I read and enjoyed all of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books (and saw the movie) even though I am well aware of their strong Christian sentiment, yet I fear that people with the opposite religious viewpoint from myself will have just completely disregarded the Dark Materials books and movies once they heard that some of the content was anti-religion.
Which is a shame, since they'll be missing out on some really great writing and interesting plotlines.
Ah well. I should be seeing this next week.
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I'm christian and I still like to consume literature and movies written by people with different worldviews. And I encourage other christians to do so too. The only thing I can possibly lose in a exchange of views (and watching a movie could be considered to be one) is my errors.
What I appreciate about the narnia books is, that Lewis rudimentary justified his views, for example by including century old philosophical discussions in a simple language. If I remember right he talks about the difference between what a thing is and what a thing consists of in a dialog between one of the protagonists and a fallen star.
I wonder if it's the same with these books, maybe someone can tell me.
For starters, I am a Christian. And I have seen the Golden Compass. And frankly, I don't know what the Catholic Church's deal is. Although there are very, very clear anti-establishment themes prevalent throughout the film, at no point do you get the impression that the are referring directly to any religious group. If anything, it seemed predominantly anti-government, and a caution against allowing organized government too much power.
However, I honestly can't recommend this movie to anyone who might be interested. And it isn't because of the message of the film. (which was quite heavy-handed) It is because this simply wasn't a very good movie. At all. The pacing was both slower and faster than it should have been. Not enough time was spent developing anything, and the viewer was simply tossed directly into the thick of things. But at the same time, the film rarely ever sped up enough to excite. The pacing was far too....consistent. There wasn't nearly enough variation. All of the characters were shallow and static. None of them really learn or develop. At the end of the film they are the same as ever. And the constant preaching of the film's message drags down the overall presentation. It made everything in the film seem very...contrived. Everything was far too convenient for the protagonists. There was never any sense of danger or struggle. They just traipsed through their grand adventure with nary a care, always certain that someone or something would step in and take care of everything for them. (which always happened)
This is an example of a movie with a first-class cast, fantastic production values, an intriguing fantasy setting, and absolutely no soul. This movie fell flat on its face because there was no emotion or character behind all the glitz and flash. Very dissapointing.
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For starters, I am a Christian. And I have seen the Golden Compass. And frankly, I don't know what the Catholic Church's deal is.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I heard the Pope gave this one two thumbs down AND he asked for a refund at the ticket desk! Okay, I made that up. The Catholic Church hasn't said anything about this movie.
[ QUOTE ]
Although there are very, very clear anti-establishment themes prevalent throughout the film, at no point do you get the impression that the are referring directly to any religious group.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's watered down quite a bit from the novels. If you read the series, you can see it's very clearly negative towards Christianity.
The Catholic League is a group of uptight conservatives who happen to be Catholic. They're not officially sanctioned by the actual Catholic Church, and president William Donahue is not part of the clergy. The only time you really hear from these guys is when they want to bitch about a movie, book or TV show that they can somehow imagine to be blasphemous or anti-Catholic. Think of them as the Catholic equivalent of bible-thumping evangelicals and you're pretty close to the mark.
Part of the difficulty that this movie is going to have is its utter lack of demographic focus. It has no actual target demographic. Any adult is going to be mildly offended by how hard the film attempts to push its own agenda over presenting a compelling story. And this can't really be billed as a children's movie. There are some pretty disturbing and violent sequences in the film. The conclusion of the polar bear fight honestly shocked even me. That was some truly brutal imagery. Not appropriate for children at all. Not to mention that the theme of the movie pretty much encourages children to be disobedient.
Aside from perhaps ganja-toking hippies, I can't imagine a single group that this movie would specifically appeal to.
i didnt like it much.. I wonder Is it even possible to follow the movie if u havent read the book? cause I,ve read the book and I was confuse watching the movie. LOL. DELETE!
RE: religious whatever -- HEY guess who doesn't care THAT WOULD BE ME
Right, well as we all know the most important aspect of any movie is how much steampunk is in it. Obviously this makes the Golden Compass one of the best movies of this century, because those designs were fucking badass! I was particularly pleased with the 'carriage' and the big metal airship (with jet engines! i creamed my pants!).
I'm only half joking. I'm obsessed with steampunk mechanical designs and so this movie was a huge treat. I also really enjoyed the pace of the story and the excellent cgi (not perfect of course, but it didn't take much effort to suspend my disbelief).
According to this CGTalk interview, there were a total of six studios that worked on the film, Cinesite being the one that did the vehicles. Mad props to those talented buggahs.
Yeah the vehicle designs were really cool, so were the architectural things, and the costumes were neat too.
It was also well acted.
Pacing was, as other people have stated, fairly poor. It seemed to me that they spent more time on less important things and on the more important plot elements (personally I don't think the "zoom into golden particles" shots every time she used the Alethiometer was really necessary!).
They missed out some fairly important parts like the Witches' prophesy (only vaguely mentioned in passing), and some more of the stuff about Iorek's armour at the start, and explanation of how he defeated the bear king (who I think they changed the name of for some reason?).
