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Never heard of it. Pretty cool. Looks like something I will have to read before seeing the movie. Is it a series.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Yes. If you are in North America, look it up under the same title. Elsewhere in the world, it's published as Northern Lights. There are two sequels, though the tone and content of the books shifts quite a bit as one reads further in.
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Mmm, I read these a long time ago - time to revisit methinks. The trailer looks good, and if the film has Sam Elliot reprising his role from The Big Lebowski, count me in
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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That was amazing. I can't remember when I've last been this psyched up by an upcoming movie. I can even forgive that they used the ridiculous American title. (Calling alethiometer a mere compass... hrmph!)
And I also liked Subtle Knife the best of the books.
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quote:Originally posted by Snail: That was amazing. I can't remember when I've last been this psyched up by an upcoming movie. I can even forgive that they used the ridiculous American title. (Calling alethiometer a mere compass... hrmph!)
Blame Phillip Pullman. The Golden Compasses was still the working title of his trilogy when he sold it to a North American publisher, and it was only afterwards that he changed it to His Dark Materials. By that point, the American publisher was already devoted to the old title.
I couldn't get into TSK that much...for obvious reasons, if you know me. And TAS I found dry and boring.
Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Silly Mr. Pullman. I could have told him that was a terrible title, but would he listen to me? Oh no...
I thought TAS still had its good points, but overall Pullman didn't find a good balance between his serious stuff and the "message" and his adventure stuff.
Still, the movies have both Nicole Kidman and Eva Green in them. They could make it a musical and add Paris Hilton as a comic relief and replace God with midi-chlorians and it'd still be perfect.
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What's up with child actors named Dakota? I guess seeing a movie with a young girl played by a different Dakota will be a nice change of pace, though.
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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Looks pretty cool, nice use of "Mars" in the beginning there, and visually looks great. I wanted to see this after just reading the description, but after seeing the trailer I REALLY want to see it.
I worry though, is this a movie that I'm not going to understand as well having not read the book?
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Looks pretty cool, nice use of "Mars" in the beginning there, and visually looks great. I wanted to see this after just reading the description, but after seeing the trailer I REALLY want to see it.
I worry though, is this a movie that I'm not going to understand as well having not read the book?
All depends on the script writers. You shouldn't have to read it to understand the movie.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Looks fantastic (Iorek especially), but am I the only one who found it a little distasteful that New Line is so blatantly taking credit for LoTR, and using it to promote The Golden Compass, all while embroiled in a legal dispute with Peter Jackson? It just feels kinda... icky.
That said, much <3 for all of the adult actors in the trailer. We didn't get enough Lyra "actor" moments for me to really evaluate how Dakota Whatsherface will do in the role, but I did love that impishly smug side glance she gives after Iorek's appearance. That moment was perfectly Lyra.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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This looks like a fantastic movie, can anyone give me a couple of good 'book reviews'? from what i just read it doesn't sound like they were that great, but with all reviews, its a matter of opinion.
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I loved the books (even "Amber Spyglass," which most people don't care for). Pullman's universe is one of the few in modern fantasy that isn't a poorly-disguised Tolkien ripoff- on the contrary, it's an incredibly rich setting full of brilliantly realized original ideas. His characters have a depth and moral ambiguity that I find very appealing, and he pulls no punches with the plot.
The one major problem that many people have with Pullman is his treatment of organized religion. Unlike Lewis and Tolkien before him, Pullman is an atheist, and believes that organized religion has been a profoundly negative influence on human society. The morality of "His Dark Materials" reflects this belief, though it never becomes allegory like "Narnia," and the real drama of the story is always character-based. Pullman's politics informs his writing, but IMO he's not out to lecture the reader about right and wrong. Admittedly, as an agnostic who does think that organized religion can (and does) often have a negative effect on the world around it, I'm not exactly likely to be offended by Pullman's worldview. Others differ.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Yeah, I should have pointed out that that statement applies mostly to the first two books, although I don't think "Amber Spyglass" is quite as anvilicious as, say, "Narnia." But I did think that, plotwise, "Amber Spyglass" was a good conclusion to the trilogy. The book needed some serious editing, and was the weakest entry in the trilogy overall, but I enjoyed all of the Lyra- and Will-centric aspects of the story.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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There's a fun little link on the Golden Compass official movie site that allows you to find out who your daemon is -- pretty neat, especially since it looks like they have upwards of about 107,000 animal choices programmed in there. I got a raccoon named Zotius.
quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: I don't think "Amber Spyglass" is quite as anvilicious as, say, "Narnia."
