The trouble with the movie was that the studio got scared out of continuing by fundamentalist Christian groups who really objected to the central premise of the books; namely that God can be killed and all life will be better off for it.
They then fumbled the shit out of it, editing it so poorly that what they did make was a jumble of shit that no one who wasn’t familiar with the stories would care to see, and no one who loved the books would be happy with. For me it was shit like revealing Lyra’s parentage right at the beginning, rather than it being a huge surprise as in the books.
It was a massive shame though, because the casting was damn near perfect. If they’d got Sam Elliott back to reprise the role of Lee Scorseby for the BBC adaptation, I’d have been as happy as a pig in shit. To my mind he is Lee. Lin Manuel Miranda was fine, but lacked the essential taciturn nature of the character as written. And Sir Ian McKellan as Iorek? Perfect.
I’ve never read the series but the His Dark Materials television show is really well produced. Not sure how closely it follows the books but as far as I understand it’s pretty faithfully executed.
I’m usually fine with not everything from the book making it to the movie, but changes to the plot need to be very well reasoned for. There were for example a lot of changes to the structure of LotR when Jackson adapted it, but they didn’t change the overall plot or message, mostly just restructured it.
The Golden Compass
There’s a whole series of books.
Though there is a TV series now…
The trouble with the movie was that the studio got scared out of continuing by fundamentalist Christian groups who really objected to the central premise of the books; namely that God can be killed and all life will be better off for it.
They then fumbled the shit out of it, editing it so poorly that what they did make was a jumble of shit that no one who wasn’t familiar with the stories would care to see, and no one who loved the books would be happy with. For me it was shit like revealing Lyra’s parentage right at the beginning, rather than it being a huge surprise as in the books.
It was a massive shame though, because the casting was damn near perfect. If they’d got Sam Elliott back to reprise the role of Lee Scorseby for the BBC adaptation, I’d have been as happy as a pig in shit. To my mind he is Lee. Lin Manuel Miranda was fine, but lacked the essential taciturn nature of the character as written. And Sir Ian McKellan as Iorek? Perfect.
Where can you watch the TV series? I really liked that movie.
Max, it’s called His Dark Materials.
Definitely worth seeking out the TV show, it’s much much better than the movie IMO.
That’s kind of a low bar, but yeah, the series is pretty good
Well, yeah, I agree - but the person I was replying to liked the movie, so I didn’t want to be rude! ;-)
How nice of you :D
I’ve never read the series but the His Dark Materials television show is really well produced. Not sure how closely it follows the books but as far as I understand it’s pretty faithfully executed.
The TV series is so good. Forget about the movie.
As far as I can remember the Movie did terrible, especially since it didn’t really stick to the source material
Daemons and talking polar bears. I was sold.
I personally am not bothered by sticking to the source material or not. Books and movies are fundamentally different.
I’m usually fine with not everything from the book making it to the movie, but changes to the plot need to be very well reasoned for. There were for example a lot of changes to the structure of LotR when Jackson adapted it, but they didn’t change the overall plot or message, mostly just restructured it.