The Golden Compass

The only thing I can say about this movie was that the trailer was much better than the movie itself. The lines were really quite forgettable (there were some attempts at humour but those seemed to fall flat), the pacing wasn't quite right and the adventure seemed more like a stroll through the zoo where we can see dangerous animals but know that they would never be really threatening.

I have never really read the books themselves but I suspected that when the producers did a move adaption, much of the depth was lost. Take the example of the "Dust". All the characters in the movie seemed to be falling over themselves at the mere mention of "Dust" but we audience in the cinema just don't see what's the big deal. I could almost hear people thinking out loud "What's with this dust? That's what the vacuum cleaner is for right?".

Then there is the Magisterium, which was the ruling authority or government in the imaginary world of the Golden Compass. From snatches of the conversation, the Magisterium seemed like an insidious body that controls the world by giving the people a lot of material comfort so as to prevent people from thinking and question the status quo. It is possible that the author might be using the plotline to make a political statement about society, but of course all that was lost in the movie.

There is also another curiosity in the movie which I would like to talk about here. A colleague mentioned that the idea of a person having a personal animal which carries the soul of the person is interesting and seems quite original. The latter observation is clearly not true. In medieval Europe, which was the age of supersition and religious fanaticism, people believed that witches were inseparable from their "familiars". A familiar is an animal that is bonded to the witch in some magical ways. It was believed that the familiar was usually a demon or evil spirit given by the Devil to the witch to allow her to work her magic. Due to the bond between the two, if ever the familiar was injured or killed, grevious harm would also befall the witch. The familiar could be any animal but the most common form it was believed to take was a black cat. This is why black cats are usually associated with witchcraft. So the concept in the story was nothing really original as well. But then again to be fair, it is almost impossible to find anything original these days isn't it?