The Golden Compass [2007]

Shikyo's Ratings: 3 outta 5 PoPcOrNz!

I'd set such high expectations because the main plot surrounds an idea of life... Life, stifled under the oppression of one belief structure aka religion.

Perhaps that's why the movie was a crashing disappointment for me... Me, the non-religious one.

Oh well, it's a really cute movie nonetheless =)

Like many novel-to-movie adaptions, Northern Lights was probably picked cleaned of its important chunks and strung together in the hopes of creating some sort of cohesive story. Unfortunately, trying to squeeze a 400+ page novel into a two hour movie just about never works. And it usually results with a very rushed storytelling, little room for character development, especially if a large cast is involved, and parts of the story sometimes end up being warped beyond recognition.

I've not read the book yet, but I'm pretty sure I nailed two outta three.

If you're a fan of the book, I don't think you'd like the movie... then again, I may be wrong. So please, do correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not asking whether or not you enjoyed the visual effects... because I will agree that there's nothing like a movie to bring a book to life. But what I'm asking is whether you liked what the movie DID to the book in terms of story progression, character development and all the stuff that made the book GOOD.

And if you're a fan of cute furry animals, you will absolutely LOVE the movie. You'll absolutely fall in love with Pantalaimon (Pan), Lyra's Daemon. Animators did an amazing job with his transformations, and his voice actor really brought out the playful yet cautious character of the little daemon.

I'll be touching on the "taboo" religion topic now, so if you're extremely sensitive to the subject matter, feel free to skip down and continue to be ignorant to reason =)

According to Wikipedia (because I've not read the book) the book's anti-religion message was diluted. So what we have now is a simple movie about an orphaned child (as most kiddie stories are based on) with a special object/power (as most fantasy stories are based on) who sets out on a mission -- to find her kidnapped friend -- and along the way she uncovers the truth about her parents (as most orphan-kid stories develop into). A thought-provoking book reduced to a kid's fantasy movie. Argh >_<

The author's original intent was to point out how religious dogmas tend to hide scientific proof by destroying evidence and blinding the populace with words from an invisible "higher" being. Too bad this was downplayed because I like watching movies with real lessons and questions being tossed around.

* S * P * O * I * L * E * R * S *

Here's where you stop reading
if you haven't seen the film,
and you intend to do so

* A * H * E * A * D *

The Subliminal Messaging: It wasn't clear at all.
If I had not know of the anti-theist agenda behind the book, I would never have spotted it. Only upon reading the book (or in my case, reading up on the background of the book), do you realize that the Magisterium represents dogma (aka religious supporters)... dogma spread through people who want you to believe that they know what's best for you and they want to save "innocent" kids from something that they think is "bad" or "evil." And there's Asriel who represents the scientific community -- people wrapped up in unravelling the mysteries of the universe. And lastly, there's Lyra + Co. who represent people who don't like having other people's beliefs shoved down their throats.


The Magickal Golden Compass: Wasn't really prominent.
Lyra reads the compass by turning it's dials to point at symbols to phrase her question, and the compass will, in turn, point to symbols to phrase it's answer. For a movie that's called "The Golden Compass," they spent very little time on HOW Lyra used the compass to get her answers. It was only explained ONCE. Subsequently, the answers just magically appeared for the audience to see. The last thing I wanted was more spoonfed answers =( By doing so, the movie killed the wonder component and it effectively dumbed-down the movie.


The Daemons: It's pronounced Day-mon gawdammit!
Daemon should've been pronounced as Day-mon not Dee-mon >_< The only reason I'd ever accept "mispronounciation/mis-spelling" is if the novel and the movie couldn't have the word "Demon" flashed about to "protect" the younger audience. Meaning it's supposed to be Demon but it's spelt Daemon, therefore it's a safe word??? I dunno... O_o


The Daemons (again): The concept is utterly confuzing...
Having an animal soul or an animal guide isn't a new concept -- the native americans had it too. But the story adds on to that concept, making these animal souls tangible and if it's harmed, their human counterpart will also feel the pain in a similar way. Knowing this, why did Mrs Coulter slapped her own Daemon monkey >_< Also, in the story the Magisterium strives to split the animal Daemon from the kids to protect them from the effects of Dust... but WHY? Most of these kids don't even know Dust exists! And HOW does the knowledge of Dust's existance damage the Magisterium's belief structure? And WHAT does the Magisterium's belief structure revolve around? These answers aren't made clear in the movie =(


I'd definitely catch the other movies when they come out and I'd definitely find some time to read the books because I think it's worth the read. To wrap it all up, lemme introduce my Daemon Zyrxy!


