The Golden Compass

Directed by: The guy who co-directed American Pie but was uncredited for it
Starring: James Bond, Girl from James Bond, Unknown British School Girl, Psychologist from "Batman Forever", Magneto/Gandalf, Saruman, General Ross from Ang Lee's "Hulk"

The film adaptation of Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass" came out today (December 7th, 2007...now you're not confused in case you're reading this from the future!), and as a huge fan of that trilogy of books (His Dark Materials), I felt it was my duty to review it. I was first introduced to the books a couple of years ago, and to be honest, the online synopsis I read was kind of bland and didn't make me want to read it. It was something like "This girl has a friend name Roger. He's kidnapped, so she goes to the north to rescue him. Along the way she meets a bear, a witch, and an aeronaut." I mean, that's the core of the story, but it doesn't sound very thrilling for a fantasy novel. In fact, it sounds kind of like something a child would write (and the books are apparently written for children. I found them in the young adult section). I heard lots of good things about it, though, so I bought it, and now I've already read it three times. So yeah, I guess it is pretty good! But how does the film hold up in comparison? I really wish I could review the film on its own merits and not compare it to the book, but as anyone who has watched a movie based on a book they've read knows, it's not easy. It's all that's going through your mind. They changed this, they added that, everything's out of order, etc. But it's not always negative! (Oh, and possible spoilers ahead!)

Let's talk about the good things first. I loved the cast. Everyone was so perfect for their roles, especially Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter and Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra. And that one was really important, considering she carries the entire film. It's an interesting parallel between the film world and the real world. In the story, everything is on her and about her. In the real world, this poor girl with no acting experience (though she did amazingly well despite that) had to work among these veteran stars in a blockbuster film as the lead role. Mrs. Coulter was portrayed pretty well, as that beautiful but slimy villain. They didn't use a lot of the material that showed just how she attracted the kids and kidnapped them (she had a bit of a mystical quality in the novel, and kids would just love the way she spoke and all that...she also had sweets), but I liked that her power over people came out in that big dining room scene. Not even the Master of Jordan College could resist her! But then again, he's an old, lonely man. And the way Lyra just looked at her and smiled and wanted to be like her...awesome. But I think my favourite casting choice was Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby. He played that so well (not that he ever really plays characters any different, but hey, stick to what works). His daemon Hester was perfect too, even though she only had one or two lines, but they still had that kind of old married couple vibe. And speaking of daemons, wow! When I first saw photos of the movie, I didn't really think about the daemons. But when you see the film, you really realize how much work went into that. Every single person had to have an animal companion running around, and in the case of the children, changing forms. It was amazing to see when there were shots with lots of people. I loved the scene at Bolvangar when the kids are eating in the cafeteria, because you see the daemons all over the floor and interacting with each other. And that's such an important part of their world. If you're not in the know, daemons (pronounced "demons," like the evil creatures) are just a physical manifestation of your soul. So they represent you--your emotions and intentions and all that. Their animal form also reflects this. You can really see it in the film, when two characters are in conflict, their daemons would be snarling at each other. When you're afraid, your daemon might become something small and timid like a mouse. You can imagine how descriptive that gets in a novel, and it's always stuff like that that's hard to translate.

A lot of changes were made that I'll get to later, but I'm glad that they maintained the spirit of the book. It is a story about Lyra trying to save her friend, and the movie kind of ends on that plot point (though the book goes on a bit further) and Lyra is always driven by that. There are so many other layers to the book, though, and they managed to fit it all in without really cluttering up the movie too much. Dust is introduced and the idea comes back every once in a while, and they do a fairly good job of explaining it without getting into the religious themes. And the religious stuff is actually another thing they pulled off surprisingly well, especially considering they basically took it out completely and replaced it with some vague mention of The Authority. Religious themes play a huge part in the books, and when they said they weren't going to make mention of the church or anything relating to it, it just seemed like all was lost, but the movie works without it. As Pullman says, the story isn't about religion. It's more about what an organization like that can represent, and then the theme of free will comes into play as the opposition to that. If you read the books, especially the latter two, you'll get a lot more into that with the angels and more stuff about Dust. For children's books they are really quite complex. Even I didn't get all of it my first time through.

