"I'm telling a story. Any position I take is that of a storyteller who says, Once upon a time, this happened."

Richard Dutcher should memorize Pullman's comment. In fact, I think he may have said something similar at one time or another.

Despite the clarity of this position, some LDS continue to be bothered by such superflous things as Dutcher's missionaries flouting the rules. Poetic license is someting that some people don't seem willing to grant to Mormon Artists. I wish I knew why. Current scholarship shows us that not all the history in the Bible is accurate, there are questions about the time line, and the literary allusions abound, and the official understanding of the Book of Mormons geography has changed in recent decades from a pan-American Nephite civilization to a localized group of people in Mezo-America. Yet none of that affects our appreciation, undestanding, and belief of the sriptures as valid moral guides. Why do we then, become so exercised when an LDS artist uses similar techniques to tell his/her story.

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Thom Duncan
Playwright, Novelist, Poet, Lyricist, Screenwriter, Curmudgeon

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Most shocking thing to me in recent memory:

I have a friend in Georgia whose stake president has forbidden his stake to see this movie.

(?!?!)

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Still haven't seen this, but I plan on it at some point. It was very disappointing at the box office, only making about half of what the first Chronicles of Narnia made. The reviews I have read have been lukewarm at best (except Roger Ebert, whose reviews I usually trust) and the people I've talked to say that have seen it just plain weren't impressed with it, even if they had been fans of the book.
What Pullman says in the Times article is not close to what I had read in a previous article from some time ago. If I remember it correctly, he said that he DID have an agenda in writing the book. It was much more than "Once upon a time..." Although they toned that agenda out of the first movie, the director stated that if the movie did well, he wanted to bring back those elements in the next two. He may not get that chance, as the poor box office results may prevent sequels. The boycott worked, it appears, and left a strong message from the religious right that although they may not stop all the sex, violence and nudity from selling well, that in this instance they stopped atheism from selling well. Whether that power is well wielded is another point to be debated.

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Upon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnamity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its gins and snares can be revealed, and how to sun it (Discourses of Brigham Young, p.243; Bookcraft, 199

Another take on Pullman's trilogy

(the above is a link to an article)

Mahonri Stewart wrote:



Actually, there's another logical reason for the movie to fail--it wasn't a very good movie.

I watched it today with my 13-year old daughter (I read Northern Lights; she's about 3/5 done with it) and we both ended up feeling at best deeply ambivalent, and at worst fairly seriously snookered by the filmmakers.

From my perspective the film suffered from three primary problems--

First, it was based on a very densely plotted and fast-paced novel. To do all of the scenes in the book justice, the movie would have had to be 3-4 times as long. The producers played fair havoc with both which events made it into the film, and what order those events were portrayed in, with the end result that the film felt seriously disjointed and key plot points were touched so lightly as to be almost lost in the rush of events. Nuance and depth were consistently sacrificed for special effects and "big" scenes intended to elicit awe and wonder, with the effect that the narrative felt like 47 disconnected vignettes slammed together with no strong central thread to tie them together.

Second (and related to the first), is that the film appeared too slavish to the book. I know that's an odd thing to say, but when adapting a book to the screen it's almost necessary to re-imagine entire elements of the story to take advantage of the visual and auditory media--often with the effect of actually rewriting large sections of the original text. The fact is that a book does a better job of internal monologue than a film can ever do, so it's critical that the screenwriter find film-specific means of changing that internal thought to externally discernible scenes.

The functional result was that there were a lot of bits and pieces that I recognized from the book that were not given sufficient time, space, or exploration in the film. Either give those elements the space they deserve, or remove them entirely. By leaving the inside jokes in you wink and nudge at the book fans while confusing those who haven't read the book. For me, that left both audiences with less than a full loaf of bread.

Third, the movie left out the entire last 80 pages or so of the book--about 1/5 of the total. The reason for the choice was fairly clear--the book ends on a fairly substantial down note where they film chose to end on a relative up note of revolutionary hope and resolve. The problem is that the film's ending is almost precisely the opposite of how the book ends.

