| A strange loop.
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| A strange loop.
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Let's Make a Movie about a Girl with an Animal Friend!Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy is one of the most compelling fantasies of modern times, taking a look at a girl and boy in the midst of a titanic struggle across multiple parallel universes to overthrow god (not directly the Christian god, but an entity called the Authority) and the Church (which somewhat resembles, in its total domination, the Catholic Church of Mediaeval times). Without any hesitation, I recommend reading this series. The scene in Hell alone is worth the time of reading the entire series, and that's but one scene!
New Line Cinema, who brought us Peter Jackson's brilliant version of Lord of the Rings, is making a movie of Pullman's series, directed by Chris Weitz, best known for American Pie, which I haven't seen. What could possibly go wrong, he asks innocently...
THE Hollywood adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, in which two children do battle with an evil, all-powerful church, is being rewritten to remove anti-religious overtones. Chris Weitz, the director, has horrified fans by announcing that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film. Meanwhile the “Authority”, the weak God figure, will become “any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual”.
On top of that abomination, Tom Stoppard - one of the finest screenwriters ever - was dropped from the project early on. (Given his treatment of religion in Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead, I think he would have done an admirable job presenting the essential nature of the story without being "anti-Christian".) I will most certainly not go see the movies or buy the DVDs now, presuming that the studio doesn't have second thoughts given the fan reaction, and my opinion of New Line has gone down, since they were the ones asking for the changes.
The thing is, when you start cutting the core content of a story like this, you end up not mollifying the unmollifiable (though I suspect that the "Christian Right"'s "outrage" over the movies would be smaller than New Line apparently believes) while pissing off the people predisposed to like the film. And the idea that you can't profitably make a movie like this in "Bush's America" (yes, they actually used that term, as if everyone who voted for Bush is just waiting to drag them off to a gulag somewhere) is pathetic and ridiculous. The thing is, I can't decide whether I'm angrier at the desecration of the story or the thought that the Hollywood crowd actually believes the crap they've been spewing about America becoming a fascist country, to the point that they "prove" it to themselves by self-censoring in the absence of any actual attempts at censorship!
But never fear, film fans, I'm sure there's a boring 3-hour epic by a "name" director just waiting in the wings to tell us all about how horrible we all are for not voting the way Hollywood wanted us to.
Posted by Jeff at December 9, 2004 07:49 PM | Link CosmosI personally was disappointed by the books, mainly because of their attempts at interesting philosophy totally demolished by horrible logical flaws, leaps in logic, and deus ex machina. It was also a little shocking to read some of the gruesome content in a series I was recommended as a children's series.
But I loved a lot of the premises... The whole thing had a LOT of promise, and the author has uncanny ability at setting unique scenes and ideas. In spite of my disappointment I enjoyed reading them.
With all that said, though, in spite of my disappointment with the books I'm even more disappointed by the decisions they're making for this movie. I'd have to call them cowardly. I don't know if I'd see the movie if it was a perfect rendition of the books. I know I wouldn't see this creature.
-Billy
