<p>You make a really expensive movie (reported cost $180 million) for a Christmas blockbuster release and you spend another eleventy-zillion on advertising. The director has already cleansed the source material of its pervasive anti-Catholic, anti-faith attitude to make it more family-friendly. Then, audiences avoid the movie in droves. It gets less than 50% on rottentomatoes.com, a sign of genuinely tepid critical response. </p>
<p>Of course, releasing a movie based on a story written by an atheist author specifically as a sharp criticism of America’s dominant religion, just before that faith’s second-most sacred holiday is a sign of, well, something really stupid. At least the movie wasn’t aimed at Islam, and this isn’t Iran or Saudi Arabia. There, the movie would not have been released and the producers would have already been beheaded. Here in the US, what happens is that people shun the movie, and it will go on to lose $80,000,000-100,000,000. I wonder which is the worse punishment?</p>
<p>Why is the movie on its way to being a big old flop in the US market? I can think of three reasons. First, the novels were reportedly fun to read – sharply written and full of vivid characters. The movie homogenized a lot of that out to make them family-friendly (according to critics anyway). This would alienate some of the book’s fans. Second, the movie might just plain old suck. Good novels don’t always make good films, and the screenplay might just be dreck. Third, a whole bunch of irritated people of faith just won’t go see it no matter how good it is. This isn’t Harry Potter which very few Christians had a problem with (yes, most evangelicals weren’t even bothered), and the author isn’t JK Rowling. Pullman declared war publicly on people of faith, and the movie’s makers shouldn’t have been surprised that very few of them wanted to pay $9 to see it.</p>
<p>Anyway, no matter what you think of the specifics, making the movie and not muzzling the author was a really stupid decision.</p>
<p>I didn’t see the movie, but I did read the books a few years back as my sons were reading them and found them entertaining. Tough subject matter to bring to the screen, though, and it needed someone like the Lord of the Rings’ Peter Jackson to pull it off. The big mistake was as you said, making it “family friendly” instead of an adult movie that involved children (like Pan’s Labyrinth.)</p>
<p>Just from the ads on television, I can say that I thought the casting was all wrong. Nicole Kidman is not the least bit threatening and the girl lead should have been more street urchin and less English rose. I might rent the movie sometime, but I wasn’t going to go out of my way to see it during the busy holiday season.</p>
<p>WD, have you seen the movie? I don’t think it gets a tepid response for anything having anything to do with religion. It’s simply a souffle of a movie. </p>
<p>For that matter, have you read the books? [I have. Volume I twice. TheMom has read the entire series twice and we were talking about its religious and anti-religious elements just the other night.]</p>
<p>Fwiw, they are books that we think don’t translate to film terribly well as there is so much interior stuff going on in the books that’s very difficult to convey with camera and dialog. Which is why the movie has the gorgeous look-and-feel but doesn’t make complete sense. And the abruptness of the ending was criminal.</p>
<p>I am so sick of series things
I admit I did not even read the most recent Harry Potter book- even though my 17 year old had read it the first night it was out after a big midnight party.
I also have not seen the most recent Pirates of the carribean movie- although my D only rented it, didn’t go see it in a theatre like the first two- so I guess Orlando is washed up.
I have read the LOTR many times ( - in the 70s when I was 15 & again)
and seen all the movies & loved them.
I have read various other series but Golden COmpass didn’t engage me so I havent read any.
I am eager to finish reading Atonement however, before the movie leaves the theatres- but instead of reading tonight I am watching " The Good German"
But havent’ read the Golden Compass although both Ds tell me I would like it.
