It was a good movie. Oh, it made me want to reject the church a bit. Bad movie, bad. No cookie.

[secondlina]

 

After work yesterday, I went to see The Golden Compass with Tanya, Anneka, class friends, and John, Tanya's boyfriend. After watching the movie, I didn't really have the warm fuzzy feeling I got from watching awesome movies. I was actually a little disapointed. I never read the His Dark Material series. Watching the movie, I didn't feel that confused. I could tell it was a great adaptation of the books, very close to the books, because it lacked...something. I feel this story probably makes a wicked book. I'm still debating how good of a movie it is. You know, some things speak to you better through a certain medium. I think the Golden Compass is probably one of them. The visuals were fantastic though, and i'm sure all those die-hard "the movie MUST be like the book!" fans will be happy.

As a personal oponion, I think that when you change the medium, you have to change the story at least a little. I try to see a movie adaptation as a different version of the story, and therefore I think I appreciate the different versions more. After the movie, we discussed good "revised" movie adaptations... Stardust, The last unicorn, The princess bride, Howl's moving castle, Wicked are all titles that came up. They are all great pieces of litterature and cinema (and theatre for Wicked). Also, some anime series also get "altered" from a manga, and nobody bickers over that. Full Metal alchemist and Slayers are good examples. We just take them as "versions" where you have to read and see everything to grasp the story.

All and all, watching the Golden Compass made me want to read the books. I'm not sure i'll rush into theatres to see the other movies though. I'll rent them for sure. But I don't think it's worth 15 $ to go see it. But I really want to read the books. The multi-dimentionnal aspect of the story really made me happy (all of you know how obsessive I get about stories that cross over like that.) I didn't really catch the anti-christian part of the movie. I definitly saw an anti-church. I don't think the writter was anti-religion. If anything, his books seem to try to explain religion. I read a few articles on the web and from what I can tell, he's trying to explain how angels and gods and daemons can exist. I doubt the author was anti-religion. Religions have beautiful messages of love and peace. But he was strongly against religious institutions that tortured, supressed, controlled... and I think we have to all admit that the church does have a history of that. It sucks, but it's true. The church really should just assume it's mistakes rather then try to defend them. Heck, doesn't the religion claim that we must forgive? But you gotta apologize first.

John pointed out the irony of having the second Narnia film preview before the Golden Compass. I agree. C.S. Lewis' strong christian and slightly totalirian values does clash with the feature film. *sigh* It's all about politics really. Nothing about beliefs. 

-Secondlina

Comments

[kitesareevil.livejournal.com]

I just wrote my final Milton paper on The Golden Compass. Pullman is a huge fan of "Paradise Lost" and actually based the "His Dark Materials" books on a semi-unusual way to read Paradise Lost, which made the books make a whole lot more sense to me.

You shouldn't have seen a lot of anti-Christianity themes, there aren't really any. What there are are a lot of anti-organized religion and following the crowd sheep mentality, as you said you saw. (Which uh, also goes back to Milton, funny enough.) Most people see that and aren't able to see the difference. The story, at the very end, does something that makes people cry that Pullman is anti-Christian, but I won't ruin it for you.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I get the whole link to "Paradise lost" which is a wonderful book. Yeah, it's really not the anti religion, but rather anti institution. Of course, I guess some people see it as the same. I don't get why the church panics; plenty of other movies render priests as baddies. Maybe it's because they are afraid children might see this movie and of COURSE children are THAT easy to sway into anything...

The church really needs to work 5 hours of daycare.

[kitesareevil.livejournal.com]

I think that has to be it. But I've seen kids be the ones who fight the hardest for their beliefs sometimes, they aren't easily swayed at all.

And what you're saying below with ichibanvictory about the first angel is pretty much right on. The only thing about the books is that, yeah, the first angel makes himself out to be the creator, but there's this underlying question about how he was created if he was first? He remembers his birth or being first, and there's some hinting that there is a greater power than the angels.

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Aw man, my reply got eaten by the internet! I guess someone doesn't want me pointing out the obvious. I'll just say to do some research about the author to see where his stance on religion is. (The message is supposedly most obvious in the third book.) I'd probably read the books anyway, if I didn't have to buy them.

I want to see Prince Caspian! They didn't show the trailer before Enchanted last night (saw it again with the roommates), but I saw the movie poster, so it tipped me off. May really is going to be a busy month!

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Oh, P.S. - raywing mentioned that new Oz series in her LJ entry. She said it was really good!

