Cool News
Gorgeous GOLDEN COMPASS one-sheet!!!
Hey folks, Harry here - looking like a Frank Frazetta Coke Commercial, the first poster for THE GOLDEN COMPASS has hit the net. All kidding aside, this is just a gorgeous poster that evokes exactly what it needs to. Moriarty, when he visited the set and wrote up his coverage, wondered aloud that the problem facing this film was how to sell the movie to the audience. Well, with this poster - they set tone, atmosphere, a sense of awe and wonder - and a curiousity about the Golden Compass - and what it can do. This is an excellent teaser poster! Enjoy... (oh and click for enormous size)
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finally
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but I'll admit I'm unfamiliar with The Golden Compass, but I love fantasy I'll have to do research
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That movie was so boring, i fell asleep.
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That's how you sell the movie and that' exactly what they did. Can. Not. Wait.
Ian McShane is voicing Iorek, fuck yes! -
just when I was thinking "why aren't there more movies for fans of underage children/polar bear bestiality". Oh, my bad...
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I am certainly curious about this one and yet I know nothing about the book(s) it is based on. Looks cool though. I thought Narnia was great for a kids flick and it wasn't boring for this tool. Never read those books either. Or the LOTR books. Shit, I don't read fantasy books, but fantasy flicks, if done right, are an enjoyable treat from time to time.
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The Armored Bear is one of my favorite characters.
Makes me want to buy this one sheet -
Remember Wishbone the movie? Where the dog solved a mystery! I cannot WAIT for this one!
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I've never heard a Polar Bear say "cocksucking hooplehead" before.
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Words fail me, sorry.
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needs to be painted on the side of my 1975 Chevy Van posthaste.
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That would make a much better title.
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(Cameron must be a Brit - armour) or sharks with "lasers" on their heads? Let the debate begin.
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I'm so underwhelmed.
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...looks about as realistic as Lost's polar bear. In other words, it doesn't look like a real polar bear at all.
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If the bear ate the little girl...
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Voyagers. She has the Omni so she must be John Erik Hexum. Instead of Meeno Peluce she gets a polar bear.
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Even though it looks cool and all, it automatically evokes thoughts of Narnia. Therefore it's a bad poster.
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pulled by polar bears. I still think this is a beautiful poster, but that doesn't make it creative.
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Ha! I remember that show! Good one.
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REWARD YOUR CURIOSITY, WITH A SMOOTH VANILLA COKE!
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Dipshits..
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First thing I thought of when I saw the bear's armor- almost made me long for a He-Man movie. Thank God for CGI. Now any fantasy can appear live and on-screen.
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Actual art on a poster? Instead of a photoshop montage of actor faces? What is this, 1979? I love it!
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It's not blended together very well at all. But I do like the concept though.
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spoiler spoiler spoilers ... does marketing know that this is one dark series??!?!? That Lyra's best buddy gets gutted in the end? In the sequels they visit the underworld and try to free them from a purgatory? That it lambasts organized religion??!?! Specifically catholics?!!? This book series is the anti-narnia, and the marketing should reflect that, otherwise you'll get really pissed off parents thinking that they're taking kids to another narnia.
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Terrible Photoshop job. The girl and the polar bear look like they're in two completely different scenes, mashed together.
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I can't work now, tears are rolling down my cheeks. That was too funny.
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Anti-Narnia for sure
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Then Coke had the balls to sue polar when they did an anti-Coke bear commercial.
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I am also getting a slight annoyance that they seem to be marketing this as Narnia. If you have read the books you would no this is the polar (pun) opposite of Narnia. I can't wait to see this on the big screen...it better be a PG-13.
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cause you cant have enough of those.
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Can't wait for the SNL digital short on the Golden (what) Compass of Narnia
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I mean I've been starving for cloven heroes and fantastic voyages! You just don't see villainous witches any more these days - especially not in films like Narnia or Stardust. And why is there such a short supply of fairies in movies - case in point Bridge to Terabithia and Pan's Labyrinth? I mean, is CGI dead or what? Golden Compass will remedy this dry spell for sure.
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And her last 285 or so films that totally sucked.
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Great job multi-million dollar hollywood marketing department! Kudos!
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just kidding. christmassss!! looks excellent. But beware of the pervs over and down my post.
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Oh god, the floppage.
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I love that pretty much anyone with Photoshop is allowed to do movie posters now. Yeah, yeah, we know trying to photograph the bear and the girl together is impossible, but jeez, try to make it look like they're actually occupying the same space. The girl is too frontally lit. The composite line looks off somehow and where's the slight shadow the girl would we casting onto the polar bear due to the light coming in from the...eh...forget it. I'm wasting my breath...
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But it looks really good...stop with the photoshop bashing already. If this was a real picture of a girl and a polar bear it would be lame.
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...listen to yourselves. 'Umm hello, how about TRYING to photoshop them together with the same lightsourcing and composite line anti-aliasing....i mean am i right folks? engghhh'....you fucking douchebags. That poster is fresh as FUCK. I only read the first book but I loved it to death. It shits all over Narnia.
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there are flavors beyond our own. The coke will show the way. Nah. You are just never happy about this things aren't you people?
But you are damn right it looks like a coca cola advertisement. -
Too Girly!
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It's true.
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the first book is great, and the poster really does it justice: especially the polar bear armour. the second book has some interesting ideas. but the third book is the worst conclusion to a trilogy i ever read: it's so bad it's painful.
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i bet that all of you despite all this talkback crap are saving the picture to your desktops so stay calm people. jeeeeeezz.
