based on the 1995 novel Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, the first installment in Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which was published as The Golden Compass in the United States. It stars Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter, and Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, alongside Sam Elliott, Ian McKellen, and Eva Green. In the film, Lyra joins a race of water-workers and seafarers on a trip to the far North in search of children kidnapped by the Gobblers, a group supported by the world’s rulers, the Magisterium
…The film received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the casting and visual effects, but criticism for its pacing, characterization, and screenplay…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Compass_(film)
- free on dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ww5zk
- a reboot / miniseries was made of this book series several years later, supposedly it’s pretty good but it’s not free anywhere I could find: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials_(TV_series)
if you liked the book (or books), don’t watch this film.
Watch the series instead
I loved the books to death and I also very much enjoyed the movie. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see the sequels. However, it had two things going against it.
- Came out when a great fatigue for epic LOTR clone movies from YA novels was starting to take hold. (RIP The Silver Chair).
- The Catholic church. ‘Nuf said.
Given the not just anti faith bend of the books but hte utterly GLEEFULLY IGNORANT portrayal of those with faith?
I can get being irritated, but guys. let it go. the more you scream the more people will flock to it out of spite.
I’m christian. I enjoyed the books… and honestly find the whole thing to be a wonderfully… Gnostic take on things. theDemiurge took over, somehow grew old, and is now usurped by his regent.
The Silver Chair
There was a pretty good movie series made previously that covered (I think) the first four books. I haven’t seen seen any of them for probably 30 years but I enjoyed them then!
two things going against it
More fundamentally, (1) the writer/director had no experience directing a big-budget film, and (2) the studio, which had just produced LOTR, wanted another LOTR-sized franchise and kept interfering – and in order to finance the movie they had sold the overseas rights, so when the movie made most its money overseas they didn’t benefit from it.
I remember Christians coming out heavily against this, which probably only increased the number of tickets sold. Dunno what they were so worried about - it wasn’t very good.
I assume they disliked the source material. Which is a shame because they are amazing books.
Am Christian. THe hilarious thing is my aunt (DEEPLY christian woman) bought the series for me… Probably because it looked like a generic fantasy series going off of the covers.
Haha that’s amazing. I hope you enjoyed them, the entire concept of never questioning authority (in all meanings) seems to have pitfalls that have trapped too many of today’s society into polarising views with no concept of nuance. If more people had read these books the world would probably be a better place.
Now let’s just hope Pullman can get the last book out this decade! He better not pull a Robert Jourdan on us!
jordan, at the very least, both had a terminal illness as a justification and a backup plan in an author to send his literal dumptruck load of notes to.
