rm | We are storming heaven

Or, um, not.

So, The Golden Compass. There's a piece in the New York Times (here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/movies/02mcgr.html ) about why the ending is the way it is, but chucking this into the next film doesn't really solve the problems of this first film.

1. We don't get a sense of why cutting away the daemons is horrible
2. We don't get a sense of why it's hideously invasive and creepy
3. They don't let any children die in the film. Bill Costa doesn't die, doesn't have his fish or his coin -- they completely kill the emotional power of that moment.
4. There's no blood. If there's no blood can someone please tell me why this film is PG-13? There's no sex either. Witches and allusions to the Catholic Church?
5. Simple power is the goal of no one in the books -- people all think they are working in the name of good or righteousness and whatever, and a whole lot of people go waaaaay too far in the process. Here people just seem greedy or irresponsible by turns.
6. IF THIS IS PARADISE LOST FAN FICTION WHY IS IT SO LAME?

I remarked leaving the film that it seemed like the movie makers were, ultimately, less concerned about the allusions to the Catholic Church than they were about the film's gnostic themes -- Asriel, after all, musn't, musn't be what he is which is both a man with more fire and wit than is good for the world from which he comes and the film's allegory for Satan (unless, you argue that that is what Lyra is even as she is also Eve). Regardless, what I remember about reading these books, once I finally got into them, is every word and gesture out of Asriel felt like hunger and it stunned me. Here we have a rather fetching Daniel Craig wearing a cardigan. ARE YOU PEOPLE FOR REAL?

All of this is perhaps most baffling when you consider how much the film understood, in spite of itself, the imagry of the books -- Lyra playing on rooftops, Asriel up in the mountains. People climbing to the top of their worlds over and over, and always falling, until they can find a way up through the very sky. How is it the film managed to show us this over and over, but never showed us hunger and hope and the entrapments that lead to such a ferocious devouring of worlds?

I don't think I realized how important these books were to me, until this film screwed it all up.