I saw it tonight and liked it, but didn’t love it. I never read the books though.
I didn’t pick up the atheist propaganda much. Anti church, yes, but not atheist. Maybe I will pick it up better in the next movie.
So far, it has seemed quite mild, unless it is flying over my head, which unfortunately is highly possible. Because thus far, I noticed far more atheist propaganda in Happy Feet.
Saw it. Nice special effects, great acting by Kidman (those dresses! ) and Elliot. I like the concepts of Pazerbears and Daemons.
But the plot was pointless and confusing.
I agree with Mosier on his nitpicks.
I give it a C+.
I’ll give it a B. Good movie, worth the money, WAY better than Eragorn…
The bear battle ruled in just about all the ways one could hope. The special effects and acting were all of at least Hollywood big film class. But indeed, everything seemed very very rushed with random people walking up introducing themselves and immediately vowing eternal allegiance to the little girl they just met for the first time.
If the movie had taken another hour to tell its story it would have been great. As it is, it’s a great movie that’s very obviously been chopped down just a bit too far to be more than decently enjoyable.
I think they meant the [del]Luke[/del] Lyra! I am your [del]faaaahthaaaaahhh[/del] mother! thing.
I just saw it tonight, and we enjoyed it. It was quite different from the book, and I hope that the DVD release has a lot of deleted scenes or something. I think it could have been done better, but I still thought it was a fun movie. Very pretty to watch, too.
What she said. (He said?)
I saw it today with my son, who’s visiting from Seattle. We wanted to see Enchanted but son’s wife wanted to see this one.
I’ve read the books. I don’t remember much about them except that I thought they were wonderful. A fully realized setting, characters you knew and cared about, wonder and menace. Good stuff, except for the diatribe in the third book.
If I had been alone, I would have walked out in the first 15 minutes. Trite, predictable dialogue, and there wasn’t one second where I was worried that Lyra wouldn’t succeed. Actually, I didn’t even like her, and I couldn’t understand how she drew all those people (and the bears and the witches) to her.
I’ve never seen a movie that looked so good but failed so miserably to engage. I was more involved after five minutes of Fellowship of the Ring than I was at the end of this one.
Terrible, terrible movie – on its own and as an adaption of the book.
Never read the book and saw the movie tonight. It was… okay, I guess. Fun to watch but I felt like a bunch of crap kind of came and went out of nowhere (like the witches). The insta-poofing daemons got to me as well just because apparently any wound is instantly fatal in Golden Compass World. The ending felt rushed and came out of nowhere.
Nice eye candy and pretty good acting but the plot was jumpy. My wife, mother and 8 year old son seemed to enjoy it though with about the same complaints as me.
I saw it this weekend together with my daughter (age 8) and my two sisters (13 and 14).
I liked the movie and I hope that they continue and make sequels. Visually I liked the movie and the acting was quite good overall. Yes, it was rushed at times and it was apaprent that they probably had to cut quite a lot from the book.
I have not read the books (yet) so I do not know how badly they cut up the story. But that sort of always happens with movies based on books so I try not to get too upset.
The older of my sisters had read the books (I gave them to her last Christmas). She loved the books and obviously noticed that there were differences from the books but overall she still liked the film.
My sister and my daughter both liked the film, although my daughter found the sound a bit loud.
It seems that people that haven’t read the books generally like the movie better. No expectations to destroy.
Movies will never be as good as books, although visually they can be cooler than what you’d imagined while reading. Case in point the cave troll in LOTR. I’d imagined some skinny monster about 8 feet tall (like a D&D troll), not the genuine monster in the movie. And Sauron, the Balrog, and the orcs were all scarier and neater looking than I’d imagined.
Oh, I don’t know. Jaws the book was quite boring. The movie, while it can drag in places, is much better.
One thing I missed in the movie that I felt was well done in the book is that I felt sorry for the bear king. I didn’t want him to win, but I felt bad for him for getting his hopes up and all that. I didn’t get that so much from the scene in the movie.
I saw the movie last night. I kinda liked the looks of it. I guess I’m a sucker for airships and paddle-wheeled steamers and anything remotely resembling Jules Verne. I do have one question though. I gathered from the movie that the Kidman character was after that watch thingy that the little girl main character was always gazing into.
