(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?