#hbo lyra makes no sense as an adaptation

[yoursincalendricalheresy]

Look— I only watched a couple episodes of the show, so perhaps it gets better. But every minute of HBO’s Dark Materials gave me such strong ‘she would not fucking say that’ that I nearly started throwing things at the screen

[multicolour-ink]

Slight tangent

I realise I have been quite ignorant for years over the sudden blooming romance between Will and Lyra at the end of The Amber Spyglass. I was probably a pre teen (or mid teen) when I first read the books, and at the time I thought it was unrealistic for children that age to fall in love so instantly.

It might have been ignorance, it might have been the fact that I was figuring out my sexuality, and puberty, and dealing with other stuff in my life, in a time I didn't really feel like I had anyone to talk about it with.

But over the last few years, after figuring things out, and especially from watching the HBO/BBC adaptation, and watching Will and Lyra's relationship grow (not just reading on a page); along with finding out about other real life stories from others - it is possible for those young to fall in love. And given all Will and Lyra go through, to the point they were the only one's who can truly understand each other about it, it makes sense they see each other as soul mates.

Which means I am finally broken over these two 🥲💔

[philosophika]

In honour of the final season of the HBO His Dark Materials series, let me present what I believe my daemon would have been if I’d been born in Lyra’s world: the Eurasian Lynx.

Rejoice, the adorable, fluffy meow-meow in the pictures above is me!

✨ Lynxes ✨ are:

Independent/Autonomous: Lynx kittens become fully self-sufficient at nine months, at which point they separate from their mother and siblings and go on to lead mostly solitary adult lives (the exception being mating season). They are considered symbols of autonomy, strength and self-reliance. *If this isn’t the story of my life lol 😅 Despite being very close to my family, my life diverged substantially from theirs from age 18 onwards, culminating in my now being in a completely different country. This separation, combined with my experiences as a Third-Culture-Kid, meant I learned to rely on my wits and independent judgment fairly early on. Incidentally, this has had the additional effect of making me somewhat unpredictable. Since I don’t really look to convention for guidance (who’s convention? Yours? Mine? Those held by the country I was born in? The one I grew up in? The one I’m in now? All of the above?), you can’t really be sure how I’ll react or what I’ll do unless you know me very well.

Determined/Perseverant/Goal-Orientated/Opportunistic: The Lynx is an ambush hunter who doggedly stalks its prey until the opportune moment to strike presents itself. *This not only describes the manner in which I’ve pursued my academic degrees but also the manner in which I approach life and decision-making in general. I’m always ~a l w a y s~ playing the long game (this has probably been accentuated by my immigrant status, which has made it necessary for me to know what’s going to happen six months in advance for visa purposes).

Discreet/Stealthy/Tactful: For Lynx to be successful ambush hunters, they must be stealthy enough to go unnoticed by their prey, often over long stretches of time. These cats are, therefore, famous for their discreet and tactful approach. They’re also known to hunt primarily at dawn and dusk, during the “quiet” hours. *I’m acutely context-conscious and am skilled at adapting what I reveal about myself to ensure I fly under the radar when needed (again, this is probably due to being a Third Culture Kid). I don’t fight battles I can’t win. I’m highly diplomatic. If you see me at a semi-formal dinner, you can be sure whatever I’m saying is the second or third corrected version of the first thought that came into my head. I edit in real-time.

Clear-Sighted/Perceptive/Insightful: Lynx are known for their clear night vision, impeccable sense of smell, and overall keen senses. *Although I was always intelligent, I don’t think I was born as perceptive as I am now. Two things have sharpened my insight down to a razor edge: my philosophy degrees and my abuse-induced hyper-vigilance (yay me). I am both keenly aware of micro-expressions, especially aggressive ones, and highly skilled (via years of academic training) at dissecting the various layers/hidden influences/unspoken implications of a given interaction/statement/situation. When I look at anything (and I’m actually paying attention), it's like looking through a time-warped kaleidoscope: I simultaneously observe the original image and all the resulting fractals. At this point, I do this reflexively, which can be annoying, because sometimes I don’t want my mind to analyze the movie I’m watching; I just want to lay back and enjoy it. That said, this skill has helped me accurately read and dodge perilous conversations with higher-ups, so it's not without its benefits.

