His Dark Materials - New BBC/HBO/New Line Cinema TV Series

Maccy

Maccy

Maccy

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New tv series starting this year, there was an old thread about this back in 2015 but thought it best to start a new one.

Hopefully it's better than the film which was dreadful!
 
Looking faithful to the books, hope they do a better job than the movie.
 
I thought the movie captured some elements of the books but ultimately didn't really understand the material it was working with.

I'm not sure from the trailer - some bits feel a bit wrong i.e. too modern compared to the aesthetic in the book, etc. but without seeing more I can't be sure.
 
Just started rereading the original books so should be fully prepped to annoy everyone by pointing out any differences.
 
Was just about to update the old thread and noticed this thread.

To say I am looking forward to this is an understatement. I loved the books, but for me, the film was let down. As Rroff said; they got the look of the world right, but they didn't understand the material.

I have seen some comments from people who read the books and also liked the film though, so not all readers of the books found the film to be below par.

The Golden Compass reminds of the Ghost in the Shell film somewhat; that also got the look right and captured elements from the 1995 anime, but didn't understand what made the source so material so good. Both were fancy looking but pretty hollow. I suppose it wouldn't be Hollywood though, if they didn't take a source material, make something visually fantastic from it, but miss the point of the story.
 
I don't think it was them not understanding the material at all, it's a difficult story to make into a big movie with the external pressures based on it's content. Hopefully a TV series might fly under the radar a little more and have less pressure to appeal to certain groups.
 
the thing about the film is many people say it was cut to ribbons and re-arranged to suit american the american market...so its wast a fair reflection of the the way its was shot and cut by the original director
 
That is a fair point FTM. I've been too critical of The Golden Compass without realising and taking into account that what was released was not what the director has intended. That happens far too often and the director gets the blame.

David Fincher on Alien 3 is another example of a director's work being butchered by the studio. While Terminator is in my mind (from another thread); I read that Emilia Clarke was relieved that there wouldn't be a sequel to Genisys. She worked with Genisys' director, Alan Taylor on Game of Thrones. She said he was not the director she knew from GoT and that he was eaten and chewed up while directing Genisys.

ttaskmaster said:
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Having not read the books, I thought the film wasn't bad.... just a while ago, with only rumours of more films. I remember wanting to see/know more, so hopefully this will be good enough.
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I've a couple of friends who haven't read the books and they quite liked the film. They were surprised that I was quite scathing about it. I've only seen it the once though (when it came out) and long before knowing anything about what FTM mentioned above. Knowing it was another film to suffer at the hands of studio meddling, maybe my view on it would be softer and less critical if I watched it again. I'd probably should do really..

It's a real shame we can't see these films as the director had envisaged. Some might still have been poor, but some might have been much better without studio meddling.
 
I thought that the first episode was decent, but afterwards they showed a trailer for (I guess) the whole series, which looked really quite spectacular.

I read the books about 12 years ago but I can't remember anything about the gyptians.
 
Not read the books but I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode - I'm in it for the long haul (season 2 is already ordered) :)
 
rids57 said:
Not read the books but I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode - I'm in it for the long haul (season 2 is already ordered) :)
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Reasonably decent first episode - the books have a certain ambiance though, almost as if something you'd experience in a dream, which the movie didn't get at all and this TV show doesn't really quite embody either.
 
Loved the books, read them several times and I'm now onto his new books about Lyra, so I've been very much looking forward to this series.
I thought it was a good episode last night, setting the scene nicely. I'm hoping they keep the story as close to the book as they can. If they do that, it should be great.
 
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