BROKEN 'COMPASS' (Anti-God movie gets 1.5 star review)

NY Post ^ | 12/6/07 | Kyle Smith

[jimbo123]

ANTI-CHURCH MOVIE REVIEW

‘NARNIA’ KNOCKOFF WAY OFF COURSE

FIVE minutes before “The Golden Compass" started, I was wondering when it was going to start. Forty minutes into it, I was wondering exactly the same thing.

“The Golden Compass," a sort of “The Empire Strikes Harry Potter of the Caribbean," only with giant polar bears wearing suits of armor and punching each other in the face, reminded me why I stopped reading sci-fi and fantasy when I was 15. It was the nouns. “Hark thee, my fair Stenerud, and wield well this ancient benirschke. Journeyest then to the plain of Septien, and unleash these yepremians with the longbow of Herrera . . . "

[jimbo123]

More:

Sorting all this out yields a clanking allegory (Church bad; secular skepticism good) that sucks all the fun away while much more enticing-looking stuff - fanciful zeppelin docks and mysterious pirate ships - hovers frustratingly in the background.

[aruanan]

I stopped reading sci-fi and fantasy when I was 15. It was the nouns.

Poor Kyle never did do much reading of science fiction, or else he has a faulty memory.

[Nathan Zachary]

"with giant polar bears wearing suits of armor and punching each other in the face, reminded me why I stopped reading sci-fi and fantasy when I was 15."

Plus is makes people dress up in "star fleet" uniforms, speak kling-on, carry around pretend phasers, light sabres, or whatever the case may be, and become left wing lunatics who believe in such things as "global warming", vast right wing conspiracy theories, and "big oil" that goes around suppressing technology that can generate "free" electricity.

[AnAmericanMother]

Best three-word capsule summary: “Chronicles of Yawnia.”

[AnAmericanMother]

No, he's just making a point.

You can interpolate "I stopped reading BAD sci-fi and fantasy when I was 15. It was the nouns." It is a problem that most sci-fi/fan authors have to get over. I remember a review of one of Sherri Tepper's True Game books where the reviewer said that he usually put a book down straightway when something called a "Gamesmaster" appeared on the second page. In that case, it would have been a mistake to put down the book, but often it's a good idea.

Think the worst of Marion Zimmer Bradley. It's not just the goofy nouns . . . it's the preachiness. Kills enjoyment stone cold dead.

[aruanan]

No, he's just making a point.

That's why I said science fiction, not fantasy. Besides, the fact that he said "sci-fi" shows he didn't have any real familiarity with the genre.

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm old enough to remember when it was called "scientifiction" -- calling it "sci-fi" doesn't disqualify a reader per se.

Much of it, like much of fantasy, is trash. Some is entertaining trash, but trash nonetheless. The nouns are just as bad in sci-fi anyhow, they just tend to the technical rather than the portentiously medieval. (Some of the really talented ones, like Dickson, can manage both at once.)

[MaryFromMichigan]

If you like the genre, you may want to check out the science fiction pod cast magazine, Escape Pod.
Listen to the pod's Hugo Awards mp3s.

If you like good scifi well read, it's story time.

[Sherman Logan]

Too true. I always found the adjectives more off-putting.

(But then I’m still reading it 30 years after turning 15.)

[Blagden Alley]

When John Campbell died, do did real science fiction.

[Kozak]

Really? Cause I bet like me, a LOT of people here got hooked on Liberty and personal responsibility by reading Heinlein.

[agere_contra]

It’s kind of neat that the evil villain-lady is called Coulter. But otherwise, I’m glad it’s a tired and confusing film.

[PennsylvaniaMom]

Another flop for Nicole Kidman? We’ll see. As I said on other threads (re boycotting The Golden Compass) if a movie is poorly written, directed, acted (special effects notwithstanding) it will tank. Look for Golden Compass product tie ins at a Dollor Store near you...

[7thson]

I think Kyle has a point. Somewhere along the line, publishers started pushing this fantasy sword and sorcery crap as sci-fi. It’s not. It’s fantasy crap with made-up words masquerading as nouns. I enjoy reading good sci-fi - space travel, time travel, alien creatures - things like that. When you get to flying dragons and mysterious glowing orbs, that’s fantasy. And the only sword and sorcery fantasy I ever liked were the Robert E. Howard Conan stories.

[IronJack]

Journeyest then to the plain of Septien

Thank ye, but nay. I'll keep to my abode and verily miss thee when thou comest to DVD.

[Tax-chick]

The film is not as silly as it sounds; it's much sillier. Remember the worst line in "Star Wars"? "But I was gonna go to the Tashi station to pick up some power converters!" Imagine a whole movie like that.

LOL!

Great review. Nicole Kidman looks more like she's playing Clare Booth Luce, though. Dang, she's gotten skinny! Maybe she's taken up heavy drinking to make Keith Urban feel better.

[7thson]

Great reply! LOL!

[CASchack]

This is nothing more than a thinly veiled Michael Newdow-style attempt to eradicate God in the culture. It should be about as successful as Air America.

[jalisco555]

I can’t remember the last Nicole Kidman movie that anyone actually went to. She’s made one flop after another.

[AnAmericanMother]

Yeah, I can see it. Good one!

Of course, it makes perfect sense, since Luce was a pretty gung-ho Catholic . . .

[ChessExpert]

My wife read me some of our local paper movie review, from the McClatchy newspapers. Apparently, I can count on McClatchy to point people in the wrong direction. The movie reviewer, Roger Moore, complains about Narnia’s “Christian propaganda” and likes the atheist propaganda of the Golden Compass.

[31R1O]

The Others wasn’t bad at all.

[Tribune7]

in the second hour, Lyra finds an ally in a fierce, enslaved polar bear (voiced by Ian McKellen), but he too reels off a few pages of grudges and legends. They say you'd pay good money to hear an actor like McKellen read the phone book. How about the Dungeons and Dragons manual?

LOL

[NeoCaveman]

The movie reviewer, Roger Moore, complains about Narnia’s “Christian propaganda” and likes the atheist propaganda of the Golden Compass.

Of course. The devil is not one to insist on equal time for his opponent.

[ArrogantBustard]

Much of [scifi], like much of fantasy, is trash.

[Theodore] Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud.

[Oberon]

Really? Cause I bet like me, a LOT of people here got hooked on Liberty and personal responsibility by reading Heinlein.

[waves hand wildly]

Starship Troopers was my first and most important, but all the Lazarus Long books followed in short order and did nothing to shore up my respect for civil government. =]

[NavyCanDo]

I have received several chain-letter emails warning me of this movie, and I mostly shrugged them off, thinking I was seeing the same senseless hysteria I was seeing when the first Harry Potter movie was coming out. — But after listening to Medved’s review on this movie yesterday, I am dead set against seeing this piece of anti-Christian garbage.
Medved came out in strong defense of the Harry Potter movies, but he said he could not do the same for this one.
His review, back up everything that is being said about the anti-Christian content and the blatantly anti-Christian writer of the books. Even though the movie is a watered down version of the book, Medved seemed horrified by the content- for example the “good characters” in the movie each had a demon and that was a “good thing”, and the bad people, The Church, were set on casting out or destroying the demons. Medved was dead serious when he said young minds could honestly come out of this movie, wishing they had a demon, even buying demon toys if they came out and they probably will if this movie is a hit.

[Tax-chick]

since Luce was a pretty gung-ho Catholic

And a serial adulteress, which also fits the character in GC, iirc. It's been years since I read it; I think we still lived in Norman, OK.

[vollmond]

Nice call out to the kickers of the days of yore.

[Calvin Locke]

Well, I had an awful difficult time getting through “A Clockwork Orange”.

[knuthom]

I started reading the book, after it was recommended to me. It was so awful, I didn’t finish it.

[Tribune7]

IIRC, she converted to Catholicism late.

[AnAmericanMother]

Or as my dear grandmother (who was a Life Master in Duplicate Bridge and died at the age of 103) used to say, “Just about ninety percent of the people in the world never do figure out what’s going on.”

[Tax-chick]

50-odd, it looks like, from a quick search of online biography - after the most lively of her personal escapades.

I didn’t realize she’d coined the term “Globaloney.”

[AnAmericanMother]

Probably her conscience caught up with her.

[Constitution Day]

All this whining about the movie makes me want to go see what all the fuss is about.

[Tax-chick]

Her teenage daughter was killed in a car accident, triggering a conversion.

I don’t know if that means she stopped cheating on Luce, or not. Becoming Catholic doesn’t mean we never sin again!

[Tax-chick]

I didn’t know you liked fantasy.

[murdoog]

all the Lazarus Long books

There was more than one? What besides Time Enough For Love?

[AnAmericanMother]

Poor lady. That’s a terrible thing to have happen.

[Tax-chick]

Yes, it is.

[HamiltonJay]

I don’t read Sci Fi, but I do fantasy... but I am very picky about what I read... like all popular genre’s there is a ton of crap out there... so usually I wind up sticking with authors I already know and enjoy. But even a known author won’t get me to pick up a book or series where I find the underlying premise uninteresting.

Same is true of all genre’s I’d bet.

[AnAmericanMother]

Absolutely true, at least as far as I have found.

I don't have time to read bad books. And lord knows there are plenty of them out there, in every genre.

[Politicalmom]

I don’t know how you can even carry that broad brush....

[Politicalmom]

What if the dragons come from Mars on a spaceship? :p

[aruanan]

When you get to flying dragons and mysterious glowing orbs, that’s fantasy.

The Dragonriders of Pern is an exception to this.

[aruanan]

Well, I had an awful difficult time getting through “A Clockwork Orange”.

It didn't do too much for me. I'd rather be reading the Foundation series or almost anything by Heinlein.

[discostu]

It’s at 42% on Rotten, 20% with the cream of the crop reviewers. Kidman is having a really hard time putting out movies anybody likes since Moulin Rouge, and really 90% of what anybody liked about that movie was what her costume didn’t hide. She needs to take the hint.

[Tax-chick]

The Dragonriders of Pern is an exception to this.

Aaaaah, sorta ...

[Tax-chick]

I saw “Moulin Rouge” on a transatlantic flight - dubbed into French, with Dutch subtitles. Didn’t miss much not understanding a word :-).

The sets, costumes, and theatrical production numbers were really cool.