HIS DARK MATERIALS

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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)

Yeah, but they talk about the Fens so much (I assume fens is, in some way, related to Fenian(s)) and the names sound more Gaelic than Rom to me.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Monday, 16 January 2006 15:56 (twenty years ago)

Fens: rather dank and swampy bits of eastern England, nowadays mostly drained. No connection to Fenians at all, as far as I know.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 16 January 2006 15:58 (twenty years ago)

Oh, well, never mind then.

― Erick Dampier is better than Shaq (miloaukerman), Monday, 16 January 2006 15:59 (twenty years ago)

doesn't he specifically say it's the fens as in swampy eastern england? haven't read it for a couple of years; perhaps it just seemed obvious. and doesn't he mention some connection to the dutch too?

― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:04 (twenty years ago)

I don't remember how explicit it was, but I definitely got the idea that the fens of the book were based closely on the pre-drainage, pre-1600s fens of Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire. Partly because when they finally leave in search of the missing children, they set out from a port on a big river with some sort of oil refinary on it, which would presumably map onto real-world Immingham (if it maps that precisely, which I know a lot of it does)

(this is all going from slightly shaky memories of the book, though, so I could be wrong)

doesn't he mention some connection to the dutch too?

I don't remember this at all - but, Holland can also refer to a large part of the South Lincolnshire fenland.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:13 (twenty years ago)

ah! that all makes sense. i'd envisaged it as being further down - lincolnshire down towards norfolk rather than up towards yorkshire. i don't remember an oil refinery at all. the dutch thing - perhaps i got that from their names? there are certainly a couple of "van der _________" and other dutch-sounding/appearing surnames when they do the big meeting.

― emsk ( emsk), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:20 (twenty years ago)

Yes, that's true.

I'm sure there was something approaching an oil refinary mentioned somewhere. I might be imagining it though.

Before drainage, the Lincolnshire Fens and the Yorkshire marshes were all connected anyway. There was a more-or-less continuous belt of fen from the Wash through to the Trent valley, and it was an important trading route, with Boston, the largest port in the country outside London, at one end.

(the Yorkshire fens - usually called Moors even though they're nothing like moorland as you imagine it - are a large, flat, bog formed where the Trent, Ouse, Aire and Don meet to form the Humber)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:28 (twenty years ago)

(sorry, I'll try to stop turning this into a FP Teaches Local Geography thread)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 16 January 2006 16:39 (twenty years ago)

milo otm about the series as a whole. the action/adventure stuff and the character relationships were more fun and more convincing than the church-bashing didacticism. otoh, i was kind of entertained by the idea of a church-bashing fantasy trilogy, so i was willing to cut some slack on that.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 16 January 2006 17:30 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

The site of the movie (coming December 2007) : http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials:_The_Golden_Compass

― StanM, Thursday, 3 May 2007 09:09 (nineteen years ago)

So, um, should I read this or not?

― mitya, Thursday, 3 May 2007 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, read it, it's awesome. It's builds a universe as well as any fantasy/sci-fi book ever.

The website's got a "What daemon go you have?" bit. I've got a lion daemon, hurrah!

― The Wayward Johnny B, Thursday, 3 May 2007 09:32 (nineteen years ago)

I'm going to read them for the third time starting in the next couple of weeks (the first time I did was about three years ago), I enjoyed them enough to really look forward to this second visit.

Yes, the beginning was better than the end, but don't all multi-part books end at least somewhat disappointingly? (the ones I've read all do, I think. the Hyperion Cantos - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Lord Of The Rings (big ass final, and then six chapters of yawn), Gormenghast)

― StanM, Thursday, 3 May 2007 09:42 (nineteen 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, Sunday, March 6, 2005 10:45 AM (2 years ago)

haha
I stand by this, though I still think the films could be great, if only for the bears.

― onimo, Thursday, 3 May 2007 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

I got the Crow Daemon on the movie site. ("spontaneous, modest, solitary, shy and fickle" - OTM)

― StanM, Thursday, 3 May 2007 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

This looks quite well cast (though Mrs. Coulter was Helena Bonham Carter in my head).

― chap, Thursday, 3 May 2007 10:38 (nineteen years ago)

I love Daniel Craig in everything, but I think he's a really good choice for Lord Asriel. I'll still be surprised if this movie isn't terrible though.

― 31g, Thursday, 3 May 2007 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

My daughter's off to London for a month starting in a few days, and her main "must-do" is to go to Oxford to visit the bench at the botanical gardens.

― Rock Hardy, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:04 (nineteen years ago)

looks more promising than the narnia adaptations (obv these books are the anti-narnia)

― akm, Thursday, 3 May 2007 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.aintitcool.com/images2007/gc-tiny.jpg

― sean gramophone, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:23 (nineteen years ago)

Iorek's huge!

― chap, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:38 (nineteen years ago)

That poster's actually getting me quite wet for this film.

― chap, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:46 (nineteen years ago)

Oh man that does look kind of awesome.

― 31g, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:50 (nineteen years ago)

the trailer was pretty juicy.

― s1ocki, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:51 (nineteen years ago)

they're really pushing the gleamy steampunk look for this!

― gff, Friday, 4 May 2007 00:54 (nineteen years ago)

It's weird for me to see a picture of a big anthropomorphized animal that doesn't have a humorous caption written in some ugly font at the bottom.

― 31g, Friday, 4 May 2007 02:13 (nineteen years ago)

My daemon is Andreas, the snow leopard.

I wish he was here now so he could jump through the tv and rip Baron Davis's throat out.

― Ms Misery, Friday, 4 May 2007 05:04 (nineteen years ago)

I think I'm very happy that my daemon is a raccoon.

― Lostandfound, Friday, 4 May 2007 06:10 (nineteen years ago)

The trailer on youtube looks awesome. Even with some of the CGI not fully developed, it still looks amazing. Iorek looks great as well, I was fearing they'd make him less imposing, but he does look like a massive bear that can rip shit up. I am so stoked for this.

― The Wayward Johnny B, Friday, 4 May 2007 07:51 (nineteen years ago)

I'm very very happy that I'm a cat.

I'm kind of afraid to watch the trailer. I love these books so much not sure how I feel about a movie.

― Ms Misery, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:15 (nineteen years ago)

I'm a gibbon.

― HI DERE, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:21 (nineteen years ago)

I am a mighty lion.

― chap, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:22 (nineteen years ago)

okay that poster makes me think that this might not be a steaming pile

― strongohulkington, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:25 (nineteen years ago)

Ocelot

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:25 (nineteen years ago)

hyena!! fkn sweet!

― gff, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:27 (nineteen years ago)

The casting is near perfect. The teaser is promising.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows, Friday, 4 May 2007 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

LA Times puff piece on things but there's some useful bits among the slop.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 21 May 2007 03:33 (nineteen years ago)

that article ends kind of abruptly!

― s1ocki, Monday, 21 May 2007 03:41 (nineteen years ago)

SEQUEL

― s1ocki, Monday, 21 May 2007 03:42 (nineteen years ago)

my daemon is a fox.

― milo z, Monday, 21 May 2007 03:45 (nineteen years ago)

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