The Golden Compass (2007)

[Darian 19]

Please do this, I saw it on USA the other day and I was utterly confused:

 

 

I'm sure the books are better, but this movie is so esoteric it makes no sense.

 

Also, other reasons why it's a good candidate:

Star studded cast

42% Score on RT

Was supposed to adapt the remaining books of the trilogy and it never happened.

 

Maybe it's a poor adaptation of the books, but it should definitely be a podcast episode

[sillstaw 414]

The astonishing thing is that the books are essentially an atheist version of "The Chronicles of Narnia" (I'm vastly oversimplifying, I'm sure, but I don't care). Naturally, since making a hundred-million dollar pro-atheist film would result in protests unseen since "The Last Temptation of Christ," the studio and filmmakers toned it down significantly... meaning that fans of the book (at least, the ones who liked it for that reason) were completely pissed off. (Even the fans who didn't care about the atheist messages were annoyed, since a lot of changes were made to the source material that broke points of the story.) Oh, and church-goers still resented it.

 

The really amazing thing, though, is that to finance the movie, New Line Cinema sold the international rights to other studios. Overseas, the movie did well (because they don't have as many problems with non-religious people as America does), but in America, it flopped, hard. This is why New Line Cinema pretty much no longer exists as its own studio.

[seanotron 2307]

I think one of the big mistakes with this movie was the budget. It's crazy huge blockbuster money being used on a property that in the US was not really that well known (coupled with the aforementioned agnostic/atheist undertones). Harry Potter had smaller budgets, and those books were a runaway success pretty much everywhere. The Dark Materials books did not see great popularity outside of the UK, at least not on the level of Narnia or Harry Potter.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

This was one of the last in a line of expensive fantasy franchise non-starters that seemed more concerned with convincing you that it would be the start of an entire franchise of films and wasn't at all concerned with just being a good movie that people would actually want to pay to see. It's the first chapter in the Whateverthefuck Saga? Great, now tell me what that fucking means, right?

 

At least it wasn't like "Eragon", where the big hook was that it was based off a book written by a fifteen-year-old.

"Is it any good?"

"The author is fifteen!"

"Great, so is it any good"

"I said, the author is fifteen!"

"What does that have to do with the quality?"

"He got shot NINE times!"

"Wait, what?"

[JustinL 216]

I remember laughing out loud in the theater at that very preview when they just casually drop the line "Ice Bears were the greatest of warriors."

 

I actually read the first two books this past year and have just started the third. Rather than being "pro-atheist," so far I see it more as being anti-church, specifically. The characters have "souls," there is a "creator," but the powerful religious leaders use their influence to keep the truths of the universe away from the people and literally steal or destroy the souls of children, making them into no more than lethargic zombies. It's a little heavy-handed, honestly, but it is a very creative storyline. The third book even touches on homosexuality with two male angels who are literal soulmates.

 

A second movie would have been interesting because the second book is much more low-key and takes place almost entirely in our world. It's more like a spy thriller than a fantasy epic. No ice bears, very few witches, and a whole new main character. The girl basically becomes a sidekick to an older boy and the two of them walk back and forth between modern day London and a Venitian city in another dimension filled with soul-eating ghosts.

[sillstaw 414]

A second movie would have been interesting because the second book is much more low-key and takes place almost entirely in our world. It's more like a spy thriller than a fantasy epic. No ice bears, very few witches, and a whole new main character. The girl basically becomes a sidekick to an older boy and the two of them walk back and forth between modern day London and a Venitian city in another dimension filled with soul-eating ghosts.

 

Also, they were saying that they'd start the second where the first book ends, since they were under pressure to give the movie a happy ending. (As Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant said in their book on screenwriting, never start talking about a sequel before your movie is released.)

 

Of course, a lot of fans said that the first movie screwed up so many plot points that doing a sequel would be impossible. Could be hyperbole, but still.

[PhillipMedoc 648]

I just wanna rep for these books, because they are some of the greatest fantasy fiction I've read in a long time. Harry Potter can suck it.

 

Golden Compass takes a while to get into with the world building and all, but they are outstanding stories, for all ages. The second and third books get super intense at times and it ends in a really lovely way -- there's no big bad guy (though there are some "bad guys" in the usual sense) or big showdown that has to happen. I was so fucking pumped to read the third one that I actually took a day off work and marathoned the whole thing at once.

 

I went out of my way to avoid seeing trailers or posters or anything, because the books are wonderful and I did not want anything to replace my memories of them. GO READ THEM. I'll send you mine, even.

[denimgremlin 1179]

I just wanna rep for these books, because they are some of the greatest fantasy fiction I've read in a long time. Harry Potter can suck it.

 

Golden Compass takes a while to get into with the world building and all, but they are outstanding stories, for all ages. The second and third books get super intense at times and it ends in a really lovely way -- there's no big bad guy (though there are some "bad guys" in the usual sense) or big showdown that has to happen. I was so fucking pumped to read the third one that I actually took a day off work and marathoned the whole thing at once.

 

I went out of my way to avoid seeing trailers or posters or anything, because the books are wonderful and I did not want anything to replace my memories of them. GO READ THEM. I'll send you mine, even.

 

seconded, the books are seriously great, and I have to say, so much gets said about the athiest (though they're less about there being no god then about killing god, METAL!) aspect of the novel that i think it over shadows what i think is the truely outstanding thing about that them. it's a fantasy series that actually takes advantage of the fantasy genre's natural open endedness. it's a completely unique and fully realized universe that doesn't fall back on the same old tired tolkienesque tropes and imagery that are so associated with fantasy novels.

[Chrisstonebone 0]

This movie is such a buzz kill…when the story kind of picks up, you realize there’s like 10mins left and there’s is no way your gonna get the answers you want. Ending totally leaves it open for a sequel, that you frustratingly know will never happen cause this movie sucks bags. Totally worth making fun of.