His Dark Materials - HBO and BBC’s take on Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass

[Oh Shit I'm Sorry]

Per my social circle, His Dark Materials (at least by the end) is so that the most common reaction is "I'm an atheist and even I'm offended."

Also, isn't there supposed to be a scene where two twelve-year-olds get it on? (Between this and It, I'm starting to have serious worries about what being a successful author does to people.)

It's been over a decade since I read it so I remember very little but I am pretty sure the female MC fucks in I believe book 3. One of those "wait, did that just happen?" moments. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that part's probably not going to be in the show.

I find that happens with a lot of authors. Really good at building up a story, but shit at bringing it to a close.
Steven King comes to mind.

I haven't read much King but what little I did I don't remember ever really hating an ending aside from the thousands of interchangeable short stories about X object/demon attacking a guy and then he dies. Shawshank meanwhile had a GOAT ending.

 

[Frogasm]

Even as a devout christian I really loved these books as a young adult. Liked them a lot better than narnia actually. you can enjoy it as a story and like it thematically without being a euphoric atheist. a lot of stuff in the books is about the importance of love, the importance of living your life to the fullest, etc. I think its actually very wholesome overall.

 

[Borax Bozo]

It's been over a decade since I read it so I remember very little but I am pretty sure the female MC fucks in I believe book 3. One of those "wait, did that just happen?" moments. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that part's probably not going to be in the show.

The scene *was* in book 3, but it's very much not clear what actually happens. The two main characters are off in the woods, and it's described as them being close, but it's up to the reader to decide what they did, if anything. It takes a few paragraphs and it's the closest you could get to a literary "fade to black" or a Persona "you spent a lot of time with X".
I believe the "the kids fucked" came in later as one of those interpretations that spreads from person to person over the Internet as the "canonical" what-happened.

IT, however, leaves *no* illusions as to what is happening in that story. King doesn't really do subtle.

 

[A Useless Fish]

Read them in school, and vaguely remember enjoying them at the time. I never went near the movie because I knew they would fuck it up.

Consequently, that's the same reason I'll not be going anywhere near the show. Unless they get Pullman himself to write the scripts, or have a major say in how everything is portrayed, I cannot believe in this day and age that any adaptation worked on by Hollywood won't be trash at best, or a total betrayal of the work and intentions of the author, at worst.

 

[Marco Fucko]

Read them in school, and vaguely remember enjoying them at the time. I never went near the movie because I knew they would fuck it up.

Consequently, that's the same reason I'll not be going anywhere near the show. Unless they get Pullman himself to write the scripts, or have a major say in how everything is portrayed, I cannot believe in this day and age that any adaptation worked on by Hollywood won't be trash at best, or a total betrayal of the work and intentions of the author, at worst.

He is co-writing at least the first season, according to IMDB.

 

[LordofTendons]

Isn't His Dark Materials just "Harry Potter for euphoric atheists" written because the author didn't like the Christian allegories in the Narnia books?

Either way, I'll pass on this one.

This series is like O'Douls-- non-alcoholic beer. Some comedian said this and I can't remember who. O'Douls' motto is "it's what beer drinkers drink when they're not drinking beer." Well if you're not drinking beer, then you're not a beer drinker, are you? This series is the O'Douls of fantasy.

 

[MysticMisty]

The scene *was* in book 3, but it's very much not clear what actually happens. The two main characters are off in the woods, and it's described as them being close, but it's up to the reader to decide what they did, if anything. It takes a few paragraphs and it's the closest you could get to a literary "fade to black" or a Persona "you spent a lot of time with X".

This. Nothing graphic happens at all, unless you're one of those hyper conservatives that doesn't believe in kissing before marriage, in which case you wouldn't even touch the cover of the first book.

 

[TungstenCarbide]

I have to reread this, butwhen I read the third book years ago, I remember thinking that it felt...very different than the first two. Like he focused on the message the story should convey, and not on making it an enjoyable adventure. The fact that the translation in my language is horrible didn't help one bit.

 

[Borax Bozo]

I have to reread this, butwhen I read the third book years ago, I remember thinking that it felt...very different than the first two. Like he focused on the message the story should convey, and not on making it an enjoyable adventure. The fact that the translation in my language is horrible didn't help one bit.

