The Golden Compass

There's two interesting scenes in the book that are worth mentioning here.

One occurs in the final chapter, a scene that was cut out of the film. When Coulter and Asriel meet again at the end of the novel, though they are enemies, it is not long before they are embracing, the sensuality of their embrace strangely echoed in their daemon's behavior. So sexuality is a part of the daemon-side of people. (And as readers of the final novel know, there's a lot more to that aspect of them.)

One occurs much earlier, as Lyra journeys north with the Gyptians to wherever they're going. Lyra observes that one man's daemon has settled into the form of a dolphin. Because one can never be far from the daemon, this man - like so many sailors - is bound to the ocean. She worries that Pantelaimon, her daemon, might settle into the form of a bird, or a fish, forcing her to live a certain way. I imagine this little passage hasn't made it into the film. A shame, because it's an interesting metaphor for a child worrying - before their time - what kind of person they might grow up to be.

There are many other aspects to the daemons as well that probably aren't explored in the film - the Witches have daemons that can travel far from them. (And as discovered in one of the later novels, there's a reason for that.) The daemons - except for those of the witches - will never address another human save in desperate circumstances. Their words are only for their human halves.

One of the joy's of Pullman's storytelling is the way you slowly become aware of the limits and realities of the daemon relationship. There is no grand narrator telling you what to look for in the story - you find it out by observation. I remember the horror I felt on discovering the child who had been cut from his daemon in the north. Somehow the idea of not having a daemon felt inconceivable, after 150 pages of being in that world. The child soon dies in the novel, unlike in the film. And his mother is not there for him. The dead fish he clings to is eaten by the sled-dogs that take the Gyptians through the snow. Lyra is so upset on discovering this that she rages against the adults.

Agreed completely, James! I love the nuances!

It is written as a very joyful moment in the books, actually, all about the wonder of riding an polar bear over snow at night. (I assume we're talking about before she meets Billy Costa?)

That may be how it was written in the books, but to me the music felt strangely optimistic and took me out of the moment.

As for character development, there are loads in Lord of the Rings and quite a bit in Narnia! There isn't a single character who goes drastically unchanged in those stories and we are taken on their personal journeys. In the Golden Compass (the movie, I've not read the book) it's almost as if the characters only exist to further the plot. We don't really get any kind of inkling for who they are. I'm not saying the that characters have to reach philosophical levels of development and interpretation, but as it is in the movie, they are stick figures. That's why the film failed for me, because I didn't give a damn about the characters.

In the Pullman trilogy, Lyra herself changes quite a bit, and as a reading experience is very nicely shaped - he's much more character focused than Tolkien or Lewis were. The whole story is really about her 'fall from (childish) grace' as such. What I like about the books is that there is a progression for her character, and also for the child Will (who is introduced in the second book) that is at the heart of the story, not a plot-demanded add-on. The only other character who you really feel in the novels went on a significant journey (and whose perspective the novel took) was Lee Scoresby, but I sense most of that got cut out of the film. Sadly, this film may have the effect of turning people away from a fine novel, rather than bringing more to it. But as I keep saying, I normally can't stand reading the fantasy genre - this one felt different.

I totally agree with David.

(spoilers ahead!)

The movie is cold (and not because of its setting ).
True, the art direction is wondeful, as are the special effects... but I just didn't care about the story, and as the books are one of my favourite novels around - really Martijn, give it a shot!), it really "pains" me to say this...
Of course, "film" is a totally different medium than literature, and it's impossible to include everything in your movie (except if your name is Peter Jackson and you just don't like to cut ;-)), and that changes must be made, if they contribute to the story as a movie. For exemple, I had no problem in LOTR with Arwen coming to Frodo's rescue (an early introduction to a secondory bur nevertheless important character) or Faramir being slightly less "noble" in the movie by being slightly tempted by the Ring. It all stayed in character and made sense in a way.

In Golden Compass, this isn't the case, for me anyway.
In some parts, I had no problem at all with the changes: I thought it a great idea to change the boy in the barn without his daemon (I forgot his name) with Billy Costa - it adds some extra drama (mmm sounds rather disturbed but you know what I mean). But then for example I found the reactions of his family a bit strange: no exclamations of "oh no, they cut his daemon!". From the books I know this is a terrible, terrible thing, but I didn't get that impression from the movie. And if I've understood it correctly, Lyra in her endspeech still counts on saving him? (in the book, the boy dies, as do all the children whose daemon has been cut, I think...)

