The Gaming Den

What a fucking embarassment. They cut out every connecting sequence in the book that made it all make sense, and left only the action. And changed a bunch of things around for no reason. And switched the placement of two scenes near the end to make for a "better", non-cliffhanger ending. Did I mention they cut out all the explanation that makes the movie make sense? This isn't about philosophy like the book is, they just made it into pure, bloody, unexplained action. This isn't "Lyra grows and becomes a true leader", this is "Lyra goes off on completely random adventures for absolutely no reason whatsoever".

An example: In the book, there is a scene where Iorek tells Lyra to fence with him, where he shows her that it's impossible to trick a bear. This is important later on, when she faces Iofur, and she tricks him...and Iorek bestows upon her the name Lyra Silvertongue, for the completely impossible feat. This fencing scene was cut from the book. There is never any mention of bears being particularly difficult to trick, or Lyra realizing that she could trick Iofur because he wasn't being a bear.

Another example: There is absolutely no horror at the severed child. None. Lyra goes to some random house on its lonesome. Finds the severed child (who in the movie is BILLY COSTA what the hell). Takes him back. Nobody is horrified. Nobody shies away from him. Nobody says that this is an abomination unto God. Nothing. Nothing at all. Also, he doesn't die.

Another example: No mention is made of Will's father at all in the beginning. This is a huge deal in the Subtle Knife. Speaking of which, anything that could vaguely be important for linking to the second book was cut out.

And there are SO MANY MORE. AAAAAA.

I seriously cannot believe how they could take one of the absolute greatest works of modern fiction and make such a shitty movie.

I'm not surprised. I've seen plenty of books turned movies where they butchered things for no apparent reasons, including doing the exact opposite of the what the book flat out said. For example, in Bicentenial Man, in the book, he explicitly stated he didn't want a wang for sex, he wanted it to be complete. In the movie, he was all like "Man, I'm getting hard over this chick, only I don't have a wang, so I'm gonna make me one." I guess they decided he needed to have a love interest to make the movie interesting.

When you mean 'they' you mean 'the author', right, since he made the decision to go with this screenplay writer and director...

-Crissa

Crissa wrote:When you mean 'they' you mean 'the author', right, since he made the decision to go with this screenplay writer and director...

Yeah, sure, but authors in general don't seem to have much influence over the screenplay writers and directors, once chosen.

I don't know how much Philip Pullman though was awesome/sucky, but I do know that he thought Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter was awesome and I have to agree. She was pretty awesome.

Didn't read the book but the trailer looked pretty cool aside from a pretty heavy emphasis on polar bears.

How is a heavy emphasis on polar bears not cool?

Pun not intended.

Exactly. Even though they don't know what apples are, polar bears are totally awesome. That is in fact the point where I think druids are truly fantastic: when they can turn into polar bears.

I even have a polar bear stuffed toy. The dog likes to use it as a pillow, though, presumably because I've cuddled it so much it smells like me.

Koumei, sit down son.

That humping motion your dog makes? That does not mean he's using your polar bear toy as a pillow.

Nonono, he rests his head on it. But I thank you for trying to be informative on the ways of life.

Shame, it was a good book.

I think I'm so drunk I'mt doing to puke t aeome timne

Whiskey, ale, or other?

If it's Bundy or... that polar bear brand of vodka, then it can link nicely back to polar bears!

The author chose the screenwriter, who chose himself to direct. This was an unusually simple and controlled process.

Now, I've gotten to see the movie, and while I wasn't totally enthralled by it...

...It was one of the better things I've seen this year. That in itself means nothing, as I also watched Dragon Wars, but besides...

The very first scene in the movie explains away your paragraph 2. Instead of being told it was impossible, and needing to explain to the audience why she was capable of it... The audience knows she cons people (or tries to - we never do get told why she's so honest about the aeletheometer) regularly with success.

The animals were animated pretty well and the movie is at least internally consistent. Her adventures, at least why she starts to have them or is involved with them, are not her choosing. Each person has a reason to be involved, or to get her involved.

And really, as movies go, that's pretty good.

Of course, after your review, I was thinking something as bad as Narnia last year and was therefor pleasantly surprised.

-Crissa

I didn't think Narnia was that bad. Could have been better, but could have been worse, and it had a polar bear too.

My movie-watching was fairly good this year:
*Eragon was the main let-down. I didn't find it that great.

*Harry Potter and the Adjective Noun was definitely well done. I look forward to next year's "Harry Potter and the SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE!"

*Die Hard 4 is painful to watch from a "Wait, they hacked into the gas lines and activated the explode function?" standpoint - hacking seriously can't do the stuff these movies want it to be able to do. If it could, Anonymous would have killed us all by now. However other than that, I liked the movie a lot.

*I might go and see The Golden Compass. Unfortunately, it's seriously hard to get the time away, because the dog gets so lonely. I have to find time when someone else is home, and convince them to stay instead of going to see it with me.

---

Still, next year we can look forward to "Where the Wild Things Are" (if you don't know this book, I can't be your friend any more) and "The Battle of Red Cliff".

Wasn't there an animated version of that already?

Not very well done, but still.

Also, how long could it possibly be made? It's fairly short for a story; unless they go and use traditional chinese storytelling methods where each "scene" triggers a mini-story?

So, the trip across the jungle to the sea is a mini-story, the sea trip is an other story, landing, living and rulg in the land of the wild things is the main story, then back again.

That could work.

I'm holding out for the Hobbit, which will be announced any minute now.

Any

minute

now

I'm holding out for:
X-Men 4: X-Men 3 didn't happen

They're seriously making a Where the Wild Things Are movie? I'm not sure how I feel about that...my cynicism tells me to run screaming into the night, but my nostalgia tells me to latch onto hope and not let go.

I feel the same way, Calibron. At least it won't be another trilogy though. I think that has to count for something.

Koumei at [unixtime wrote:1197205972[/unixtime]]
*Die Hard 4 is painful to watch from a "Wait, they hacked into the gas lines and activated the explode function?" standpoint - hacking seriously can't do the stuff these movies want it to be able to do. If it could, Anonymous would have killed us all by now. However other than that, I liked the movie a lot.

The scene were he jumped the car into the helicopter made up for that by being so stupid that the stupidity of the hacking scenes paled so much by comparison I could forget about them.

Even if you could change the software running switches to overheat...

...These things have mechanical fails that would prevent it.

Now, the power grid... That's seriously unsafe.

Narnia still sucked.

-Crissa

I do like the way his enemies were all modern and "the latest in thing" (hackers and urban ninjas with all their fancy moves), but he still fought them the same way he fought enemies in the last 3 movies: punching, shooting, and possibly driving a vehicle into them.

Yes! It was awesome The bit at the end where he shots himself so he can shoot the bad guy master hacker? Also awesome

As for Golden Compass, Ebert gave it 4 stars

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... br][br]But rotten tomatoes rates it as 'the suck'

Rotten Tomatoes gave Beowolf 70%, so that pretty much proves they are too skewed by the young male demographic.

-Crissa