The Golden Compass
Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:33 pm
Visually stunning, excellent cast, good performances, but tragically disappointing.
Even if I hadn't read the books (and I urge everyone to do so at the next opportunity) the movie was horribly paced with no real sense of the passage of time and felt incredibly rushed.
Not really sure why they changed the order of how things happen in the book, although I do understand they had to work to condense things, but I don't think it made things smoother to put the fight between Iofur Raknison and Iorek Byrnison before the scenes at Bolvangar.
What I really can't forgive is their changing the movie so that the fight between Iorek and Iofur is depicted as some kind of rematch. Nothing was explained of Iofur's treachery or the negative effect on the whole kingdom. It made something deep and profound seem effectively meaningless.
Too much is explained too quickly and then we move on to the next revelation or the next action sequence.
I can only hope that there will be a Director's Cut!
What makes this movie adaptation so heartbreaking is not that it's bad, but that it could have been - with very minor changes - truly inspirational.
Even if I hadn't read the books (and I urge everyone to do so at the next opportunity) the movie was horribly paced with no real sense of the passage of time and felt incredibly rushed.
Not really sure why they changed the order of how things happen in the book, although I do understand they had to work to condense things, but I don't think it made things smoother to put the fight between Iofur Raknison and Iorek Byrnison before the scenes at Bolvangar.
What I really can't forgive is their changing the movie so that the fight between Iorek and Iofur is depicted as some kind of rematch. Nothing was explained of Iofur's treachery or the negative effect on the whole kingdom. It made something deep and profound seem effectively meaningless.
Too much is explained too quickly and then we move on to the next revelation or the next action sequence.
I can only hope that there will be a Director's Cut!
What makes this movie adaptation so heartbreaking is not that it's bad, but that it could have been - with very minor changes - truly inspirational.
