The Golden Compass (film)

On an alternate retrofuturistic Earth ruled by the Magisterium, every person's soul exists outside the body as an animal companion, a dæmon.

Lyra Belacqua is an orphan raised at Jordan College in Oxford with her dæmon Pantalaimon or "Pan". Her uncle Lord Asriel returns from seeking the elusive Dust, a cosmic particle the Magisterium forbids to be mentioned. Lyra saves him from wine spiked by a Magisterium agent, and Asriel presents his discovery that Dust at the North Pole links to infinite worlds. He is granted another expedition though his theory, if proven, could undermine the Magisterium's control.

Mrs. Coulter, a wealthy "friend" of the college, invites Lyra to stay with her in London. The Master of the college entrusts Lyra with her uncle's alethiometer, a compass-like artefact that reveals the truth, warning her to keep it secret. Kidnappers called "Gobblers" have been abducting children, including Lyra's friend Roger and Billy Costa, a young Gyptian. Lyra discovers Mrs. Coulter is head of the General Oblation Board, realising they are the Gobblers, and she and Pan escape when Mrs. Coulter's dæmon attempts to steal the alethiometer.

Lyra is saved from Gobblers by Ma Costa, Billy's mother, and taken to the Gyptian king John Faa, who is sailing north to search for the children. Gyptian elder Farder Coram recognizes the alethiometer, which Lyra discovers she can decipher. In league with the Magisterium, Mrs. Coulter sends mechanical spy-flies after Lyra, but one is caught by Farder Coram. Asriel reaches Svalbard, the kingdom of the Ice Bears, but is captured by Samoyed tribesmen hired by Mrs. Coulter.

The witch queen Serafina Pekkala tells Lyra the children are at Bolvangar, and Lyra befriends Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby, who suggests she hire him and his friend Iorek Byrnison, an armoured bear he has come to rescue. Once a prince of the bears, Iorek was defeated and exiled, and the townspeople have tricked him out of his armour. Lyra uses the alethiometer to help Iorek recover his armour, and he and Scoresby join the Gyptian trek northward.

Lyra, astride Iorek, follows the alethiometer and finds Billy, whom the Gobblers have experimented on using "intercision", a procedure that surgically separates him from his dæmon. The Gyptians are attacked by Samoyeds who capture Lyra, with Iorek and Lee in pursuit in Lee's airship. Lyra is taken to the bear king Ragnar Sturlusson, and tricks him into fighting Iorek himself. Ragnar, who poisoned Iorek's father, has the upper hand until Iorek feigns weakness and kills him, reclaiming the throne.

Iorek carries Lyra to Bolvangar, but she is forced to cross a narrow ice bridge alone before it collapses. Reaching the experimental station, Lyra reunites with Roger, and overhears Mrs. Coulter say that Asriel will soon be arrested and sentenced to death for heresy. Caught by the scientists, Lyra and Pan are thrown into the intercision chamber but rescued by Mrs. Coulter. Explaining that the Magisterium believe intercision protects children from Dust's corrupting influence, Mrs. Coulter admits she is Lyra's mother, and Lyra realises Asriel is her father. Mrs. Coulter asks for the alethiometer, but Lyra gives her the can containing the spy-fly, which tranquilizes Mrs. Coulter unconscious.

Destroying the intercision machine, Lyra leads the children outside. They are confronted by Tatar mercenaries, who are defeated by Iorek, Scoresby, the Gyptians, and flying witches led by Serafina. With the children safe, Lyra, Roger, Iorek, Lee, and Serafina fly north to search for Asriel. Confirming Serafina's prophecy of a coming war with Lyra at its centre, Lyra is determined to fight the Magisterium, who plot to control all other worlds in the universe.

Nicole Kidman at the film's premiere.

• Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, who embarks on a voyage to battle the forces of evil and rescue her best friend. New Line Cinema announced 11-year-old Richards' casting in June 2006.[6] It was her first acting role.[7]
• Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, an influential woman who takes an interest in Lyra (and later admits that she is Lyra's mother). Kidman was author Philip Pullman's preferred choice for the role ten years before production of the film,[8] and despite initially rejecting the offer to star as she did not want to play a villain, she signed on after receiving a personal letter from Pullman.[9]
• Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, Lyra's strict and mysterious adventurer uncle. In July 2006, it was reported that Paul Bettany was in talks to play the role.[10]
• Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby, a Texan aeronaut who comes to Lyra's aid. Pullman has singled out Elliott's performance as one the film got "just right."[11]
• Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala, a witch queen.
• Jim Carter as John Faa, the king of the Gyptians.
• Clare Higgins as Ma Costa, member of a Gyptian family that aids Lyra.
• Ben Walker as Roger Parslow, Lyra's best friend, who is kidnapped and taken north.
• Charlie Rowe as Billy Costa, son of Ma Costa, and Lyra's friend.
• Steven Loton as Tony Costa, son of Ma Costa and Billy's older brother.
• Christopher Lee as the Magisterium's first high councilor. Lee's casting was also at New Line's behest, rather than that of Chris Weitz.[6]
• Tom Courtenay as Farder Coram, Gyptian second-in-command and advisor to John Faa.
• Derek Jacobi as the Magisterial emissary.
• Simon McBurney as Fra Pavel, a Magisterial agent.
• Jack Shepherd as master of Jordan College.
• Magda Szubanski as Mrs. Lonsdale.
• Hattie Morahan as Sister Clara.

Numerous scenes from the novel did not feature in the film or were markedly changed. On December 7, 2007, New York magazine reviewed draft scripts from both Stoppard and Weitz; both were significantly longer than the final version, and Weitz's draft (which, unlike Stoppard's, did not feature significant additions to the source material) was pronounced the best of the three. The magazine concluded that instead of a "likely three hours of running time" that included such scenes as Mrs. Coulter's London party and Lyra's meeting with a witch representative, the studio had opted for a "failed" length of under 2 hours in order to maximize revenue.[24]

On October 9, 2007, Weitz revealed that the final 3 chapters from Northern Lights had been moved to the film's potential sequel, The Subtle Knife, in order to provide "the most promising conclusion to the first film and the best possible beginning to the second,"[25] though he also said less than a month later that there had been "tremendous marketing pressure" to create "an upbeat ending."[26] (The San Francisco Chronicle found this "truncated" ending abrupt.[27]) Author Pullman publicly supported these changes, saying that "every film has to make changes to the story that the original book tells—not to change the outcome, but to make it fit the dimensions and the medium of film."[28] In addition to removing the novel's unsettling ending, the film reverses the order in which Lyra travels to Bolvangar, the Gobbler's outpost, and then Svalbard, the armoured bears' kingdom.[29] (Neither deviation from the book features in Scholastic Publishing's The Golden Compass: The Story of the Movie novelisation.) In July 2009, Weitz told a Comic Con audience that the film had been "recut by [New Line], and my experience with it ended being quite a terrible one";[4] he also told Time magazine that he had felt that by "being faithful to the book I was working at odds with the studio."[30]

Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club argued that through the use of a spoken introduction and other exposition-filled dialogue, the film fails by "baldly revealing up front everything that the novel is trying to get you to wonder about and to explore slowly."[29] Youyoung Lee wrote in a December 2007 Entertainment Weekly that the film "leaves out the gore", such as the book's ritualistic heart-eating that concludes the bear fight, "to create family-friendlier fare."[31] Lee also said that the film "downplays the Magisterium's religious nature", but Robinson argued that the depiction of the church in the film is as "a hierarchical organisation of formally robed, iconography-heavy priests who dictate and define morality for their followers, are based out of cathedrals, and decry teachings counter to theirs as 'heresy.' ... doing ugly things to children under cover of secrecy." Robinson then asks, "Who are most people going to think of besides the Catholic Church?"[29]

Although the character of Mrs. Coulter has black hair in the novel, Pullman responded to the blonde Kidman's portrayal by saying, "I was clearly wrong. You sometimes are wrong about your characters. She's blonde. She has to be."[32]

Several key themes of the novels, such as the rejection of religion and the abuse of power in a fictionalised version of the Church, were diluted in the adaptation. Director Weitz said that "in the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots", but that the organisation portrayed in his film would not directly match that of Pullman's books. Instead, the Magisterium represents all dogmatic organisations.[33]

