Buy Or Don’t Buy

Critics pounded on the movie and parents did too. The Golden Compass was meant to launch a string of new book-to-movie fantasy flicks in the same vain as Potter and Narnia but the end result was just plain stinky. Why, though?
After watching the Golden Compass, the most memorable things are bloody bear brawl and a shiny Nicole Kidman. For some reason, the magic didn’t translate from words to pictures. As far as maintaining a plot derived from a very rich novel, Compass hit the main points but resisted depth where there could’ve been depth. It’s hard to deny that Order of the Phoenix suffered from the same problems. There’s just too much in these children’s books to really have a once-and-done performance do them poetic justice. My conclusion is that the nature of the medium is at fault, not the story itself. It’s difficult to come up with a practical solution to this; or any solution at all. All I can say is that if you don’t read the book, and you’re a hyper critical 20-some-year-old, then the big underlying ideas that live in the subtext are probably going to slip away.
But what’s the story about anyway? And why are the parents so upset?
1) First and foremost, the evil authority in the novel isn’t a sorcerer but it is a mysterious body known as the Church. The Golden Compass, the first in a series of three, hardly even digs into what the Church is up to beyond being authoritative over detaching children from their daemons. It’s the authority over the land and it’s bad. People say it’s good, but it’s doing bad things. The children have to guard against it.

Parents don’t like that the Church is bad. But honestly, if Catholic priests get away with such indiscreet things as they sometimes do, shouldn’t someone be telling the kids that what declares itself good isn’t always good?

2) Daemons are friendly little pets that are, in a very abstract sense, the pure and innocent spirit of the child. Daemons take on many forms, from monkeys to birds, but when the child matures the daemon finally rests on a final form that reflects the permanent calling of that child. The problem? (This is upsetting) The word “Daemons” is confused with “demons,” and certainly no mother wants her child to learn about playing with demons. This is one gripe that I can blame partially on the film. This misunderstanding is easily fixed if any parent were to read and comprehend the book instead of picking about simple surface details. By the way, this is a Greek word meaning “spirit.” Plato used it a lot.

3) Violence. I get it. A bear rips another bear’s jaw off. Blood everywhere. Counter argument: It’s the message that matters. There is no evidence of pro-violence messages anywhere. The bears that do the killing are represented as strange creatures, unable to be related to by humans. The main little girl of the story wonders how her bear friend could act like he does, but she admires his strength and encourages him not to be weak and to fight for what he deserves. The bear gets his kingdom back, and all the other bears are quick to leave their material obsessions behind to follow their new leader. Did we get this in the movie? It was more the aftermath of the big fight, quickly followed by another big fight. Dammit Hollywood! Isn’t there better ways to hold our attention!

To the conservative parents: shunning stories without understanding them is a little hypocritical. It’s safe to say that this type of hypocritical=stupid. What is there to keep away except a fantastical myth to feed your child’s mind? Golden Compass tells the tale about sticking with your friends and your spirit in the face of questionable authority, no matter how great that authority is. I defer tackling the issues of religious creeds to somewhere else. Because did you know that the other fantasy book-turned-movie Order of the Phoenix seeps with tales parallel to Christianity? Parents, don’t look the other way as soon as you hear the word “magic.” You may be missing the point. The message within the myth is where it gets complicated. Bet you didn’t know that from watching the movie.

So all in all I sell not to see the Golden Compass but to read it instead. Or do both. Just check in with the book before dismissing it. It’s really good!