I really will never learn

I have never been more disappointed in the film adaptation of a book I loved. Wait, did I say that about The Neverending Story already? Well, it's close between these two, then. Serious spoilers for both film and book versions of The Golden Compass follow. As well as spoilers for the other books in the His Dark Materials trilogy. Also, if you've seen the movie but not read the book (and you want to), please don't read any further, because the movie doesn't contain the ending of the book, and I don't want to give it away.

Okay, seriously, I even already knew that the ending to the film was wrong, but I was still shocked and outraged by what had been done when I actually saw it for myself. Because it's awful. It's just awful, what they've done to the book. This is one of those times when I wish I had seen the movie first and then been all, "I must now read the book!" because I have this serious problem, which I only became able to articulate when I took novels into film senior year (best class ever--and it was an honors credit): I cannot separate the movie from the book upon which it was based and discuss it as a separate piece of art--which it is. If I've read the book first, anyway--and, if I loved the book, it of course becomes more difficult.

And people, I love The Golden Compass. Let's start with the end, shall we? The end of the movie is everyone together in Lee's balloon, going off to save Lord Asriel. This could not be more different than the ending of the book: everyone's scattered; Roger's dead; and Lyra is totally and utterly on her own--except for Pan. I cannot believe they did not finish the story; Lord Asriel has not created his bridge; Lyra has not betrayed her best friend--what the fuck? I really don't understand how they could begin a movie with what was supposed to happen at the end of this one. Especially when the next installment begins in our world with a completely new character. And if we only find out what happened because Lyra tells Will or some shit, I will scream. This was one of the most heart-wrenching things ever: when Lyra realized just what, exactly, she had brought her father, and leaving it out just sucked any power out of the movie.

A lot of things they left out sucked out the power from the movie. Like the daemon connection--that barely came across in the movie. And, oh god, when Lyra finds Tony Makarios, and he keeps asking for his Ratter, and no one will go near him because to see a human without a daemon for them is like seeing someone without a head for us--it is so sad. And then when he dies! And Lyra scratches "Ratter" on a coin for him, trying to make sure that he and his daemon stay together in death--I totally cried. And that is not in the movie at all! When Lyra comes back with Billy (who plays the part of Tony for the film, I guess), everyone's just like, "It'll be okay, Billy. We'll get Ratter back" like seeing him without his daemon did not totally terrify them. And no! It will not be okay! He and his daemon are separated forever. Why did they leave that out? They left out the adults who'd had the intercission done, too, so we don't really know what Mrs. Coulter is trying to accomplish from just what we get in the film.

Okay, so second of all, the plot is totally out of order: in the movie, Lyra is taken to Svalbard when she's captured by the Samoyeds, which is just retarded, but I see that it had to be that way so that the movie could end the way stupid Chris Weitz wanted it to. And then when she goes to Bolvangar by herself and enters it willingly, it just makes no sense. You never really get to see just how cunning and resourceful she is, and that's a big part of why Lyra is so awesome. Anyway, since they did the bear part out of order, I guess I'll talk about how that was all wrong next.

I realize that things have to happen faster in a movie than they usually do in a book, but still, this thing with the bears happened way too fast. We didn't see any of how Iofur Rakinson (which is not the bear king's name in the movie, by the way, for no reason I can see--but I can't remember what they named him, so I'm just going to call him Iofur Rakinson) has been trying to turn the bears into humans--and that is exactly how Lyra is able to manipulate him and exactly how Iorek is able to defeat him. Because Iorek tells Lyra that is impossible to trick a bear, because bears are not like humans. But when bears act like humans, they can be tricked, Miss Lyra discovers. That is also why Iorek christens her Silvertongue--because she tricked a mother-fucking bear. He still calls her Silvertongue in the movie, but for no fucking reason, because we don't know that you cannot trick a bear. And, when he learns how Lyra has tricked Iofur, Iorek tricks him himself, pretending to be wounded to take the king off his guard--and ultimately defeating him. Also! They totally made up why Iorek was an exile--and how Iofur came to be king. Iorek never lost a single combat; he killed a bear, and that is why he was exiled. Oooh, ooh, this is also important, because it parallels him to Lord Asriel. He fought with another bear over a female and won, but the bear wouldn't back down, so Iorek killed him and was exiled. And Lord Asriel had an affair with Mrs. Coulter, and when Mr. Coulter found out and tried to kill Asriel, Asriel killed him and was exiled, basically. And Asriel and Iorek are the two male figures Lyra admires most in her life (until the very end of the novel), and these details are very important, okay? Argh.

Poor Serafina Pekkala did almost nothing in the movie, and that made me sad, but I don't feel the need to go any further than that.

I am very upset that Fra Pavell is in the movie--we don't meet him until The Subtle Knife, and then he is only given one specific job to do. And I am very upset that he tried to poison Lord Asriel, not the Master of Jordan College, because having the Master try to poison Asriel, who seems to be one of the good guys, just makes the whole thing more complex. Who is right and who is wrong? It's way too clear in the movie that the magesterium is evil, and those who oppose it are good.

Okay, so I didn't expect the religious parallels to be so evident as they are in the books, but they are utterly absent from the movie. How are they going to deal with what comes later, then? Because Lyra, Will, and Mary are ultimately recreating the story of Eve, Adam, and the serpent in the garden--and you cannot escape that. Lyra has a name that only the witches call her, and Mrs. Coulter goes through any lengths she can to learn this name, torturing witches, until one finally confesses that it is "Eve." Lyra is the second Mother Eve. Like, god damn, that's pretty serious. In the novel, Asriel tells Lyra that Mrs. Coulter and her ilk believe Dust to be the physical evidence of original sin, and that is why they want to do away with it. In the movie, Mrs. Coulter tells Lyra that a long, long time ago "some of our ancestors" made a very bad decision, and that is how Dust got into the world and started fucking everything up. Good god, how vague is that? But I guess when you're making a movie, you have to be vague, because the entire trilogy basically seems to exist to say that organized religion is a crock of shit--used by the few to keep the many submissive and weak. Which is Marxist, isn't it? And I love it. But you know that would offend all kinds of crazy bastards.

So. This was clearly a difficult movie to translate to film, and I did not expect it to be perfect, but shit, bitches, it wasn't even close. There are more things that just made me ill, but I can't think of them now. I'm sure I'll be writing about this for days.