“Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts.”

Monday, December 31, 2007

Philip Pullman's 'The Golden Compass'

The Golden Compass is good movie, but the book Northern Lights is better.

Well, that's my opinion anyway, feel free to disagree. If you haven't seen it yet, The Golden Compass is a fantasy movie, starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards and many others. You are swept into a parallel universe, where 'Dust' is not just lint and dust bunnies. The Golden Compass is an adaptation of Philip Pullman’s book : Northern Lights. The movie is very intricate for someone who hasn’t read the book.

Considering how hard it is to adapt a 400-or-so-page novel, in a 114-minute movie. The result is entertaining, but personally a let down (i knew i shouldn't have read the book first) , parts of the book have been cut, and the end is different. The movie stops earlier than the book, which will leave Pullman’s fans a little wanting.

But there are two sequels to Northern Lights : The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Both ready for their big screen close-ups.

You can learn a little about 'daemons' with the Jan YouTube Lit Link on the right.

1 comment:

Marita Thomson said...

I saw the film today with my teenage son. I loved it and he found it wanting in so many ways. It is at least 6 years since I read Northern Lights and I think this distance let me enjoy the film, not the film-of-the-book. We both agreed that they did a great job with the bears, their armour and the bear fight. Ian McKellen as the voice of Iorek Byrnison was so right. In fact I thought all the main players were excellent and very true to Pullman's characters.