The Golden Compass discussion

[Sean L.]

I like how the books end with cliff-hangers. It makes you want to read the next one even MORE.

For me, this only applies when there is a next book readily available. Otherwise, it just irks me deeply; by the time the next book comes out, I'll probably have forgotten half of this book. Hence one of the reasons I like to come into a series halfway through - there's enough to give me a good dose of the story, but there's still more to come so I don't feel sad that I've eaten up one whole world in less than a week.

But back to not hijacking this topic, I completely agree with LL:

The film worked, but it wasn't as good as it could have been.

I think some things made slightly less sense in this cut. This is as vague as possible: if she does the bit with the bears first, why don't they help with the children? Where the devil does the Golden Compass come from, and why does the Majesterium really hate them so much?

It was a weird feeling, really - they stayed true, I would assert, to the spiritvastly tuned it down, the fact that it's based on such literature may cost it dearly, in the end. And I like my films with a bit of bite with them anyway, so I was slightly sad to see it defanged.

I just realized how not-cohesive I'm sounding, so I'm going to stop.

[Edited to reinstate stuff the censor incorrectly chose to mangle. --kli]

[Lazy Leopard]

The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights if you're over my side of The Pond) hasn't been around anything like as long as Lord of the Rings or the Narnia books. Three generations (or so) have grown up with LotR and Narnia. Grandparents could take their grandchildren to those films and share the experience. Even Harry Potter didn't quite have that advantage. There's no way The Golden Compass was going to get a cinema audience on the strength of the book in the same way, and neither was it going to get the protection against plot changes LotR and Narnia gained by being stories well-known and much-loved by three (or more) generations.

I do hope there's an extended DVD version of TGC...