Posted on 11/30/2007 8:06:34 PM PST by Coleus
As the movie studios gear up for a big Christmas movie season, one trailer that looks like a blockbuster is "The Golden Compass," which must be trying to cash in on the "Narnia" movies. It has flashy special-effect polar bears in armor and a young heroic damsel in distress facing off against evil forces. The casting is top-notch, led by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, the current star spy in the James Bond movies. But buyer beware: Narnia it's not. It's the anti-Narnia. Instead of a Christian allegory, it's an anti-Christian allegory. The author of "The Golden Compass," Philip Pullman, is an atheist who despises C. S. Lewis and his much-beloved Narnia series. "I thought they were loathsome," he said of those books, "full of bullying and sneering, propaganda, basically, on behalf of a religion whose main creed seemed to be to despise and hate people unlike yourself."
This book and movie is only the first in his trilogy, titled "His Dark Materials," that gets more and more anti-religious in each book. Pullman hates orthodox religion and "those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other kind of doctrine with a holy book and a priesthood and an apparatus of power that wields unchallengeable authority, in order to dominate and suppress human freedoms." If you hear the ring of anti-Catholicism, you're right. The evil empire in this movie for children is called the "Magisterium," which is exactly the word Catholics use to describe the teaching authority of the Pope and his bishops. The books are more explicit, in which the evil institution is also called "The Church" and the higher-ups are the "Vatican Council."
British columnist Peter Hitchens has explained how our secular thought-shapers would love for Pullman to undercut Narnia's influence on children: "The cultural elite would like to wipe out this pocket of resistance. They have successfully expelled God from the schools, from the broadcast media and, for the most part, from the Church itself." He writes that while Lewis mocked atheists as joyless, Pullman depicts priests as evil and murderous, drunk and probably perverted, and the Church as "a conspiracy against happiness and kindness."
Isn't it a bit perverse to head into the Christmas holiday season hyping an atheist fantasy movie for kids? No doubt sensing this, Pullman and the moviemakers have ventured on a dishonest but energetic public-relations campaign to convince the public that this film isn't really anti-Christian. It's a plea for open-mindedness and spiritual dialogue. The Church is just a metaphor, see. The movie's director, Chris Weitz, spins it this way: "In the books, the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots. If that's what you want in the film, you'll be disappointed." Weitz says they merely "expanded the range of meanings" for the Magisterium, that it's merely a metaphor for tyranny of any stripe: "Philip Pullman is against any kind of organized dogma whether it is Church hierarchy or, say, a Soviet hierarchy." That would be more believable if Hollywood had a track record of casting a Soviet hierarchy as evil -- and if Hollywood didn't have its own organized dogma of secular fundamentalism.
Nicole Kidman spins it her way: "I was raised Catholic, the Catholic Church is part of my essence. I wouldn't be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic." The media have played happily along in disguising Pullman's religion-bashing. On NBC's "Today," weatherman Al Roker delighted in making "The Golden Compass" the fall book selection of "Al's Book Club for Kids." Pullman appeared on NBC to deny that he was really promoting atheism. He touted letting the reader decide what the author intended, in a "democracy of reading." The closest he came to atheism was saying the book championed "open-minded intellectual curiosity." If that sounds like a transparent dodge, it certainly was. He told the students asking questions to think of the Taliban in Afghanistan. But the menace in Pullman's trilogy isn't called the Caliphate, and its hideous monsters aren't mullahs. They are cardinals and priests, and the heroes are an atheist former nun and two rebellious gay male angels.
The atheists may be angry that the movie waters down Pullman's anti-religious message, but they can take comfort in the fact that many parents (and grandparents and even godparents) will, sadly, buy the hype over this movie and buy this trilogy of vicious anti-religious books for the young readers in their lives. To the Christian book buyer, beware: Instead of celebrating God's son born in the flesh, you'll be celebrating God being killed so that man can advance to true consciousness. For those anticipating the wonder of Narnia, you'll have to wait until next May, when "Prince Caspian," the second installment, returns magic to the screen.
Don't know about the movie, but he is dead on about the books on which it is based.
I remember some years ago, that they made another movie (which most if not all Christians ignored) called "The Last Temptation of Christ" and I heard that it did not do well at the box office. I can't help but wonder, did they ever managed to recover the cost of making that vile piece of garbage?
