So I've just finished the "His Dark Materials" Trilogy. You know, the one that caused all the uproar during Christmas when the first of the books, The Golden Compass, was released as a movie. Inspired by the "christian" controversy I picked up the books to see for myself. And they are very much heretical if you ascribe to the Christian faith. Mind you, far less heretical than Friends, CSI and any other mainstream visual nonsense we escape with. But that is neither here nor there.
The books, themselves, are not very good. Better than the previous "christian" controversy and book, The Da Vinci Code, from a literature standpoint, be assured. But not that great. The first one, honestly, I thought was brilliant. Imaginative. Large. Challenging. It was good children's literature in the vein of Potter, Dahl, L'Engle, Tolkein in scope alone. But it's ending meandered in order to set the tone for the second book and the riverbed of creativity dried up after that as the books became more about an agenda than children's novels.
I was reminded, as I finished the final book today, of my father's take on a sci-fi movie a few years back, Trip to Mars or something like that (with Lt. Dan!). At the end of the movie they were all holding hands in a circle. He fully expected, in that moment, the characters to start singing Kum Ba Yah. I felt the same way finishing the novel. It held an awfully high opinion of itself as it concluded. And the characters were metaphorically standing around the campfire of their world-view, holding hands, and singing Kum Ba Yah.
A brief example: All the characters marvel at the inter-connectedness of worlds and beings and Dust and particles and life. How slight variations on one world go the opposite in another. They are astounded by the connectedness of life still. In the same breath they admonish the view that it could have all originated from a creator being. We are all connected by luck and chance! Let's sing and hold hands and bask in this view, for it is glorious!
But my curiosity is assuaged. Though, I suspect, the controversy will not be when the second movie debuts next year. But whatever, it'll make for an entertaining movie to escape with. I consistently remain amused by how "christian" controversy is stirred up over books that are not that good.
The books, themselves, are not very good. Better than the previous "christian" controversy and book, The Da Vinci Code, from a literature standpoint, be assured. But not that great. The first one, honestly, I thought was brilliant. Imaginative. Large. Challenging. It was good children's literature in the vein of Potter, Dahl, L'Engle, Tolkein in scope alone. But it's ending meandered in order to set the tone for the second book and the riverbed of creativity dried up after that as the books became more about an agenda than children's novels.
I was reminded, as I finished the final book today, of my father's take on a sci-fi movie a few years back, Trip to Mars or something like that (with Lt. Dan!). At the end of the movie they were all holding hands in a circle. He fully expected, in that moment, the characters to start singing Kum Ba Yah. I felt the same way finishing the novel. It held an awfully high opinion of itself as it concluded. And the characters were metaphorically standing around the campfire of their world-view, holding hands, and singing Kum Ba Yah.
A brief example: All the characters marvel at the inter-connectedness of worlds and beings and Dust and particles and life. How slight variations on one world go the opposite in another. They are astounded by the connectedness of life still. In the same breath they admonish the view that it could have all originated from a creator being. We are all connected by luck and chance! Let's sing and hold hands and bask in this view, for it is glorious!
But my curiosity is assuaged. Though, I suspect, the controversy will not be when the second movie debuts next year. But whatever, it'll make for an entertaining movie to escape with. I consistently remain amused by how "christian" controversy is stirred up over books that are not that good.
1 comment:
I find it interesting that Christian groups raised such a fuss about the first movie. To me, the only possible result was to raise the profile of a mediocre film and put more money in the coffers of the people who made it. As conventional wisdom says, any publicity is good publicity.
Funny thing is that even with all the free publicity, The Golden Compass did poorly ($70M) at the box office in the United States but still made nearly a third of a billion dollars worldwide. I was shocked when you mentioned there'd be a second movie, but if the first one was that big overseas it seems reasonable.
I haven't seen the first film and don't plan on ever seeing any of them. This has little to do with the ideology of the writer and everything to do with me not wanting to spend several hours of my life watching Nicole Kidman movies.
Post a Comment