COMPASS & LOTR comparison

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

Lord of the Rings is based on a christian perspective were good truimphs over evil.
The Golden Compass was written by an atheist, and, in the books, evil truimphs over good.

The two trilogies are completely opposite of each other!

Wow...feightin' talk

I haven't seen the Golden Compass yet (and nor am likely to until it's out on DVD, sadly) but I have seen the first five minutes and as many snips as I can online and I was impressed by the look of the piece. However I have also heard that the narrative has been mucked about with a little too much.

How the film can be offensive to anyone I can't grasp as the Magisterium can at worst only be an allegory of organised religion in general (and isn't even based on Catholicism but on Calvinism) and I understand even this has been downplayed. And organised religions can indeed be bad news just as politics can be bad news - Pullman's allowed to say that if he likes. There's a very interesting interview on BBC Radio Oxford* with the guy doing the whole protest thing and he failed to answer the thorny question of why if TGC is 'offensive' to Christians because it's somehow underhandedly tempting them towards Atheism and therefore should be banned, is a film of Narnia OK?

Wonder what sort of a froth they're in on Lewis forums? Meh.

Originally Posted by StW

If you could make a list of the first few major responsibilities a filmmaker has, would a question such as this make that short list? As such, I think it is one of those esoteric exercises which has very little to do with the real task before a filmmaker.

You know, I'm inclined to think of late that there is some merit in film-makers being either 'economical with the truth' or taking liberties with precious literature. Why? In the first example the Tudors has just finished on the BBC and even though Henry VIII was rather too young and virile amongst other yawning historical inaccuracies it didn't matter because it was right rockin' viewing (very much not for kids, heh). In the second example Cranford is also drawing to an end - though this adaptation is about as close to the actual novel as chalk is to cheese - it's much better!

*http://www.bbc.co.uk/oxford/content/..._compass.shtml

On one of these links you'll also find a quite disrespectful anecdote about when Pullman had dinner with Tolkien. I found it funny anyway, you can't be preciousss all the time.