The Golden Compass

[Crazy_88s]

I know it's only my opinion but... I LOVED THIS MOVIE! No, i'm kidding, I didn't. I couldn't stand to watch another minute. After seventy minutes of unnecessary exposition, talking and more pointless talking I just could not take it anymore. I couldn't take Nicole Kidman getting massively angry for a child carrying a purse while in the house. Yes, the movie has it's charms and succeeds on some level and it's not a really bad movie by any means but if you do go see it, be prepared to fall asleep or be severely confused or both. Since I didn't stay until the end I really don't think I revealed any spoilers.

[Junkyard]

Seems to be the general critical concensus- underwhelming.

[Crazy_88s]

Seems to be the general critical concensus- underwhelming.

That's true, but Robert Ebert gave it four stars! 

[eegah]

Seems to be the general critical concensus- underwhelming.

That's true, but Robert Ebert gave it four stars! 

But what did Roger Ebert give it? 

[Crazy_88s]

Seems to be the general critical concensus- underwhelming.

That's true, but Robert Ebert gave it four stars! 

But what did Roger Ebert give it? 

Okay, so I made a typo.  ROGER EBERT gave The Golden Compass four stars.

[BBQ Platypus]

Seems to be the general critical concensus- underwhelming.

That's true, but Robert Ebert gave it four stars! 

But what did Roger Ebert give it? 

Okay, so I made a typo.  ROGER EBERT gave The Golden Compass four stars.

He gave the same rating to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, so you can take from that what you will.

[Junkyard]

Okay, will someone please explain what the big deal is with this film that makes some Christians angry?

[Crazy_88s]

Okay, will someone please explain what the big deal is with this film that makes some Christians angry?

You know, I only sat through 70 minutes of it and I saw nothing that should offend Christians at all...  I thought the same thing about Monty Python's the life of Brian, only I am able to sit through life of Brian many times in one day and never get bored.

[LadyKenobi]

The books upon which this movie is based were written by a man as a direct attack on the Narnia series.  He has said that he wants to "kill God", especially for children.  So... yeah, that's going to piss some people off.

[Crazy_88s]

The books upon which this movie is based were written by a man as a direct attack on the Narnia series.  He has said that he wants to "kill God", especially for children.  So... yeah, that's going to piss some people off.

I know, but as far as the movie itself goes, there's nothing anti-christian that I personally saw.

[gbeenie]

The books upon which this movie is based were written by a man as a direct attack on the Narnia series. 

Pullman has NEVER said that; that's an assumption made by one of his critics (Peter Hitchens).

He has said that he wants to "kill God", especially for children.

Might you have a citation for such a quote?

(Not that I'm disagreeing with the sentiment; if God existed, the only worthwhile, reasonable goal of a civilized human society would be His utter and complete destruction)

[LadyKenobi]

I know, but as far as the movie itself goes, there's nothing anti-christian that I personally saw.

Even if the movies have scrubbed the more overt anti-God messages, the concern is that the movie will create interest for the books.  Whether people agree with this or not, I'm just answering Junkyard's question about why Christians seem so angry about it.

Might you have a citation for such a quote?

But of course: 

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

[eegah]

They're not opposing the movie itself so much as they are trying to prevent kids from being interested in the books, which are supposedly more anti-religion.

"The Catholic League wants Christians to boycott this movie precisely because it knows that the film is bait for the books: unsuspecting parents who take their children to see the movie may be impelled to buy the three books as a Christmas present. And no parent who wants to bring their children up in the faith will want any part of these books." (http://catholicleague.org/catalyst.php?year=2007&month=October&read=2306)

[PlayMSTie]

The movie took out most of the overtly anti-Christian elements that were in the book. But if they make  The Amber Spyglass, the last film, into a book, that's going to be really difficult, because the main plot elements are (1) there's no God and (direct quote) "Christianity is just a very powerful and convincing mistake"; (2) the one who calls himself God is just a senile old angel who dies a pitiful death, and (3) Eve actually did the right thing in the Garden of Eden, and Lyra must recreate what she did (though this is where the plot pretty much falls apart, because all she does is hand a boy a piece of fruit and then kiss him a lot, with no one, in this case, having told her not to. Real big act of rebellion there!).

[Big Blonde]

I want to see this movie purely based on all the religious hype around it. I'm a practicing catholic, and yet, I'm not really offended by any of the themes here. I'm more offended that religious people are so worried that others will turn away from the faith based on one movie or one terrible book (see the poorly written Da Vinci Code). It says very little about the draw of our faith if one kid's movie is going ot upset the entire balance. Besides, there's a definete hypocrisy to what movies/books religious groups speak out against. Three years after Da Vinci Code was published, when it was really popular, people started to get all up in arms. At roughly the same time however, there was another, better book called the Genesis Code, where the main point of the story was Scientist found Jesus's DNA and the DNA of other saints and artificially inseminated women. One of the women ended up having what I guess would be a clone of Jesus. Despite that point, I never once heard of these groups make a peep about it, most likely becaues it never was on the new york best seller's list.