Let's see, I'll throw in a couple more positives before I dive into all the big changes. I think the film was visually stunning. Oxford looked amazing from the rooftop shots, the gyptians were dressed perfectly, I mentioned the daemons all over the place, and for me it was just really cool to see everything come to life. The armoured bears were fantastic (best CGI armoured polar bear fight scene in a movie ever?! YEAH!), and I loved the way the witches swooped in to make their kills (just like in the book!). The visual effects were nice, but we're all so immune to anything really incredible in that department now since it's so common.

Now, the main problem I had with the movie (and it seems almost everybody else shares the same feelings) was the pacing. The movie is just short of two hours, and for a fantasy story that's not a whole lot of time to work with. The first half of the movie just went by too fast. They crammed a lot of exposition into it, such as explaining Dust, daemons, and so forth. Sometimes it was done cleverly, like how they explained "the great taboo," which is the fact that it's just bad to touch someone else's daemon. Near the beginning as Lyra is playing with her friends, she makes a comparison of something bad to "the great taboo" and it comes off very naturally. Other times, though, something is thrown into the dialogue just for the sake of getting it out there and moving on. Scenes went by a little too fast as well. You're just getting into it, and there is the possibility for good moments between characters, but suddenly you're thrown into another scene and they're on their way to the north. Some character introductions were too swift and came about in odd ways. The introduction of Iorek Byrnison happened very differently in the book. He was not originally mentioned by Lee Scoresby, but by a character named Dr. Lanselius, who was associated with the witches, and who Lyra and Farder Coram went to for some help. He suggests Iorek, and the rest is history. In the movie, Lyra meets Lee Scoresby, and then for some reason he starts talking about Iorek. Next thing you know she meets him, and he quickly joins her. He was a lot less stubborn in the movie as well, and it surprised me how fast it all happened. The introduction of Serafina Pekkala was the strangest, though. She drops in out of nowhere, and I still don't understand why. But I guess Eva Green needed some more screen time. She also mentions her past love life with Farder Coram, but they didn't play that out at all. It would've given much more depth to the witches if they explained their relationships to humans. I hear there are deleted scenes about that, though. But those problems really just stemmed out of general storytelling and film practice. And apparently New Line (the studio backing the film) had a big hand in making the filmmakers cut out and alter a lot of stuff. The biggest one being the footage of the final three chapters of the book. The last chapter especially ties everything together. We get more into Lyra's "real purpose" for going to the north, find out what exactly Lord Asriel is doing, the idea of parallel worlds returns, and we get the wonderful cliffhanger to the second book (which would've been a visual feast). Had they named the movie after it's original UK title (Northern Lights) the film would seem to have lost its way without those scenes. The whole thing about the aurora and parallel words aren't as important to The Golden Compass, but for the over story of His Dark Materials they're right at the top of important things along with Dust.

As a fan of the books, I think the most jarring thing about this movie was the fact that things were missing that would've helped explain more and give more depth to the secondary characters, and that scenes toward the end of the movie were altered and switched around. Since I've known it one way for so long, it's a little weird and frustrating to see things happen a new way, but a new way that is essentially the same...if you know what I mean. I would love to know what it's like to watch this without the book knowledge, because everything will make sense in a different way. I mean, a book is kind of linear. You skip a chapter, or even a few pages, and you're bound to be lost in some way, big or small. So in the movie when Lyra went to Svalbard before Bolvangar (whereas it was Bolvangar then Svalbard in the book), fans of the book might get a big moment of "Whaaaa...???" Stuff like that just takes a second longer for me to process than someone who's getting into the story for the first time, and as far as they know, that's just the way it's supposed to be.

Despite the changes, I enjoyed the film. I did expect a little more and was disappointed at the things they took out (just wait for the DVD director's cut!), but it's still the same overall story as the book, and really, I don't get into stories for the details. When I think about the books, I never think "Well I love this because of how Lyra acts like this and that, and the idea of Dust is so gripping." I just remember it as being a cool story with a big adventure. Smaller details about characters and plot points are important, and you wouldn't have very much without them, but these adaptations are never perfect. Even a movie like "300", where there really wasn't a lot to adapt to begin with, had its own flaws in the adaptation. I really just loved seeing one of my favourite books on the big screen, and I hope this one does well enough so New Line makes the other two. I give it a 7/10. It's not a huge magical film like the other big fantasy films in recent years, but it has more interesting themes and ideas, a great cast of char-