Edit: There was supposed to be a cool flashy thingie here but goldencompassmovie webbie has since taken down its answer-this-questionnaire-while-we-randomly-conjure-up-a-cute-animal-spirit program >_< Zyrxy's a male raven. I thought the name was cool =3

Meet Gail Simone

Location... National Public Library
Date....... December 5, 2007
Time....... 6:45 PM

Not many people read "western" comic books religiously.
Not many people pay attention to the names on a comic book.
It's no wonder that the turn out for Gail Simone's talk was rather small  =( 

A pity because she hosted a rather enciteful discussion on The New Diversity of Comics a couple days ago.  It was interesting to look back and see the evolution that comic books have undergone.  Developing from something only for kids, into a medium for mature stories to flourish. 

If you pick up any old Action Comics or Detective Comics (as in pre-80's) the storylines were laughable, the characters were flat, the artwork was cringe-worthy, and the lines were super cheesy.  Every other girl with her own super powers still needed saving.  And the ending's are predictable -- good guy wins, bad guy loses.  Boring stuff.

Nowadays, there are a lot of comics and graphic novels with very interesting characters, well developed plots and very good artwork.  And not only are there comics following the mainstream giants DC and Marvel, there's other indepedent publishers and of course, tons of japanse stuff.

Here's some of Gail Simone's suggested reading:

Oops crappy picture =P  Here's the list in text...

Maus - Art Spiegelman
Gon - Masashi Tanaka
Uzumaki - Junji Ito  (this is very good and actually quite a scary read)
Monster - Naoki Urasawa
Pride of Baghdad - Brian K. Vaughan, Niko Henrichon
Sandman - Neil Gaiman


As for Gail Simone... she writes for DC and is most well known for doing Birds of Prey.  I'll admit that her name didn't ring any bells for me, even though I've read a fair amount from the series.  Most of the times I don't remember writers unless I fall in love with the story. 

Anyway she talked about how she got into the comic book industry and it was interesting to find out she'd been a hairdresser for the longest time before switching to writing.  She's an inspirational example for people aspiring to take that first step into the industry.  She'll soon be the first woman writer for the Wonder Woman series. 

She went on to tell us what it was like to work in the comic industry... what writers needed to do to get out a normal 22-page comic -- that's equivalent to 50+ pages of writing!  And not only does she need to think about a good plot that readers will enjoy, she needs to plan the panels as well as their shapes, she needs to plan out each panel's shot (whether it's a close up view of the hero's eyes or an overview of the city), she needs to make important notes for colorists so that they don't mess up important details like flag colors, and she needs to ensure the story progresses in a manner that makes sense.

My biggest shocker was finding out that she created the character Black Alice!!!  A young uber powerful stealing majick user in the DC realm, and a gothette to top it off!  Yes, well, I have a thing with anything magick and gothy  =P

At the end of the talk, she generously gave out copies of singles she'd written and was even kind enough to sign them!  =)  And I even got to take a picture with her but I'm all fugly looking in that picture because my idiot friend passed my camera to my other friend who didn't know how to use my camera T_T  Oh well...


Here's my list of favourite writers (not in any order) :

1. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series
(the Books of Magic is also good)
2. J Michael Straczynski's Rising Stars
(there's quite a number of very good Spidey stories done by him too)
3. Alan Moore's Watchmen
4. James Robinson's Witchcraft
(also the Starman series... very good stuff, but the library's missing one book)
5. Alex Ross
(technically he's not a writer but anything painted by him is worth the read)
6. Bill Willingham's Fables
(especially 1001 Nights of Snowfall)
7. Paul Jenkins' The Sentry
8. Kevin Smith's Green Arrow