On Wednesday Molly & I headed off to the wonderful Pocklington Arts Centre to partake in a bit of The Golden Compass.
It was meant to be a birthday treat for us. (interesting that - how Molly always manages to make my birthday treat turn into a treat for us). But various house problems meant that we spent a while today waiting for electricians to show up. They did. Eventually.
Anyway, the film was good. Or at least as good and satisfying as a completely incomplete film could be. Even Molly, who hasn't read the Pullman book, turned to me at the end as Lyra gives a to camera to-do list (Go North, Help Lord Azrael, defeat evil, find out about dust, etc etc) and asked if that was it.
And it was. The story is that Hollwood didn't think that the downbeat ending to book 1 suited a big Hollywood movie and simply decided not to use the last three chapters. I hear that it will be used as the start of the second movie.
Whether or not this is a good idea is up for debate. I hear Pullman thinks it's okay, acknowledging that films have to be structured as films, rather than novels.
But what is a problem is the way a pretty good, entertaining movie is simply brought to a grinding halt. It just felt completely wrong. Shame.
We await film 2. I wonder what the hell they'll call that?
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