Unlike the Harry Potter franchise that managed a fair job of reducing the books to comprehensible standalone films, The Golden Compass fails in that reduction, then compounds the error by betraying the entire narrative resolution of the book in order to save a happy ending (and any hope of selling the sequel).

All in all, an unsatisfying movie experience. Not unlike Eragon which essentially failed on its own weak adaptation (of a relatively strong book), The Golden Compass failed entirely on the basis of its own lack of strength as a film property. Not because of fantasy burnout, not because of the power of the Evangelical Right, but because it just wasn't a well told story or a well-produced film.

In my opinion.

Scott

If you want it to be the fault of the Christian Right, then so let it be done. But if I recall correctly it seems like the last couple of times they made a fuss over a movie they actually boosted opening week box office--the curiosity factor in the rest of us tends to overcome the Bible Belt reduction.

I'm more inclined to believe it was a combination of uneven advertising, general hectic pace at the holiday season (too much shopping to be done; no time for a movie), and certainly some impact of bad press. I'm just not ready to grant the Christian Right that much power over box office success--at least not in an sf film.

Oddly, sf fans tend to view derision by the Christian Right as a fabulous reason to see a movie, but this time they simply didn't turn out in numbers. After the first week I suspect ordinary word of mouth finished the job, but I would have expected a bigger response from the established sf fan base.

I know that my own initial interest was dampened by word of mouth from friends who simply didn't care for the book (my wife included). I don't think the standard sf fan base was as universally accepting of the book franchise as the comics fans normally are. In other words I think there was a fair pre-existing ambivalence among the normal fan base.

Of course in my case it was more the maternity event that kept me out of movie theaters than anything else, so I suppose I don't count as a fair sample.

It may well be the Christian Right. I just think there's more to it than a single cause.

Scott

This article in the Atlantic painfully describes the sausage-making process of turning a novel into a movie script. Tom Stoppard even wrote an early draft of The Golden Compass. (Ah, what could have been.) It also makes clear the perils of compromising convictions in an effort to win audiences. Mormons should pay attention to the moral of that particular story.

But the article also makes it even clearer to me that no major bestseller, and no major Hollywood production, has ever come closer to capturing the come of the truly peculiar and truly revolutionary concepts introduced into the religious discourse by Mormon theology. (That is, if we don't keep hiding those lights under bushel baskets.) Considering the rabid animosity especially Evangelicals hold for all things Mormon, who could doubt that the movie would be so reviled?

There is always the question whether this kind of subject matter can ever be done justice by the Hollywood blockbuster machine. A Chris Carter or Joss Whedon could have gone to town on this material over two dozen episodes for a fraction of the budget (for about its relatively meager gross to date). And for even less, any number of Japanese anime directors could have preserved every scrap of its original theological complexity.

In series such as Eureka Seven and Scrapped Princess, and movies like Green Legend Ran and Gall Force: Eternal Story you can find explorations of rich eschatology integrating themes of apocalypse and rebirth, falls from Eden and subsequent redemptions. Where this capability comes from is worthy of a dissertation (I attribute it in part to Japan having gone through two apocalyptic events in less than 150 years: the 1868 Meiji Restoration and the 1945-1952 Occupation).

Scrapped Princess and Green Legend Ran are very close in theme to The Golden Compass. Both document a rebellion against the existing theocratic order in order to bring about a "fall" from "Eden," and the birth of a new age. Uniquely Mormon tenants.

In fact, whenever I hear rumors of an Ender's Game movie, I think Card should just forget Hollywood and instead get a director like Hideaki Anno on board. I'm not a big Neon Genesis Evangelion fan, but it captures the essence of the child-as-warrior. On the other hand, even though Makoto Shinkai is working on a different themes in Voices of a Distant Star, he does it so well I'm not sure what an Ender's Game movie would add to it.

