It wasnt great though.
Does The Golden Compass get any better?
- Thread starter Kelthaz
- Start date
It wasnt great though.
I agree completely with Trent.
Lyra is meant to be somehow selfish and shallow at first. That makes her growing up much more significant and poignant. Her dynamics with Will in the second book make it quite clear in my opinion.
Lyra is meant to be somehow selfish and shallow at first. That makes her growing up much more significant and poignant. Her dynamics with Will in the second book make it quite clear in my opinion.
Brilliantly cast, excellent SFX and the production design was uniformly very good.
The only issue would be the edit, which apparently was forced on the production team by the studio.
I had the same complaint as the OP, but ended up enjoying the trilogy.
I don't think there's a lot of character depth, because the characters are placeholders in an elaborate philosophical and religio-historical joke. They do what they do in order to allow the author to set up scenes and images that are riffs on art and poetry with religious themes. The fun is the decoding and unpacking of the story, and not the straight story itself. Although I did enjoy the fact that I changed my mind about who the good guys twice during the overall story.
I don't think there's a lot of character depth, because the characters are placeholders in an elaborate philosophical and religio-historical joke. They do what they do in order to allow the author to set up scenes and images that are riffs on art and poetry with religious themes. The fun is the decoding and unpacking of the story, and not the straight story itself. Although I did enjoy the fact that I changed my mind about who the good guys twice during the overall story.
I think The Golden Compass is sheer brilliance in how it hooks the reader from the first page, so I can't help you. 
Seriously, it's the best opening to a children's fantasy novel I've ever read.
I agree with Trent that The Subtle Knife is the weakest. So much happens in the first and third books; then there's the second, where about three things happen.
Seriously, it's the best opening to a children's fantasy novel I've ever read.
I agree with Trent that The Subtle Knife is the weakest. So much happens in the first and third books; then there's the second, where about three things happen.
I have read The Golden Compass and never got into the remaining books. I think I have the same problem as others but only partially. First things first - Occasionally I've been known to give up on an author because I don't think he writes well. Philip Pullman is NOT one of these. He knows what he's doing and writes well. I also particularly enjoyed the concept of the daemons and found that very imaginative. But sometime in the Northern wastes, I got lost - there is a bear and then there are people who want to do dastardly experiments and there's a rift potentially leading to another world (our world?) and I somehow got disheartened by it all. I thought it was a little too cruel on somebody that young. Maybe if Lyra had been older but then it would have introduced problems - the concept of 'sex'/'love' etc into the story and maybe the author didn't want that.
So, I'm somebody who thought the idea of this world is great, but never read the full the series since I couldn't quite get thru the pages in the Northern regions.
I thought the movie was ok. While I wouldn't call it a great movie, I didn't have many problems with the movie.
So, I'm somebody who thought the idea of this world is great, but never read the full the series since I couldn't quite get thru the pages in the Northern regions.
I thought the movie was ok. While I wouldn't call it a great movie, I didn't have many problems with the movie.
Love and sex take on greater significance as the story proceeds, so that's not it. As I said before, Lyra's age is what it is to permit the books to be about maturation; he perhaps could have used an older teen, but this way he could insert the biological change of puberty into the rest of the matrix alongside her social, ethical and personal growth. It reinforces the overall thematic unity (and also lets him make interesting connections with regards to his fictive theological science).
As for cruel... yes, it is at that. I was surprised by how blunt and brutal it was for what is habitually described as children's literature (and, indeed, prefer it to rosy-coloured views of the world where danger is always tamed). If you feel it's too harsh to press on, so be it; I would only say that where this is essentially a coming-of-age story, growing upon across an epic canvass, to the extent that Lyra's victories are grand, so too must her disappointments be crushing.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
I haven't read the books, but I rather enjoyed the movie too.
Similar threads
