The Golden Compass Controversy
Movie Lives Up to Neither the Novel’s Charm Nor the Volume of Hype
Dec 12, 2007
The release of New Line Cinema’s adaptation of The Golden Compass on December 7, 2007 has been heralded for months by controversy. First, there's Philip Pullman’s open atheism, then there's the clear anti-religious message depicted in the trilogy of which The Golden Compass (published in Great Britain as “The Northern Lights”) is the first novel. In the wake of the blockbuster Narnia and Harry Potter movies, however, The Golden Compass disappoints, falling short of Pullman’s fantastic vision and the heart and soul of the novel.
Acting and Visuals Charm, but the Script Falls Flat
The film disappoints from the beginning, with a female voice-over explaining the nature of daemons, the Magisterium, and other ways in which Lyra’s world is different from ours. Whatever happened to “show, not tell”?
Despite stunning visual effects and excellent acting and casting, the movie continues in a similarly flat way, resorting to mounds of exposition through dialogue - effectively robbing every character except Lyra of a voice of her own.
Is the World of the Golden Compass Really so Complicated?
In the effort to explain concepts like Dust, the Oblation board, and intercision in under two hours, the subtlety and charm of Pullman’s story-telling seem to have fallen by the wayside.
Likewise, the rich personalities of the book seem to have been abandoned by the writers. In a manner reminiscent of Star Wars Episodes 1 to 3, even the stunning visual effects, costumes, and the at-times stellar acting can’t quite breathe life into this script. Perhaps the problem is that the movie is intended for children, whereas the books may have been written for children, but presumed adult intelligence.
As a movie, The Golden Compass suffers from too much exposition, inexpertly done, that turns the richest characters of the book (like Iorek, Serafina Pekkala, and Lee Scoresby) into caricatures of themselves. Devoted fans of the books would do well to avoid this unfortunate adaptation.
Lyra’s Continuing Adventures
One of the movie’s cleverest changes to The Golden Compass is the choice to close the film shortly before the end of the book: the film ends on a hopeful note (rather than the novel’s tragic one) that promises further adventures and, perhaps, even some answers to Lyra’s crucial questions.
Ultimately, the deciding factor in whether The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass will be made into movies is The Golden Compass's success at the box office; but it seems touch-and-go whether Lyra will be able to continue her big-screen adventures after this lackluster beginning. New Line Cinemas may choose to avoid the religious minefield of the third book by escaping the Golden Compass franchise after this single movie.