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that looks like crap. i mean the polar bear looks frickin amazing. but the image as a whole looks like some gacked up photoshop by a third grader.
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I mean really, all you have to do is replace God with the Galactus-Cloud and give breasts to one of the gay angels, and poof! Family-values friendly and double the box office.
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OK, the first book The Golden Compass/Northern Lights is pretty much perfect but then it all goes wrong. The movies are the chance to make an actual coherent story out of the madness that Philip Pullman spewed onto the page, particularly with the last book The Amber Spyglass. I'm liking the sheer ferociousness of Iorek on this poster, it shows they're not going to kiddie things down, he's gonna be ripping the shit out of things, and Lyra looks right too. It's funny, I don't think the alethiometer is ever referred to as a 'compass' in the book. They better not just be calling it a compass in the movie just to simplify things.
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The book was great and felt like one of his movies--minus the cliffhanger ending. newc0253 is right, the sequels are a let down, so enjoy this one like it's the first Matrix movie because that's how "off" the books get.
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The first two were awesome but the last one totally lost the momentum. I really hope they change a lot from that last book because it would be shit on screen. First two though = awsomeness! The concepts are much better.
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thought Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass were fantastic, especially the ending. I'm just hoping the whole trilogy isn't defanged. I will be amazed (and delighted) if they have the balls to do a loyal adaption.
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There are aspects I love about this but there are also aspects of it that let me down, it feels kinda stiff and a little weak or Narnia if anyone knows what I mean. I do dig a lot of what they have delivered but I just thought its holding back a little I thought he would be a bit mored scared and grey armored and more angry
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Also I am drunk so what I say does't really mean shit and I'm sure I will disagree with it on the morrow.
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Having looked again I am wrong and that poster is awesome almost as awesome as me
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. . . you're making Comic Book Guy look like the coolest motherfucker that ever walked the planet. My GOD, please reread your post and get a friggin' grip!
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I am outraged! And to spite you all I now support the hunting of polar bears and baby seals... and a whale or two...
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that font is so tired, give me a break. and those of us who make a living doing photoshop, excuse me but that photoshop job DOES suck and there's no excuse for it!
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Yet they still ruin the second book by going to our world. I loathe terracentrism.
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i believe i meant to write, 'speaking for those of us who make a living doing photoshop, the poster DOES suck and there's no excuse for it!' which makes a little more sense than that yodaspeak i just posted.
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the more aggravated i get. that big bear looks lame. his armor looks lame. it looks like nobody bothered to read the book wherein the armor is made by the bears themselves and so should look beat-up and scary and like it's from the mind of a bear, not the mind of some guy who plays a lot of warcraft. the whole thing is looking lame and i think the guys at R&H are doing a crap job. there, i said it!
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But he is voicing Ragnar Sturlusson the king of the Polar Bears.
Iorek is being voiced by Nonso Anozie...whoever that is
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It looks like they took an image of the bear attacking an enemy and then tried to wrap one of his paws around the girl protectively. The way the bear is standing/growling is just completely at odds with what's happening. Then they apparently kept adding more shine to the althiometer because they realized the title didn't really reference anything. Not to mention that the compositing is just crappy generally.
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Northern Lights is the international name. The name change was made by the book publishers, long before the film. So don't blame the filmmakers.
Kinda like the Sorcerer's Stone instead of Philosopher's Stone. Someone thinks American's are too stupid to get it. The stupid thing is that there is no compass anywhere...it is an alethiometer, a very different thing. -
I was so bored, so offended that the priests were bad, and so ticked off that the big surprise was revealed so early in the book. Thus, I don't know how it ends and I frankly don't care now.
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That bear would make a great Iron Man villain. Call Favreau!
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...if you like armored bears dry-humping you.
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Go big-ass Polar Bears!!
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with the series name, namely "His Dark Materials". Northern Lights makes no freakin' sense contextually either with His Dark Materials or the titles of the other two books. While I'm not saying the author specifically changed it, it wouldn't surprise me if he did.
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and it does say Scholastic on it...
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Someone done said it already. Dagnabit. When the Omni turns red, it means there's a big effin' bear somewhere nearby.
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Seriously. Some U.N.-brewed philosophy, like "Anything that is based in faith, which cannot be proven concretely to anyone who does not share that belief, can not be enforced, dictated, legislated or politicized." Can I get an Amen!
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so will Brainiac be in this film?
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honestly, please someone explain this to me: I've heard this baffling question in various forms before.
1- someone hears that there might be in some allegorical subtle way a slight questioning of the dominant religion in our culture included somewhere in the plot of this book for kids.
2- Said person asks completely non-linear (in my opinion) query: "Would he point his poison prick at the Muslims?" Or something to that effect.
Now, the whininess, as far as I understand it is this- that your own faith and/or tribal loyalty to your own group is so weak that any percieved slight, no matter how mild, is considered a looming threat and therefore must be attacked... but this still doesn't explain why Muslims are used as the example. Do you think the author is secretly a Muslim? Do you think that the alleged anti-religious message is a part of some insidious Islamic conspiracry to corrupt good Christian youth? I doubt it. I think you're just not too bright, and to you the world is one big black and white cartoon. Christians good, Muslims bad. If Pullman is against the Christians (jury's still out, btw), He must be FOR the Muslims!
Hell, why even bother. I lost him at the first word with more than two syllables. -
The images are poorly blended it is obvious, I thought it was fanmade at first as well.
