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The Golden Compass


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I read the books. I liked the first, got bored with the second, hated the third. The third book lets Lyra degenerate into a sniveling little teenage brat. The only reason I finished the book was to achieve the goal. I regret ever starting this series.

 

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I actually took my kids to see the movie, only because I had read that hollywood had done what it does best, taken the soul out of the movie. We take our kids to see very few movies- we were hoping what was left was just a good fantasy movie with some cool polar bears. Well, we thought it was a waste of time. Husband said it was the first movie he watched that he couldn't figure out what the point was and what was going on. I guess they took so much out of it, it made it patchy. Even the polar bears didn't make it worth it, it was badly put together. There were a few things about it that made my skin crawl, but my kids did not notice. My big thought on the movie was that it seemed to want to be a Narnia or LOTR...but there were no courageous or big virtues to emulate or feel good about. There was no honor, or courage or doing what is right, no honesty or truth. The only virtue I could maybe find was friendship.. I thought it fell flat and was empty.

 

but, I have to say that Nichole Kidman was wonderful- she did a great job, not that I liked the character, but she was too beautiful to be human...and chillingly evil at times, yet fun and exciting too.

 

just some of my thoughts on the movie...

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his main character tries to "kill god". The movie leaves all of this stuff out.

 

Well, the main reason I asked was that I bought the book to kind of "pre-screen" the movie. Well it's not really even that. I guess I just want to be prepared for questions.

 

We don't really sensor what our kids watch. (Their all time favorite movie is SAW) We just explain as the movie goes...

 

Ok I take part of that back... we don't let them see any nude scenes.

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Then how did they watch Saw? There are nudies in all of the movies.. I think.. hmm, anyway--I don't censor at all, not even nudes.. And honestly, the book is way different than the movie and even more honestly than that, it's fantasy--as in not true, won't happen, can't happen. It isn't reality.

 

It really is a dumbed down version of Narnia. The movie is empty without the "kill god" thing. It really is. But the book is so much better, juicier, filled.

 

I guess it all depends on how you feel about religion. If you are like me, it's just another movie. If you are like everyone else, well it might bother you and it might not.

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Then how did they watch Saw? There are nudies in all of the movies.. I think.. hmm, anyway--I don't censor at all, not even nudes..

 

Ok :D I guess I meant "sexual" nudity... we say "Close your eyes!" and tell them when it's over...

 

Your insight on the movie vs the book has been very helpful, thank you! :)

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Ahh, well remember I have older kids--15 and 11, to me, even sexual nudity is nothing. In fact, they are watching 300 right now. Of course, I won't let them watch something like Clockwork Orange or Libertine (yet), but I'm not totally opposed to it.

 

Listen, it really is all about how you feel in your faith. Read the book and see how you feel after that, then take console in the fact that the book and movie are not the same :) They really do cut out the "meat" of the book, what makes the book what it is.

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How did you explain SAW to them? Isn't it a gore-fest? :confused:

 

We tell them it's not real. And explain the "behind the scenes" stuff to them. One of them had something on the DVD that showed how they did the special effects.

 

I tell you what though. My kids don't have nightmares and they aren't afraid of anything.

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We tell them it's not real. And explain the "behind the scenes" stuff to them. One of them had something on the DVD that showed how they did the special effects.

 

I tell you what though. My kids don't have nightmares and they aren't afraid of anything.

You got that right--it's fantasy, make-believe and pretend. :) One daughter is so into gore/scare/horror and the other isn't.

 

She really likes the special effects and stuff--just like mama... :)

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I read the books several times (I'm a re-reader), and saw the movie twice in the theater, once with each child since we couldn't coordinate our movie-going. I enjoyed the movie, but found it lost a lot of the story line. The movie is gorgeous visually, and Nicole Kidman is the scariest thing I've seen on a big screen lately. LOL!

 

HTH,

 

Lori

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I thought the first book was just okay and I *really* didn't like the other 2. I was disappointed in the extreme by the end of the third book. I guess I just don't get what his point is. He may be a decent writer from a technical standpoint but he stinks as a storyteller in my opinion. My sisters (the 2 that read a ton) didn't even like the first one well enough to read the other two.