Attempting to reassure fans of the novels, Weitz said that religion would instead appear in euphemistic terms, yet the decision was criticised by some fans,[34] anti-censorship groups, and the National Secular Society (of which Pullman is an honorary associate), which said "they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it ..."[35] and "this is part of a long-term problem over freedom of speech." The Atlantic wrote: "With $180 million at stake, the studio opted to kidnap the book's body and leave behind its soul."[36] The changes from the novel have been present since Tom Stoppard's rejected version of the script,[14] and Pullman expected the film to be "faithful",[33] although he also said: "They do know where to put the theology and that's off the film."[36] A Christianity Today review of the film noted that "'Magisterium' does refer, in the real world, to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and the film [is] peppered with religiously significant words like 'oblation' and 'heresy'", adding that when one character smashes through the wall of a Magisterium building, the damaged exterior is "decorated with [Christian] Byzantine icons."[37]

On October 7, 2007, the Catholic League called for a boycott of the film.[38] League president William A. Donohue said he would not ordinarily object to the film, but that while the religious elements are diluted from the source material, the film will encourage children to read the novels, which he says denigrate Christianity and promote atheism for children.[39] He cited Pullman telling The Washington Post in 2001 that he is trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.[40] The league hoped that "the film [would fail] to meet box-office expectations and that [Pullman's] books attract few buyers",[41] declaring the boycott campaign a success after a North American opening weekend which was lower than anticipated.[42]

Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, agreed that the broad appeal of the film was a dangerous lure to the novels, which he criticised for carrying a clear agenda to expose what Pullman believes is the "tyranny of the Christian faith" and for providing "a liberating mythology for a new secular age."[43] Denny Wayman of the Free Methodist Church made the assertion that The Golden Compass is a "film trying to preach an atheistic message."[44] Other evangelical groups, such as the Christian Film and Television Commission, adopted a "wait-and-see" approach to the film before deciding upon any action,[45] as did the Catholic Church in England and Wales.[46] Theologian Donna Freitas argued that the books were "deeply theological, and deeply Christian in their theology".[47] In November 2007, a review of the film by the director and staff reviewer of the Office for Film and Broadcasting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) appeared on the website of the Catholic News Service and in Catholic newspapers across the country. The review suggested that instead of a boycott, it may be appropriate for Catholic parents to "talk through any thorny philosophical issues" with their children.[48] However, on December 10, 2007 the review was removed from the website at the USCCB's request.[49] On December 19, 2007, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published an editorial in which it denounced the film as godless.[50]

Pullman said of Donohue's call for a boycott, "Why don't we trust readers? Why don't we trust filmgoers? Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world."[46] In a discussion with Donohue on CBS's Early Show, Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, said that rather than promote atheism, the film would encourage children to question authority, saying that would not be a bad thing for children to learn.[51] Director Weitz says that he believes His Dark Materials is "not an atheistic work, but a highly spiritual and reverent piece of writing",[34] and Nicole Kidman defended her decision to star in the film, saying that the source material had been "watered down a little" and that her religious beliefs would prevent her from taking a role in a film she perceived as anti-Catholic.[17] Some commentators indicated that they believed both sides' criticism would prove ultimately impotent and that the negative publicity would prove a boon for the film's box-office.[46][52][53] Sales were in fact poor; one week after the film's release, Roger Ebert said of the Catholic campaign, "any bad buzz on a family film can be mortal, and that seems to have been the case this time."[54] The planned film trilogy has not been continued, prompting actor Sam Elliott to blame censorship and the Catholic Church.[55]

French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the film's music. British singer Kate Bush wrote and performed the song "Lyra" which is played over the end credits.[80] The film's soundtrack album was released on January 22, 2008, by WaterTower Music.

The video game for this film was released in November 2007 in Europe and December 2007 in North America and Australia for the PC, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and the Xbox 360. It was developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Sega.[81]

Players take control of the characters Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison in Lyra's attempt to save her friend Roger from the General Oblation Board. As this game does not fully take into account the changes made by the final version of the film, a small amount of footage from the film's deleted ending can be viewed near the end of the game, and the order in which Lyra travels to Bolvangar and Svalbard follows the book and not the film.

• The Golden Compass at IMDb 
• The Golden Compass at AllMovie
• The Golden Compass at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Golden Compass at Metacritic
• The Golden Compass at Box Office Mojo
• Book Vs. Film: The Golden Compass by The A.V. Club
• The Golden Compass Production Notes Archived 2 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine