HIS DARK MATERIALS

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Still, nice to see the church getting such a good, sustained kicking.

Most boring statement ever. "The imagination behind the setting and the plot-turns and the characterization didn't really mean much, but WHOO IT WASN'T NICE TO RELIGION!"

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 7 November 2003 12:48 (twenty years ago) link

This series should be renamed. I want to see a series called ":HIS DARK MEATBALLS" (what I misread it as.)

― sucka (sucka), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:37 (twenty years ago) link

If anyone wants to make an outing of the 6 hour blowout I'd be up for it.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 7 November 2003 14:39 (twenty years ago) link

Lyra and Will are played by twenty something actors in the theatre production. In the book she's twelve. This might start emotions which I'm not too comfortable with!

― Mikey G (Mikey G), Friday, 7 November 2003 15:06 (twenty years ago) link

it's in the best traditions of christmas theater though.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 7 November 2003 15:07 (twenty years ago) link

that bit where they play with each other's weasels at the end is filthy quease making teenage finger sex filthy.
also the last book is crap.
the second was only OK.
i think he should have left it after the first one

― bob snoom, Saturday, 8 November 2003 13:11 (twenty years ago) link

seven months pass...

http://theonering.net had this little summary of news today:

Yesterday, industry insiders leaked news that Tom Stoppard's script for "The Golden Compass" had been "junked," and director Chris Weitz ["About a Boy"] was tipped to take over on the writing. Industry sources described him as a "huge dork-level fan of the books [who] wants to do them justice." He's won praise for his understanding and direction of the boy character in "About a Boy." The ability to write convincingly about teenagers would be an advantage in "The Golden Compass."

Yes, the director of a Nick Hornby novel adaptation is all revved up for His Dark Materials. Oh dear.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:25 (nineteen years ago) link

At least it isn't Nick Hornby adapting it. Not that Chris Weitz is likely to be much better, but you know what I mean...

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:34 (nineteen years ago) link

You have a point indeed, but EW the image in my mind about that possibility. Polar bears trying to insist that if we'd only all listen to Broooce nonstop then God would come back...

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:38 (nineteen years ago) link

I think you're reading waaay too much into how much influence a director has over content in an studio-driven adaptation -- his important job here is to hit the basics and work with the cast, so presumably they got him because he can work with kids. (We didn't have adolescent sex in Harry Potter, either.)

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:41 (nineteen years ago) link

This is true, Tep, and yet. (As it is, what annoys/surprises me most is the junking of Stoppard's take on it, because I think that would have been brilliant!)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:43 (nineteen years ago) link

Yeah, that's a really weird thing, and makes me wonder what on Earth they didn't like about it. (I mean, I haven't read it, but still! Ditching it altogether instead of asking for a rewrite? It's Tom Stoppard!)

― Tep (ktepi), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:46 (nineteen years ago) link

didnt haev weitz something to do with american pie as well? maybe the maekrs of shoddy comedy are the doers of good of the future. like the splatterists of yesteryeear making the blockbusters of today. or something.

― :|, Tuesday, 29 June 2004 18:47 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

Except Rosencrantz, for obvious reasons.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 23:04 (nineteen years ago) link

(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 (nineteen years ago) link

)

(um xpost.)

― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 23:05 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

It's probably already happened.

― Leon Czolgosz (Nicole), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:43 (nineteen years ago) link

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

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 01:45 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 02:00 (nineteen years ago) link

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

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 02:03 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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

― gaz (gaz), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 04:36 (nineteen years ago) link

"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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

wtf is 'slash'?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 12:16 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

**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 (nineteen years ago) link

"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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

(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 (nineteen years ago) link

That's in Highlights.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 13:46 (nineteen years ago) link

Dammit.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:02 (nineteen years ago) link

No Goofus/Gallant slash, please.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 14:02 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

(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 (nineteen years ago) link

I am a big fan of Mary Malone!

― Davel (Davel), Thursday, 1 July 2004 06:20 (nineteen years ago) link

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

― Davel (Davel), Thursday, 1 July 2004 06:21 (nineteen years ago) link

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 (nineteen years ago) link

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