At one point, after the little girl is thrown into a cage and electrocuted along with her pet, and subsequently rescued by Kidman, she is unconscious alone on a bed. Why didn’t the Kidman character take that opportunity to abscond with the watch thingy? Instead, after the girl awakens, the Kidman character asks for it and is given something completely different.
If Elric gets filmed, it should be done by Tim Burton. (Not Weitz, and not Peter Jackson – Burton can give it the properly surreal and mordant touch.)
I just saw TGC. I was a bit perplexed – the “dust” theory is somehow incompatible with the doctrines of the Magisterium, but it is never explained how, or what those doctrines are.
Just saw this today. It was okay, I guess. The whole thing did seem rather rushed at some points while it dragged along in others. I didn’t feel like the daemon thing was played quite right either; I felt much less horror at the reveal of what they were doing to the children than I did when I first read the book - although maybe that was because I already knew what was happening this time around. The casting was amazing though.
The main feeling I had when leaving the cinema was that I wanted to read the books again.
SWMBO and I saw it last weekend. We both loved it.
I saw this the night it came out. I really loved it. I never read the books, but I might start.
Finally got around to seeing it last night. I was left with a profound feeling of “meh”. Like others have said, I found it to be too choppy and disjointed plot-wise.
I did like the panserbjorne, though.
That scene was far more powerful in the book. The book described Lyra as barely able to maintain her composure. It was like seeing a person with his head cut off or his heart torn out wandering around. She runs outside to be alone, but she could never be alone because pan was always with her. The boy clings to a frozen fish for comfort. The Gyptians look on him with horror. And…
The boy dies in the book and the Gyptians feed his fish to their dogs. In the movie the Gyptians promise to get his daemon back and the boy doesn’t die
And none of the Gyptians react with horror to what’s been done to him. They’re just happy that he’s back. Guys, he’s pretty much dead. His soul’s been cut out. I thought people’s reactions in the book were much better at pointing out how evil incision is. It would have been okay for him to live if they’d just made his family more upset and disgusted.
I saw it last night, with my husband and a friend. All of us have read the series, and Mr. Lissar and I were sort of disappointed. The friend thought it was okay, but I think all of us were just happy about panzerbjorn and Lee and Hester.
I kept thinking, “If you hadn’t read the books, would you have any idea where all this stuff is coming from? Or why it’s necessary?”
Suddenly, witches ex machina! And random bears! And the Gyptians just randomly appear out of nowhere! I really wish they’d showed at least part of the Roping with all the Gyptian families, and the decision to take Lyra. It would have made more sense.
I did think Dakota nailed Lyra down perfectly. Clever but not really bright, extreme liar, not totally likeable. Good job.
I hope thisn’t TOO much of aombie thread – it’s less than a month old. But we just saw the film this weekend. Pepper Mill and MilliCal have read the book, but I haven’t (that’s pretty much the opposite of the way things usually happen). I pretty much liked the film (it’s visual sense is extremely good – I loved the way everything looked), but it seemed episodic and frequently irrational. Qadcop’s points reflect precisely the way I felt about things, and I think it’s significant that I felt the same way about them when I haven’t read the book.
The thing about giving Lyra the Atheliometer, the last of its kind, and incredibly complex, when she’s going into the very clutches of the person they want to keep it FROM really bothered me. It makes less than zero sense. But it’s the kind of thing that happens all to frequently in fantasy or adventure movies – the heroes make some boneheaded action that only turns out i n retrospect to be correct. Why the hell does Indiana Jones take the rubbing of the Grail Tablet into that hole in the Venice Church with him and leave the diary behind? Not a rational action, but it’s justified because he can copy the other Grail Tablet, and not get the diary all wet. but there’s no way he knew that beforehand. I hope the book has a more plausible reason for Lyra ending up with such a valuable device (and i hope the device itself is more integral and well-thought-out in the book. In the movie, it seems like a cheesy plot device to keep the story moving forward in unexpected ways. Lyra keeps doing things or knows to do them only because the damned compass tells her to.)
Pepper and Milli liked the movie, but were very bummed about the changes and re-arrangements. they both agree that I have to read the book.