The Golden Compass

[matgb]

Last Friday night, we went to see The Golden Compass, adaptation of Pullman's Northern Lights. It's a book I'd started reading, then stopped as I was enjoying it but had many other books on the go at the same time and wanted to watch the film fresh--I find that if I've recently read a book, I watch the film in "compare" mode, and I've long held that films should be different from the book, else what's the actual point, films are a different medium and thus require different narrative devices to get the same characters and plot across. But in this case, I think my holding off was a waste of time. Jennie reviewed it Saturday, and while I'm not going to review it myself, this review from absinthecity pretty much says what I would:

What this film is, is a series of 'set pieces' taken from the book - the fight scenes, the escape scenes, the meeting scenes - all stuck together with very little in the form of narrative 'glue'. As you'd imagine they are beautifully rendered, with some genuinely well-advised use of CGI, and the acting is first class. But the emotional element...was almost completely absent.

I'll now be putting the trilogy back on the pile, and if they do make films two and three, I'll likely go see, but not because I expect it to be any good. But just to, y'know, take in the scenery. Especially the Eva Miles shaped bits. As for protestations that the boycott worked? Bollox, it's failed at the box office because it's crap, not because the Catholic League decided to not like it.

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I would have thought, if anything, that the Catholic League protests have boosted the takings.

[matgb]

That would be what I'd expect, but USians, especially USian parents, can be hard to predict reaction wise. But I'm pretty sure that the boycott didn't kill it, probably neutral overall.

[raven-oreilly.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I don't think the advertising was done very well. New Line hasn't been well known for their advertising anyway. So you have this movie that not a lot of people know about, and know even less about the books, combined with douches like Donohue at the Catholic League crowing about it.

Totally agree that the movie's failure wasn't on part of the "boycott." It had all the makings of a great fantasy film and it failed because of plot evisceration.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

I think the books are crap, too, but I'm in a minority there. I feel that they're berating, hectoring, proselytising wish fulfilment crap.

[matgb]

Like I said, only got about 1/3rd the way into book one, was enjoying, but not enough to want to keep going compared to the others I had to read.

But I tend to not notice preachy stuff, I still love Narnia books, for example, despite my fairly strong atheism.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

The anti-religion proselytising becomes more obvious in the last book. I felt that Pullman thought he had such a 'good idea' that he didn't actually have to bother thinking about a plot, and while the writing style doesn't grate as much on me as Rowland's does, everytime his heroine or her sidekicks get into a bit of a fix, he invents a new bit of magic to get them out of it, and the trilogy has that deus ex narrativa in common with Harry Potter, and it irks me somewhat. There is no coherency or tightness to the plotting; it's as if Pullman thought it OK to pull plot lines and solutions out of a hat because it is fantasy, missing the point that what makes a good fantasy book is the presence of narrative tension due to internally consistent logic (see China Mieville references in my blog passim). The Golden Compass utterly utterly fails to have any of this narrative consistency or narrative tension and yet is hailed as a masterpiece simply because it proselytises atheism. That's cart before the horse stuff, to me.

[matgb]

Well, I couldn't get into Potter at all, but I get what you mean—the reason I like Miéville and Swainston is that they do try to make sense within their own world fairly well, even if China does let his poltics get in the way of a good novel on occasions (Iron Council was a bit OTT even for me).

[tyrell.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're preachy enough. He had a chance to *eviscerate* organised religion and as much historical ammunition as he could have wanted, and he fluffed it. It's like you said, a complete lack of coherency. I don't even think it's pro-atheist, it's got religion and mysticism all over the place, albeit mostly gnostic.

Apparently I too am in a minority on this.

[insomnia.livejournal.com]

I also want to know... why would anyone ever expect this film to gross as much as Narnia, LOTR, or other established literary classics?

The entire "Golden Compass" trilogy has only sold about 15M copies worldwide, with many of those being recent sales of the pre-movie editions. Compare that with The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, The Fellowship of the Ring, or Harry Potter and the Sourcerer's Stone, all of which have sold more than 100M copies worldwide.

The movie isn't a great one, granted... but it's not crap either. $26 million dollars is a perfectly acceptable, understandable opening weekend gross for such a film. Box Office Mojo is right when it said that the turnout "was about average for a live action fantasy." It did about 20% better than Eragon or Bridge to Terabithia, but it wasn't a blockbuster. That said, I expect it will make a considerable amount more over the holiday season, as many parents will want/need to take the kids out to the movies, but won't want to sit through a prolonged Chipmunk hell.

Is the boycott making a difference? I imagine is may be by a few million dollars, but the overall effect is kind of negligible, really. Ultimately, this is a movie that wasn't likely to gross over $35M for the opening weekend, even if it was flawless.

Meanwhile, it seems to be doing a very good job of helping make the series a widely-known classic anyway, so there's actually considerable potential growth for the longterm future of the literary franchise.

[matgb]

You're right that it isn't as well known or big a franchise, and that it shouldn't be measured against those that are, and TBH I've no idea what to compare it to overall.

And yes, it has 'holiday movie' all over it really, so hopefully the initial buzz will move things forward—I'd like them to make the sequels just to see them but I've no idea what the makers were/are expecting.

Other than that they effectively fired the director close to the end and redid lots, which is normally a Bad Thing and I think it showed. Ah well.

[wieselkind.livejournal.com]

Yeah i know what you mean about the book and the film should be different, i mean the book is the book, I like it when films esp multiple adaptations put there own spin on things, which can be either trite or interesting, I mean look at Dracula...

[matgb]

Absolutely, and a another good example would be Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, of which the original film was so far from the book it was daft, but the new one I thought was quite good.

[raven-oreilly.livejournal.com]

Totally agree. My commentary entry on it (http://raven-oreilly.livejournal.com/123022.html) descended into much silliness.

I still stand by my On Notice! a la Stephen Colbert proclamation.

What I've come to determine is this is a result of my country's desire to make a quick buck instead of making anything really decent. I fear for the fantasy genre's future in movies because of Hollywood's kick on making trilogies - no matter how bad - and the lack of really putting out anything good other than a movie here or there that isn't really advertised very well ("No Country For Old Men" was FANTASTIC). This is just a personal surmising of mine, though.

[matgb]

There's a bit of me that's happy to see trilogies being committed to, but I'd rather see some good standalones on occasion—I like watching a film and knowing that anyone can die.

But it was pretty, which is good. And better that we're getting some fantasy than none, which is what we had for a long long time.

[raven-oreilly.livejournal.com]

Agreed. However, I don't want Hollywood killing the genre either to the point where no one will want to make fantasy movies anymore, you know?

Maybe I'm being too negative on this subject because I'm still sore over how disappointed I really am in "The Golden Compass."

[eldar.livejournal.com]

I'm re-reading the books just so I can rip the film to shreds, should I get the opportunity to see it. I've already been incensed enough by the trailers. Chances are I shall have to wait for the DVD though, unless anyone wants to babysit for us?!

[matgb]

Would volunteer, but am now the wrong side of the country.

If you're limited on going out time, I wouldn't bother, there are going to be much better films.