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

[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