Finally saw the film with my wife. Its theological offenses are watered down from what the novel portrays, from what I've heard, but even then its secular propaganda was still pretty blatant. The show is often heavy handed in what it DOES say, and doesn't do a lot to separate itself from propaganda when those moments arrive. It definitely is setting itself up to be some sort of anti-Narnia. And as an avid C.S. Lewis afficindo, I love Narnia and its messages, so I certainly hold that against the film.
That said, I actually really enjoyed it (low expectations are often a good thing to have going into a movie, methinks). Separating it from its agenda and viewing it as a narrative and story, I enjoyed the film. My wife said that if she didn't know the author's background, she would have come out of the film thinking that it was a spiritual film. There were several elements which had Mormon echoes within it, especially dealing with the battle for free will and the necessity of a Fall. Interesting stuff.
Technically and structurally, the show had some issues. It seemed choppy, not taking a lot of time to develop themes or plot or just plain exposition in any kind of real depth. They jumped from place to place to place, which made it feel rushed and at some points rather aimless. The characters were well formed, however, and the acting was pretty strong (except for the villains-- with the notable exception of an excellent Nicole Kidman-- came off as sneering and two dimensional). With as much as this movie cost, ironically, I thought that the computer graphics looked fakey and at times soulless. The air ships, zeppelins, buildings, etc. were all very cool, but many of the animals paled in comparison to the CG critters in Chronicles of Narnia.
Overall, I still feel it was due to the machinery of the Christian Right that killed this film's hopes of success. In my mind, everything factors to the conculsion that this movie should have done well. It had some major flaws, but no more than many a "blockbuster" I have seen. If the shoe fits...
Whatever the case may be, we can argue the point till we're blue in the face, but for whatever reason, at least in the American Circuit (New Line Cinema sold the foreign distribution rights to help pay for the movie, so they're not raking in the significant money made over seas) the Christian Right seem to have been at least a factor in this film's failure to meet up to expectations.
On one hand, I applaud these religious groups' efforts, for however people want to spin it, this film is subtle, secular propaganda. Not all of it wrong nor all of it right, but when it comes down to it, it's how I categorize the film. On the other hand, I was interested in the film on a narrative/ story/ character level and would have loved to the see the other films. As it is, I might actually do what the Christian Right was so afraid of me doing after watching the movie-- read the books. Gasp!
But if I am right and it was the same force that made this movie fail that made Passion of the Christ succeed (a film, by the way I truly enjoyed, despite its graphic content), I'm still slightly uneasy by that fact. Perhaps it's because I've been following the 2008 campaign and have been disgusted by the trying-to-be-subtle-but-never-succeeding-to be-subtle anti-Mormon bigotry I have seen on that front coming from the likes of Mike Huckabee. A lot of us Mormons try to play nice with the Christian Right and build on our common values and faith in Christ, and in return get a sock in the eye. As an organization, they are generally no friends to the Mormons. The same sort of hate filled paranoia that they have shown towards Pullman and his book, they in turn target against us. We applaude when we see it used to fight against something we also figh against. In the end, I think they're right on a certain point. We're not fighting on the same team. To them, we're heretics, and to us, they're apostates. Many core values are the same, but when push comes to shove, they'll push us off a figurative cliff before they ever let us be a part of their "Christian" club. And if we take Joseph Smith's vision literally, we must concede that their sects and alterations of old truths are "abominations" and apostasies.

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Upon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards; the weakness and the follies of man, the magnamity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls, its gins and snares can be revealed, and how to sun it (Discourses of Brigham Young, p.243; Bookcraft, 199

The first novel didn't really contain any theological offenses; it was essentially worldbuilding and situational setup. There were certainly details of the oppressive, religion-driven Magisterium, but those were very understated in the first novel and tended to be more suggestive of late nineteenth century England than anything else (at least to me).