Then the important revelation of Lyra being Asriel's and Coulter's daughter. In the book, it's a gypsian who tells her. Ok, perhaps not quite the drama you want in a movie. So I was expecting something big.
But no, just our dear Mrs Coulter who tells her (after that terrible slow motion saving scene) that she is her and Asriel's daughter. I hadn't known in advance that the last chapters of the book weren't included, so I was already looking forward to that big finale and then a big embrace between Asriel and Coulter (as seen in some trailers!!!) with then some dialogue like "You know our child..." and then Lyra would know the connection between both characters and her own parentage...
Perhaps a bit too dramatic, but it would have been great, again, in my humble opinion. I'm perhaps a bit too girly romantic...

Oops, I can't seem to stop my rant...
Just one more thing about the Magisterium. I really hated it that it was Fra Pavel who did the poison in Asriel's wine! It made it all black-white. Readers of the book know that it's actually the kind Master of Jordan who tries to poison him, which makes it all the more interesting and intriguing!! Why would he want to do this? Is he evil? Is Asriel evil? Interesting dynamics which just keep you reading and reading, to uncover more and more of the truth...

Oh, and quickly, talking about black-white. In the movie, Mrs Coulter is pure "evil". Ok, she isn't very nice in the books either (although she has her moments), but here you know from the start "Danger! Danger', while in the novels, it just comes gradually: in the beginning, you are as impressed and taken in with her as Lyra, and bit by bit, you start to feel that something isn't right...
The same goes for Asriel. He's much more dimensional in the book.

It's this "greyness", these characters who try to do "good" (or what they think is "good"), but have terrible flaws, that makes the books wonderful, and the absence of it in the movie makes it so very disappointing...

As a reader of both Tolkien and Pullman, Pullman definitely is the better writer of character. All I know about Frodo at the end of LOTR really relates to how he reacts to the Ring, and his feelings for Shire. At the end of THE AMBER SPYGLASS, I felt I knew Lyra and Will through and through. Tolkien's strengths, as always, are in the minutiae of the world - there's a language here, a poem there, artifacts from a whole different war thousands of years before, etc.

His style is not exactly comparable to a great writer like Ian McEwan or so on - that is, he is not a superb fashioner of words. What I do like is the way he lets the details of the world of Lyra get revealed not through exposition, but through incident and observation. I also like the way he anticipates events as an author, but then their revelation turns out to be quite different to what I expected.

I don't think the trilogy as a whole quite pays off the expectations I had at the end of the first book - THE AMBER SPYGLASS in particular feels like it wanders during its first half - but I felt quite satisfied at the end (SPOILER) when Lyra's daemon takes its fixed form. (END SPOILER)

Looks like the movie is bombing hard right now at the box-office.

We saw it last night ("we" is wife, kid (12), and me). None of us has read the novel(s), I was the only one knowing slightly more about it than the trailers showed (mostly based on reviews here and elsewhere), and as I found out at the end, I was the only one knowing this was supposed to be a trilogy. They were surprised, but not dissapointed by the rather open ending, because, and here we all three agree, we enjoyed the movie, very much at times.

True, it has its shortcomings (it was dragging a bit during the middle), but I think:
- the presentation of Pullman´s world was very nice, spectacular at times;
- the dramatic potential and dimension of the demon relationships came about as very interesting;
- the characters were defined enough, and Lyra came across as a very clever young lady (oh, sorry, Lyra!); I totally see the potential for shades of grey in Ms Coulter (and found her emotional outburst in that slow motion rescue scene quite amazing, if you ask me) and some other characters;
- the effects were superb;
- the music was nice and fitting, though sometimes a bit too obviously pompous.

My daughter was drawn into the movie almost immediately. She was totally engaged and showed all kinds of emotion from total fear (from the moment that baboon (what a nasty beast!) made its first violent entrance) to grim satisfaction when that kick-ass bear fight ended the way it did. As a matter of fact, we were all three (quite positively) shocked and amazed about how that fight went. That was brilliantly done. Okay, it rocked. We also loved the exposition to the fight (Lyra´s talk to that bear king), and the way the reunion between Lyra and Ms. Coulter went was pure genius.