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I don't know having not read the books. I'm wondering how you can have talking Polar Bears which suggests the supernatural, so it must be specific to something.
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Narnia is all about Jesus. The quest in this series is to FIND AND KILL GOD. It's the anti-Narnia.
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smells like a re-hashed "Witchcraft in Harry Potter is the Devil's plot!" kind of loony paranoia. I guess it explains what these people do with their time when they're not protesting gay pride parades and the like.
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If pro-Christianity was the key to box office gold, then that fucking Spear movie and the Veggietales would be outselling Pirates of the Carribean 10-1.
To everyone else, I'm halfway through the first book of this series, and I am damn impressed with the topics dealt within what is considered a young adult book. Milton, dark matter physics, bizarre ideas of quantum mechanics, etc. If anything is going to bog this one down in the box office, it's intellectualism, not anti-Christianity. -
It's funny, actually, I don't see the Golden Compass haters as traditional Christians anyway, but simply anti-intellectual. In my experience, good Christians can take a good poke now and then. In fact, with a few drinks in them, they'll be the first ones to jump into a heated debate- political, spiritual, metaphysical, you name it.
It's the nutters that believe Christians are some threatened endangered species that get their panties in a bunch over kids' books.
This movie will do fine. If there's any controversy to speak of, it'll just fuel the hype. -
It's like the studios forget they even have that option these days. There are plenty of amazingly talented artists out there who'd have done a better job with real paint instead of having some studio staffer bugger around trying to make a photo-composite look real - an almost impossible task.
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So they're not tying these films together under that name? Might be a good idea seeing as they've changed the international title of the first book.
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because they never understand me when I say the title. It's
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subtle? Y'all may be impressed by the thoughtfulness and intellectualism and downright charm of the Golden Compass. I know i was. But by the time you get to the Amber Spyglass, you will find the allegory about as subtle as 70 foot high neon lights. You will also find the enchantment and wonder of the first book completely drain away into an over-wrought turgid mess, not to mention the most embarrassingly bad attempt at science fiction (wheel people?) i've ever read. It's not that the allegory is anti-Christian (or, if you're charitable, anti-organised religion, although - let's be honest - it's Christianity that takes all the hits), it's that the anti-Christian allegory is so hopelessly clumsy and terribly written. I kid you not, the last book reads like it was guest-authored by Richard Dawkins. Hell, I'm an agnostic and even i was offended. The whole Miltonian War-on-Heaven should have been really good. If you're on the first book now, my advice is either stop at the end of the first book or possibly the second, then sit down and write your own third book. Because I guarentee it will be better-written than what Pullman came up with.
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And I agree, it evokes Narnia. There's far more interesting scenes to show than Lyra out in the snow. I'm also surprised Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman aren't featured, not to mention there's not a daemon in site. I suppose this is only a teaser poster, I presume the official print will have more of a Star Wars type montage, with hot air balloons, daemons, 12 year old children having sex, God being murdered...
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As far as I remember, the armored bears never take off their "gear". Once they put it on (it's an initiation ritual), the armor stays on them their entire life. Which is why Iorek was disgraced - he lost his armor.
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With Pulman guiding this, it's looking like it's going to live up to the greatness of the Dark Materials trilogy
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but it's hard for us non-Catholic Christians not to be offended when you A, assume that God is the god of the fanatics who want to control or kill everyone, B, give a sympathetic and knowledgable character the line "Christianity was all a big mistake," and C, make the God of Judeo-Christian tradition a senile old man controlled by Angels who are really letcherous old men themselves. And best of all, even though Pullman throws out Christianity--which he decided is a lie anyway and the dead all go to a world that resembles the Greek Underworld with Harpies and everything--Pullman does seem to still believe in Original Sin and the evil that Sex represents--it's why the heroine loses her powers in the end. Of all the bone-headed concepts to keep! It's annoying because slapping Christianity became more important to the writer than the characters or the charming world of the first book. Other religions do not get mentioned at all BTW, so it's hard to see it as anti-religion more than anti-Christian.
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May 04, 2007 6:19:31 AM CDT
Its totally anti Christian,and especially anti Catholic
by col. tigh-fighter
which is good. Time for Man to grow up and stop being afraid of the night, then we can get rid of these childish notions. Might as well believe that your going to get taken to the planet Blisstonia.
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Someone who actually read the Narnia books will have to help me out here, but I thought I read somewhere that there actually were no polar bears anywhere in the Narnia series. The Witch's sleigh was actually pulled by reindeer, or something like that. Is this true?
Assuming this is true, I always assumed that the Naria movie makers wanted to get Polar Bears involved to steal some of HDM's thunder. It always made sense to me that they knew that HDM was in pre-production and that the first book was very polar-bear-centric (Iorek is such an amazing and important character in the Golden Compass), so they just threw them in and put them smack in the middle of their movie poster so people might confuse the two when HDM finally came out. Sure enough, half the talkbackers here immediately brought up Narnia when this poster came out.
Am I crazy? Should I take off my tin foil hat? -
Boring, turgid horrid piece of shit. I honestly believe that people say they love it because of the end- The rest of it is dire beyond belief. Other things I hate about it- the piss poor wheel people shit that is totally unnecessary and seems to take up half the book, the lack of subtlety, annoying gay angels, Will's dad, The female professor, As someone said above, just stop at the 2nd.
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Also the books were only ever "Good". Fun to read but not explode-your-brain-fantastic or anything. IMFO.
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And they show up in the third movie too. Coincidence? I think not.
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Interesting book, so far.
