the adults treat this main character girl as if she is an adult, like she can accomplish anything because she knows how to read the compass. Umm . . . just because you can read a compass doesn't mean you're old enough to ride through the North Pole on a giant polar bear, and rescue everyone.

And then there's the cliche confusion about who her parents are, and maybe they're not who she thinks they are . . . blah, blah, blah. God, this was one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.

[The Laughing Man]

[SleeplessOne]

And then they immediately run out into the snow as the one bear is "crowned "king. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. He has the greatest fight of his life, his crowning achievement, revenge which he's been dreaming about for years (apparently), but in the very next breath he says, "Now I'll take you to such and such," and the girl jumps on his back for another (the second) five minute sequence of bears running through the snow. Good grief.

that's how it went down in the book, which I just finished reading yesterday - I was a little underwhelmed by Northern Lights, Pullman had some great concepts but I found the pacing to be annoying, it was like fantasy for the ADD set .. I'll go see the movie, mainly cuz a ladyfriend I have wants to see it with me, but I dont have any great expectations ..

[Reave the Unjust]

.....it was like fantasy for the ADD set...

Yes, I know what you mean.
The movie was sort of an extreme version of this.
(The other books are better though)

Don't get your hopes up and you may enjoy it a bit (I expected very little myself).

I understand Malik's view, and am a little frustrated that this story has been turned into a film for kids with no attention span. Sadly, most mainstream films are like this too:
"Look over here!"
"Now look at this!"
"Hey, what about this!"

[SleeplessOne]

The other books are better though

.. I reckon I'll persist with the other two books, if my friend is kind enough to lend them to me

[Zarathustra]

Sorry about the spoilers. I edited my post to warn people. I didn't spoiler tag anything, because there don't seem to be any rules in this forum for such a thing. And honestly, anyone who accidentally reads how bad this movie is will benefit tremendously by not wasting $30 dollars like I did.

[The Laughing Man]

[SoulQuest1970]

We all totally loved this movie! Calli because she prefers animals over people. Alex loved it for the message it gave and the boys loved it for the ACTION! lol

[hierachy]

It sucked.

[Ki]

i didn't like it either.

[balon!]

I thought it was okay, but that's probably because I didn't pay.

[Ki]

I thought it was okay, but that's probably because I didn't pay.

lol; yea, it would help if we hadn't spent so much to go see it.

[aTOMiC]

I managed to stay away from Stardust completely

Eh? I don't remember talking animals in Stardust.

I don't know if there were any talking animals in the film but from the clips presented in the trailer there certainly could have been. I guess I've been ruined for fantasy by works that were aimed toward a younger audience. When I say younger I mean pre or early teens. Stardust had a look of a whimsical fable akin to something really dorky like The Neverending Story or its unfathomable sequel which by the title of the first film shouldn't even exist but pollutes the "5 for 10 dollars" pile at Wal-Mart. I'm not saying Stardust stinks I just know what it looks like and I no longer have the stomach for Peter Pan unless it's really violent or really amusing. Time Bandits comes to mind.