It was like that in English as well. The first two books are very ... zoomed in, so to speak. The third adds a bunch of worldbuilding and passages focused on other character's perspectives, but in doing so loses the close connection to the two main characters for big parts of the book.

 

[Bob's Ghost]

Per my social circle, His Dark Materials (at least by the end) is so that the most common reaction is "I'm an atheist and even I'm offended."

Yeah, just so. The books are not Atheist, they are fucking SATANIC. There is no rationality in his work, just mound upon mound of mysticism piled atop each other. I'm sure there are a bunch of leftist punks out there who believe the Witch Cult Hypothesis because of its representation here. (Do they also believe in the talking bears? Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure that scene where the king of bears has his doll-daemon is going to trigger someone as being transphobic). Also one of the supporting characters is an ex-nun turned Quantum Physicist, which tells you all you need to know about the books. (Yes, dark matter is the great continuum of souls).
He also has the some plot as The Other Wind where the afterlife is artificial, and is a prison for souls of the departed. This doesn't even work as a metaphor, and what a fucking waste of paper it is.

Phil Pullman is a fucking LOLcow, and he would have his own thread on this site if he weren't famous. Oxford did a critical edition of Paradise Lost a few years ago, and they had him edit it even though he didn't have the credentials to do so (he has a BA in English). It's fucking embarrassing, it starts with this asinine introduction which gives the impression that everyone in academia agrees with William Blake's theory that Milton intended Lucifer to be the hero (which is laughable to anyone that's actually read Paradise Lost, and has about the same amount of support as Quentin Tarantino's theory in Sleep With Me that Top Gun is a pro-homosexual movie.) In addition he provides a long and detailed account of every book (even though there is a standard set of such summaries which are included in all modern editions of the poem, and are in fact included after Pullman's in the book) which adds nothing, along with footnotes which are riddled with errors and filled with provocative comments.

 

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

I have a feeling this movie is going to attract a lot of the types, ibh I'll probably still watch this just to see how it turns out.

Despite how everyone hates it, I'm one of the few people who actually likes the 2007 adaptation movie.

 

[Sable]

I've not read the books since I was a little younger than the target audience, but they seemed pretty neat. There's probably a lot that goes over my head.

I do remember the...villains (maybe?) going to war with angels which young me thought was cool. I think god was just an angel that's so old that he just...dies?

Also there were like, these ghosts that ate your soul and could only be killed by the knife thing.

 

[Bongsnake McGee]

Wasn't there a radio drama a decade ago?

Yep, it was a beeb production. Solid, unexeptional in any way.

 

[neverendingmidi]

I may disagree on BBC's politics, but their tv dramas are generally pretty decent. Been watching the Les Miserables one from 2018, it's pretty good. Though the Javert character needed someone with a sharper face, David Oyelowo just has too round a face, though I like his voice.

I'm just pretty meh on this series because I was pretty meh on the book series after the first one.

 

[Bongsnake McGee]

So I'm probably one of the few people in this thread looking forward to this. Just hoping that it avoids some of the pitfalls of recent high-budget shows like American Gods.
I enjoyed the books as a teen, I even gave the pretty bad movie adaptation a fair shake. And if this turns out to be terrible, I'll find a drinking game to play or something. The backdrops to the action in the books were always neat, and It's going to be neat to see them on the medium-sized screen.

 

[nonnewtonian]

I just wanna see the mutant elephants who run around on coconuts and get their shit destroyed by giant ass geese.

 

[_blank_]

Eh, already cancelled my HBO account last night about 10 minutes after finishing up Game of Thrones. As it is, I have no affinity for the source material and I'm kinda done investing my time into fantasy shit. At least until Wheel of Time comes out, then I can be disappointed all over again.

 

[Next Task]

I remember liking the books OK, but finding that while there was an adventurous plot, he couldn't write believable emotional arcs and wasn't great at dialogue - two things an adaptation can fix. But it takes an awful lot of buy-in, and the golden compass is the most artificial of plot devices. So I'm dubious.

The main thing I remember about the last movie adaptation was just how bloodless it was, literally and figuratively. And while there's certainly violence in the book, I actually think bloodless is a good way to describe it, because for me there just ended up being no 'there' there.

But other people loved it, so who knows. Shows that are many times better than their source material aren't unheard of, they are just uncommon.