His Dark Materials: The Film's Failure And What Could Have Been

So the inevitable happened for a young adult (but not really) sci-fi/fantasy series: It was adapted into a big-budget movie. New Line Cinema, the studio famous for adapting The Lord of the Rings into three of the most successful and best fantasy adaptations ever, stepped up to the challenge of turning a book series with themes sure to enrage the Catholic Church (and the church definitely was not pleased) into a bankable family film. The first thing I want to say is that New Line made sure that people remembered that they were the ones who gave us Lord of the Rings, and that we could trust that this film would be the beginning of the next great fantasy epic. All one has to do is watch the first trailer:



I was intrigued by this, but not enough to ever consider going to see the film in theaters. However, I started hearing positive buzz about the movie, with a lot of praise given to the book series it was based on, and the second trailer is what sold me (I will put it up later in the post to call attention to one of my biggest gripes with the film).

I made sure to at least have the first book read by the time I saw the movie, and I found myself enjoying the series (I was about 30 pages into The Amber Spyglass when I saw the film). I was ready for what should have been one of the best films of the year. Then it wasn't.

I don't know why I got myself so excited for a book adaptation, because I know that films that rival their written source material in quality are extremely rare (they do exist, but even The Prestige film had its fair share of differences from the book). But New Line promised that I would be seeing the next LOTR. Strangely, one of the main reasons the film didn't work is exactly why the Rings films did work; length. But I'll start by going over what worked.

The acting, effects, and set design were all great. With a budget of $180 million, the effects better be pretty good, and they are. The CGI daemons are seamlessly integrated into the environments. They look like real animals and have faces that allow for strong emotive expressions. Daemons act as their humans mirrors; if someone feels anxious but tries not to show it, that emotion manifests in the daemon's actions and expressions. The zeppelins, Lee Scoresby's airship, and the instruments at Bolvangar look great, and the Victorian steampunk costumes and sets are beautiful. The large budget also went toward hiring A-list talent like Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, and Ian McKellan as Iorek Byrnison. Personally, I thought that McKellan was a poor choice for Iorek, who gave him a Shakespearean quality that I found ill-fitting for the character. But Craig, Kidman, Sam Elliot, and Eva Green were all great in their roles, even when they had to deal with some clunky and rushed dialogue (Green suffered the worst from this; her character of Serafina Pekkala had a relatively small role in the first book, so to justify casting Green in the role, they gave her an extra scene in the middle that worked much better in the book when Pekkala was being referenced, as opposed to present). But the shining star of the cast was definitely Dakota Blue Richards, who played Lyra. This was Richards' first feature film, and she seems to have been perfectly cast. Richards expertly captures Lyra's feistyness and resourcefulness, and is able to make us adore her even when she is acting like a spoiled brat.

Sadly, the great cast and amazing effects could not carry the film that was weighed down by writing. The movie clocked in at about 2 hours, which was sadly too short to capture the spirit of this book. Running time is almost always a factor in why films cannot live up to the books they are adapted from, since the first thing that usually gets cut is character development. The Golden Compass is no different. Many of the intricacies of the plot were forced to happen quickly, before we could care about the characters involved. Iorek and Lyra barely had any time together before they were trusted companions, and its a wonder that Lyra went to live with Mrs. Coulter in the first place. While she came off as a likable role model for Lyra at their first meeting at Jordan College, every interaction after that seemed strained. There was no time to build up Coulter's mounting creepiness. Instead, she became off-putting right away.

The Magisterium also loses some of its menace due to the short run time. Instead of a sinister, behind-the-scenes organization, it was changed into an over-the-top villainous organization. People would be fools to think that this organization (which is much more Big Brother than church in the film, though one doesn't have to dig too deep to see how the film Magisterium could be linked to the church) is here to help them. The movie needed at least another half an hour, though I think that it needed three hours to be the best film it could be. However, three hour movies are not exactly family friendly (though the Harry Potter films could probably get away with it). Although, I'm not quite sure that His Dark Materials is family friendly.

But going back to length, here, in my opinion, is the worst of the movie's sins: The ending. The film ends about three chapters short of the book's ending. The film ends happily, with Lyra and Roger reunited and planning on going to see Lord Asriel, who they think will make sense of all their adventures. This ending gives us almost no reason to see the next movie except to learn what the hell Dust is, which doesn't seem like it could fill an entire movie (which it doesn't). Here's how the book ends: They go to see Asriel, near the North Pole. After giving some explanation of Dust to Lyra, he kidnaps Roger and plans to cut his daemon away. The energy released will allow Lord Asriel to create a gateway between parallel universes. Lyra realizes what is happening, chases after Lord Asriel, and witnesses her father (Asriel) cut away the soul of her best friend. The shock causes Roger to pass out and fall into a crevasse. Before Asriel departs through the gateway, Lyra watches as he and Mrs. Coulter (her mother) reunite for the first time in years, and Lyra swears that she will do everything in her power to stop her parents, and she follows her father through the gateway. Now that is an ending that will bring the audiences back for film number two!

The craziest part is that the book's ending was filmed! Just look at the second trailer:



Lyra's line about how, "I'll never be yours!" is what sold me on the movie. The obvious guess is that New Line didn't want their family movie to end with the death of a child, which doesn't make sense, since the movie has a dark undertone throughout. Footage from and references to the "real" ending appears in much of the promotional materials, including the video game (the scene where Lyra shows up showed up on YouTube).

I formulated these ideas immediately after seeing the movie, but I soon learned that my ideas were popular ones. A few weeks later, I found this article from New York Magazine saying essentially what I said. I am including it because it talks about the content of the original scripts for the film that were apparently amazing.

As usual, it is too bad that film studios sacrifice quality for business, especially since increased quality can often lead to better box office receipts. I would love to see the film with the book's ending (which director Chris Weitz and many of the actors agree with), but it seems like we will be stuck with this mediocre adaptation for the time being.

Up next: Getting LOST...

His Dark Materials: The Amber Spyglass And Its Creator

Finally, we come to the character of Dr. Mary Malone. A physicist from Will's (and our) world, she was contacted by Lyra in The Subtle Knife at the suggestion of the alethiometer. Like Lord Asriel, she is also studying Dust, but she knows it as dark matter. Lyra turns to her in an attempt to learn more about the mysterious particles, but their meeting draws the attention of Magisterium spies. By the end of the second book, Mary has fled through the window into Cittagazze to avoid the scrutiny of Lord Boreal, the man who stole the alethiometer from Lyra. With the exception of her first and final scenes in The Amber Spyglass, she spends the entire book in a universe populated by creatures called mulefa.

His Dark Materials straddles the genres of fantasy and science fiction. The first novel, in my opinion, is presented much more as fantasy with scientific elements, but scientific explanations are abundant in the second and third books (however, fantasy elements never disappear from the series). The mulefa are a prime example of science replacing fantasy elements; in the first book, the audience is supposed to suspend their disbelief about the talking polar bears and witches. But when Mary first sees the mulefa, which have diamond-shaped spines (along with most other vertebrates in this universe), she reasons that evolution in this world favored that shape of spine as opposed to the straight spine with which we are familiar.

While living among the mulefa, she learns more about Dust from them, who can see Dust with their naked eyes. The mulefa explain that Dust is being drained from their world, which will eventually lead to the death of a species of trees the mulefa depend upon for survival, since Dust helps fertilize the seeds. They don't know why the Dust level is dropping, and ask Mary to help discover the cause. This leads to the creation of the amber spyglass. The lenses are coated in an oil from the trees that allow Mary to view Dust as the mulefa do.

As a scientist and researcher in a book series promoting the virtues of science and reason, it is appropriate that Mary would create the only title object that is not controversial. The alethiometer is feared by the Magisterium because it can illuminate truths that are not its own (sorry, I paraphrased from the film right there), and the subtle knife creates spectres and is responsible for the draining Dust. Mary uses the amber spyglass to see Dust flowing out through knife windows.

And while the amber spyglass was responsible for discovering, but not curing the problem of the departing Dust, Mary was responsible for putting Lyra and Will on their paths of destiny, but it was the children who had to walk the paths. Mary is an ex-nun, who left the church when she realized that there are too many things that the church frowns upon, with romance being the catalyst. Instructed by a special computer she built in our world to communicate with Dust (similar to the alethiometer, which works because of Dust) to play the serpent or temptress to Lyra and Will, Mary allowed for the children to become the second Adam and Eve. However, this time around, humanity did not fall, but was saved by the deeds of Adam and Eve.

There is so much more to the story of His Dark Materials than what is here. I have barely spoken about Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, two very important characters in the story, and I'm sure that a few of the things I have written about seem vague or strange if you haven't read the books. Remember that I walk a fine line between trying not to spoil everything for people who have yet to experience the stories as well as giving my interpretation of events for the people who have. I hope that if you haven't read this series yet, you will.

Up next: How the movie could have been great and why it wasn't...

His Dark Materials: The Subtle Knife And Its Bearer

In The Subtle Knife, we are introduced to Will Parry, a young boy Lyra's age from our own world. The His Dark Materials series takes place across a multiverse of worlds. As we learned at the end of The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, we learn that Lord Asriel was trying to find a way to punch a hole between worlds and explore new worlds and find new ways to study Dust. Unfortunately for Lyra, in order to create enough energy to open up the gateway, a sacrifice had to be made.

