There's something very different about watching a movie that doesn't fufill expectations from the beginning so when the end comes you aren't really too deflated because you've been leaking air for the past two hours (see the first two Harry Potter movies, Star Wars Episodes I and II for excellent proof) and watching a movie that exceeds expectations only to blow them up in your face at the last possible moment. The Golden Compass is the latter. I had high expectations, and the movie surpassed them. The movie improved on the book in quite a fair number of points, the best being the cutting down of flabby dialogue and the fairly quick pacing. (For those of you who only have seen the movie and may have thought it a touch slow, the book is much slower...much more witch and Gyptian talk.) But it did feel a little sanitized like when Lyra meets the kid who doesn't have the daemon (seemed a lot more zombie-like in the book) and he's just kind of moaning. But, I couldn't have foretold how epic the polar bear battle could have been. That was pretty cool. So, I was okay, waiting for the thunderclap ending, waiting to leave on a high. Instead, we got some mealy-mouthed "Don't worry Roger, everything's going to be fine...we'll sail into the sunset on this jolly balloon!" and THE END. ARGH. Horrible! I felt cheated, like the guys cheated by Billy the Kid in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure after Bill revealed Billy had dealt him three aces. (Two Rules: When I win, I keeps. When you win, I keeps. Sure thing, Mr. The Kid!) And much like those men in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, I wanted to tear apart the place upon the discovery of the cheating.
Herein I reveal the spoiler. The book ends with Lyra taking her friend to her Dad who promptly severs him from his daemon to get the sufficient energy to blow open a hole in the cosmos. It's pretty shocking. You can see why a jolly ending reeks of American Hollywoodism. A frightening rumor suggests that they had to change the ending because the corporate heads thought they'd lose money. Well, corporate heads, congratulations. You ruined the movie. Perhaps the Digital Video Disc will have the original ending. If so, then the movie will be a raging success, like Bill and Ted's final project.
"Don't fall Roger! Daddy still needs to sever you from your daemon to fight God"
1 comment:
I'm hiring you as my new movie reviewer man. That was awesome. Though, our current movie reviewer is pretty hilarious in his own right. His title of the Rambo latest horror fest was "Grampo!" I laughed.
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