Lately I want a little raciness in a book- so not so much something for 12 year olds</p>
<p>I’ve read the whole series several times, and I just read it again after seeing the movie. I agree with TheDad that the books are very complex and it doesn’t surprise me that they didn’t translate well to the big screen.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I don’t think the books are blatantly anti-Catholic or anti-faith, and I think the whole brouhaha over them and the movie is utterly absurd. Sure, Pullman is an atheist. But the books are about a universe in which God exists, and I’m puzzled anyway about why an author’s belief in God or lack of belief should matter to anybody. In the books, the church (in another world, so not “our” church anyway) is a bad guy, but there are many others. Most of the heroes of the story are presented as bad guys at some point in the three books – the subtleties of good and evil are one of my favorite elements of the story.</p>
<p>I read the books when they first came out, when I was still a good little fundie teenager, and I never perceived them as anti-faith. They’re fiction, for heaven’s sake, and they tell an interesting and thought-provoking story.</p>
<p>TheDad hit it. The D’s and I saw it (we’re Jewish; Pullman’s anti-religious bias is really nonsensical to us), thought Nicole was great, the CGIs and other special effects wonderful, but you need that interior discussion, and the shifting of dramatic elements did change the whole story into a hash. I read Book 2, awaiting older D to finish Book 3 but so far, IMO, Pullman is delusional if he thinks his books are the anti-Narnia. Not that I liked Narnia so much, mind, but Pullman’s fantasy has truly absurd internal logic. He may have tried to write books about the end of religion, but he wrote something more akin to science fiction fantasy, like Anne McCaffrey’s books.</p>
<p>Molliebatmit, did you catch in Book 1 that among the nicest characters like John Faa there are constant references to the Almighty? Pullman has said in various interviews that he’s an atheist or that he’s an agnostic. Which is the true Pullman? I think the latter, and that he claimed the former to create sensation to sell more books. </p>
<p>TheDad, the studio couldn’t end the movie where the book did- major downer and then nobody would come to see the sequels. Though I bet now that the sequels won’t be made. Internationally, the movie has done very well, I understand.</p>
<p>I loved the first book, The Golden Compass, and enjoyed the others. But, sorry guys, while they are not really anti-faith per se, they are really, really anti-clerical. How else wouild you describe books in which every evil character is associated with a formal religious hierarchy, and death squads of sociopathic Jesuit assassins armed with rifles and indulgences roam the Earth?</p>
<p>As for the movie, I still plan to see it, but the first time I saw what kind of girl they had cast for Lyra, my expectations for it plummeted. And once you remove one of the two central conceits of the first book – a world much like ours where the Reformation succeeded completely, and John Calvin became Pope – there isn’t much zing left to it. (The other central conceit – souls externalized as cute pets – is a wonderful excuse for budget-busting CGI, but doesn’t mean that much.)</p>
<p>As a person of faith, but not Catholic, I thought the books were a little offensive - mostly because they were thinly veiled propaganda aimed at children, possibly all for the purpose of selling books. Also, I found them mean-spirited, in direct contrast to Harry Potter, for example. It was very disturbing to me that Lyra’s parents were the “bad guys” - we have enough of that in real life. The saving grace to me was that they are very full of interior dialogue, and a little hard to follow for the age group that I personally wouldn’t want to have read the book - most kids in that age group would just lose interest.
Just not a childrens’ book at all.</p>
<p>I saw the books as anti-organized religion more than anti-God. I was surprised at how long it took anyone to notice how subversive the books were though. I liked the second book best. I’d kind of like to see the movie - I thought the previews looked great visually, but I’m bummed that there seems to be a consensus that the movie is not nearly as good as it could have been.</p>
<p>I don’t think it much matters what Pullman’s religious beliefs are. I see no reason why a committed atheist can’t write a fantasy with a god or gods.</p>
<p>I just re-read the first book this week but have no intention of seeing the movie. It was a good read but I kept thinking, “This isn’t a <em>kid’s</em> book!” </p>
<p>Esp. when it got to the frank discussion of castration. :eek:</p>
<p>The same thing is about to happen with Time Traveler’s Wife, a very high concept book I loved that is being translated to the screen by the folks that brought you, wait for it…The Notebook! Ugh. Same writer/director/actress.</p>
<p>The Golden Compass suffers Harry Potter fatigue I think. And a female hero is in no way going to be as popular as a male hero. The trailers emphasized the adult protagonists, specifically Nicole Kidman, so no kid appeal there. </p>
<p>I don’t think they understood their audience, and without a huge fan base (novel/s not so widely read) there was not enough to draw kids in. Then the magical animal recalled Narnia. So we basically have a Harry Potter/Narnia rehash in the trailer, even if the books add more.</p>
<p>DS read the first book and shows no interest in seeing the movie, though he did like the book.</p>