...more like Northern Lights you cowboy fucks.

In any case, I'm a very big fan of Phillip Pullman or at least His Dark Materials (that Sally Lockheart shit was, well, shit) so I've been sort of looking forward to this for a while. I say "sort of" because it's a very, very easy one to fuck up, especially since the director had already stated that all religious references were to be removed and replaced with euphamism to make the film financially viable in the United States of Being Fucking Backward About Everything Apparently. I guess their reasoning is that the kind of nuts who care about HERESY of all things wouldn't even notice euphamism which is a little insulting to a demographic they want to grip so tightly for whatever reason.

New Line are fucking cowards basically.

Anyway, the film. One of its main strong points is the casting I'd say. Its next strong point would be the story they had to adapt in the first place. After that finding strong points gets a little tough. I'm betting the AWESOME GRAPHICS would be one for people not watching a cam version.

For people who haven't read the book: did that feel like a natural place for an ending? Certainly didn't to me. Apparently that whole section (the ending) is already filmed and they simply wanted to shit the product onto celluloid quickly because of marketing pressure or some such.

I think I found the film okay just because of how much I like the books. I'm pretty sure anyone seeing this stuff for the first time would just find it terrible. I AM looking foward to The Subtle Knife (will we be lucky if we get this title lol (I don't actually care about the name despite my first line)), especially because then I'll get the ending to the movie I just watched in the first five minutes. :thumpsup:

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The Golden Compass and Northern Lights are equally stupid titles for books but I prefer the British version because the object in question isn't even a fucking compass.

Also, the whole "it's anti-religion!" thing is blown way out of proportion... and I'm protestant.  I've read the series, and it isn't about bashing Christianity at all.  Christians are the main villains, and it explicitly states this, but "God" isn't actually an omnipotent being and the worshipers were duped into blindly following a false idol (er, angel) called Authority. 

There were a few high ranking religious officials like the Archbishop of Canterbury who praised Pullman for his message which is "stop being dogmatic, ignorant fucks and open your mind to fucking constructive criticism holy shit."

Anyways... I probably won't see the movie just because I don't feel like spending 10 bux on tickets for a film that's probably 90% computer animated.  Somebody pm me when Del Toro makes another fantasy movie because it'll be 20x better.

I saw it on the day it opened. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect but I had fairly high hopes. It looked like a nice Fantasy flick with some beautiful shots and some fairly nice casting.

It fulfilled all those expectation. The casting was pretty darn brilliant. The little girl was fairly spot on even though she had some dry moments. Most of the others were just great in what they did and then all the lovely details in the daemons and not to forget that everything was pretty damn good-looking. My jaw would have dropped if I wasn't so jaded with these awesome special effects, but even I could appreciate how very realistic most of the daemons looked. I'm really looking forward to the follow-ups and I will definitely go and see them.

Apparently that whole section (the ending) is already filmed and they simply wanted to shit the product onto celluloid quickly because of marketing pressure or some such.

Apparently test screenings said that most people just had a "wtf?" feeling at the original ending so they put the ending at a more "easy" part. I've read the books but I don't really remember all the details and I thought the ending was in the right place. Basically the tone of the film was very much that "We're wrapping this up now but there are still questions unanswered". When they saved the kids it was a bit like "Yeah, we did it. Now on to more adventures!" it's a fairly good ending in that it can end the franchise right there if it has too because while the ending is a cliffhanger it isn't as much of a cliffhanger as the ending I think was in the book.

I haven't seen the full movie or read the book, but I have seen the billion-minute-long trailer that came with Hairspray (i.e. the entire film basically) and it made absolutely no sense.

There was something about a little girl and a bear and a little boy and Zellewager is supposed to be a bitch and there's some crazy CEO-ish/zealous/tuxedoy guy who wants... some little gold trinket? The trailer was pretty illogical. I'm pretty sure it met the requirement for zooming text, though, so obviously it's a cool phantasy phlick.

So, question time: Is this something great I'm missing, like Lemony Snicket in Antartica or a steampunk version of Lord of the Rings? Or is it rehashed Religious Stuff with a valueless metallic object and some krazy kids?

My brother downloaded this so we could watch it.  I'd never read the books but I'd heard great things about them, and the trailer for this looked great.  We were both expecting a pretty solid movie.  Unfortunately, about an hour and a half into it, we could hardly CALL it a movie.  It was pretty much a whole bunch of either unimportant or impossible to understand (I guess unless you read the book, which shouldn't be a requirement for understanding the movie on a basic level) scenes strung together in a way that makes no sense.  And hour and a half in it felt like we were only twenty minutes in, and we were just waiting for the movie to just GET STARTED, for SOMETHING to happen.  We ended up skipping forward to try to find some sort of something, and just found a few short fight scenes that were over as soon as they started.  Eventually we just turned it off.  We might have missed something by not watching the rest, but I can't see how with the first HALF being so sorry. 

