(no subject)

[sapote]

Alright, so I could have put together the first half of The Golden Compass better than the directors/producers did. The atmosphere was all wrong - they're not playing in golden fields, they're playing in the industrial filth of steampunk London, and they do not see themselves as children playing anyway - and the exposition was rushed and clumsy. I am sick of movies being accessible. If children in the audience are mature enough to see a talking, thinking character get his jaw ripped off his face, they are mature enough to think while engaging with the narration. Anyway, I don't think the movie succeeded - my roommate read the book three days ago for the first time, and she reported, as was my feeling, that someone who didn't know what was happening would have been confused.

It should have been about two hours longer.
They are going to fix Roger, and the daemonless children, and that PISSES ME OFF. It's not reparable. It's a movie about the destruction of innocents in the name of preserving innocence, dance with those who brought you or go home.

There were many good bits - Serafina Pekkala was fierce and beautiful, and the girl who plays Lyra is not bad and does an excellent determined face. My absolute favorite part was the friendship between Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison. It was the only thing that didn't get explained but just was, and it worked beautifully.

I cannot wait to vid all of this.
Also, the clothes were way too revealing. There is nothing wrong with cinematic Victoriana! I will call Miss Coulter Senorita Sparkletits from this point forward. That is all.

It has been pointed out that I need to explicitly state here that I didn't hate the movie. I rather liked it! Yes, this is a twist ending on that, isn't it?

Comments

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

I think I had less hate for this movie than you did, so huh, since I'm normally the frother. 1) I got the impression that the movie was set (well, set, you know what I mean?) between 1910 and 1920 type, with the entire set of technology shown, with slight exceptions, mostly in the lack of telegrams. Setting it there makes the costumes all work out. So, you know, choice thing?

2) Pretty much my only real reaction to the movie was, Lee Scoresby, how you so awesome? He filled me with an incandescent glee. For serious. 2a) I thought Serafina Pekkala was also awesome.

3) (oh how I enjoy numbered lists) I completely thought the exposition was some of the most clumsy writing ever. They'd be ticking along merrily and then it was almost as if the characters paused, turned to the camera and were like, 'G O B, Gobblers, see?' and I was like, gah, I could have written that better. Don't even get me started on the end, you and me Lyra, now that Roger's here, Roger Roger Roger. Laid on way too thick. Once would have been poignant, 20 becomes caricature.

4) Next script peeve. I understand that Bolvangar was a better climax than Svalbard and in movies they need a specific structure. I have dealt. What I have not dealt with is the clumsy reintegration of that storyline. She goes in voluntarily? Why? What can she possibly do in there that she couldn't do when the Gyptians got there? And I mean, she knows what happens to the kids. It's one thing to be brave and noble and another to be a 12 year old girl, who's terrified of being ripped apart. There's no shame in that, and I wish we could have gotten that depth for Lyra and that moment of allowed revulsion for the audience. For me, there just wasn't enough dread until the very moment of the blade, and then it was all gone again in a flurry of fighting.

5) Connected to number 4. Dread! More specifically, the tone of the movie, the mood. As you said about the beginning, weird playing tone, 'aww, kids being kids and aren't kids sweet and nice? No malice' which I think steals something from the story. The whole thing is about innocence and what innocence is how it leaves you or is taken and making the children precocious child cyphers was sad.

6)I don't know, I kind of liked it. Asriel was good, Coulter was good (she did the only not clumsy exposition, when she was talking about Dust entering the world) I really felt like she had feelings, but was still ruthless, which is what I wanted. Scoresby! Awesome. I miss Iorek's other voice, but he was good. Lyra was good, actually I rather liked her. On a future speculation note, if this level of casting stays up, I am cautiously hopeful for Will, who was the first of my type and my first love. It gets more and more creepy the older I get, how pathetically I love him. Aside from the ending of the Amber Spyglass, the line that crushed me the most was just that one line on a page, 'because he's will' and I was all, 'sing it sister! You tell 'em!'

I'm sure I had other thoughts. Maybe. Maybe they will come to me later?

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I ETA'd while peeking at your paper through gchat! I cheated! Now I've explicitly stated that I don't hate the movie. It was a good time. I did spend a lot of it cracking up, though. exposition exposition JAMES BOND AT THE NORTH POLE exposition.

The people sitting behind me were pissed.

2) I really don't know how, in my head, he looked so exactly like Mark Twain, but they got it EXACTLY RIGHT. The description in the book must have been very specific. I'm tempted to say something horribly inappropriate re: Serafina Pekkala. Like "I'll ride her cloud pine any time, baby!". Ahem.

3) You think they'll kill him? I hope they follow through. I don't dislike him, it's just, he kind of has to die. And yes, the exposition SUCKED. SO CLUMSY. Seriously, I would have done it better.

