HIS DARK MATERIALS

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (460 of them)

chris weitz is an uncredited director on American Pie (the first film), and a producer of the second two (meaning, he made money off them), but the only film of note he's directed is About a Boy, which is still one of my favorite films of the past few years, mainly because it does deal with characters (particularly the kid) so well. They could have done worse and gotten Chris Columbus or something.

Stoppard seems to have bad luck with screenplays, didn't he write Baron Munchausen and have all of his stuff rewritten? Maybe he's not a good screenwriter.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

oh never mind that, it was Brazil he worked on. I'm not sure what of his stuff was used and what wasn't. And I forgot he wrote Shakespeare in Love.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, I don't know why they're bothering. They're all far too long to be movies, aren't they? I envisaged a hugely-expensive but kind of naff and endearing television serialisation as being the ideal.

― edward o (edwardo), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

shakespeare in love had another credit! he hasn't worked on ANY not-rewritten-afterwards movie!

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 23:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Except Rosencrantz, for obvious reasons.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 23:04 (twenty-one years ago)

(nb. possibly wrong.)

(they would all work very well as very good 150-minutes-ish movies but as average or possibly just QUITE good 150 minutes movies they might be really bad.

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

)

(um xpost.)

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 23:05 (twenty-one years ago)

WE CANNOT LET THESE BOOKS BE DILUTED BY THE FANDOMS THAT WILL ARISE AFTER THE FILMS ARE RELEASED!

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BE ON GUARD FOR ANY SLASH/FIC WRITERS!

― Michael Stuchbery (Mikey Bidness), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:42 (twenty-one years ago)

It's probably already happened.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I fear someone's already on it -- read the second paragraph.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:45 (twenty-one years ago)

At this point, slash is such a Thing that people will write it just to be the first to do so, or buy a book/watch a movie/watch a series just to be able to slash it. Nothing is safe.

(I have a friend who's become fascinated by the slash community rather than by slash itself.)

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, it hurts! Why? Why must that take that which I love and make it all yeasty? I have become so intolerant when it comes to Slash. I came across some Sherlock Holmes & Watson slash the other day. I'm still twitching.

― Michael Stuchbery (Mikey Bidness), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:51 (twenty-one years ago)

You are the preacher, Fr Michael, and I the choir. Sometimes the only thing keeping me from thinking that fans are the ones who appreciate a thing the least is remembering that Ned is a LOTR fan and is a perfectly normal guy. (Unless he wouldn't describe himself as a fan, in which case NOTHING STOPS ME NOW.)

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha, fear not -- a fan and an admitted one since very early on. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 02:00 (twenty-one years ago)

See, there we go! So it's just bad apples, not the bunch.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 02:03 (twenty-one years ago)

First two books are dazzling. The third one is just shite, just horrible, I could not believe it.

― Pingu, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 03:50 (twenty-one years ago)

i could not finish it. tell me how it ends.

― gaz (gaz), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"Ah, I don't know why they're bothering. They're all far too long to be movies, aren't they? I envisaged a hugely-expensive but kind of naff and endearing television serialisation as being the ideal."

Kinda like the Tripods when I was a kid. I remember loving that when I was younger, as I remember they televised the first two books of the trilogy, left with a massive cliffhanger and never produced the final series.

― Davel (Davel), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 06:23 (twenty-one years ago)

THE TRIPODS wow! I hadn't thought about that series in years, and then last week I started thinking about it and wishing I could reread it AT THAT SECOND.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:11 (twenty-one years ago)

wtf is 'slash'?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:16 (twenty-one years ago)

I expect Tom Stoppard was taken off the project because, for whatever reason, the producers didn't feel he was capturing the right style, using the right approach, or whatever. You can't tell someone like Stoppard that his work is way off and that you want him to junk what he's written and start again.

Also, artists of this kind are also extremely aware of their own failings. More often than not, if they don't think they're writing their best, then they'll often quit rather than produce something they're not happy with. He can certainly afford to quit.

