The Golden Compass (2 Discs): His Dark Materials

With the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy being my favourite books of all time, hearing that they were going to make them into movies excited me to say the least.

Pullmans versatile literature and wording of the books captured the hearts of children and adults alike, before Harry Potter was ever around and went on to win numerous awards.

I couldn't begin to imagine how much of a hard time the director was going to have, placing the characters and getting everything spot on, to match Pullman's way of writing.
Lee is perfectly placed and was exactly how I imagined him to be throughout the books.
Lyra was too prissy to compare. She wasn't near as confident nor open minded about things as she should have been.
Mrs Coulter was made out to be far too 'rich' for my liking. Reading from the book she seems like, not exactly a normal woman, but not so dressed up nor flashy.
Lord Asrial is the second of the two characters who I thought suited the part well. Daniel Craig does play a great job of him, although, I did expect his character to be slightly more darker than he came out with.

The first thing that disheartened me was the use of the American title; 'The Golden Compass'.
There is no such thing in any of the books as a 'Golden Compass'.
Try Aletheometer.
Northern Lights is much more suited, as you would realise if you had read the book.

To me, the whole movie lacked the spark that I got from reading the books and I was highly disappointed in some of the events that took place within the movie which differed highly from what I read.

Religion is an extremely big theme in the books, playing the biggest part of all and I was shocked to find that almost all religious aspects of the books had been erased, most probably to suit the audience.

Do not get me wrong, it's an excellent movie and I highly recommend it to people, but I suggest you read the books previous to watching it, so you have a better understanding of the actual storyline, as the film leaves important parts out.

Being an author myself, it's disheartening to see such an exquisite story being downgraded and amounting to less then it could have been.
It's a shame that people who haven't read the book are watching the movie and giving it criticism for how poorly it's been made or how the story seemed unfinished in certain places.

My opinion, which I know for a fact is many others, not just with this movie; Read the books first before you attempt to watch the movie and you'll have a much easier time understanding what's going on.

I may have benefited from not reading the books from what the film is derived.

The casting is superb, from the opening scenes to the end you find yourself drawn into the story, the only downside is that the end leaves you wanting more.

Such is the magic of the film I feel it should inspire people to want to get the books and read them.

The effects are what you would expect and are virtually perfect, which only helps to provide the illusion that you are almost part of the adventure.

Having read, and thoroughly enjoyed, the Pullman trilogy, I would be delighted, if I were him, to see my work interpreted in this manner.

Excellent visual entertainment. Part two can't come soon enough, as far as I am concerned.

Great work!

I'll jump right into this by saying that the His Dark Materials trilogy is my favourite collection of books so far in my life. So, naturally, I went into this movie with the scrutiny a fanatic would. But I was also aware of my high standards, so I was willing to settle for a decent adaptation of the book that was pretty well done and enjoyable to watch.

The Golden Compass did not deliver in the slightest, beginning with the childish and rather uninspired American title which apparently had to become global. This part of the trilogy will always be known to me as Northern Lights, and calling the alethiometer by an incorrect name a thousand times will not change that.

I find it puzzling how someone can actually screw up the plot of a critically-acclaimed book so much. Casting, I can understand. The performance of the actors, I can understand. SFX problems, I can understand. All of these things are the pitfalls of making movies. But adaptations are meant to have one thing safe: if the book had a great plot, then the movie should have a great plot. But instead, Weitz chooses to treat plot points like pieces of a jigsaw, and the result is that he hasn't put the pieces back in the correct place. Iorek's victory in Svalbard, and the importance of it, is crushed by the feeling the plot seems to give of, "Right, now that that's out of the way, we can get to the other stuff." It feels so tacked on and out of place, an afterthought more than anything. The switching round of Iorek's plot and the Bolvanger plot achieved nothing but providing Weitz's schmaltzy, amateurish ending, where the characters might as well have been floating into a sunset rather than the aurora. The script suffered from this kind of corny dialogue a lot, with nothing being focused on too much and everything moving so quickly so it wouldn't stay in place long enough for you to see the cracks in a scripts riddled with chinks and full-blown holes. Serafina Pekkala's initial entrance is one of the most badly dealt with entrances of all time, and again, not true to the book at all, which is something the movie struggled with. It had an identity crisis: not quite the book, and not quite a movie.

I'm giving it the one star purely for Dakota Blue Richards. At certain times, I was a little unsure of her portrayal as an impossible character to cast, but she had moments of sheer brilliance such as her attitude when tricking "Ragnar" (Good Lord...) and the expression on her face when she destroys the machine in Bolvanger. I can only hope that if the next movie is made, she's given a script truer to the book that she can truly shine with.

An awful adaptation, and such a waste of stunning material. I also didn't appreciate the inflated roles of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter. It was as if their increased presence was to somehow justify the casting of Craig and Kidman, and their extra scenes felt incredibly jarring, just like the entire movie.

This is a fantastic movie and should satisfy 'His dark Material' fans... but that is the problem... You really have to have read the books if you are to get the most out of this film.

So much has had to be cut to make it a watchable length that at times it could seem a little confusing if you haven't already been introduced to this world...