Fuck You Hollywood

So a couple months ago I first saw a trailer for The Golden Compass. Between cool looking special effects, flying witches, talking bears and an image of being anti-church, I was intrigued. Being who I am, I had to pick up the book before I saw the movie. Once I started reading it, I was hooked. Pullman is an excellent story-teller with an ability to make his characters feel real to his readers. I loved the book and consumed it rapidly. As the movie neared my excitement for it grew. The book would be an easy movie to make I thought. One problem with a lot of movies is how to transfer a character's thoughts to the screen, but with pretty much every character having an outwards soul in the form of a daemon, that problem would be solved. Seeing the early reviews I was a bit dismayed, but I figured reviewers were simply being overly-harsh as usual. When I left the theater, however, all I felt was anger at whoever butchered what was a great book.
The main overall problem with the film adaptation of The Golden Compass was that they tried to make the movie for 'kids'. This led to 1) much of the death being taken out of the movie, 2) all references to the 'church' or 'god' being taken out of the movie, and 3) the movie being reduced to a ridiculous 2 hour running time. Let's look at these issues more closely, shall we?

While there was death in the battle scenes, other episodes of death were taken out or changed. First off, the characters of Billy Costa and Tony Makarios are combined into one in the movie, which I would've been fine with if Billy dies when he loses his daemon (as Tony does in the book). But noooo, they have Billy survive. Evidently having a child die would be too dramatic for the 'kid' audience. Then they go and change Iorek Byrnison's back-story. In the book he is exiled for killing another bear, in the movie he is exiled for losing in battle. That compromises his entire character! Which leads to Iofur Ratkinson. Not only is his name changed for some fucking reason (I can only assume this is done so little kids don't confuse two bears with 'I' names) but they changed the question he asks Lyra to prove she's a daemon. In the book he asks her what the first thing he killed was, which happened to be his dad, while in the movie he simply asks her something stupid. Again, the true nature of the character is compromised to make the movie more palatable for kids.

Say what you want, but there is a definite anti-religion undertone in The Dark Materials trilogy. I mean the bad guys work for the 'church!' I wouldn't say the books are atheistic, but rather a warning against the abuses of religious power. This is a main theme of the book. In the movie, however, no reference is made to the church or god at all, but rather the enemies are referred to as the 'Magisterium'. Really? This would be like making an X-men movie and calling Magneto 'metal controller'. This is absolutely ridiculous. Oh no! We can't offend the religious right! Give me a break. These are the same people that get offended by two girls kissing. Fuck them. If they're offended have them actually read the damn book instead of just bitching. How can you just remove the whole religion aspect from the movie? How can you change a whole theme of the book and change who the antagonists are? Total bullshit.

Kids can't sit still for a long period of time, so the creators of The Golden Compass obviously felt like they had to keep the movie to a two hour running time. There is no way you can turn a book the size of The Golden Compass into a two hour movie without destroying the integrity of the book. There was absolutely no character development, when one of the key points of the book is the growth of Lyra. All the scenes seemed rushed and everything was simply explained to you rather than shown. That is NOT how you make a movie! It felt like I was watching a 2 hour movie trailer. The movie was simplified and shortened for kids, along with a dumbed down script, which simply made the movie a series of disconnected scenes that are almost impossible to follow.

There were other major problems with the film. They totally took out the witch's consul and replaced it with the scene with Serafina Pekkala on the ship, which I would've been cool with but that scene just felt forced (Eva Green though? That's some awesome casting). The witches just sort of appear. They were cool and all, but what the hell? And where's Kaisha? I was excited to see him, and then he doesn't even appear. And how about explaining some of the Gyptian and Ma Costa's relationship with Lyra? Oh right, character development isn't allowed.
Chronology-wise, they had the battle at Svalbord before the siege of Bolvangar. Why? What is the point of that? And what about the freeing of the daemons?
This leads directly to the ending... or the lack thereof. In the book they go directly from Svalbord to free Lord Asriel. Seeing as they completely changed this part of the book for the movie, exactly how did they intend to transition into the ending from the book? Seeing as I highly doubt the movie will be profitable so we likely won't see a sequel, I guess it's a moot point.

So evidently the studio wanted to make a new Lord of the Rings-esque trilogy, but I don't fucking think so. Peter Jackson's adaptation of Tolkien's books were a labor of love and weren't made for the 'tiny ones'. The movies worked because Jackson took his time with the characters and, for the most part, followed the book. The Golden Compass, on the other hand, was a total cop-out. It was a way for the studios to get kids who've never even heard of the book go watch a movie cause it had bears fighting. If you're not going to spend the time to make the movie well, then why make it at all? Did they really think this thing was good? Why not bring in some fans of the book for their opinions? After all, they're the ones who'll go see the movie multiple times and spread it by word of mouth. I've lost a lot of faith in Hollywood. I Am Legend comes out next weekend. Ruin that too, and my faith may be extinguished for good. Fuck you Hollywood.