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Than on whatever world the wheel people live on: at least the teddy-bears have parties. For something written by a guy who makes no secret of his hatred of organised religion, you couldn't find a more dour, humourless, dogmatic, preachy book than the Amber Spyglass.
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She's supposed to trek through Svalbard in that?!?! Ok I know it's just a poster.
And I enjoyed the 3rd book. I loves me some action but I also loves me some intellectualizing and philosophizing. -
Sorry dude, you gotta be quicker on the draw, but great minds think alike. Cameo in the movie by Clark Ken tripping over the armor then the little girl learns his secret identity.
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...that is being expressed concerning HDM and particularly The Amber Spyglass. People are not just saying that they didn't like it or found it dull; they are ranting about it as if it was a loathsome hateful ugly thing. I didn't think the Mulefa were boring; I thought they were an ingenious picture of a peaceable tribal people living in tandem with nature. Ewoks? I can see that your experiences as fanboys pretty much begin and end with a certain stupid toy commercial from the 70s. Do you hate Inuit and Native Americans because their lives are boring and stupid? Is everyone who doesn't run about shouting, shopping and firing off guns stupid? Do we have to make everything into one of one of Frank Miller's blood-orgasms just so you guys can keep your hard-ons?
PS: The amount of argument about basic themes that these books generate is pretty much proof that they are a success. I read here opinions about basic plot points that are diametrically opposed to my own. That's called thematic richness. -
fuck pullman and his anti-tolkien rants.
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If you compare his writing to another successful run of children literature by the name of Harry Potter then you understand what I'm talking about. With harry potter you had great dialogue, great themes, and awesome storytelling but with Pullman all I got was disjointed sentences and sloppy storytelling. It was confusing, full of ramblings, and very frustrating read at most points.
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So everyone who hates the Wheel People in the Amber Spyglass also hates native Americans, huh? Hyperbole much? Personally, i reckon the Smurfs are a more 'ingenious picture of a peaceable tribal people living in tandem with nature' than the Wheel People. But if that's your idea of thematic richness, then good luck with the 8th grade. Also, if I read your post correctly, you seem to think that Ewoks come from 'a certain stupid toy commercial from the 70s', in which case you must be the only person on AICN, hell the Internet, not to have heard of Star Wars.
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utter bollocks. The wheel people blow because they are mind-numbingly tedious, and the sequences that they are in- which take up a ridiculous portion of the novel- are nothing more than an addendum to the story (and the development of the actual themes). You could very easily remove all the sequences with the construction of the spyglass itself and not lose anything from the book, aside from the title. You may even improve it as a novel. An awful, awful book and a complete let down to the series. Furthermore, argument about thematic issues is not proof of success- people will argue over bloody anything.
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No, I don't think Monkeybutt is accussing Pullman of being crypto-Muslim. He's just noting that it's safer to write and publish anti-Christian literature than anti-Muslim (e.g. Salman Rushdie, Muhhamad cartoons etc.).
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isn't it? I mean I won't see it but if God forbid it was proven that I had a kid, I'd rather take them to see something like this than a cartoon donkey making clever pop culture references.
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I liked the book, as did the people who awarded it the first Whitbread to be given to a writer for juveniles. Juveniles. It's a book for children. All the children I read it to (three to be precise; 9, 11 and 12) loved it and the mulefa. You appear to be an adult man. So fuck off and read books for adult men.
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I was being dismissive of Lucas' sub-literate toy-selling bollocks.
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and it's actually 2 midgets inside a bear suit.
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this book was written years before the muslim terrorist attacks so get of your fucking high horses. The book is not anti-christian. It does not say that christianity is wrong or that God does not exist, actually in ways it says the opposite. The 'God' in the book is not the real God...just a usurper of the throne who claimed he created everything. The particles dust are hinted to be the real God.
People who seem to have a problem with the books have either never read them or to stupid to analyse the book properly. It's not Harry Potter where everything is basic story telling 101..you have to look a bit deeper with HDM. -
"fuck off and read books for adult men". Nice response to a legitimate critical point. Why does the fact that it was written for children excuse the fact that it isn't very good? Where's all the defensiveness come from?
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"Man raised in historically Christian society more interested in criticising Christianity than other religions he has little experience of".
News at eleven. -
more accurately, it's a preachy, turgid, crappy book for children. The fact that Selpuchrave appears to think that children's literature should be held to a lower standard than other books speaks volumes about his precious literary standards. I don't know about you, Selpuchrave, but i first read The Lords of the Rings as a 12 year old and it stands the test of time a lot better than the shitfest that is the Amber Spyglass.
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really? Having one of the main good characters say "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all" doesn't strike me as especially subtle. You can apologise for Pullman by saying that he's only attacking *organised* religion, but it's pretty clear (from the painfully-transparent allegory) that the key features of organised religion are all highly Christianised. As an agnostic, I have no problem with a book that questions god or authority or whatever. Indeed, the whole concept of a Miltonic struggle against God was what attracted me to the story in the first place. My problem with the Amber Spyglass isn't that it questions authority or religion or God. Those are all good things in my book. My problem with the Amber Spyglass is that it is terrible literature, a half-baked and cack-handed screed. It's a Miltonic struggle written by someone with all the sophistication of a high school junior. What's makes the third book so especially bad is that it takes everything that made the first book so good, and shits on it. For someone irritated by the pro-Christian tone of the Narnia books, Pullman actually achieves the opposite of what he intended: he makes CS Lewis seem like the master of subtlety.
