The
Golden Compass
Year:
2007
Rating: PG-13
Overall
Evaluation: 7.0
Significance
Suppositions
Story
Style |
7.0
/ 10 5.0
/ 10 6.0
/ 10 10.0
/ 10 |
Click HERE for evaluation
criteria.
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Cautionary
Note: I have both
seen the movie and read the "His Dark Materials"
trilogy. The movie differs from the books in some significant
areas, and I think it unfair to judge the movie based
on the books. Thus, while I will occasionally incorporate
both into this evaluation, I am basing my ratings
on the movie alone.
Style
Rated PG-13
for sequences of fantasy violence. Nothing objectionable
at all as far as I was concerned.
Story
To summarize
Golden Compass is like giving a brief overview
of the history of philosophy. Too many characters and
too many events! But here goes: in a world parallel
to ours a young girl travels with a motley crew of people,
animals, and daemons (which are "the souls of people
externalized - not evil spirit beings) to the icy north
to find and save her kidnapped friend. Along the way
she is given a device (an "Alethiometer")
that tells the truth about anything asked of it. She
discovers that "The Magisterium " (a generic
ruling body) is cutting the daemons of children away
to prevent them from growing up and accumulating a mysterious
substance called "Dust." Once accomplished
she will attempt to release her uncle from prison where
he is being held due to his belief that he can travel
to other worlds and discover the source of Dust itself.
It ends as an obvious prequel, and we're told that a
war is to come over free will and that the girl will
decide its outcome.
Suppositions
One significant
difference between the books and the movie is that the
worldview of the film is vague at best. We're not really
sure why the Magesterium is evil (in the books it's
a Church that pushes morals on people) or what The Authority
is (in the books it is an oppressive God). The film
waters down these elements considerably, but they are
the backbone of the books - providing the author multiple
opportunities to lambaste religion and theism in general.
In the film "The Authority" is not even implicitly
connected to God and "The Magesterium" is
only very subtly connected to religion (religious terminology
like 'oblation' and 'heresy' are retained and iconic
paintings are on the walls of a local Magesterium building).
Further, the "parallel world" is specifically
said to be the only domain of the Magesterium (thus,
not it is not the church in our world). It will remain
to be seen if future films will bring these elements
out.
Significance
Plot details are so ambiguous that discerning anything
like a message is difficult. The film is a standard
(if complicated) "good guys vs. bad guys"
adventure story and unless one is familiar with the
books it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense beyond
that. A "questioning
authority" theme comes up several times - specifically
with regard to the young girl - but it is portryed in
a somewhat negative light.
But the books are anti-religion, no question about it.
Author Philip Pullman was reported to have said in an
interview with the Washington Post that he is “trying
to undermine the basis of Christian belief.” Whether
Pullman is writing against Christianity per se,
or religion in general, or the Roman Catholic church
in particular, is apparently still up for debate. But
since the author is an atheist who has admitted that
his books are about “killing God,” and that
Jesus was just a wise man who followed fallen angels,
I don’t think the controversy is really so “controversial.”
Here are some
articles dealing with the movie's themes:
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