Dakota is a real joy to watch. She came about as a totally believable and rather intelligent child. You could see something in her eyes when Nicole talked about demons being dangerous that said, "In a realm of liars I am queen, so fuck off!" She was absolutely adorable, and I can´t wait to see the next movie which she´s in, be it the next Pullman oder something else.

I know I´m quite easy to satisfy, but I think that the whole final third of the movie was more than a bit entertaining and even thrilling at times. We were all quite happy with the experience (biggest theatre, best sound, the presentation was perfect). And just in case you wonder: Yes, I want to see the next part, but I´ll probably have read the whole trilogy by then.

I agree with you as well, i have a lot of difficulties really appreciating it and i am a huge Desplat fan...don't know why but it seems unfocused to me, like Desplat's mind was somewhere else when writing it or something, despite it's very well orchestrated, arranged and performed. Odd

Here's a rather detailed review of the soundtrack that I wrote a few weeks ago. As I'm an Australian, I haven't seen the film yet, but am looking forward to in the next couple of days.

http://www.flyupload.com/?fid=9245384

Just two notes:
(i) What Desplat has described as 'Billy's theme' in interviews is what I call the 'Children at Play / Children in Distress' theme - I wasn't aware of his term when I described it;
(ii) What I call Serafina's theme is probably just a heroic theme for Lyra in general.

Hope it's a satisfying read.

Would love to. The flyupload link is just a temporary thing for now.

Now I've seen the film...

Firstly, I'm surprised I was correct about 95% of the time in terms of what theme applied to which character, and what would be onscreen. Film music is more predictable than I thought!

Secondly, the film was a disappointment for me. Four things particularly hurt it from my perspective:

(i) As a writer and director, Chris Weitz delivers SO MUCH of the necessary info via expository dialogue. It's a great shame he didn't construct his film with more imaginative use of the power of images.

(ii) Editorially, this film was cut to the bone. Every scene and sequence is as short as it can possibly be, which produces a film that doesn't necessary feel as short as it possibly could have. Because of the wealth of exposition, and the constant need to move onto another story, the film feels like it's really rushing to get to things. They really should have let the film breathe a lot more, particularly if less dialogue-driven / atmospheric material got the cut. The shuffling of the scenes and cutting of others led to some bad music edits in particular. (Thinking of the cut from Asriel's capture to the Gyptian journey in particular.)

(iv) The restructure doesn't really work. I can see why the Lord Asriel portion at the end has been held off, but the only reason that works is because the film has been so haphazardly restructured in the first place. Lyra is kidnapped by samoyeds (who work for the Magisterium) and taken to... Svalbard, land of the polar bears?! Scorsesby and Iorek are suddenly up in the air in his airship, having been seen moments before in the middle of the samoyed attack. Bad transition indeed - that airship scene is clearly meant to come a few minutes after the scene that ends the film. Then Iorek is down on the ground (with no explanation as to where Lee is) running to Svalbard. Then they win the day with the bears, and Lyra is carried back to Bolvangar, where she was originally meant to be carried by those samoyeds. She learns there that Lord Asriel is back in Svalbard, being kept captive. The film ends with Lyra in Scoresby's airship, and you half expect the thing to be knocked off course by cliffghasts so that Lyra can fall down to Svalbard and replay that whole portion of the story again.

(iii) At nearly every corner, Disneyfication was evident. Iorek Byrnison didn't kill another bear by accident - he was defeated in combat. Lyra doesn't come across a young boy she doesn't know who dies of the separation from his daemon, she comes across a friend who is put in the care of his mother. The Master of Jordan doesn't poison Lord Asriel's drink, the evil Fra Pavel does. We don't see the letters from Bolvangar being destroyed. Ambiguous material is kept at out at every turn. And little is left to chance - on all three occasions when the alethiometer is mention, it is swiftly identified as 'the golden compass' as though two names were better than one.

Had I encountered the story in this form, I dare say I would have found the book's acclaim to be strange indeed, and never bothered to read the trilogy. I do hope they make the others, because it's interesting to see these adaptations, and also because I want to hear where Desplat will go.

I've already written that essay. I didn't have to see the film to do it.

I wrote this a few weeks ago. Now having seen the film and a few interviews with Desplat, I wouldn't mind rewriting it a bit, but I hope what was a fairly exhaustive look at the music for a film I hadn't seen is a worthwhile read:
http://www.cinemusic.net/2007/12/27/the-golden-compass/

Thanks for Ryan for getting the mammoth thing online.