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Well, from what I heard, people panicked at the third book because of what the writter said on god. In his book, god is not a creator, but rather the most powerful angel in the group that decided that because of his power, he had to be a guide for us. If anything, I find that makes the character more noble. He felt like we needed guidance and that it was his responsibility. Also, they explain that god was created by the "dust" (magic energy of some sort) the same way as everybody else. Which I find makes it more believable.

The Adam and Eve myth can't really work. There would have had to be 8 couples to start off a world of humans. I always personnaly saw god more as a guide myself. We all got created in the big bang, but God being the most powerful, became some sort of father figure and guide. I think this type of idea makes it possible for god and hard fact science to co-exist.

And besides, in the end it's just fiction. If people can write novels where they slander historical character's names by making them pedophiles... I just think people can't take stories as just stories anymore.
One way or another, nobody knows who god really is. I'm sure he is amused once in a while by all the fuss people do about him. Kinda like "Yeah...humm...I didn't really need that holy war, but you know...thanks I guess?"

Prince caspian looks pretty neat! Lucy is so pretty now!

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

*cough* *hack* *cough* Oh man, I'm going to bite my tongue on this. It is a bit refreshing seeing someone not afraid to say what they think, though, about the nature of God and such. It is true that most people will not really know him, and there is a lot we don't know about how God came into being, either. (There are plenty of theories, I'm sure, but to even question God coming into existence seems to be blasphemy to a lot of people.)

How do you figure you'd need eight people? It only takes a male and a female of any species to reproduce. (Take rabbits, for instance.) There'd most likely be a bit of incest at the start, but within even just a generation (or three) you would start to have more diversity. Of course, speaking from a scientific angle (am I allowed to do that?), chances are Adam and Eve would need to contain all possible genetic variables to pass on, else their offspring's genetic differences would be too few. In any case, that's something we may never really know about for sure.

And man, you want to talk about pedophiles... 'My guy' is wanting to be baptized into the LDS church, so he's had some friends try to save him. One sent him the link to the feared 'Godmakers', (which is an old video supposed to reveal the truth about the LDS church) which had a scene telling and showing about God coming down to earth to have sex with Mary. That just disgusted me right there... (The whole video was pretty laughable. You would cry at the animation.) Old man with white hair knocking up a young girl...

Anyway, the whole religion thing can be pretty complicated. I think the true trouble lies (and hopefully this is what the book/movie focuses on) in people blindly following and obeying what their leaders tell them to do or believe without ever questioning or learning for themselves. That I can definitely agree with, as it is very true.

Anyway, back to fun... I was so happy to see all of the actors back in their roles! This will be an awesome series to watch later on if they're able to keep on all of the children actors before they get too old, especially 'Lucy'. That actress has a great quality about her.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Well personnally, I believe in god. I'm not sure If I believe some churches. The catholic church for one have so many bad things on their reccord that I'm really against being a part of them. I like the general message of love and peace, but i'm really against certain things like "gay people should burn in hell!" Honestly, you can't punish people for something they can't help. On the scientific level, it's a biological need, the same way we are attracted to the opposite sex.

But that's another subject all together.

Despite the fact that I do believe in god, I doubt any text in the world hold the truth. I'm sure there's some text in the bible that's pretty good, truth wise. But you have to keep in mind that the bible got edited several times during conventions, like the Genevian council. Some texts got edited out, and some new texts got added. The genesis is part of added texts. Some says it's actually based on greek myth. Hence why I question it's value. There's also, has you say, the whole genetic problems linked to the fact that we would only have one parent-couple. I think that if the genesis is true, then adam and eve are probably a metaphor. God most likely created several couples at first.

Why would god have created several couples? Well, to prevent genetic defects for one. But also, we are naturally social creatures. Humans like to travel in packs. So logically, if we got created, god would have made us a "pack". So I personnaly think that if the adam and eve tale is true, then adam and eve are probably the main couple (aka alpha male and female) and when they got casted out, the pack followed. It makes sense; because later in the bible you have humans popping out of nowere to talk to them. And of course, the bible was writting to show people who did not study years and years the story of the genesis. So then, it would be easier for them to grasp the story with only one couple rather then: "there was eve, and martha, and julie, and susannah, etc"

Don't get me wrong; I love the story of the genesis. Even for someone who would not believe in the bible, it's a wonderful story. And so many beautiful paintings came forth from this story. I just have trouble believing we only have one parent-couple, hence the alpha couple theory. It could work.

In any case, you don't really have to convince me about the value of the existence of god. But I do so ever try to find ways to link my belief to science, which is another element I love. After all, if god really was a creator, then he must have been the smartest scientist to ever come forth for creating and abiding to physics, chemistry, gravity, etc. And yeah, i'm very honest when it comes to my somewhat heretic theories. But this is mostly me amusing myself. I'll find out the truth when I die anyways. This is just theorizing.