Formidable/Intimidating: Like all  “big cats”, Lynx are ferocious predators and inspire caution in those who encounter them. *This is one of my most perplexing traits because I see myself as highly approachable. Nonetheless, my friends and family have described me in these terms, and it hasn’t escaped my notice that people seem slightly intimidated by me (maybe it’s because of the observant thing?) I compensate for this by making myself as bubbly and soft as possible when being introduced to someone new (who isn’t a threat to me, of course, lol. Otherwise, I lean right into the terrifying).

Affectionate/Playful: Lynx can be very playful and affectionate, just like house cats. *And who am I, if not the very spirit of affection and fun? In fact, the main reason I’m leaving academia is that it’s stopped being a source of curiosity and excitement. I don’t like having to perform dull scholarly aloofness all the time. I want ✨ dilated ✨ cat-pupils ✨ time. ✨ I am happiest when I can infect a lecture hall with a sense of jittery wonder. “If the revolt of Prometheus against the Olympic Gods doomed him to eternal torment, then so much worse for Olympus, down with the view of perfection which can be purchased only at the price of putting chains on the free independent will, the unbridled imagination, the wild wind of inspiration which goeth where it listeth.” (Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber Of Humanity.)

Cute AF, But It’s Giving Ice Age: Lynx have large paws and longer hind legs, which gives them a slightly prehistoric and lop-sided appearance. *I don’t quite know how to say this, but I’ve always felt a bit... large? Not in size, in a sense that means I need to be gentle with other people lest I accidentally hurt them or scare them? In the sense that I have to be aware of my strength, my claws, so as not to wound them. In the sense that I have to be aware of the intensity, the wilderness, of my passions, my ecstasies, so as not to burn them. And curbing these intensities, tempering them, has made me feel a bit clumsy? A bit like I have longer hind legs and paws a bit too large for my body? A bit like a creature outside of time?

Anyway, if you want to play, I’m tagging anyone who wants to participate to share their daemon and characteristics! <3

[armageddon-generation]

Articulating Why His Dark Materials is Badly Written

A long essay-thing with lots of specific examples and explanations of why I feel this way. Hopefully I’ve kept fanboy bitching to a minimum.

This isn’t an attack on fans of the show, nor a personal attack on Jack Thorne. I’m not looking to ruin anyone’s enjoyment of the show, I just needed to properly articulate, with examples, why I struggle with it. I read and love the books and that colours my view, but I believe that HDM isn’t just a clumsy, at-best-functional, sometimes incompetent adaptation, it’s a bad TV show separate from its source material. The show is the blandest, least interesting and least engaging version of itself it could be.

His Dark Materials has gorgeous production design and phenomenal visual effects. It's well-acted. The score is great. But my god is it badly written. Jack Thorne writing the entire first season damned the show. There was no-one to balance out his flaws and biases. Thorne is checking off a list of plot-points, so concerned with manoeuvring the audience through the story he forgets to invest us in it. The scripts are mechanical, empty, flat.

Watching HDM feels like an impassioned fan earnestly lecturing you on why the books are so good- (Look! It's got other worlds and religious allegory and this character Lyra is really, really important I swear. Isn't Mrs Coulter crazy? The Gyptians are my favourites.) rather than someone telling the story naturally.

My problems fall into 5 main categories:

Exposition- An unwillingness to meaningfully expand the source material for a visual medium means Thorne tells and doesn't show crucial plot-points. He then repeats the same thing multiple times because he doesn't trust his audience

Pacing- By stretching out the books and not trusting his audience Thorne dedicates entire scenes to one piece of information and repeats himself constantly (see: the Witches' repetition of the prophecy in S2).