4) I think it could have stayed, because then you wouldn't have had the inappropriate spectacle of a twelve-year-old being all YAYE WE KILLED A LOT OF DUDES. Instead it could have been genuinely horrifying, even if only for the viewer and not the innocent/oblivious Lyra, and she could have taken that weight with her to Svalbard. And my to-vid list gets longer.

5) Yep. See above. And I love Lyra, but she isn't very bright, she's ignorance and innocence and intuition put together. It's when she makes the choice to leave that behind that she becomes intelligent, or at least intelligent in a way that she's aware of.

6) The casting was brilliant. Really brilliant. Are we spoiled for who will play Will? I must know!

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

I remember! I don't think they can fix the kids and I personally believe that Billy died sharpish after getting into the camp, they just didn't show it. Even the way the characters were delivering their lines smacked of desperation and the false reassurance that adult's do. It will all be all right, we'll fix it, even when they can't. And Roger is going to die. They completely set it up. 'I'm taking him what he needs!' Yes, Lyra, your little friend who is marked for death

I think James Bond on the ice did more to convince me of his James Bondyness than Casino Royale did.

2)omg so fabulous so fabulous. (see, I am reduced to incoherency and his wonderfulness. Even those clunky, 'I heard you were in a tight spot, let me tell you my life's story' lines he pulled off with panache) And, rowr, Serafina Pekkala, though I see you have claimed her by striking the first blow in the terrible come on stakes.

3)Marked For Death If they don't kill him the whole of the Amber Spyglass is gone and most of hte motivation of the Subtle Knife. Don't worry, poor sweet innocent boy shall be ripped apart and then dropped off a cliff. The real thing about the exposition is it really felt like the scriptwriter ws cutting and pasting Pullman and occasionally wrote in things like [replace later: he is the king of the ice bears] and such and then they never got edited out. This is very uncharitable of me.

4)by stayed do you mean, the order? Because I've dealt with the order of events and am now questioning motivations and such. I guess giant battle trumps polar bear getting his jaw ripped off in the tension stakes. In a weird way, I'm grateful that they pushed the literal cliffhanger to the next movie. That ending tortured me when I read it

5)I feel like Lyra's intensely bright but that's she's not hmm, organized. Like the information's there, but she doesn't question it as it comes in, or file it into proper places, it all sits there and then she gets huge omg moments when it all clicks together. Every thing she's observed (and she does more than average) just is in there, waiting. And I love that she wasn't written as an amazing precognitive genius. I have two types of character love, the kind I love and admire and sort of wish I was (even when it's real dysfunctional) and the kind I love and worship and wish I could be with as weird as I know that to be. And Lyra's in the second group. Oh Lyra, never change

6)I've been avoiding spoilers! I don't know! And I don't want to blind google. gah. Think you can convince your brother to help?

[chibimuse.livejournal.com]

I generally liked it, many peeves but overall I liked the actors and the quality of the visuals (mmm pretty coach and zeppelin).

The most disappointing thing to me was how they treated the Billy Costa scenes. It didn't come across anywhere NEAR as heartbreaking and horrifying as it should have been! I was dreading that scene, and then we got to it and it fell totally flat. Ooh, pan is kind of scared, and look, Billy is a bit frostbitten! Lame. It should have been absolutely terrifying, and there was no 'fixing' him!

That kind of ties into the whole tone of the movie thing, there was too much happy go lucky, not enough dread and malice. (like making Iorek 'defeated' instead of a murderer! And not indicating that the adults at Bolvagangar had been separated from their Daemons)

I kind of loved Senorita Sparkletits, at least they consistently went with that time frame, not just sticking her sparkley sluttyness in with typical victoriana.

The Roger ROGER roger ending just HURTS if you know what comes next! Harsh.

Generally it felt like they watered down everything, and tried to make it all less frightening and harsh, so it was still good, but way less intense. I understand that they wanted it to be okay for kids, but they just lost so much of the emotion of the thing! Like the total wrongness of the King and the bear court, trying to live like people, and the aforementioned Billy Costa.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

It's the Zeppelin World from Doctor Who season 2! No, seriously, tell me Alternate London wasn't actually a Pullman homage.

Re: Billy, I really think they're going to try to fix it. There is the tiny molecule of a chance, somewhere in the galaxy-sized nebula of my doubt, that they might pull it off without it being Disney and horrible.

See again the metaphor for scale.

The adults at Bolvagangar were creepy, but they could have been creepier! In fact, now that I think about it, what they needed were a couple of crowd scenes.

I didn't think Coulter was bad, I just - I loved how book Coulter, in my head, was unimpeachably covered, showing the barest flash of wrist, in no way overt or challenging, and yet she showed up in the middle of all those poor celibate scholars and it was this Huge Thing. I suppose sparkly breasts is a convenient shorthand for that effect, I'm just planning to remain committed to how it looked in my head. Also, I don't know, something about how people's souls walk around outside their bodies made me want their bodies to be more covered.