When Lyra finally found her friend Roger, he was at a Magisterium-run facility that was developed to find a way to sever the link between humans and their daemons. Scholars learned that daemons and Dust are connected, and they believe that Dust is connected with original sin (I know it sounds very complicated, and it is and I know I am in no way doing it justice, so if you haven't read the books, I'm sorry for the spoilers, but go read them anyway). Children's daemons can change form at will, but once children start to mature, their daemon settles on one form, and it begins to attract Dust. The Magisterium believes that removing the daemon while it can still change form will save the child from the stain of original sin. Meanwhile, Asriel discovered that the severing process releases enough energy to punch a hole between universes, assuming the energy is properly harnessed. To create the portal, he uses none other than Roger, which leads to his death. Enraged that Mrs. Coulter, who turns out to be her mother, would be behind daemon severing for "righteous" reasons, and Lord Asriel, who is really her father, would sacrifice her best friend, Lyra goes through Asriel's portal in an attempt to find a way to preserve Dust, which her mother and the church is trying to destroy.

So going back to Will, he lives with his mother, since his father disappeared when he was a young boy. As he grew up, Will began to realize that his mother suffered from mental illness and paranoid delusions. Or at least he thought they were delusions; she is crazy, but as I said in the last post, a group of men has been snooping around attempting to find documents about Will's missing father. After placing his mother in the care of an old acquaintance and accidentally killing one of the men, Will runs away towards Oxford University. While there, he discovers a strange window between worlds (a window much different than the one created by Roger's death), and finds a universe with a city called Cittagazze. It is here he meets Lyra, and eventually where he finds the subtle knife.

Unlike Lyra, Will is much quieter and much less conspicuous. Will knows that he must blend in with his surroundings in order to avoid the people who are after his family secrets. He can also fend for himself. In a comical sequence, he cooks omelettes for the two of them and requests that Lyra clean up since he cooked. Lyra scoffs at this, claiming that cleaning and cooking is for servants to do. When Will lets her know how annoyed he is about that, she attempts to make an omelette herself, which she is very proud of, despite it turning out borderline inedible. Where Lyra would choose to jump into a situation with no plan but to make up a lie on the spot, Will would choose to hang back and figure out a plan of action that requires no contact with anyone else.

This brings us to the subtle knife. When a creepy stranger Lyra meets in a museum in Will's (our) world takes the alethiometer from her, he reveals to the pair that he is from Lyra's world and he will exchange the alethiometer for an object known as the subtle knife. He tells them that it can be found in Cittagazze. Will and Lyra expect an easy quest, since the only inhabitants of the city are children. The world Cittagazze is located in is plagued by creatures called spectres, which eat Dust. Since children with their shape-shifting daemons have small amounts of Dust, the spectres only prey on adults. However, upon finding the knife, it is in the possession of an elderly man, the only adult in Cittagazze. The knife is one of the only things that can repel spectres, since the blade can cut through anything. Forged centuries ago, one side of the blade is fine enough to cut through any material as if it were butter, while the other edge is so fine that it can cut through the fabric of the universe and create windows between worlds.

The knife is the perfect tool for Will, since it allows him to hide from his pursuers more completely than ever before. However, there is also a dark side to this power. The knife is dangerous both to the enemies of its bearer and the bearer itself. Will was destined to become a bearer of the knife, and all bearers are marked by the knife; all bearers lose their left ring and pinkie fingers through the fault of the knife upon acquiring it. But once the bearer has received the knife, it becomes a trump card for nearly any fight. Will was able to scare Iorek Byrnison out of a fight after slicing up a piece of the bear's armor with ease. But even worse, the knife is responsible for spectres. Slicing a hole through the fabric of the universe has a devastating effects and leads to the creation of a spectre every time a new window is cut.

The knife was created for good, but had unintended side effects. Will is a good person, but has done some unintentional bad things himself, most notably accidentally killing the man. Deep down, he is a caring person, but being constantly on the run and forced to keep his guard up has left him angry and impatient, and snapped at Lyra a lot when they first met. But like any weapon, the knife's dangerousness is dependent upon its user, just as Will learns to control his emotions as he matures.

Up next: creating the amber spyglass...

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass And Its Reader

The first book of Pullman's His Dark Materials immediately throws us into a parallel world to our own. A few things happened differently in both the evolution of humanity as well as the timeline of history. John Calvin served as Pope, technology is much more steampunk than in our reality (though that doesn't mean that it is inferior to ours), and every human walks side by side with their soul, known as daemons, which take on animal forms. And in this world, the Catholic Church, known as the Magisterium, has a much larger influence on people's lives than it does in ours.

We are introduced to Lyra Belacqua, a feisty young girl living under the watch the Scholars of Oxford's Jordan College. Her parents died when she was a baby, and her closest surviving relative is her uncle, Lord Asriel, who is a noted explorer and iconoclast. Lyra, and her daemon Pantalaimon, have a penchant for getting in trouble and telling lies. She and her best friend Roger, the son of one of the kitchen workers at Jordan, spend their time acting like children. They have "wars" with other children, sneak off and explore the grounds of the college, and, most importantly, buck authority just for fun.

