The GC

HolycrapGoldenCompass.

I will sum up the high points of this, THE MOVIE OF THE GALAXY, in bulleted list format:

• Cute little animals, sweet digital effects
  
• Daniel Craig
• Nicole Kidman is absolutely perfect for the role of Mrs. Coulter (and gorgeous)
  
• An armored bear voiced by Gandalf
• An aeronaut from the "country" of Texas
• Eva Green is totally awesome (and gorgeous)
  

Many people have voiced their disappointment over the removal of all religious references from the novel for the film. While I can understand the sentiment (And I must admit I was very confused originally when I heard of such news because, in my mind, without the religious undertones you have zero plot - What was Asriel's quest? What was the point of the Oblation Board? Who is Mrs. Coulter, and who does she work for?), I found, to my pleasant surprise, that the removal of the references didn't do a whole lot to either ruin or better the movie for me. If you've read the books, you can kind of fill in the holes as all of the references are so blatantly obvious. Original sin, dust equaling sin (in the eyes of the Church/Magisterium), the innocence of children, etc. And if you haven't read the books, you're none the wiser, though even then, I would bet the most intelligent among you will figure it out before too long. They simply don't mention church, using its other name The Magisterium. And they don't mention God, using His other name The Authority. Both of these are canon and in the book, but they are used in conjunction with our more conventional terms in the book. Conclusion: whatever. No big deal.

The other noticeable difference came in the reordering of some of the events from the book. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone that hasn't read the book and hasn't seen the movie yet, so stop reading if that applies to you. But instead of Lyra -first- going to Bolvangar to free the children and -then- being captured by the armored bears (and subsequently being freed by Iorek as he reclaims his bear-king throne), they reverse the order of these things. They do this, I would guess, to provide for a more dramatic fight scene climax with the fight at Bolvangar, rather than the fight of the two bear kings. No big deal, but you'll notice it if you read the books.

The final difference was that they left out about four chapters at the end of the book. As John said when I told him that, "I could have done with another hour, hour and a half of that movie." He also mentioned that writers and directors seem to shy away from the Peter Jackson formula (a flood of over-information, resulting in a 3.5 hour movie). I think in this case, in order to match up the book's ending with the movie's ending, they could have tacked on another hour. Of course, if you have read the book, you know that book one necessarily doesn't end on a high note. Now that I think about it, this is definitely why they ended it where they did. They wanted a happy ending. Fair enough, movie maker. Fair enough. But look at The Fellowship of The Ring. They ended that with the death of Boromir. On second thought, shame on you, movie maker. Shame on you. Though I suppose this could definitely tell you what kind of movie these guys wanted to make. Do they want to make a happy children's movie, or do they want to make an epic trilogy?