Thirdly, it's possible that he was attached principally as a draw to financiers and partners.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:17 (twenty-one years ago)

**I envisaged a hugely-expensive but kind of naff and endearing television serialisation as being the ideal**

This would be a great idea - in the vein of 'The Box Of Delights'. The stage play was very good btw - skipped out the wheelies/Mary Malone, which I thought really diluted the pace of the books towards the end. And the witches rocked - esp. Ruta Skadi.

― Mog, Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"slash" = erotic fiction starring (usually same sex) established characters from successful fiction series or celebrities.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:37 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah the box of delights, I loved that when I was a kid, is it just me or have they stopped making things like that for tv now?

― Davel (Davel), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:39 (twenty-one years ago)

They have... and that's why I'd love to see something similar done for the HDM trilogy. You could slice it any way you like. Rather than doing three nearly three hour movies, you could have, say, eighteen half hour-episodes. Or 22, as that's the usual number for a series now, isn't it?

― edward o (edwardo), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

THE TRIPODS wow! I hadn't thought about that series in years

I never read the books or saw the TV series -- but! For some bemusing reason, the official Boy Scout magazine Boys' Life serialized all three books in comic book form, one page per montly issue. Lasted something like four years!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 13:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I was just wondering if that was the same one! That was the main reason I kept asking my mother to renew my subscription. (And don't ask me why, but I really liked Goofus and Gallant.)

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 13:16 (twenty-one years ago)

(Except now I'm not sure if G&G was in Boy's Life or not, so nevermind that.)

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 13:18 (twenty-one years ago)

That's in Highlights.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Dammit.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:02 (twenty-one years ago)

No Goofus/Gallant slash, please.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:02 (twenty-one years ago)

One of the things I thought would save this movie from being twee is having Stoppard write the screenplay. I forgot he adapted "Empire of the Sun" and "Billy Bathgate." I'm afraid they're going to have problems finding a target audience, too many people will be expecting Harry Potter. (But I did love the direction of the 3rd HP movie.) I think the film will be overshadowed by controversy.

― jocelyn (Jocelyn), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I published some Famous Five slash on my blog once. Although I was too lazy to actually write a sex scene and think up enough euphemisms for genitalia, so I just over-used ****.

"George touched Anne's **** with her ****, **** and slowly **** up her ****."

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

(the whole thing is here)

Am I the only person on this thread who actually likes Mary Malone, by the way?

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I am a big fan of Mary Malone!

― Davel (Davel), Thursday, 1 July 2004 06:20 (twenty-one years ago)

I really like the parts with her and the wheely animals.

― Davel (Davel), Thursday, 1 July 2004 06:21 (twenty-one years ago)

eight months pass...

Has anyone else seen the plays at the National? I went to see the first one with a friend this afternoon without knowing anything about the books really. As a spectacle it was up there with anything I've ever seen on a stage, just incredibly ambitious. Considering there are like 50 different locations involved, whoever designed those sets was a very talented person indeed. Can't wait for the second part now.

Who else has seen these, then?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Saturday, 5 March 2005 19:19 (twenty-one years ago)

plays! wow

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 5 March 2005 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread revival coincides with me having just actually read the books after years of people (including my parents!) telling me I should. I enjoyed them -- hard not to, armored polar bears and sexy witches and venomous pixies and battleship zeppelins, c'mon -- even if the moralizing felt a little didactic here and there and the story seemed like it went through one or two convolutions too many. (The last book was straining so hard to bring all the threads together and making its Big Statements About Life and the Universe that I thought the poor thing was going to give itself a hernia.)

I suppose the movies will be disappointing if they get made, but I hope they do get made just for the controversy. What I dread is that all the anti-church God-killing stuff will somehow get excised and we'll get a movie about a girl who goes to the North Pole and saves her friend Roger with the help of some bears and a guy in a balloon. But maybe Pullman wouldn't allow that.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 6 March 2005 07:30 (twenty-one years ago)

The trilogy started off well, some good characters and ideas (and brilliant armoured bears!) - the second one wasn't as good and overcooked the plot more than a bit. The third one was a complete mess of convoluted plots tripping over themselves and had a meh ending.