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That "it's anti organised religion" line is a cop-out. There are many specific christian references in it, but this is not a bad thing. It isn't particularly surprising as Pullman is (obviously) not a muslim, so when he is being critical of religion it is only natural that it is the christian religion he was raised with that bears the brunt.
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Pullman has won every significant children's literary award in the world. Carnegie, Whitbread, etc.
A sentence from Northern Lights:
"She saw him fully and marveled at the contrast he made with the plump butler, the stooped and languid scholars. Lord Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize and pity. All his movements were large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in a room like this, he seemed a wild animal held in a cage too small for it."
That, in my view, is a series of very elegant and vivid sentences. Writing is engineering; it's either good or bad; it either works or it doesn't. Pullman's does. -
because the ultimate test of a good children's book is whether CHILDREN like and understand it, not you or me. I told a story about three CHILDREN who loved His Dark Materials. And they love Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Dark is Rising and The Phantom Tollbooth.
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but that sentence is from the first book. If anything that actually shows the decline by book 3. We weren't arguing about book 1. That is a good book, it is The Amber Spyglass that isn't.
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You are in fact talking rubbish. Quality is quality, and the ultimate test will be, as newco says, if it lasts the test of time. Not whether children like it at the moment, but if it is still as popular in 100 years.
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"The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake, that's all"
...is that a few pages later, she finds herself talking to what describe themselves as angels. He atheist materialism is REVERSED by the story; she regains her faith, albeit not in Christ but in God. His Dark Materials is about God. The real God: Dust, Consciousness. I just don't get this thing about 'it's a screed for atheists' since it is clearly not. -
Well, that's me put in my place. I particularly like the way you use the phrase 'in fact' to bolster what is IN FACT an opinion. An insulting opinion.
Yes, quality is quality. How about a second opinion.
"...A leisurely probing moral debate. it is also beautifully written, shocking, moving, intellectually funny and displays the most magnificent invention...at the simplest level, everyone gets a great story."
That was the late, great, Jan Mark (children's author) writing in The Times Literary Supplement. -
...is whether children like it?? Children like the Smurfs and Ewoks too, so what? The fact that your kids liked Amber Spyglass or that it won the Whitbread proves nothing, except maybe that your kids are idiots and so was the Whitbread Committee that year. I agree Pullman *can* write well, I would have given him a prize for the first book. But the fact that an author wrote one good book doesn't mean everything else he does automatically gets a pass. As I've said, part of the reason why the third book is so bad is because the first book was so good: it's the fantasy equivalent of Matrix Revolutions.
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That is a false analogy. You may as well compare books to Happy Meals, or sneakers with roller-skates in the heels. Now you appear to be discounting both the popular view (children everywhere) and the more academic literary establishment in your efforts to stand alone and correct about a book you personally dislike.
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is a shallow rip-off of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles that has been since revealed as the tosh that it is. Ha!
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your explanation of Mary's quote only makes the anti-Christian point *more* explicit, not less. Mary has already embraced eastern mysticism (c.f. her use of the I Ching), so her acceptance of the Dust is hardly a gigantic reversal. Whereas Christianity is shown to be not only false, but actually one gigantic conspiracy to oppress humanity. I never called the book "a screed for atheists", you got that from somewhere else. But it's entirely accurate to describe it as an anti-Christian screed. Pullman makes no bones about it. My complaint isn't that the book attacks organised religion, it's that its such a clumsy, badly written attack that it makes it such a withering bore to read.
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sure they do. Just type in "smurf books" or "ewok books" into Google, see how many hits you get. I also doubt that i'm the only person in the world who dislikes the Amber Spyglass. Hell, I'm not even the only person in this talkback who dislikes it.
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You can kindly fornicate off. As an Irish person, I have no truck with that shite. Fuck Jesus, Mohammed, Jehovah and all the other dumb names that little primitive people give to the big thing behind it all. The Eastern people are the only ones who are remotely close to a proper conception of God; Jehovah is a big boss for people who live in goatskin huts and eat dung for dinner. Isn't it interesting that only Buddhists don't seem to follow the urge to prate about their religion all the time and kill anyone who doesn't listen.
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Don't suggest that pathetic tie-in novelizations for Star Wars and the Smurfs can be classified as literature of any kind. No, The Smurfs and Ewoks are NOT literary creations, nor are the Ghostbusters, Transformers, He-Man or Pokemon.
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...books about Ewoks? Your status as a critic of literature is eroding fast, my friend.
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fraid ill have to tell you youre tasteless there. lord of the rings became very odious to me once i reached my twenties. for different reasons, but nevertheless. his dark materials becomes a mess in the third book and loses any charm it had, but its still worth reading, particularly to children without exposure to the sentiment it expresses, and a film version might be able to fix the problems. this is one occasion when i wont complain about a film adaptation deviating from the text.
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yeah, so much for sectarianism, huh? Like I said before, I'm agnostic so frankly i could give a rat's ass. But i think it's pretty funny that, when push comes to shove, you immediately buy into the idea that "Eastern people" (nice generalisation for 3 billion people btw) are somehow more enlightened than others. For a start, the I Ching isn't Buddhist, it's Confucian/Taoist. As for Buddhists being universally peaceful, it's worth noting that predominantly Buddhist countries like Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand all have their own bloody sectarian conflicts. Funny, huh?
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uh, so what? You seem to think that the fact that children love something is an indicator of its literary worth. By that bizarro logic, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew should have won the Nobel Prize for Literature by now.