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it's fantasy, make-believe and pretend. :)

 

Certainly. ;) I'm just truly trying to understand how some of these scenes (described at IMDB) can be explained as "fantasy" to a child. To whit:

 

 

 

A man ties a shirt around his leg and begins sawing off his foot (we see the saw blade break the skin and see blood spray on him as he's sawing and screaming). A man pulls a man's leg causing him to fall to the floor, then punches him in the head, and then bashes him repeatedly on the head with a toilet lid (we hear crunching and see the victim with a very bloody head later). A woman, with bruises and cuts on her face and mouth, describes what happened to her while being held captive: she was strapped to a chair with a metal device clamped over her mouth (we learn that when the clamp would open it would tear off her jaw), she screamed and scrambled to get out of the chair, when she did a timer started, she was told to find a key in the stomach of her dead cellmate (he was not dead), she raised a knife over him as he regained consciousness, she stabbed him repeatedly (we hear squishing and crunching), and we see her holding a length of blood-soaked intestine, where she found a key and freed herself from the clamp. Two drills are started that approach the temples of a restrained man, one man tries to free him, he shoots the drill bits off, and another man holds a gun on the villain who slashes the man across the throat (blood spurts and the man gurgles and gasps); the first man chases the villain, shoots him in the back (he falls to the floor motionless) and as the man approaches the body he steps on a tripwire that causes several shotguns above him to fire, the man is hit (we see blood on his clothes, and hear him gasping) and slumps to the floor dead. We see a dead man hanging from and wrapped in razor wire, there are slashes and gashes all over his body and a puzzle piece shape has been cut out of his skin (we also hear a description and see a flashback of what happened to the man showing him scrambling to get through the razor wire and screaming in terror). We see a charred dead body, hear a description and see a flashback about what happened to him: we see the man slathered with a flammable paste, he must use a lighter to find clues and at one point the flame gets too close to him setting him on fire (we see the flames burst and hear him scream). Two men wrestle over a gun, one is punched and shoved against a fence, and the other is shot in the chest (he falls back onto the floor dead and we see blood on the wound). A man holds a gun to a woman's head, she wrestles him for the gun, gets it away, holds the gun on him, the man gets the gun back, the man and woman continue to wrestle over it, she stabs him in the leg with scissors, and another man comes into the room with a gun; the two men shoot back and forth at each other, one man hits the other on the head with a vase, one man runs out and races away in a car, and the other follows. A man shoots another man who is pleading for his life, he falls to the floor and we see a bloody wound on his shoulder. We see a dead man lying on a floor in a pool of blood with a large bloody wound on his head (he presumably shot himself in the head). A man is shocked with electricity through a chain on his foot (he convulses and foams at the mouth and then lies still; he comes to shortly thereafter). Two police officers walk through an abandoned mannequin factory with their guns drawn, they pull back a sheet and reveal a man strapped into a chair with two drills facing him on either side of his head. A man pretends to be poisoned, he gags and convulses and then falls still, and then the man is shocked with electricity through a chain attached to his foot. A man waves a gun around a woman and a little girl while he's listening to their heartbeats with a stethoscope, and they both scream and cry. A little girl's closet door opens slightly to reveal someone looking at her, the person comes out of the closet and stands over her, she screams, her mother comes in and fights with the person and we then see them both bound and gagged. A man walks through his darkened apartment using a camera flash to light his way, trying to find if there is someone there; he beats a doll that is laughing with a bat, he opens a closet and a person in a costume lunges at him (he's wearing an animal mask and a red robe). A person in a costume (in an animal mask and a red robe) approaches a man in a dark parking garage and then lunges at him while growling. A man chained to a pipe in a dark room is left presumably to die. A little girl wakes up and is frightened by noises in her room, and she tells her mother that there is a man in her room. A man panics when he sees a picture of his wife and daughter bound and gagged. We see a man unconscious in a tub of water, he wakes up in a panic, falls out of the tub, and stumbles around in the dark yelling in fear. A man with a shard of glass threatens to cut another man. A man screams uncontrollably and appears to be breaking down from the stress. Two men saw frantically at the chains on their feet. We hear the distorted voice of a man on a tape player telling two men that they might die and what acts of violence they must commit by a certain time in order to stay alive. A man puts his hand into a stagnant, slime-filled toilet and swishes it around looking for something. A man vomits after seeing a dead body. Two men are chained by their ankles to pipes in a room. A man talks about another man having poisoned blood.

 

 

:eek: Make believe? For an adult, sure. I just (personally) wouldn't begin to know how to explain such realistically-rendered visions of torture and gore to a young child without feeling as though I had perhaps desensitized them in some way...or over-stimulated them in another. :confused: I'm merely thinking 'out loud' here...

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:eek: Make believe? For an adult, sure. I just (personally) wouldn't begin to know how to explain such realistically-rendered visions of torture and gore to a young child without feeling as though I had perhaps desensitized them in some way...or over-stimulated them in another. :confused: I'm merely thinking 'out loud' here...

 

 

Well, I'm no help. I don't let the four y/o watch Bambi or Snow White because I think they're too intense for that age. ;)

 

I can remember when ds was four he would run out of the room holding his hands over his ears when BJ, the big brother of Baby Bop on Barney, would come on the screen. Couldn't handle it. LOL

 

I refused, btw and appropos nothing, to watch Barney with this last kid. I figure I've done my time.

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