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Do you know what? I seriously love you. This reminds me of the old days when I had a friend who was Agnostic, so oftentimes we would talk on the nature of God, etc. I prefer to have an intelligent conversation with someone about beliefs and such than to have people screaming blasphemy for such things like even considering God was not always the omnipotent being we know him to be. Is it so wrong to think that if we follow a certain life path (start off as the egg and sperm, which make a baby, that baby grows and progresses to a child, and eventually the child grows up to have children/a life of their own), that perhaps God did as well?

Man, I'd love to have those sort of talks again. It's fun to stretch the beliefs and dogma sometimes to see if any new insight can be gained. It certainly helps clear away stupid thinking since you're forced to see how the other person sees in order to progress the conversation.

Oh, and you're not a heretic as far as I see it. I find nothing wrong with trying to sort out theology and science at all. It's another favorite pastime of mine. (Then again, I belong to 'the cult', so maybe I'm just a heretic as well.) ^_-;

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kinda miss being able to freely talk about beliefs and stuff. Most people I know are atheist and they don't even want to hear "heretic" theories. I guess you get both sides: extra religious that don't want to hear question marks next to god and then super atheist that just don't want to think that maybe there's a more powerful energy/being/system over our heads, even if he's not our creator. I prefer middle ground people. I guess that's kinda what I am.

I know in toronto I met this muslim girl. Talking to her was so much fun! I loved it ^^

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

It probably comes down to how comfortable someone is with their stance on religion and such. Someone who is barely clinging to their religion must hate having anyone throw doubt in their path, because then they might fall. That, or they enjoy being close-minded and self-righteous. Hard to say. I'm used to people attacking me because they think that's how I'm going to be, but thank goodness it's not true... (I admit to sometimes sounding that way, but writing cannot always convey what I'm trying to say.)

..what is it with me and the rhyming as of late? XP

For a parallel to your story, once I got into a conversation with a Wiccan friend (she's since stopped believing in it) and was pointing out the similarities between her practices and practices within Christian faith. Oh man, did she get mad at me...

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Oh, and all those bad videos about the LDS? I find them dreadful. As much as I hate religious people imposing their beliefs, I also hate atheists imposing their non-beliefs. Let people choose for themselves, and stop making shitty animations about it, you know? People are freakin' weird.

(I went to look at a few on youtube after you ranted about it one day. Honestly? It made me feel like my rights were being violated by a bunch of die-hard atheists. At least i'm respectful of other's beliefs when I make my theories.)

[ichiban-victory.livejournal.com]

Sadly, that was put together by a certain religious group that I won't mention in respect to people I know. I want to know where they got their information though. They seemed obsessed with 'Celestial Sex', but no matter how hard I try, I cannot find it in any LDS doctrine!

(Maybe they confused LDS with LSD? I'm bad, I know. You'd have to be on drugs to believe the things they said in that video!)

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Even LSD can't create that crap.

Lucy in the sky with diamonds sounds a lot better then anti-religion videos.

[yukinoomoni.livejournal.com]

"I just think people can't take stories as just stories anymore."

EXACTLY.

[dqbunny.livejournal.com]

I picked up The Golden Compass and while it was okay, I didn't find myself just completely sucked into the book like Harry Potter or even Lord of the Rings. It definitely lacks that magical spark that the Narnia books seem to have. I found the adults far more fascinating than Lyra herself, to be honest. It did get better as the book went along, but I haven't finished the first book. I put it down some time in February or March and never picked it up until I retrieved it from the collection that had fallen behind the bed when I moved.

John is right. Philip Pullman has been described as the anti C.S. Lewis before.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I found narnia really hard to read. I never got past the 2 first chapters. Especially the creationnist chapter? meh. I just found there was too much holy insight for me. And the writting style is complicated. I was never able to read LOTR in english either. God bless the french translation.

And they are total opposites. It really, really shows. Plus they would often write bad reviews of each other XD

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

I'm reading the book right now and I want to try finishing it before I go see the movie. While, I do think it's an interesting book, I've read better.

Adaptations can be tricky. As you said, when a book/manga is being made into a movie/tv changes can be called for to help make the plot more interesting for the audience because reading and watching a story is not the same experience. I love both verisions of Howl's Moving Castle, even though the plot is a bit different. I also enjoyed the movie version of Ella Enchanted, even though it wasn't exactly like the book, I still liked it. However, writers do have to be careful because it can be easy to lose the original charm in a movie/tv that readers feel in love with in the original book/series.

