Spoilers His Dark Materials TV series

io9 reports that BBC will produce an 8-part mini-series based on Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass.

This is great news! I loved the film's casting and visuals, but the toning down of the religious elements and the forced happy ending seriously harmed it. Hopefully, this version will be closer to the nature of the novel and lead to the adaptation of the following two novels in the His Dark Materials trilogy.

 

The BBC radio adaptation was a bit ham fisted but I hope they can learn from its mistakes. It was nearly eight hours in length.

 

I loved the book, and thought the movie was Ok. This has a lot of potential if they handle it right. I do have to wonder how controversial this could become if they continue into the second and third books.

 

The full-cast audio adaptations by Audible Studios are the best adaptations of the books but weigh in at 35 hours all told.

 

[LEFT]Did someone say His Dark Materials?!
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Hm... kind of conflicted about this. On the one hand, it could be amazing. On the other hand, it was rather thoughtless of BBC One not to invite me to direct, or at least oversee, the project.

Northern Lights is my favorite book, and I'd absolutely love to see it done properly-paced justice on the screen. An adaptation of Once Upon a Time in the North would be very cool, too. But while I very much admire The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, I'm not nearly as eager to see those put on screen. Maybe I'd clamor for them if we had a great Northern Lights foundation, but maybe not. They're so intense and grim and wrenching...

Oh, and I demand we get the scene where Lyra tells the creepy dude in the cafe that her dad's a murderer this time. Maybe my favorite scene in the whole series.

Speaking of which, if Daniel Craig wants to reprise his role, and actually threaten to break Lyra's arm, that's just fine by me, also. Speaking of Mr. Bond, Rachel Weisz would make a perfect Mary Malone, but I also think she would be an excellent Mrs. Coulter. Or maybe she's a bit too old for that at 45, as Wiki says Coulter is 35 in TAS? In which case, Rebecca Hall (Iron Man 3) would be a splendid alternative.

 

An encouraging quote from The Guardian:

Jane Tranter – who will lead the project with fellow Bad Wolf founder and former Doctor Who producer Julie Gardner – said bringing the trilogy to TV provided an opportunity to give it the treatment it deserved.

She told the Guardian: “There are some pieces of literature that are wonderfully suited to film. There are some pieces of literature which are better suited to television. To my mind what is great about these trilogy of novels is we can adapt them as Philip wrote them.”

“We can go at episode pace, tell the entirety of the story, take our time and sound every note that Philip sounds in his novels.”

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Given that quote in context of the reported 8-episode initial order, it sounds like a given that this first season will be Northern Lights only. As it should be!

 

It does seem to be SOP for these kinds of adaptations to do one book a season, so I'm assuming that is probably what they're going to be doing here.

 

I don't remember much about the movie, but I do remember being utterly lost by about the two minute mark. (I had to look up why everyone why everyone was being followed around by tiny animals.)

I imagine an 8 episode series will have a better chance to explain it's lore.

 

Speaking of, why did they stop after the first one?

 

Mostly due to non-stellar box office performance and a worsening general economic climate, according to Wikipedia.

 

Mrs Relayer likes this. She suggested that I read the novels, especially as I'd seen Pullman interviewed and liked both him and his views on the world. I read the first book and pretty much hated it.

I've seen the film and the stage plays. I'm sure I'll see the series too...

 

New Line stupidly sold off the foreign distribution rights to finance the movie in the first place, thus essentially putting all their eggs in the US box-office basket. Not exactly a brilliant move considering American audiences' historic reluctance to embrace female-driven fantasy/adventure movies or our comparatively intense Christianity compared to most international markets. And it indeed made an entirely respectable $300m outside the States, but only $70m within them.

Also, the second and third books are short on armored bear fights, and are much grimmer overall, so even if New Line could have reversed the distribution situation, sequels would have been much harder sells.

 

I suspect their would be little controversy, well aside from the usual grumbles of wasted License payers money.

 

If not handled carefully, there could be too many information dumps about the Alethiometer, Dust, Metatron, Enoch, daemons, the Authority...

 

I love this quote from the Guardian article linked above:

"Tranter dismissed concerns that religious groups might object to the production, adding that it would be based on “what Philip wrote, not what people who haven’t read the books think is in them”."

 

I want that edition of the trilogy.. Checked price.. Over 200 euros

Will need to settle for 18 euro editions

 

Given the whole situation with the BBC at the moment, I'm rather surprised they've commissioned this adaptation, it does help that they aren't making it though and an untested(?) independent production company is though.

I owned the trilogy for a while but never got around to reading them so gave them to a charity shop, as for the film from 2007, all I can remember was my then GF loving the idea of the film and Sir Ian McKellen voicing a Polar Bear.

 

Given that this'll be primarily aimed at British audiences, I suspect/hope that they'll assume most of the viewership will have already read the books, thus minimizing the need for narrative hand-holding...

 

You'd think, but I doubt it.

 

Anna Maxwell Martin and Dakota Blue Richards are, of course, too old to play Lyra now, but I wonder what parts they could play instead -- Lady Salmakia and Serafina Pekkala, perhaps.