Narrative priorities- Thorne prioritises human drama over fantasy. This makes sense budgetarily, but leads to barely-present Daemons, the Gyptians taking up too much screentime, rushed/badly written Witches (superpowers, exposition) and Bears (armourless bear fight), and a Lyra more focused on familial angst than the joy of discovery

Tension and Mystery- because HDM is in such a hurry to set up its endgame it gives you the answers to S1's biggest mysteries immediately- other worlds, Lyra's parents, what happens to the kids etc. This makes the show less engaging and feel like it's playing catch-up to the audience, not the other way around.

Tonal Inconsistency- HDM tries to be a slow-paced, grounded, adult drama, but its blunt, simplistic dialogue and storytelling methods treat the audience like children that need to be lectured.

MYSTERY, SUSPENSE AND INTRIGUE

The show undercuts all the books’ biggest mysteries. Mrs Coulter is set up as a villain before we meet her, other worlds are revealed in 1x2, Lyra's parents by 1x3, what the Magesterium do to kids is spelled out long before Lyra finds Billy (1x2). I understand not wanting to lose new viewers, but neutering every mystery kills momentum and makes the show much less engaging.

This extends to worldbuilding. The text before 1x1 explains both Daemons and Lyra's destiny before we meet her. Instead of encouraging us to engage with the world and ask questions, we're given all the answers up front and told to sit back and let ourselves be spoon-fed. The viewer is never an active participant, never encouraged to theorise or wonder

 Intrigue motivated you to engage with Pullman's philosophical themes and concepts. Without it, HDM feels like a lecture, a theme park ride and not a journey.

The only one of S1's mysteries left undiminished is 'what is Dust?', which won't be properly answered until S3, and that answer is super conceptual and therefore hard to make dramatically satisfying

TONAL INCONSISTENCY

HDM billed itself as a HBO-level drama, and was advertised as a GoT inheritor. It takes itself very seriously- the few attempts at humour are stilted and out of place

The production design is deliberately subdued, most notably choosing a mid-twentieth century aesthetic for Lyra’s world over the late-Victorian of the books or steampunk of the movie. The colour grading would be appropriate for a serious adult drama. 

Reviewers have said this stops the show feeling as fantastical as it should. It also makes Lyra’s world less distinct from our own. 

Most importantly, minimising the wondrous fantasy of S1 neuters its contrast with the escalating thematic darkness of the finale (from 1x5 onwards), and the impact of Roger’s death. Pullman's books are an adult story told through the eyes of a child. Lyra’s innocence and naivety in the first book is the most important journey of the trilogy. Instead, the show starts serious and thematically heavy (we’re told Lyra has world-saving importance before we even meet her) and stays that way.

Contrasting the serious tone, grounded design and poe-faced characters, the dialogue is written to cater to children. It’s horrendously blunt and pulls you out of scenes. Subtext is obliterated at every opportunity. Even in the most recent episode, 2x7, Pan asks Lyra ‘do you think you’re changing because of Will?’

I cannot understate how on the nose this line is, and how much it undercuts the themes of the final book. Instead of even a meaningful shot of Lyra looking at Will, the show treats the audience like complete idiots. 

So, HDM looks and advertises itself like an adult drama and is desperate to be taken seriously by wearing its big themes on its sleeve from the start instead of letting them evolve naturally out of subtext like the books, and dedicating lots of scenes to Mrs Coulter's self-abuse 

At the same time its dialogue and character writing is comparable to the Star Wars prequels, more childish than media aimed at a similar audience - Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Avatar the Last Airbender etc

DAEMONS

The show gives itself a safety net by explaining Daemons in an opening text-crawl, and so spends less time showing the mechanics of the Daemon-human bond. On the HDM subreddit, I’ve seen multiple people get to 1x5 or 6, and then come to reddit asking basic questions like ‘why do only some people have Daemons?’ or ‘Why are Daemons so important?’.