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I don't buy in; I have travelled widely in both the USA, as well as Japan, China, India, Thailand, South America and the Middle East. Fuck, I've spent the last four years writing about religious festivals like Holi, The sanja Matsura, Biskat Jaktra and Ramadan. The only people who ever tried to convert me or who even thought it seemly to discuss religion at all, were Christians, Muslims and Jews. NEVER Buddhists, Shintoists, Hindus or Taoists.
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...oh product of the US public school system. The first point was that children love Pullman and read him in large numbers. The second is that he has won many prizes for writing from many respected sources, as well as receiving rave reviews from fine authors and literary publications. The two are not the same thing. So stop trying to conflate them.
Nancy Drew was popular but never got any recognition, praise, awards etc because she was committee-written trash. And it showed. -
One: they don't evangelise.
Two: Their conception of God, being non-personified and abstract, is more complex and developed than Jehovah, Allah or Christ. Far closer to the idea of God as 'the fabric of the cosmos'.
I did not say that they were intrinsically more peaceful, YOU are buying into a stereotype: that of me as some hippy who traipses around India stoned, visting ashrams and bleating about how enlightened everyone in Asia is. I am no such thing. -
you seem awfully clueless about sectarian violence, or world religions in general. The fact that Buddhism isn't a proselytizing religion certainly has nothing to do with the fact of whether its followers are violent towards non-Buddhists. Judaism isn't a proselytizing religion either, but nobody would ever be stupid enough to claim that it's necessarily peaceful as a result. Sri Lanka is the perfect example of a conflict between a Buddhist majority and a Hindu minority. Another example is Thailand, with serious violence in the south between Buddhists and Muslims. To imply that the violence is all down to non-Buddhists is fatuous. As for the peculiar weight you seem to attach to Children's book prizes, so bloody what? Would anyone on AICN ever claim that Oscars or Emmys or Grammys are unquestionable marks of excellence? But somehow the folk who hand out book prizes are infallible? since when? Here's a suggestion: why don't you stop falling back on someone else's "rave reviews" and make your own argument?
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yes you did. You said "only Buddhists don't seem to follow the urge to prate about their religion all the time and kill anyone who doesn't listen". Well, sure, they don't try and convert people but they still kill people. So what difference does it make? The truth is that all major religions have followers who are prepared to use violence against non-believers. As for the idea that an abstracted god is a "more developed" concept than a personified one, I have no opinion. That's like claiming that "abstracted" aliens are more developed than "personified" aliens. Not having seen any evidence of aliens, I have a hard time seeing the point of the distinction.
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It's easy to post about how stupid people are that belive in God or something higher than themselves but is it worth it? Religous extremist are horrible and dangerous,thats true,but without religon those people would find another reason to be the way they are. Why not just say" do what you want with your life and i'll do what I want with mine,don't bother me and I won't bother you" easy enough right? I've read some of the trilogy and in my opinion this guy hates christianity,bottom line. Thats his call,C.S Lewis was open about his christianity in the Narnia series so if someone with an opposing view wants to do the same thing ,do it. Just don't get all holier than thow about it.
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Nowhere did I say that I was a total atheist. I am reconciled to a personal vision of God that sits very well with science and as nothing to do with judgement and a Godhead, that's all. Please stop trying to characterise yourself as the only spiritual person in the room just because you might believe in the beardy man.
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"Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does he do, I swear for his own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, he sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' his sick, fuckin' ass off! He's a tight-ass! He's a sadist! He's an absentee landlord! Worship that? NEVER!"
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very scathing commentary on society using the Smurfs. Will Ferrell needs to be Hefty, though.
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if only the Amber Spyglass had been half as entertaining.
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Like Jokey Smurf is a suicide bomber?"It's a surprise!"
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Did I miss something?
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Jokey the chair a long time ago, but they let him stick around! Ah, those crazy Smurfs... "Smurfette the choice is clear, the Smurf of your dreams is here..." as sung by Will Ferrell as Hefty? BO GOLD.
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Gargamel's POV and make him sympathetic. The Smurfs are clearly evil. Come on!
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BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!
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was that Pullman was attempting to suggest/recommend to children that when it comes to the larger questions of life- 'why are we here' and the like, that instead of relying on some human construct (organised religion) to explain it all, that you look a little deeper. I think the success of the series is that he actually pulled that off without being too much of a dogmatic anti-Christian asshole. The whole point of the book is that organised religion will ever only offer you one answer, and that it's not wrong to question that one answer. Also, that in this world there are other sources for potential answers- philosophy, other religions, even mysticism. I can understand why a lot of people think it's anti-Christian, because a lot of folks believe what they want to , and think, like m2298, that Chrsitians are a put-upon minority of innocent victims surrounded by savage enemies. Pullman's whole story is about actually believing in God, that's the whole thrust and explanation for everything, that God is everywhere and that God is love (sound familiar?) but that God is also something of an abstract concept, one that is not so easily explained or understood. The enemies in the book are the forces of the 'easy explanation', the forces of 'don't ask questions'. The good guys are the ones who believe in God, but also have open minds.
Like I said before, the real Chrsitians I know have no problem with folks taking a poke at them now and then, their faith can handle it. The anti-intellectual whiners who freak out over this kind of stuff need to grow up. -
... cos it sounded like the AWFUL The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe... but now I think I'm gonna watch it, just so I can join in these lovely animated discussions.
I sincerely doubt it can be any worse than TLTWaTW... Hurrah, you didn't really do much, now you can be our Monarchs! WTF? -
This will make big Box Office. The marketing will pull in the Narnia crowd, only this has more star power (James Bond, Nicole Kidman, etc).
