I was very dismayed however to learn that the forthcoming film of THE GOLDEN COMPASS has made a late post-production decision to push the final - and pivotal - three chapters of the novel to the next film in the series. It's hard to believe that's going to work at all... are they trying to make it look like the film has a clear ending, in case the film fails at the box office and they don't want to feel bad about not making the subsequent entries?
http://www.bridgetothestars.net/news/the-golden-compass-ending-altered/

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
Just put on some Brian Costa music and relax.

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Originally posted by nuts_score:
I don't know, having not read the novels (though, if I do like the film as much as I hope, I will be purchasing them)

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Book is clearly anti-Catholic, film watered down to be more broadly anti-dogmatic, but then anti-religious folk get mad because it's not anti-Catholic enough. Anti-religious people say "heart" of film has been ripped out because of taking all the anti-Catholic stuff out. But really, all that's happened is they've taken away pronouns associated with Catholicism (aside from "Magisterium"). It's still anti-Catholic in the literal sense of attacking universal humanitarian truths. Whether or not you care about the apparent religious outcries, the core story has been compromised and its power diminished in a veiled hope of dragging out the hopeless message behind the book.

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Originally posted by sean:

Glory?

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Nah, I was thinking more of his rejected score for TimeCop 3. Ever since I did that interview with Joe Roth and we were discussing it I've been playing it constantly. I love track 13, "Van (God) Damme It!". The taiko drums are cah-razy!

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Originally posted by franz_conrad:
Ok, have now finished the books. While I DO think that the third doesn't quite grip in the way the first two do, it has a very powerful conclusion. I fear that two young actors that good don't exist!

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Firstly, I'm surprised I was correct about 95% of the time in terms of what theme applied to which character, and what would be onscreen. Film music is more predictable than I thought!

Secondly, the film was a disappointment for me. Four things particularly hurt it from my perspective:

(i) As a writer and director, Chris Weitz delivers SO MUCH of the necessary info via expository dialogue. It's a great shame he didn't construct his film with more imaginative use of the power of images.

(ii) Editorially, this film was cut to the bone. Every scene and sequence is as short as it can possibly be, which produces a film that doesn't necessary feel as short as it possibly could have. Because of the wealth of exposition, and the constant need to move onto another story, the film feels like it's really rushing to get to things. They really should have let the film breathe a lot more, particularly if less dialogue-driven / atmospheric material got the cut. The shuffling of the scenes and cutting of others led to some bad music edits in particular. (Thinking of the cut from Asriel's capture to the Gyptian journey in particular.)

(iv) The restructure doesn't really work. I can see why the Lord Asriel portion at the end has been held off, but the only reason that works is because the film has been so haphazardly restructured in the first place. Lyra is kidnapped by samoyeds (who work for the Magisterium) and taken to... Svalbard, land of the polar bears?! Scorsesby and Iorek are suddenly up in the air in his airship, having been seen moments before in the middle of the samoyed attack. Bad transition indeed - that airship scene is clearly meant to come a few minutes after the scene that ends the film. Then Iorek is down on the ground (with no explanation as to where Lee is) running to Svalbard. Then they win the day with the bears, and Lyra is carried back to Bolvangar, where she was originally meant to be carried by those samoyeds. She learns there that Lord Asriel is back in Svalbard, being kept captive. The film ends with Lyra in Scoresby's airship, and you half expect the thing to be knocked off course by cliffghasts so that Lyra can fall down to Svalbard and replay that whole portion of the story again.

(iii) At nearly every corner, Disneyfication was evident. Iorek Byrnison didn't kill another bear by accident - he was defeated in combat. Lyra doesn't come across a young boy she doesn't know who dies of the separation from his daemon, she comes across a friend who is put in the care of his mother. The Master of Jordan doesn't poison Lord Asriel's drink, the evil Fra Pavel does. We don't see the letters from Bolvangar being destroyed. Ambiguous material is kept at out at every turn. And little is left to chance - on all three occasions when the alethiometer is mention, it is swiftly identified as 'the golden compass' as though two names were better than one.