They seemed to spend a lot of time at the beginning setting up not much - stuff that was only a few pages in the book turned into 15 minutes, and then they didn't have time to sort out the rest.
Agreed with Moose about the frozen fish boy, shouldn't have been Billy, also they missed out some important stuff like freeing the "cut" daemons at Bolvangar.
Ah well, enjoyable enough. I hope they make the rest of them because the ending was really kind of a let-down especially if you know what happens in the book.
Replies
I read and enjoyed all of C.S. Lewis' Narnia books (and saw the movie) even though I am well aware of their strong Christian sentiment, yet I fear that people with the opposite religious viewpoint from myself will have just completely disregarded the Dark Materials books and movies once they heard that some of the content was anti-religion.
Which is a shame, since they'll be missing out on some really great writing and interesting plotlines.
Ah well. I should be seeing this next week.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm christian and I still like to consume literature and movies written by people with different worldviews. And I encourage other christians to do so too. The only thing I can possibly lose in a exchange of views (and watching a movie could be considered to be one) is my errors.
What I appreciate about the narnia books is, that Lewis rudimentary justified his views, for example by including century old philosophical discussions in a simple language. If I remember right he talks about the difference between what a thing is and what a thing consists of in a dialog between one of the protagonists and a fallen star.
I wonder if it's the same with these books, maybe someone can tell me.
However, I honestly can't recommend this movie to anyone who might be interested. And it isn't because of the message of the film. (which was quite heavy-handed) It is because this simply wasn't a very good movie. At all. The pacing was both slower and faster than it should have been. Not enough time was spent developing anything, and the viewer was simply tossed directly into the thick of things. But at the same time, the film rarely ever sped up enough to excite. The pacing was far too....consistent. There wasn't nearly enough variation. All of the characters were shallow and static. None of them really learn or develop. At the end of the film they are the same as ever. And the constant preaching of the film's message drags down the overall presentation. It made everything in the film seem very...contrived. Everything was far too convenient for the protagonists. There was never any sense of danger or struggle. They just traipsed through their grand adventure with nary a care, always certain that someone or something would step in and take care of everything for them. (which always happened)
This is an example of a movie with a first-class cast, fantastic production values, an intriguing fantasy setting, and absolutely no soul. This movie fell flat on its face because there was no emotion or character behind all the glitz and flash. Very dissapointing.
For starters, I am a Christian. And I have seen the Golden Compass. And frankly, I don't know what the Catholic Church's deal is.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I heard the Pope gave this one two thumbs down AND he asked for a refund at the ticket desk! Okay, I made that up. The Catholic Church hasn't said anything about this movie.
[ QUOTE ]
Although there are very, very clear anti-establishment themes prevalent throughout the film, at no point do you get the impression that the are referring directly to any religious group.
[/ QUOTE ]
It's watered down quite a bit from the novels. If you read the series, you can see it's very clearly negative towards Christianity.
Yeah, I heard the Pope gave this one two thumbs down AND he asked for a refund at the ticket desk!
[/ QUOTE ]
Haha
Games have really ruined films for me, I like a film that makes me think and not one that anyone can guess the story events / ending.
Haven't read the books, but my mrs says they are alot better?
Aside from perhaps ganja-toking hippies, I can't imagine a single group that this movie would specifically appeal to.
Pam was nice tho!
Right, well as we all know the most important aspect of any movie is how much steampunk is in it. Obviously this makes the Golden Compass one of the best movies of this century, because those designs were fucking badass! I was particularly pleased with the 'carriage' and the big metal airship (with jet engines! i creamed my pants!).
I'm only half joking. I'm obsessed with steampunk mechanical designs and so this movie was a huge treat. I also really enjoyed the pace of the story and the excellent cgi (not perfect of course, but it didn't take much effort to suspend my disbelief).
According to this CGTalk interview, there were a total of six studios that worked on the film, Cinesite being the one that did the vehicles. Mad props to those talented buggahs.
I just got back from seeing it.
Yeah the vehicle designs were really cool, so were the architectural things, and the costumes were neat too.
It was also well acted.
Pacing was, as other people have stated, fairly poor. It seemed to me that they spent more time on less important things and on the more important plot elements (personally I don't think the "zoom into golden particles" shots every time she used the Alethiometer was really necessary!).
They missed out some fairly important parts like the Witches' prophesy (only vaguely mentioned in passing), and some more of the stuff about Iorek's armour at the start, and explanation of how he defeated the bear king (who I think they changed the name of for some reason?).
They seemed to spend a lot of time at the beginning setting up not much - stuff that was only a few pages in the book turned into 15 minutes, and then they didn't have time to sort out the rest.
Agreed with Moose about the frozen fish boy, shouldn't have been Billy, also they missed out some important stuff like freeing the "cut" daemons at Bolvangar.
Ah well, enjoyable enough. I hope they make the rest of them because the ending was really kind of a let-down especially if you know what happens in the book.