Rama’s SCREEN

Ah, here’s another one of those. Once in a while you come across a movie that rocks the boat, in this case Catholic Church or Christians in general have been actively telling their followers to boycott THE GOLDEN COMPASS. I’ve read their opinions and reasons and point of views and… as a movie buff first, I try to analyze a movie based on its quality and then discuss a bit about any controversy that might surround it.

In a parallel universe, young Lyra must travel to the north to save her best friend and all the other children that have been kidnapped by the Magisterium. Her uncle Lord Asriel (Craig) is in a journey of his own to investigate the mysterious dust. Lyra gets help from various charaters including an Ice Bear, but the golden compass, the alethiometer, will guide her way and she’s skilled enough to use it.

I love reading books so I regret to say that I have yet to read any of Phil Pullman’s novels. THE GOLDEN COMPASS is the first of the trilogy called “His Dark Materials”.
That title gives me the creeps… but first thing first.

I saw this movie at an advanced screening last week and the place was packed with kids and parents. New Line Cinema has done well in marketing and promoting this movie as a children/family fantasy film because obviously the word was out and it was responded by a great number of attendance.

Let me just get straight to business, the movie in my opinion has visual effects that are overblown. Personally, I think they focus too much attention in that part alone so much so that you’d get to the point where you can easily spot scenes that used the help of green screen.
Instead of getting into the movie and enjoying the ride, you start feeling overwhelmed by all these high-tech visuals, you’d say, “well that looks awfully unrealistic”.
It’s the same response I made when I watched Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow a few years ago.

Ooo…I almost forgot…
when I was watching the Ice Bears of THE GOLDEN COMPASS, all I could think of were those polar bears in Coca-cola commercials..
I kept expecting those bears to just suddenly stop in the middle of the movie and drink some Coke right there and then

To tell you the truth, there’s nothing extraordinary about the story.
The fight against tyranny and the forces that want to take full control of everything has been portrayed in better fantasy movies than this.
I wasn’t impressed.
As a matter of fact, the story is a bit predictable and I didn’t even read the book.
I think all the actors did well, keeping in mind that they did have to act talking to things that in reality weren’t actually there.

Every one of the characters in this movie walks around with an animal of their own that can change shapes and they’re called Daemons. Basically they’re like a representation or companion.. It’s like a manifestation of soul or emotion…. so when a Daemon gets hurt, the owner gets hurt too. When the owner dies, his or her daemon vanishes into thin air.
Interesting concept.

Which brings us to the controversy, dun, dun, dun!
Here’s where I stand.
I don’t think it’s fair to judge something or someone without doing enough research about that something or someone.
Unfortunately, many of us would cast the first stone without knowing why.
“Because everybody else is doing it” just won’t cut it.

Having said that, I did some digging and they’re right when they said that author Phil Pullman is very vocal about his atheism and he is a guy with an agenda,.. one that I’m not willing to agree with.

And then I read interviews with Nicole Kidman, who is a Catholic, and Daniel Craig.
They said that the reason they agreed to do this movie was because instead of anti religion, they said the story was about going against any control or misuse of power that organized religion or political organization exercises over the people they’re supposed to represent.
So it’s kinda like the movie V for Vendetta or Equilibrium but for children??

What Christians are concerned about is that the children will like the movie that they’re gonna ask their parents to buy them all three books for Christmas and start reading and getting brainwashed.

Let me just end it here… my point is..

If you strongly believe that this movie and its sequels are aiming to kill God, then by all means.. Do not watch this movie!

If you’re a person that can think of this as just entertainment and there’s nothing more to it than that,… well go ahead and have fun watching it!
But I gotta tell ya, it ain’t all that!

If you’re a Religious person that watches LOTR and Harry Potter, but at the same time is gung-ho about boycotting The Golden Compass,…
well… Silence Is Golden, you hypocrite!

* Place the cursor on the picture below to check my grade for this film