The Violinist of Hamlen has to be the WORSE anime adaptation I had ever seen. The original manga was a comdey/adventure series with a great plot, however, for the anime they removed almost all of the comedy. However, what was really annoying to me was they changed almost half of the characters personalities of the series, for example in the manga, Hamel (the hero) had a personality similar to Lina's, but in the anime he had a much more Zelgadis like personality (and frankly I think he would have made Zel look cheerful). They also gave it a horrible/depressing ending, unlike the manga which actually had a very cheerful ending. As I said, adaptations can be a tricky thing.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

I find Enchanted was a bad adaptation. I found the movie was seriously dumbed down and what...they are singing Queen? The movie felt like they were trying to make a Shrek wannabe (body function jokes, anachronisms, random pop songs) but they messed up. THe story could have been adapted better. Lot's better. And i'm not a big fan of most of the actors they chose. There's also too many CG backgrounds. It makes the movie look fake.

Vionolist of Hamelin was the worse tv series ever. Manga on tape as I call it. And yeah, if you never saw the manga, the plot can be good, but you wonder what this super serious plot have to do with all these characters, dressed in flashy colors, big hats and bouncy hair. I found the characters hard to take seriously. When they would freeze frame (which they did...often) on a face... I'd just laugh my ass off. It was a bit ridiculous. THe manga (and the extra movie, done in the manga's style. See it if you haven't yet!) is sooooooo much more fun.

If ever I become a known comic artist and my stuff gets adapted...I'm not really sure if i'd reccommend them to get creative or stick to it.

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

The Ella Enchanted movie could have been a better adaptation (I was annoyed that the fairy didn't learn her lesson in the movie like the book), but I didn't hate it. Although, the book was WAY better. When ever I talk about that movie I always suggest to read the book first.

Part of the problem I heard with the VoH anime was that they had a REALLY low budget and they ended up having to change the plot in the middle of production. -_- Manga and movie extra is 100 times better. I didn't realize you were a fellow VoH fan. Did you know the manga artist is writing a bouns chapter?

You can download it here: http://community.livejournal.com/hameln/72859.html

And there's a summary of what's going on here: http://community.livejournal.com/hameln/73202.html#cutid1

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i'm actually a huge hamelin fan. They published a few of the manga in french, but then stopped abruptly (the editor went bankrupt) so I read scanlations to finish the story. I heard about the anime losing money too. Man, this series is really unlucky money wise.

Queen Horn is my role model XD

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

At least you have some translated manga. I've had to read the series through scanlations (and there's still a lot of the manga I've haven't gotten the chance to read yet). I didn't even watch the whole anime. I had read the manga first and then I heard there was an anime, not knowing how bad it was, went to watch it.

My reaction while watching the first couple of episodes:
"...Okay this is a different beginning...Why is Hamel so serious, is he sick?...Things are going to get funny soon, right? Hamel is going to lose it and become the insane, greedy guy I love, right?...WHAT DID THEY DO TO HAMEL!!"

sigh) I swear, the only other anime adaptation I saw that was equally as bad was the Chrono Crusade anime. Another awesome manga, the beginning was generally the same as the manga and then...it went all downhill from there. -_-;

Queen Horn was awesome, but Flute was my favorite girl, then again a lot of the girls were great in that series. XD

[the-flowergirl.livejournal.com]

I laughed at that preview. I don't think they thought about the placement of that preview with the concept of the movie.

And I caught the anti-religion sentiment as well.

[secondlina.livejournal.com]

Well, they probably though "hey, the people in this room are here to see fantasy. Let's bombard them with fantasy!"

But at the same time, probably all the people who went to see Narnia will go to see the compass and vice versa. Because the bottom line is that they are both stories and we are in it for the fantasy. I'm fairly sure most of the room doesn't care about the religious connotations in either movie. We are kinda old enough to grasp that it's a movie.

For those who know about the writter's rivarly though, it's a nice little ironic twist.

[yukinoomoni.livejournal.com]

I do agree that there has to be some tweaking involved. It's just the way it is. But I don't like it when transcribers take it upon themselves to tweak the whole script into something that is much more different than the original, you know?

I honestly found most of the Chronicles of Narnia boring. Is that bad? I mean, the idea of it was nice, but I dunno, when I look back, I think, BORING.

I'm reading His Dark Materials right now, and so far I'm impressed. The stories are dark, but Pullman doesn't talk down to his audience. Yeah, there are some anti-church stuff thrown about it the books, but it doesn't invade the whole plot.

Maybe it's because I'm agnostic I'm more open to the anti-church thing than others are.

Oh well. I'll prolly have more to say about it later, as I get to see the movie today after work!