So most of the anti-religious posturing you see in the film is actually intuited out of the other books, I think. I just didn't see it in the first book. Of course I may also simply have missed it--I've learned to tune out the generally anti-religious sentiment of a lot of science fiction and fantasy.

Which puts me in an odd position as a Mormon who is also an sf fan.

By and large, modern science fiction authors tend to take a fairly aggressive anti-religious stance in their fiction. If religion is mentioned at all it's usually as an oppressive or regressive institution that needs to be overthrown. Usually religion is either ignored, derided, or viewed as quaint or superstitious.

As a result, I've learned to simply ignore that element of the author's argument and move on to an evaluation of whether the premise is well-delivered, the world is well-built, the characters are well-drawn, and the general sequence of events are engaging and entertaining. I disagree with much of science fiction's philosophical content at such a basic level that it's easy to note the arguments without feeling either attacked or dismayed by them. I do the same with most other fiction unless the author forces me to evaluate their arguments as the only criteria.

Which, oddly, is where I land right now on Golden Compass. After a book and a half, I have not been asked by the author to base an evaluation of the series on his philosophical arguments--the worlds, characters, situations, and imagination of the series has been enough to provide me with value regardless of philosophical argument or author's worldview. Apparently that changes very soon and the authors makes some very specific arguments, but half-way through series I have not yet found a reason to be bothered by Pullman's novels since they succeed so admirably as works of imaginative fiction.

Some day I'll post the four-book analysis I started a couple of years ago of explicitly religiously-themed sf novels (The Sparrow, Towing Jehova, Handmaid's Tale, and Distance Haze) where I look at how those authors address explicit questions of religion in their novels.

These books each take a different tack, but they also go straight at questions of faith and religion. I find the different approaches interesting and informative of a generation of writers who is moving away from the Golden Age assumption that all religion is dangerous superstition that Humanity is now evolving away from, and toward a more nuanced view that at least attempts to take religious/philosophical thought seriously.

(One novel tries to tell a story of faith but fails because the author can't really understand the mind of a faith-driven character, one takes simple joy in putting both the religious and anti-religious into a situation that's embarrassing for each and draws no conclusions, one uses a silly strawman of religious oppression to make a political statement, and one attempts to seriously understand the underlying biochemistry of the "God spot" while leaving the question of Truth to philosophers.)

This separation of technique and art and argument is where I think a lot of fans (and marketing groups) get sideways to each other. We often assume that because a work is imaginatively interesting, that fan acceptance somehow embraces the underlying philosophy (or vice versa). Especially with sf, I would argue that these elements need to be understood in isolation and that a philosophically repugnant argument may well succeed on the basis of powerfully imagined and vividly portrayed worlds despite the philosophy rather than because of it (China Mieville, anyone?).

On the use of religious thought as a political volleyball, I liked Ken Jenning's editorial in the New York Daily News last week: Politicians & pundits, please stop slandering my Mormon faith.

I don't agree with all of his arguments or assumptions, but I like the way he presents himself and I think he makes some excellent points.




No argument from me. I simply disagree. I have stated my reasons and you are not moved; you have stated your reasons and I am not convinced.

Since contrary position from me apparently constitutes blue-in-the-face argument, that clearly indicates that further discussion is not wanted and leaves me with very little to add to the topic. So be it.

It turns out that I actually agree with you on the general premise that the Christian Right should take a chill pill and back off. But where you apparently believe they destroyed something valuable, I believe that the film was weak and irrelevant to start with, would have failed on its own merits if they had not created it as a topic of conversation, and represents a trend in modern filmmaking that puts emphasis on superficial FX shots and big sense-of-wonder scenes rather than emphasizing simple story.

I think it was a weak film whose only legs come from the controversy created by the Christian Right. Otherwise it would have fallen into the same black hole of irrelevancy that Eragon and the Left Behind movies occupy--along with the weak adaptations of blockbuster properties such as Battlefield Earth, Starship Troopers, Lost in Space and any number of other poor adaptations of sf stories over the years.

