Golden Compass review-in-synopsis

[uniqueid]

Saw it Thursday night. Better than expected in terms of violence-to-source, worse than expected in terms of quality of direction. Poor pacing made it feel kind of like a couple of hours of trailer.

Comments

[nessbrain.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for that. I was going to try to find a mums'n'bubs session but now I'll just wait for DVD :-)

[uniqueid.livejournal.com]

Well.. for all that it's still not a bad movie, just disappointing in comparison to what New Line did with LotR. And some of the stuff would be rather more impressive on the big screen, I think.

[uniqueid.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, have you read the books? If not, you're welcome to borrow them.

[nessbrain.livejournal.com]

I'd love to borrow the books, just ask me again in a year or so when I might get a chance to read them :-D

I'll see if I can manage the movie on big screen, not sure how bub will go though...

[pyrrha17.livejournal.com]

I also felt it was disjointed.

And I got pissed off at the casting of actors with obvious genetic incompatibility... (trying not to spoil anything here)

[uniqueid.livejournal.com]

Um.. don't know what you're getting at.

[pezzae.livejournal.com]

I thought the matching was okay for the mother, but not really the father... I was annoyed at a review in the paper which revealed a certain relationship before I saw it :o(
I haven't read the books yet, and could tell there was a fair bit left out. Also certain scenes with Obvious Exposition to the Audience between characters that realistically would not have been having that conversation at that time (running across the ice?!).
Stuff I thought was cool: Daemons. Airships, and city skylines beneath them (this would be much less cool on a small screen)... in fact all vehicles. The witches. Daemons exploding into clouds of dust when their owners die - made the battle scene much prettier, though D noted that every single arrow seemed to result in a death which is a bit unrealistic.
Stuff that was just weird: How Lyra 'read' the compass: lights up three symbols... *mystical dusty cog wheels spinning with superimposed pictures*... Lyra says 'there's a ghost in a cabin by the lake in the next valley'. Huh? I guess these sort of thought processes are just conveyed better by words than pictures. But I'll have to read the book to find out.

[uniqueid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought the exposition was rather clumsy too. The book is much more show rather than tell w.r.t. the nature of demons and the social order (Magisterium etc.). I'm not sure quite how you'd do that within the constraints of a movie, but then that's kind of what inspired direction is all about.

I also quite liked the disintegration of demons when people die; it's more-or-less direct from the book not a movie invention. I did think it was interesting that this aspect meant that the fight scenes couldn't be ambiguous about whether people were actually killed or merely knocked-out / incapacitated, which is pretty common in Hollywood.

I was pretty impressed with the bears, especially Iorek's first appearance. They're very notable in the book for being talking animals that are without trace of cute.

[pyrrha17.livejournal.com]

Do read them, though perhaps after a certain work thing is completed? It would mean clearing your schedule for a few days :) I own the set, which you're welcome to borrow, however they are being lent to two other people first.

I noticed the arrow thing too. The movie did seem slightly disjointed, without the reasoning for why they were doing the things they were doing. I had to explain a number of points to my parents afterwards, but then, that's not unusual ;)

Also, there was at least 15 minutes of the book left when the movie ended - argh!! They totally missed the climax - and if they change that, then if they do the next two books it will all be wrong and different.

[evil-s.livejournal.com]

and there were things that i saw in a preview that weren't in the movie!!!