I hope this movie tanks like Tom Cruise’s anti-military movie did.
Hah, I found a bad “review” of this through technorati. Apparently there is a lock down on reviews so...
“”””
What if I broke my silence about the movie? Let’s suppose, for a moment, I told everyone that, controversy aside, the movie is a whopping letdown… a tangled mess of storytelling… with an off-puttingly shrill and obstinate little girl in the lead… and that it’s anticlimactic and unsatisfying. Let’s pretend that I found its climactic confrontation between polar bears to be a hollow re-enactment of the climactic scene from The Karate Kid, something so muc less satisfying than the stories of true heroism offered by Tolkien and Lewis. Let’s imagine I was underwhelmed by the concluding hubbub, a CGI battlefield spectacle so much like those we’ve seen in other recent films. Let’s just pretend that was my opinion, for kicks. Would I be in trouble for saying so?
“”””
http://lookingcloser.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/chattaway-new-line-marketing-golden-compass-to-catholics-plus-catholic-news-service-pretty-much-gives-it-a-thumbs-up/
Personally, I don’t care anymore. It would be different if it weren’t for the “professional christians” who get “outraged” over everything. Now I just laugh at popular culture and the idiots who get paid to denounce it.
I’d agree with you (about boycotting the theaters that run it) but there’s such crap movies running right now, people are pretty much staying away on their own. It’s like all the money is being sucked up in special effects and by a few mega-stars people are tired of seeing.
True. Mrs. Still and I go to one movie about every two years.
How rich is this: an atheist who uses fantasy (i.e. supernatural) figures to fight "evil" (and how religiously judgmental is it to define evil for us)?
It’s been at least 3-4 years since I’ve set foot in a public theater. And 2-3 years gap before that last time.
Don't forget Martha Stewart's Everyday Pre-lit trees....
I recall the hand-wringing over the Harry Potter novels and movies, and the dire predictions of a rising occult movement and epidemics of devil worship..
But, it didn't happen, and many people, adults and children alike, have enjoyed the books and movies for what they are. Entertainment.
Anyone that thinks this movie, or the book(s) are so terrible, try reading the real history of Christianity and the Catholic Church, and following that, the Protestant movement.
Read the historical facts about the Cathars, Gnostics, Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, etc..
Organized religion of all stripes have abused their power and done some really wicked things, people.
Much like government. And I don't see all of your defending government that much.
That's why the Puritans and Quakers came to America, due to religious persecution by the organized religions of Europe, both Catholic and Protestant.
If Christians or any other religious group are offended, maybe it's because they are seeing so many parallels between their own religion's past and Pullman's depiction of a tyrannical, oppressive, fictional religious order.
And that's organized religion's fault, not Pullman's.
#
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200711/CUL20071121d.html
“Catholic Group to Boycott ‘The Golden Compass’”
By Pete Winn
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
November 21, 2007
(CNSNews.com) -
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “The group’s objections center not on the film itself, McCaffrey said, but on the now 10-year-old trilogy of books from which “The Golden Compass” is taken, titled “His Dark Materials.”
“The three novels are extremely anti-faith in general, anti-Christian and anti-Catholic in particular, and pro-atheism,” McCaffrey told Cybercast News Service. “In each successive book, the anti-God agenda gets progressively stronger.”
She said the New Line Cinema movie is designed to suck unwitting kids and their parents into the atheistic agenda of the books’ British author, Philip Pullman.
“This man has been on the record for the last 12 years saying things such as, ‘I am all for the death of God,’ and ‘My books are all about killing God,’ and ‘I am of the Devil’s party and I know it,’ “ McCaffrey said.”
I don't recall the Pope issuing a fa-qua to have the director killed
Oooh - baby boomer grandparents? Could e the toughest job of all.
Sounds like another attack on our culture from Hollywood. They really never get tired of doing this to us, do they?
“They really never get tired of doing this to us, do they?”
No, they don’t.
Just like the jihadis, the leftist agenda is focused on their agenda.
Exactly. Don’t listen to anyone! How do you really know cyanide is bad for you just because some “authority” says so? Try it yourself and make your own decision!
If they told you football was a work of the devil, would you believe that as well? Just askin...
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