In general I was INCREDIBLY disappointed, and so I guess I'll just have to read the book, since it's not supposed to be like that.  Also as far as the religious angle goes, I know enough about the book to understand about the anti-religious parts in it, to which I say fair play to you and great job, but I ABSOLUTELY can't see why churches are against the movie.  No one could ever watch it long enough to see the anti-church situations that were removed in the first place.

The Golden Compass and Northern Lights are equally stupid titles for books but I prefer the British version because the object in question isn't even a fucking compass.

Man, northern lights isn't THAT bad of a name (do people call aurora borealis northern lights in America? if not then that would be pretty stupid yeah) considering the book opens pretty much with some discussion and slides of it and finishes with the main character.. well never mind.

There were a few high ranking religious officials like the Archbishop of Canterbury who praised Pullman for his message which is "stop being dogmatic, ignorant fucks and open your mind to fucking constructive criticism holy shit."

I remember reading in a newspaper at the time there was beef on this book the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested it would be very healthy for all children to read these books or others with a similar message (even suggested some kind of PUT IT IN OUR SCHOOLS)

Also Shadowtext I just don't know what to make of that or your family, sorry.

Man, Craze, either one of those things would be awesome. I wish you wouldn't have said that because now I'm going to be disappointed when it doesn't turn out to be either!
Well, rather, Steampunk LotR would be awesome if it were written by a better writer than Tolkien. But you get the point.

You make me a 100% complete, pretty and functional rmxp TBS and I'll make you a steampunk LotR.

ya Jerry Falwell Jr and Liberty University own like 3/4 of the theaters here so it's basically not showing at all where I live. all these stupid faggots in my school have been telling everyone to not see it because...... they....... are gonna kill god..

It was lame. I was expecting some kind of awesome allegorical epic steampunk adventure and what I got was a flat and poorly developed storyline with lame characterization and trite sideplots.
The whole King of the Armoured Snowbears thing was retarded.
The witches played no important role and looked totally gay.
Big plot twist was "I'm your mum, Luke lol." which added nothing to the storyline except plot progression.
All in all, very disappointing to me. Why did they even MAKE this film? If they left a bunch of stuff out/changed a bunch of stuff from the novel in trying to appeal to everybody, what they did instead was make a lame film that I infact would reccomend people NOT see. Aside from good visual effects (although they could have used REAL dogs once in a while) and some nice camera work, there were few redeeming features.

I'm pretty critical of movies. So given that half of you guys thought it was shit, I'm not going to bother seeing it. Might read the book though. (or just buy it and take it to one of theese towns that isn't showing the movie and see how long it takes for me to get lynched. I live in Mississippi, so I shouldn't have to go far)

ya Jerry Falwell Jr and Liberty University own like 3/4 of the theaters here so it's basically not showing at all where I live. all these stupid faggots in my school have been telling everyone to not see it because...... they....... are gonna kill god..

Now I want to see it (despite Blitzen's post).  I'll probably end up renting it...

I loved the books but haven't seen the movie yet. I don't think it's going to be very good, it's gotten terrible reviews so far. As for the reaction, I thought it was kind of expected. There are so many religious groups going on a tirade against it just like they did The Da Vinci Code. It's a fictional story and their understanding of what God has to do with the plot is ignorant. The point of the story is to emphasize the oppressive and dogmatic nature of many churches out there, and to get people questioning things about their beliefs.

But still, Bill Donahue at the Catholic League has gone to the extreme of publishing pamphlets about the "atheist agenda" behind the story, when there really isn't one, Pullman says this himself. It's irritating to see people so ignorantly bash a movie because it contains elements that contradict religion. I know that nobody really cared when Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe came out, and I know for certain that I will be just as excited for Prince Caspian, despite all of its biblical symbolism.

ya Jerry Falwell Jr and Liberty University own like 3/4 of the theaters here so it's basically not showing at all where I live. all these stupid faggots in my school have been telling everyone to not see it because...... they....... are gonna kill god..

Wowwwwwww. I can't believe they call that a university.

I really, really don't think poor sales are even because of the religious aspects.  Sure, a lot of people won't go see it because of that, but I think WAY more people won't see it because no one has much to say about the POSITIVE aspects of it.

Aside from good visual effects (although they could have used REAL dogs once in a while)

hahahaha

For some reason this makes me laugh. Btw do people actually like computer graphics???? I'd say like the only computer graphics that ever impressed me was the squid guy from Pirates of the Carribbean because I actually thought it was all makeup for a while, until I realized you probably couldn't make animatronics move that realistically either. Every other movie is like COOL WORLD or something because it's so obvious they're a cartoon and they don't even try to act like the laws of physics have any effect on them or anything

Before going to see a movie at the cinema, I check out what www.rottentomatoes.com think about it. They say this movie is crap.

I'm glad you can make your own decisions as well as add something worthwhile to this topic.

Anyway...

I love the books and have wanted to see this for a while. I'll probably end up going to it next week sometime.