Maybe the watering-down was intentional! I thought it was just clumsy overexposition - making everything known, where suspense and horror are achieved by keeping the audience from really knowing what's happening. Also, I am continuously surprised by how many people are unable to narrate children in a way that doesn't have some cutesy in it, that takes for granted that inside their heads they are full people whose concerns and thoughts and lives are as valid as everyone else's. This is why an Ender's Game movie is probably unmakeable - the authors get it, but I don't know if enough other people do to make a movie.

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

he adults at Bolvagangar were creepy

The reason they were creepy (specifically think about Lyra being led into that one room at Bolvangar and there was that person standing guard outside, with his golden retriever looking very very zoned out?) is because the adults were also experimented upon. They had their daemons sliced from them, but they didn't die; they were in fact, walking death because they had their soul sliced from them.

I hated the movie mostly because it infantalized the entire thing. Asriel was suppose to be showing the scholars of Jordan Grummon's head as well as that picture of Dust in the north. Lyra was fascinated with the head and all.

I'm not going to spare paper-writing time ranting about this, though. you heard my flaily tirades last night anyway.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I remember from the book *g*. And I mean, a couple of scenes of nurses walking down the hall, crisp, British, their little daemons trotting after them, and something just icy and vacant about them, like zombies or ghosts. And yes, I was pissed at the lack of head-in-jar. Go write your paper! You will feel better.

[phnelt.livejournal.com]

...She kind of hasn't seen those episodes. I keep meaning to, but you know, things come up. But dude, now that you mention it, totally is. Somebody better fess up so I can hug them. Not connected: we're sitting watching the movie and it's the end, and chibimuse is squealing, oh no, this is dreadful, oh Roger, and I'm with her the first two times and then I started to laugh. That was definitely on the scale of feeling like a terrible person for laughing, since obviously other people did not feel like that was a brick that they were being bashed over the head with.

You know what I worry about now? Instead of being a murderer, Will will have just lost to some guys in combat! It'll be sweet, gah.

I totally should have said something about Billy Costa and that, since it totally feeds into my point, since completely what she said.

Also, I don't know, something about how people's souls walk around outside their bodies made me want their bodies to be more covered. win

Children, why are they so hard? Also, children lie, and they're mean. They're not sweet visions of Edwardian purity. Why is this so hard to get?

[lurkmuch.livejournal.com]

I will call Miss Coulter Senorita Sparkletits from this point forward. I love you forever.

And YES, on the exposition issues. I have (probably) read things by 14 year olds on ff.net (don't judge me) with less clumsy exposition. They also clearly dropped the ball, as my roommate had to ask me at one point about daemons and who could hear and touch whom.

Kids aren't stupid. Also, taking all the darkness out of stories to make them "safe" for kids is a whole 'nother rant, for which I have not the energy, quite frankly. Consider this a placeholder "Grrr", however.

Also, regarding the verbing of Serafina's noun? My goodness yes.

I loved the scenes set in Oxford - perfectly pastoral and academic all at once. But I really wanted grimy steampunk London, which we did not get.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

Especially in the post-Narnia movie industry, where "kid's" movies are intellectually simple and very very violent. If mass violence is appropriate for children, then dammit, so is moral complication. You can't actually get one without the other.

::deep breath:: That rant felt good.

Really? Oxford worked? Good to know! I know it's supposed to be Oxford, I just know nothing about what Oxford is as a place.

I did like this movie. I did! Or at least I liked the footage, which I am going to fix as soon as it's out on dvd. I am taking song suggestions as of now.

[kuwdora.livejournal.com]

I will not yak mucus all over you for not hating movie simply because you have nicknamed Coulter Senorita Sparkletits and I could not love you more for that.

[sapote3.livejournal.com]

I am going to vid it. And you will be back from Scotland by then. Mwah hah hah.

[lurkmuch.livejournal.com]

Grrr. Yes! Horrific violence for children? Entirely ok! Moral ambiguity, shades of gray or god forbid, mentions of sexuality? Right out! (I had bits of this rant after seeing OotP this summer.)

Oxford worked perfectly for me: I have been *once*, for a day...but have been obsessed with it since I was a Tolkein booknerd as a child. I think it worked well as both symbol of free thinking academics, plus that version of pastoral English countryside that always seems to stand in for innocence. (cf. The Shire.) (Um. Also it makes my inner architecture geek happy. A lot.)

I am also very afraid of what else they will do to "fix" things. I still need to read the next two books, so I shall refrain from getting terribly worked up about it until then.

Also, Alternate London in DW put me in mind of The Difference Engine and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, although I hadn't read any Pullman at that point. But it's definitely an "everyone's playing in the same sandbox" moment.

[summertea.livejournal.com]

just watched a cam rip and honestly, my impression of it was EVERYONE: *SPOUTS EXPOSITION*

D:

visuals & casting: yay
script: oh so very nay

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

I was kinda disappointed by the movie, but then it wasn't unexpected...