His Dark Materials = The Matrix Trilogy + Bears

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Sunday, 6 March 2005 10:45 (twenty-one years ago)

went to see the plays once last march and again last weekend, both in one day each time. the first time was a lot better but both excellent really. i did think it was stupid that they missed out the whole mary malone stuff (and i wanted to see the wheelies) but i can understand why they did it - shit, it's already a six and a half hour marathon - and they kind of made serafina pekkala the mary malone substitute with the temptation/falling thing. some of the writing/acting is a bit clumsy - "oh, look what i can see through my AMBER SPYGLASS", she says, whipping it out and sticking it under lee's nose, but on the whole it's amazing. the first lyra was ten or twenty times better than the new lyra though. the staging is fucking awesome, wish it didn't prevent them from touring it but the only place they could possibly do it is the national. timothy dalton ruled as lord asriel, the new one (christopher/david harewood? something like that) is a bit too angry and frantic. actually this time around the pace of the first half of the first play was a bit screwed up. but if yr thinking of going and haven't yet, go, go, go. it's. fucking. brilliant. and cos it's the national you can always get tickets for a tenner on the day if you go there in person when the box office opens. god i love the national. and philip pullman.

xpost

also it pissed me off the way the crowd giggled self-consciously *every* *fucking* *time* the gallivespians appeared. shut up!

― emsk, Sunday, 6 March 2005 12:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Pullman used to teach at my middle school!

― chris sallis, Sunday, 6 March 2005 13:48 (twenty-one years ago)

you know, i was talking to a friend about this last night... i don't think i could deal with a HDM movie unless it was TOTALLY genius & amazing--nothing less would satisfy me, and even then, i'm not sure. but a theatrical adaptation makes so much sense, i'm much more interested in seeing this than any possible movie.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 6 March 2005 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

Profile of Pullman in The New Yorker. Recycles his anti-Narnia, anti-Tolkien diatribes. Mentions that the movies are being made, but doesn't give any details.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 22 December 2005 05:43 (twenty years ago)

weitz withdrew as director late last year, though he's still involved with the script - anand tucker (shopgirl) has replaced him. new line was reportedly sweating the god stuff but weitz says he stepped down for technical reasons.

― jones (actual), Thursday, 22 December 2005 16:48 (twenty years ago)

I don't see how they can monkey with the god stuff much without utterly rewriting the entire plot.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 22 December 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

Hates Tolkien, dislikes Lewis, excellent.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Thursday, 22 December 2005 20:00 (twenty years ago)

three weeks pass...

Hmmm... I feel mixed. There was some clumsiness - the entire Army of Lucifer/Asriel and the battle at the end, heavy-handed allegory and there was a tendency to telegraph things that would happen far ahead (ie Lyra's parents, Will's father, etc.).

I was disappointed that Lyra tails off from being the headstrong protagonist to a figure often in need of protection at the hands of her man in the second and third.

I'm surprised he never even tried to underline the message about 'killing God' - it wasn't that the two of them killed God, really - they set him free. 'God' himself was a prisoner of the theocrats, kept alive to ensure their tyranny - that's by far the most subtle metaphor of the trilogy, but he never even points back to it.

Where it shines is the love he shows interaction between characters - the noble gyptians (were they Roma or Irishmen?) protecting Lyra, the witch-councils, all the sections with Mary and the wheeled creatures. When Pullman moved away from his Big Themes and advancing the plot, the writing was truly exhilirating and joyous in a way that I've never encountered in fantasy.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Sunday, 15 January 2006 07:16 (twenty years ago)

i took the gyptians to be some flavour of roma--the travelling caravans and the name

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 15 January 2006 16:29 (twenty years ago)

gyptians = Egyptians [therefore] = gypsies = Roma

..One would assume.

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Monday, 16 January 2006 14:21 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 360 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.