Philip Pullman

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WTF! i was looking forward to seeing that film too... how can you change that without changing the whole thing? Im fed up of everyone having to tip toe around the Religious its stupid, if your so offended by the content then dont watch/read it. There was uproar about Passion of the Christ too, apparently it was out and out blastphomy, which i saw it and personally didnt see how, at the end of the day its a story right. Next they will be censoring the books. Gutted.

Yeah the Dark Materials books are probably some of the best books i have ever read ive not been able to put them down. Its not often you come across books like these today really.

Hey whats the deal with the stuff in the back (all the notes and the maps and the "research") i found it really interesting to read through.

>>By spookygoth   (Saturday, 8 Sep 2007 14:50)



I think the film industry should be deliberately going out of their way to offend bible belt Americans.

>>By Flagg   (Sunday, 9 Sep 2007 01:31)



i agree, after all they seem to like ramming their believes down everyone elses throat without regard to who they might affend. By all means if you believe that stuff then you have ever right too but everyone else has the right to be free of someone forcing them into believing the same thing. It should be the same with films those who like them have every right to watch them and those who dont dont have to watch them. At least thats how it should be, evidentally thats not how things operate.

>>By spookygoth   (Sunday, 9 Sep 2007 12:35)



Sadly not everyone thinks that way. Too many people act like they're the centre of the universe and anyone making a high-profile big-budget film has to keep those people happy.

I'm still planning to see and (hopefully) enjoy the film. The trailer makes it look pretty good.

>>By Flagg   (Sunday, 9 Sep 2007 18:54)



well i went to see the film... in terms of them changing the church into some evil corporation, unless you havent read the book its not that obvious really. They keep Philip Pullmans other terms (magisterium and authority) so that it doesnt stray to far from the book they just never use the word church so to fans of the book it still reads in the same way which is really rather impressive. Im not sure how they will do it for the second and third book though when they talk about original sin and war on god without making some religious reference.

In terms of the film as a whole though its not really that good, in fact its a pretty lazyily made film if you ask me (i would discuss this on the film this btw but this site is sooo much need of updating there is no discussion for it). For starters they just missed out massive chunks of the story, some bits that in the book are pretty important for explaining things, such as Serafina Pekkela's daemon when she explains about the multiple universes by waving her wings about saying that doing so meant she could have touched different parallel worlds, they missed out loads about the witches, about the incident with the cliff ghasts and really i would say about half of the book. They re arranged the order of it slightly, mainly the bits with svalbard and bonvangar.... and the journey between these two places is just so rushed its confusing in the film. Im pretty sure they got afew bits wrong aswell like the location of the intercision clinic. The bit with the armoured bears was pretty poor, in the book he emphasises about how the bears have tried to build a more human like empire and about their glamourous armour composed of gold, there is a brief two second mention of this in the film and the armour is pretty boring really, just plain armour with some crappy little gold design on in places.
They totally rushed the beginning cramming about 2 chapters into a 3 minute speech and in doing so they completely ruin the mystery of dust. In the book i was left wondering whether or not the dust was important or whether it was part of something else and how it linked to Lyra, in the film the first thing they do it tell you the dust is special and so is she, it just made any future reference to dust less special because they practical spoilt the feeling you had about it in the book.
And Mrs coulters monkey wasnt even gold!... a detail like this being wrong is just sheer laziness, they made him into a mini chewbaka not a golden monkey.
In the book Billy costa dies just before the attack of the tartars, in the film there is no mention of his death at all, all the meetings with the gyptians and farda coram and lord faa arnt shown just the little one where they speak to lyra, and they made the gyptians out to be like pirates, it seriously was not how i think they were potrayed in the book, i had an image of them being like living on narrow canal boats, not huge boats with big black sails!
The actress who played lyra really didnt emphasise enough the link with her daemon, in the book being seperated from the daemon is the worst pain a person can ever go through, in the film you just didnt get that at all, thye bit where the nurses grab her daemon all she does is gasp say you aint supposed to do that and pass out.. but there was no real pain shown at all, the same when the golden monkey attacks pan she just doesnt act like shes in agony at all.
And the worst bit of all... they ended the film early, they cut off a big chunk.. the film ends with Lyra and Rodger saying they will go and find lord asriel! I mean what the hell you cant just cut the end off like that i was sat there in the cinema like wheres the rest of the film!

All in all it was no where near as good as the book and i dred the think what the following films will be like (and thats considering they make them because i really cant see this film doing very well, book readers will be dissapointed and people who havent read it i dont think will like it much because they miss so much out and frankly i think they would have been bored with it). Dont get me wrong its worth a watch i have seen plenty worse films, but when you think about how they made harry potter into a film and lord of the rings into a film this one was awful. It just seems like whoever made it wasnt really interested in it at all and did a half arsed job.

I was expecting it to be ruined by the bit about changing the church but infact other things spoilt it far more.

>>By spookygoth   (Saturday, 8 Dec 2007 19:54)



Honestly, I doubt many of you commenting on Philip Pullman even know how to read seen as how so many of you can barely even write. Those of you who state in your postings that you are not from England or the US are granted a bit of mercy as I am sure English isn't your first language, but the rest of you seriously need to learn proper spelling and grammar before you start talking about books.

You may as well have blind people discussing Art or deaf people talking about Music if we're going to have illiterate people talking about books.

I hate to be so self-righteous, but this is my biggest pet peeve online and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I had to gripe about it.

>>By The Visco Kid   (Tuesday, 29 Apr 2008 06:07)



You're supposed to be discussing Phillip Pullman, not criticising people's grammar. Anyway Beethoven was deaf.

I think Pullman's new habit of writing short novels set in the Dark Materials universe is really cool.

>>By Flagg   (Friday, 2 May 2008 13:23)



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