**SPOILER WARNING**

So, let me start by saying I’m not one of those anal individuals who has the audacity to believe that everything written in a book can successfully be squeezed into a film. So when I watch a movie based of a book I’ve previously read, I watch it as it is: A movie based on a book. And usually, I’m pretty grateful that they saw in the book what I saw- a good enough story to make a film. And I realize that Hollywood is out to make money, not tell a good story, so probably what they’re thinking- is that it’s a big enough book to make into a film. Either way, I’m usually very grateful to see something I loved big enough and influencing enough people to make it into a film. And when I saw them making Lord of the Rings into a movie, I was waiting for His Dark Materials. The first series I cried reading. What I read in seventh grade.

Lord of the Rings was excellent; sure there were some differences from the book to film, as there always are. The same was true for Harry Potter. But it’s the little details that tend to get under my skin. Why would you change Harry’s scar from the middle of his forehead to the side? Why? What’s the point?

As an actress and director I understand the necessities that are pace, clarity, and conciseness. I can understand cutting scenes from the book that just can’t make it into the movie for sake of making the pace bearable. But changing a character’s name? What is the point of that? Switching entire scenes around? No. There are crucial parts that were left out of the movie and when later events occur- it doesn’t manage to miraculously make sense without them.

Now, when I watched the Golden Compass, there were those little things, like normal, that got under my skin. And I was completely fine with all those things, I was enjoying the movie. I clapped when they kept a scene that I didn’t expect them to keep.

I heard from someone, “They cut the last the last part of the book out and removed all the religious connotation.’” And since I’d actually read the book, and realized there wasn’t any real religious connotation at the end of The Golden Compass, I passed the person’s word off as something they overheard from someone else. An uneducated hearsay.

Yet at a certain part I leaned over to Cole and said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if the credits started rolling right now?”

Cole: Yeah, right. They can’t do that or there is no second movie.
Me: Yeah, that’s such a detrimental part of the book, but… the music’s kind of swelling…
Cole: No way…
*THE SCREEN GOES BLACK*
Cole: WHAT?
(It was the midnight show, there wasn’t anyone in the theater but us and some friends.)
Me: *laughing, desperately begging that it’s some sort of fake cut scene*
Cole: Did that just happen?!
*THE CREDITS ROLL*
Cole: THAT DID NOT JUST FUCKING HAPPEN.

And yeah. It did.

I’ve never been so sad over a paper to film adaptation. I cannot believe they did this to my favorite story. They are making a second film from what I hear, but they already fired the guy who did this one and hired someone new for the adaptation. Hopefully they’ll put the end of the first book into the second movie. You couldn’t ASK for a more climactic ending then what Pullman pulled in the first book. It was handed to them on a silver platter. But no, they botched it up.

For those of you that have never read the book, enjoy the film. It’s exciting and fantastic eye candy. For those of you that, like I, cherished His Dark Materials as one of your favorite trilogies of all time- don’t. It will break your heart.

EDIT: Now that I’ve had time to recover I guess I should talk about all the things I loved about the movie.
• Seraphina. OMG.
• The Daemons. LOVED them.
• The armored bears, with the exception of renaming Iofur and the scrapping the whole arena and forgetting to mention that the bears can’t be tricked so when Iorek names her “Silvertongue” it doesn’t make much sense. Yes that was a run-on sentence.
• Lee Scoresby. FUCK YES. Double fuck yes.
• Daniel Craig managed to pull it off (with the exception of the begging line)
• LYRA and her imperfect teeth.
• The entire beginning.
• PAN. OMG SO FUCKING CUTE I WANT ONE MORE THAN EVER NOW. (I seriously carried Morn and Pumpkin around the house going, “Would you like to be my Daemon?!”)
• Mrs. Coulter’s daemon. CREEPY. (Though when she pulled the whole, “Luke, I am your father” bit, that was unacceptable.)

And last but certainly not least:

• Iorek still ripped Iofur’s (though he was renamed to something silly) jaw off. It bounced across the snow. HA. Yeah.

So I guess there were a lot of things I liked, in fact, like I said: I was enjoying the movie until the very end. I was just disheartened to see they didn’t actually end it the way I’d always dreamed they would. Bummer.