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Because it is? Like i said above, I was interested in these books because I thought, like many who have read Paradise Lost, the whole concept of a fantasy trilogy attacking an authoritarian god was a cool concept. Similarly, I have no problem with people attacking organised religion because, hey, there's plenty that's worth attacking. What I do have a problem with is the ham-fisted allegory and ham-fisted of the third book. Just as thinking an Inconvenient Truth is a badly-made documentary doesn't make you an anti-environmentalist, you don't have to be christian - still less some red state conservative christian - to find the Amber Spyglass a terrible novel. You only have to compare how Ursula K Le Guin dealt with almost exactly the same concept in The Other Wind to see how much of a failure Pullman's third book is. People who claim the Amber Spyglass is a well-written book aren't intellectuals, they're the worst kind of psuedo-intellectuals: simplistic, blinkered and fatuous.
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The books are excellent and charming.
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good or the film is pedantic. "This is why everything is the way it is", etc.
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is scant at best. Thus far Sepulchrave has managed to avoid mentioning the real problems by talking loudly about the religious themes and lambasting others with petty accusations of racism and ignorance.
The problem with The Amber Spyglass, are that it doesn't sit consistently with the first two books. Our main characters go on a vast and rather plodding meander through some literary homages to Milton and others, which is second only to Goethe's 2nd part of Faust in utter incomprehensible pointlessness. He spends a good 1/3 of the book following a subsidiary character (Professor Maternal Plot-device and her WheElephAntelopes) which adds pages to the novel and LITTLE MORE. He then has the gall to omit giving us the details of the outcome to the War for heaven in favour of following the kids around a corner where they accidentally leave the lid off The Authority and he goes flat.
And the mad Priest? What the hell was he to the plot other than a blatant last ditch attempt to throw some mud at the Church. He does NOTHING in the story and then is discarded as weakly as he appeared.
Don't even get me started on the ending...... -
just like many of the real anti-christian/ anti-religious comments in these talkbacks. Full of shit and hopelessly falling over themselves. And didn't all those 'peaceful' eastern buddhist chaps, while not being the converting type, kill and persecute enough Christians in large scale attempts to wipe Christianity out? News flash: Dig into any so called 'religious' conflicts and you'll find that the majority of them boiled down to things involving economy, land, trading and nationalism and things that had shit all to do with religion that just so happened to have all opposing forces divided conveniently into religious and ethnic camps. Hey YotzVonFrelnik... if you can prove that concepts with no proof behind them are false and that your proclamation is true, then maybe the UN will give a damn huh? But you can't ever just get rid of it, because all you'll end up doing is replacing it with something even stupider, like what you probably believe in f'instance... which is probably some cooked up delusion of your own opinionated beliefs which account for nothing... as unsubstantiated as you believe religion to be. And they call us anti-intellectual... Listen folks, many of the intellectual giants that you'll ever read from or learn about are mostly religious and theologians. But it's okay... you can have you funny little polar bear and penguin movies... they'd suit your anti-religious thinking processes which as is turns out are remarkably childish... toodeloo!
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The book is indeed 'charming', if both a bit twee in tone and clumsy in its allegory. Charming, that is, right up until the climax, which sucks nuts. Not just talking about the film here. I mean the books. Only the eldest boy does anything heroic (lead the battle). Even then there's no explanation of why he in particular was required to do that, nor why he's able to do it with greater skill or leadership than anyone else (if indeed he is - the book just skips the whole battle, leaving the quality of his leadership unresolved).
The girls don't seem to do anything much at all.
Certainly we're given no reason to think anyone does anything more heroic than anyone else in that army. Yet at the end of it, Narnia is chopped into four, and they each get made a Monarch. WTF? Terrible ending. Really poorly thought out.
If anyone thinks TLTWATW is 'excellent', they have really low standards. -
What I enjoy most about Narnia is the land itself and the mythical characters that reside there. Fond memories of it and it very much seemed like a real place to me as a child and captured my imagination. I had no problem with the children being rescued in the end, or the eldest stepping into a role of leadership (classic story element), and finally crowning them as fulfillment of prophecy since Aslan's return was the first sign these things would come to pass. It actually gave you a sense of satisfaction from what had been anticipation before. If you believe I have low standards, so be it. They still are wonderful to me.
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That was grafted on with no internal narrative justification.
I've not read any of these Pullman books, but surely at least the first one is better than TLTWaTW. -
First of all, the most recent post attacking Pullman's supposed lack of literary skill contains the words "second only to Goethe's 2nd part of Faust in utter incomprehensible pointlessness". So now we are reduced to attacking the literary skills of the greatest German writer of all time.
I discount your abilities to judge art, based on the huge quantity of both pretension and shallow judgment in that trite little sentence.
As for others who have attacked me for citing the positive opinions of talented and rigorous children's writers and critics like Jan Mark, respected publications like the Times Literary Supplement, the adoration of actual children and my personal support; I ask you; What am I left to prove? You are impregnable: Bill O Reilly style arguers; time and again, you fall back on dead statements 'It is fatuous, it is pseudo-intellectual, it is badly written' that have no reference to anything but other things that you yourself have already said. Dead ends, repeated endlessly. Then they seem to be trying to make a case for comparative religion; trying to create divisions. I get accused of religious hatred and racism because I think that the Churches attacked by Pullman deserved to be attacked, now more than ever before. Despite claims to being agnostic, I consistently hear the voices of Bill O Reilly and William Donohue in these attackers and I do not think that their dislike is confined entirely to a question of style.
