The Golden Compass

[ozymandias_pbs]

If you haven't seen it, and have read the book, don't go and see it.  If you have seen it, and haven't read the book, read the book, and see how far short the film falls.  And if you haven't done either, read the book and ignore the film.

Why do I say this?  Was the film truly that bad?  Well, it had its moments.  The Panserbjørne Panserbjorn are

Comments

[princess_peas]

From what you've said, I don't really want to read the book. I don't want to go and see the film either, but you haven't made me want to read this story

[ozymandias_pbs]

The thing is that, whilst one expects it (and one does), one expects it to be done well; one of the great things about, for instance, the Lord of the Rings films (dir. Peter Jackson) is that the cuts, the editing, and the changes, are minimal, and the story works well, in fact excellently; nothing substantive or extensive is changed, and all concepts are retained. The same applies to the Bond franchise: No, they aren't accurate to the books. But they retain the sense of the books, and that in all honesty is the important thing. This has none of the intellectual rigourousness of the books, none of the interest, that could easily have been conveyed by slight changes: Even 5 minutes more of a ninety-odd minute film (bearing in mind the aforementioned blockbusting 180-minute films!) could have done wonders for it. And as for the whole London-as-different thing... They spent MORE money than they had to and created MORE complexity than was useful to REMOVE a lovely concept.