Golden Compass *SPOILERS*

[madzone]

Apart from the first 2 points, I agree, they do seem inconsequential - they certainly didn't stop my enjoyment, and I don't think they were absolutely necessary to include. I stick to my original comment about not being able to fit everything in, and also film being a different medium.

The real sense of who Lyra is only really starts to kick in on the second book anyway.

It didn't for me - there's the whole thing about prophecy - the Consul in Trollesund testing her, her being able to trick a bear when Iorek has shown her it's impossible.

You've been duped - sucked in by the spangly CGI

There's plenty films that have managed to stay true to very lengthy books. What they've done is rewrite this and dilute it for the masses and to avoid controversy. Lily livered slaaaaaags.

 

[sojourner]

It didn't for me - there's the whole thing about prophecy - the Consul in Trollesund testing her, her being able to trick a bear when Iorek has shown her it's impossible.

You've been duped - sucked in by the spangly CGI

There's plenty films that have managed to stay true to very lengthy books. What they've done is rewrite this and dilute it for the masses and to avoid controversy. Lily livered slaaaaaags.

That's the kind of thing I was referring to when I said I filled in the gaps. I already knew what was going on, and didn't need to have it spelled out for me.

 

[madzone]

That's the kind of thing I was referring to when I said I filled in the gaps. I already knew what was going on, and didn't need to have it spelled out for me.

Yeah, course it was. You just liked the special effects

 

[sojourner]

Yeah, course it was. You just liked the special effects

What special effects? I tell you what special effect I was looking forward to - the fucking bridge between the worlds at the end - and I was CHEATED

 

[scifisam]

It didn't for me - there's the whole thing about prophecy - the Consul in Trollesund testing her, her being able to trick a bear when Iorek has shown her it's impossible.

You've been duped - sucked in by the spangly CGI

There's plenty films that have managed to stay true to very lengthy books. What they've done is rewrite this and dilute it for the masses and to avoid controversy. Lily livered slaaaaaags.

I can't think of any myself, and my MA was about adaptations to film.

 

[madzone]

I can't think of any myself, and my MA was about adaptations to film.

OOOh - get you

Tell you what - seeing as it's your speicality you tell me what films have fucked about with stories to the point that this one has and then I'll believe you and soj will stop sulking

 

[laptop]

The bloke from the Magisterium tries to poison Asriel

Character establishment, innit.

For the same reason as not starting where Pullman started, with a stroppy girl going into a room because females are not allowed in there.

How the fuck do you film that? You don't. You open on other stuff that establishes through moving pictures that she is teh stroppy.

How do you film the ambiguities of College politics? You can't.

And the result of establishing the character of the Magisterium through the poisoning - nice reference to the Borgias - is to set up the whole theme of the books about the Authority rather clearly, albeit in the less-shaded terms that film demands.

I bet Madzone hates Gilliam's Brazil - it's a film of Orwell's 1984, except that everything has been changed except the story

 

[scifisam]

OOOh - get you

Tell you what - seeing as it's your speicality you tell me what films have fucked about with stories to the point that this one has and then I'll believe you and soj will stop sulking

Too long a list, because it's every film. Really, it is - I'd have to sit here all night listing all the adaptations I know!

The Harry Potter films get pretty close to being an exact filming of the book, but not close enough that fans can't point out major plotholes (and they'd probably be better films if they weren't so similar to the books).

Thing is, why would you want an exact representation of the book? Your imagination's quite capable of doing that when you read it. A film of a book is a separate story. (I have to remind myself of this for those films where I didn't like the changes myself).

 

[madzone]

Thing is, why would you want an exact representation of the book? Your imagination's quite capable of doing that when you read it. A film of a book is a separate story. (I have to remind myself of this for those films where I didn't like the changes myself).

I don't. I'd be quite happy with an adaptation that wasn't so flaccid. The book is controversial because of it's strength of characters and subversiveness. The film is just a disneyfied kiddyfilm. They've sucked the bollocks out of it.

 

[spanglechick]

my problem isn't with the plot points that were missed or changed - just that it was watered-down in its feeling.

The ending is a symptom of that, but I felt the horror of Bolvangar was nowhere near as chillingly represented. The episode where lyra comes across Billy in the shed was just a bit sad in the film... in the book it's absolutely and viscerally horrifying.

I think you could take away from the film that only a couple of dozen kids had ever been Gobbled, and that only a few had suffered intercision. Discovering the roomful of daemons is another real moment of horror.

I understand the need to keep an eye on the Certificate - hence the bloodlessness of the bearfight - but you can be pretty chilling and still get a 12A. Which would be the most appropriate certificate if you needed to apply one to the book anyway.

 

[madzone]

my problem isn't with the plot points that were missed or changed - just that it was watered-down in its feeling.

The ending is a symptom of that, but I felt the horror of Bolvangar was nowhere near as chillingly represented. The episode where lyra comes across Billy in the shed was just a bit sad in the film... in the book it's absolutely and viscerally horrifying.

I think you could take away from the film that only a couple of dozen kids had ever been Gobbled, and that only a few had suffered intercision. Discovering the roomful of daemons is another real moment of horror.

I understand the need to keep an eye on the Certificate - hence the bloodlessness of the bearfight - but you can be pretty chilling and still get a 12A. Which would be the most appropriate certificate if you needed to apply one to the book anyway.

Beowulf was a 12a wasnt it?

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I can't think of any myself, and my MA was about adaptations to film.

Lord of the Rings was, more or less, 100% true to the book. The changes were pretty titchy in the scheme of things and I think most people were relieved, rather than disappointed, to see the omission of Tom Bombafuckingdil.

 

[girasol]

I watched it yesterday and I really enjoyed although I never read the books, the film has made me want to read them. I was utterly fascinated by it!

As for Lord of The Rings staying true to the books: the LOTR trilogy is so boring and overblown, and basically crap, that it might have been better if they completely changed it.