Sadly, a series of events forces Lyra and Roger to be separated, and forces Lyra to grow up much faster than she should have. A group of people have been kidnapping children and Rogoer is one of them. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman named Mrs. Coulter appears at Oxford one night and woos Lyra with promises of expeditions to the North, where her uncle is currently researching a phenomenon known as "Dust". Before Asriel left, Lyra overheard him describing the strange behavior of particles that is most prevalent in the northern region of the planet, situated right under Aurora Borealis (hence the title Northern Lights in England). Before Lyra departs with Mrs. Coulter, the Master of Jordan (the dean, or chancellor, or whatever you wish to call the highest officer of a college) bequeathes her with a golden compass-like instrument known as an alethiometer. The function of the alethiometer is to do the opposite of what Lyra does best, it tells the truth.

Lyra spends a few months with Mrs. Coulter and her creepy daemon, a laconic golden monkey (daemons can speak, and though they mainly talk to their owners, Coulter's monkey almost never says anything even to her). But when Lyra discovers that Mrs. Coulter is behind the abductions, she runs away and joins up with a tribe of people known as Gyptians (in our world, they are known as gypsies). One of the children that Lyra played with was a Gyptian boy named Billy, and together, Lyra and the Gyptians make their way north to find Roger, Billy, and the other kidnapped children.

The trip serves as a way for Pullman to deliver an immense amount of exposition. Lord Faa, the leader of the tribe, and his second-in-command, Farder Coram, explain to Lyra the mysteries of the alethiometer and tell her some disturbing information about her family. Along the way, Lyra begins to learn how to read the alethiometer through intuition, a feat thought impossible. Most alethiometer readers study for decades and even the most learned Scholars still require books to decipher the meanings of the object's symbols. All Lyra has to do is to relax her mind and let an alternative level of consciousness flow over her, and she is able to "see" the numerous meanings of each symbol.

Now, on the subject of the alethiometer, I bring up my first point of interest. The alethiometer tells the truth, but in a book series about the negative effects of dogmatic thought, I must ask, whose truth does the alethiometer tell? Does it tell the truth relative to the person reading it, or is there an absolute truth? It would seem hypocritical for Pullman to state that there is, since the villainous Magisterium is attacked for pushing their own absolute truth on the protagonists. And the truth can be a relative thing. In The Subtle Knife, Lyra asks the alethiometer whether Will Parry, her future travel companion, is a friend or foe. Since Will becomes a friend to Lyra, if a representative of the Magisterium were to ask the same question, how would the alethiometer respond? And perhaps more intriguing is the answer Lyra got. Mere hours before Lyra and Will met, Will was running away from a group of men who were trying to steal documents from his home. In an effort to evade them, Will accidentally killed one of them. When Lyra asked the alethiometer about him, instead of responding, "Friend", it told her that Will was a murderer. Lyra used this answer to reason that Will was a strong person and a worthwhile travel companion, so the alethiometer told Lyra the truth she needed to hear to bring Will along with her.

The other major point about Lyra's relationship with the alethiometer is how mismatched a pair they are. While the alethiometer must tell the truth, Lyra is much more comfortable telling lies. She makes bizarre tales almost as a sport, and has a method, and once she gets going, she gives the story everything she's got. In what was possible her most intricate and dangerous lie, she tricked the king of the (sentient) polar bears into thinking that she herself was a daemon.

About halfway through the first novel, we are introduced to Iorek Byrnison, an exiled polar bear who joins Lyra in her quest after she helps him break free from a town that has trapped him and uses him for cheap labor. Along the way, she befriends him and develops a close relationship with the bear. When she is captured by Iorek's former companions, she remembers that the king, Iofur Raknison, longs for a daemon of his own (only humans have daemons). She formulates a story about how Magisterium scientists found a way to create daemons for animals, and she is the prototype. She tells Iofur that she was given to Iorek, but she would much rather belong to a king. If Iofur can defeat Iorek in combat, she can be transferred to the king. The point of this story is so that Iofur will allow the exiled Iorek to approach the palace without the guard bears using projectile weapons to kill him, and allow for a one-on-one fight. Her ability to spin such a story causes Iorek to give her the moniker Lyra Silvertongue, which Lyra takes on as her new surname.

If all one knew about Lyra was the fact that she is a compulsive liar, it may be hard to understand how she could be (1) the protagonist of a (supposedly) children's book series (it's a children's series in the same way Harry Potter is), and (2) that she could be destined bring harmony back to the universe. I must admit that Lyra comes off as not the best role model for children, but the series is about how she matures. By the end, she is no longer able to read the alethiometer through instinct, but she has also learned how to tell the truth on her own.

Up next: the subtleness of Will Parry...