Finally, the vast majority of insulting and abusive language is to be found in the posts I have just mentioned, not mine. I have said 'fuck off' once, fatuously. I don't hate the books you like and I fail to see why so much sheer rage should be expended on a critique of a work of art.
'one of the most self-righteous, cowardly and poorly-written...1
'crappy'
'People who claim the Amber Spyglass is a well-written book aren't intellectuals, they're the worst kind of psuedo-intellectuals: simplistic, blinkered and fatuous.'
'utter bollocks.'
'Boring, turgid horrid piece of shit.'
'piss poor wheel people shit '
Nasty stuff and highly subjective; you don't read phrases like that in any legitimate critical publication. -
Skull-fuck Aslan.
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and yet i'm the one you criticise for "insulting and abusive language"? I've kept this talkback remarkably free of personal insults and name-calling, Sepulchrave. I'm sorry that you seem so threatened by the possibility that an agnostic liberal might dislike The Amber Spyglass on purely literary grounds. Seems to me remarkably like the "you're either with us or against us" attitude that conservatives are so renowned for. And yet you compare me with Bill O'Reilly or William Donohue because I dare to question the supposed literary excellence of the Amber Spyglass? Similarly, you aren't able to engage with actual criticism, so instead you cite the fact that the Amber Spyglass has won good reviews and awards. Well, excuse me for questioning conventional wisdom, or suggesting that the herd might be wrong on this one. Heaven forbid that you think for yourself for a change...
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What?
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Where is that quote from? anybody?
This film better not tank. Poster looks like a Narnia rip-off, start plugging the damn thing with Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, one way to guarantee box office.
Also, wasn't the armour treated with whale blubber...don't remember it being gold in the books...maybe New Line are just highlighting the whole 'Golden' aspect of the film. -
You and whoever else is defending this mediocre work ought to be ashamed of yourselves. As a professional artist I see this as inexcusable and sloppy. Painters don't make mistakes like this, Michael Whelan, Donato Giancola, why the heck are you excusing these artists from doing their friggin' jobs? I don't complain about much but as an artist this is just wrong. Whoever did the poster if you're reading this, tighten it up, pal. And I don't have to re-read my post, I know what I wrote. Typos and all.
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Is right on the money with his post.
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Well stated.
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The Pacino quote is from "The Devil's Advocate".
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=column inches = opening weekend Box office, for sure.
It's water-cooler cinema! -
Just to clear up a point: I happen to be a Christian. And I never implied that religious people of any type should be controlled or silenced, only that we should all be respectful of the fact that not everyone shares our specific beliefs. Further to that, we shouldn't get all bent whenever anyone criticizes our faith or insults our god, because that's what faith is... Being content in your own beliefs and leaving the condemnation in the hands of one's own god. When someone tell me that my god (or Jesus, whatever) doesn't exist or is stupid or their god's got a bigger dick than my god, I don't care. They've got their own opinion and that doesn't bother me (and my god, being supposedly bigger than the universe, one would imagine) surely ain't gonna be bothered by their puny words. I only get bothered by religious people who can't let criticism pass and feel the need to go out of their way to raise a fuss or start a movement because someone had a different idea than theirs. If one is strong in your faith, they're not going to let a dumb little thing like a movie rock their world. To me that just shows their faith isn't that steadfast and any dissenting opinion they come in touch with rocks their world so much they've got to silence it's source (or at least give 'em what fer). I don't want religious people silenced, but I see an awful hell of a lot of die-hard religious types making a disturbingly big effort to silence others. (Oh, and I hate those penguin movies. But I don't mind that other people like those either.)
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The series did have an anti-organized religion element, but in the end the theme is actually a rehash of Gnosticism. It can't necessarily be catagorized as anti-Christian because in Gnosticism Jesus was supposed to be a manifestation of Sophia, or Wisdom, who also makes an appearance in the series.
If you pay attention, there was a faction who wanted to kill god (little g), and one who wanted to uphold the Authority. The main characters Will and Lyra followed their own path and refused to be used by either factions.
I am also worried about the ability of the last book to be made into a movie, but they might as well give it a try, I'll watch it anyway. -
"First of all, the most recent post attacking Pullman's supposed lack of literary skill contains the words "second only to Goethe's 2nd part of Faust in utter incomprehensible pointlessness". So now we are reduced to attacking the literary skills of the greatest German writer of all time. I discount your abilities to judge art, based on the huge quantity of both pretension and shallow judgment in that trite little sentence."
Ahh discounting my argument out of hand, an uninspired choice of retort. But It does allow you to avoid trying, and failing, to refute my points. I'd guess from you comment that you evidently have never read Goethe nor seen his work performed. If you had then you might just have had an incling as to the point I was making about Faust: part Two and have seen quite how apt the comparison was. For the record, I do enjoy Goethe, for the most part, I suggest you make attempts to understand his work and try gaining some experience of it before damning other people out of hand on the basis that they criticised a name you'd heard once in the English 101 course you probably failed. -
about quality is quality. The "in fact" was born of frustration at your reciting the same point. I was attempting to point out the difference between quality and popularity- something you seem to be incapable of noticing. Critics have been known to be wrong (frequently), so I wouldn't set so much store by that opinion. About being rude- so far you are the only person to outright tell someone to fuck off- so how's about you climb off your high horse and lose the mock indignation?
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Where did I state that Christians are "put-upon minority of innocent victims surrounded by savage enemies"?
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