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

[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...