The thing is, I personally know many people who read all seven of the Chronicles without even once discerning the "Deeper Magic" behind the story until someone else told them. And they aren't alone. Hop by the "NarniaWeb" forums sometime.
Conversely, it's impossible to read the second and third volumes of His Dark Materials without realizing the author explicitly thinks that Christianity is misguided at best, innately evil at worst.
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*shrug* I suspect that may have something to do with when you read the books- on average, the first-time readership for HDM seems to skew older than for Narnia. Certainly, the few people I've met who read "The Golden Compass" for the first time prior to middle school age didn't pick up on the anti-religious themes any more than I picked up on the Christian allegory when I read Narnia for the first time as a 7 year old.
I also suspect that HDM has been so heavily tarred for Pullman's politics that older readers today would almost certainly have heard about the controversy even prior to picking up "The Golden Compass"- similar to how "Harry Potter" has been decried for its "occultism."
And I disagree that Pullman considers Christianity as a whole "innately evil" in any way. I'll grant you "misguided," but that's hardly vilification. He does have a strong dislike for organized religion, in any form, which he does believe to be the source of great evil in the world.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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Religion has been corrupted, especially Christianity, but a lot of things that can be good have been, such as politics, the family, sex, anything you can think of. I liked the message of The Amber Spyglass myself... Also the first time i was a crow, now I seem to be a lion named Agapius
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I just started the Golden Compass a few weeks ago, and I am having a hard time getting pulled into the story, mainly because I have a hard time identifying with Lyra. I'm currently trying to put my finger on what it is exactly...not sure, but I'm not captivated thus far.
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I love the first book. When it ended I was so alarmed. But Lyra is not much like me... She's very... hmmm... she's cool, but we have little in common in terms of truthfulness...
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I got through the first two books without seeing much religious hatred.
The third book, though...hard to interpret that as anything but a screed against religion, and organized Christian religions specifically.
Oddly, I wasn't offended. The God figure in HDM isn't the God I recognize; the underlying philosophies that run Pullman's world don't mesh with mine. I had the feeling I should have been upset, but I wasn't.
I *do* wish we could have seen some non-monstrous believers in HDM, but other than that, I really enjoyed the series. Spyglass went on a little too long, and I was uncomfortable with Lyra and Will's relationship... but all in all, I think it's an excellent series.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I'm with everyone on the "Leer-ah," but it's always been "dye-moan." I think it's a function of my Greek - which actually had me figuring out just what that alethiometer did rather early on.
Posts: 3932 | Registered: Sep 1999
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I too mispronounced Lyra and Daemon but this is probably because I am American and not English and not well versed in Greek.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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It was always "Lie-rah" for me (as in "lyre"), but I did mispronounce "daemon." And I originally read "alethiometer" as "ah-LEE-theo-MEE-ter," but realized about halfway through the first book that "ah-LEE-THEO-me-ter" sounded better.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Sep 1999
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"alethiometer" is a perfect name, though I don't know if I dig the spelling. Alethea is Greek for truth, especially a truth that's disclosed.
Alethiometer is more etymologically sound than "proactive," a word I'll never use as I bone deep suspicion about it, and I'm suspicious about people who use it. Following the Latin, I can't understand why the word isn't "Preactive." I blame that class of people who made up White Zinfandel.
The time has almost come!!! We're only a couple weeks away.
The board for this movie at imdb is ridiculous... Dozens of people screaming about how it's anti-religious and dozens of other people screaming back at them to shut up...Kind of entertaining actually.
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Okay, when I went to see Enchanted the other day, they had the old voice for Iorek back in the trailer. That seemed a glaring error considering how new the movie was, so it got my hoping they'd changed the voice back...
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I know nothing about the book or movie. It does look good. My wife got an e-mail from her aunt saying the book is basically anti-God. The e-mail said the movie was not so much so, but that it may get the kids interested in the book and therefore could be exposed to that thought. My family knows better than to flood my in-box with that stuff, but my wife doesn't mind getting them. Then again, she doesn't get 50+ e-mails a day for work.
Is there any truth to that? Just curious.
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Well, brojack, if you feel like diving into this thread, you'll probably get some information about it. There's an awful lot in the thread, though, and it tends to wander a bit...
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