But I guess I'm getting blue in the face and no one wants that, so I'll stop now.

Scott

I don't mean to come off as prickly about that kind of thing, but to me the whole rhetorical construct of "argue until you're blue in the face" exists to communicate fatigue with the conversation and a desire to close on the topic. I'm good with that. We've pretty much beaten up the idea and I'm not sure how much there is to say that isn't a rehash of what's already been said.

I'm just trying not to be annoying. I don't require agreement, disagreement, or anything else from a conversation. But I will tend to beat dead horses until encouraged to move on. It's one of my rhetorical tendencies that tends to bother people--I state, restate, then clarify my points. It drives me nuts when my dad does it to me (the point loses its pith after the 23rd repetition), so I need to be more sensitive when I do it to others.

Last comment on Golden Compass...

Hearkening back to something Russell Asplund suggested back on AML-List, I can't help but wonder how much distortion has entered into the broad conversation around both the novels and the film as a result of strong religious/anti-religious commentary on both sides. I hate to be herded into anything--either acceptance or rejection--by other peoples' reactions. My natural passive-aggressive tendencies generally lead me to resist any popular trend until I have my own experience with the thing.

A lot of people (I'm usually one of them) consider the displeasure of the Christian Right as a strong reason to see something out of spite--in other words, people become reactive to the critic rather than to the work being critiqued. The fact that the Christian Right comes out against something does not automatically imbue that thing with value or special virtue; I should not automatically disagree with everything the Christian Right says and embrace something just because they reject it.

Similarly, a lot of critics are holding up Golden Compass as some ideal of right-thinking, rational, artistically marvelous work that should become the standard of all religio-philosophical presentation in YA literature. The argument seems to be that only fiction that attacks religion can be truly open minded and philosophically rich.

I think both stances attempt to reduce a complex set of ideas to a pithy campaign slogan and stop short of useful contribution.

Which has largely made open discourse on Golden Compass difficult because if I disagree with Pullman's arguments that proves I'm a simple-minded religious bigot, and if I admire his craft as a storyteller that proves I'm an anti-Christian secularist bigot. Much of the public discourse seems bent on forcing participants into one of those extremes (not your tack, but one others are using to excess, IMO).

At first blush I find some structural issues with Pullman's premise that The Golden Compass is a response to Milton's Paradise Lost where Satan wins. That confused me all through the first book because the way I understand both Christian religion and Milton's epic poem, the only way to posit Satan as winning the war in heaven (WH) requires that Christ loses in the original battle.

But that's not the way Pullman structures The Golden Compass--his story posits that Christ wins WH I, but that Satan gets a second bite at the apple and starts WH II something like 30000 years later through the person of Lord Asriel (Azazel?...sure, why not?).

Coming from a Christian religious foundation it never occurred to me that Satan gets another run at it ("loosed for a season" is a different concept in my mind), and the established Christian ethos says that having lost the first time around Satan's simply out of luck and there's no chance at all that Satan could win even if he did get a second shot at it.

So at best his response to Milton is more suggestive than direct since he's not playing by the same rules that Milton played by. Which begs the effectiveness of the series as a response to Milton. It seems more like a story inspired by Milton than a direct response to Milton. Maybe that's splitting too fine a hair, but I feel that the author has asked me to evaluate on that basis.

On that basis, I find The Golden Compass to be structurally weak. It's a good tale so far, but I would argue that it appears to be fundamentally flawed as a response to Milton since he broke discipline and set up an entirely different set of rules to play by. Satan didn't really lose--he just regrouped; God wasn't really God--he was just a confused old man with too much power and not enough sense.

An interesting premise. Just leave Milton out of it and let the story stand on its own basis--inspired by Milton, not responsive to him. Drawing the explicit connection demands levels of analysis and criticism that the text doesn't really support.

But I'm redundantly and repetitively reiterating the same idea over and over again in a repeating fashion.

Horse dead now. Ugh.

Scott