It’s not that the show didn’t answer these questions; it was in the opening text-crawl. It’s just the show thinks telling you is enough and never shows evidence to back that up. Watching a TV show you remember what you’re shown much easier than what you’re told 

The emotional core of Northern Lights is the relationship between Lyra and Pan. The emotional core of HDM S1 is the relationship between Lyra and Mrs Coulter. This wouldn't be bad- it's a fascinating dynamic Ruth plays wonderfully- if it didn't override the Daemons

Daemons are only onscreen when they serve a narrative purpose. Thorne justifies this because the books only describe Daemons when they tell us about their human. On the page your brain fills the Daemons in. This doesn't work on-screen; you cannot suspend your disbelief when their absence is staring you in the face

Thorne clarified the number of Daemons as not just budgetary, but a conscious creative choice to avoid onscreen clutter. This improved in S2 after vocal criticism.

Mrs Coulter/the Golden Monkey and Lee/Hester have well-drawn relationships in S1, but Pan and Lyra hug more in the 2-hour Golden Compass movie than they do in the 8-hour S1 of HDM. There's barely any physical contact with Daemons at all.

They even cut Pan and Lyra's hug after escaping the Cut in Bolvangar. In the book they can't let go of each other. The show skips it completely because Thorne wants to focus on Mrs Coulter and Lyra.

They cut Pan and Lyra testing how far apart they can be. They cut Lyra freeing the Cut Daemons in Bolvangar with the help of Kaisa. We spent extra time with both Roger and Billy Costa, but didn't develop their bonds with their Daemons- the perfect way to make the Cut more impactful

I don't need every single book scene in the show, but notice that all these cut scenes reinforced how important Daemons are. For how plodding the show is. you'd think they could spare time for these moments instead of inventing new conversations that tell us the information they show

Daemons are treated as separate beings and thus come across more like talking pets than part of a character

The show sets the rules of Daemons up poorly. In 1x2, Lyra is terrified by the Monkey being so far from Coulter, but the viewer has nothing to compare it to. We’re retroactively told in that this is unnatural when the show has yet to establish what ‘natural’ is.

The guillotine blueprint in 1x2 (‘Is that a human and his Daemon, Pan? It looks like it.’ / ‘A blade. To cut what?’) is idiotic. It deflates S1’s main mystery and makes the characters look stupid for not figuring out what they aren’t allowed to until they did in the source material, it also interferes with how the audience sees Daemons. In the book, Cutting isn’t revealed until two-thirds of the way in (1x5). By then we’ve spent a lot of time with Daemons, they’ve become a background part of the world, their ‘rules’ have been established, and we’re endeared to them.

By showing the Guillotine and putting Daemons under threat in the second episode, the show never lets us grow attached. This, combined with their selective presence in scenes, draws attention to Daemons as a plot gimmick and not a natural extension of characters. Like Lyra, the show tells us why Daemons are important before we understand them.

Billy Costa's fate falls flat. It's missing the dried fish/ fake Daemon Tony Markos clings to in the book. Thorne said this 'didn't work' on the day, but it worked in the film. Everyone yelling about Billy not having a Daemon is laughable when most of the background extras in the same scene don't have Daemons themselves

WITCHES

The Witches are the most common complaint about the show. Thorne changed Serafina Pekkala in clever, logical ways (her short hair, wrist-knives and cloud pine in the skin)

The problem is how Serafina is written. The Witches are purely exposition machines. We get no impression of their culture, their deep connection to nature, their understanding of the world. We are told it. It is never shown, never incorporated into the dramatic action of the show.

Thorne emphasises Serafina's warrior side, most obviously changing Kaisa from a goose into a gyrfalcon (apparently a goose didn't work on-screen)

Serafina single-handedly slaughtering the Tartars is bad in a few ways. It paints her as bloodthirsty and ruthless. Overpowering the Witches weakens the logic of the world (If they can do that, why do they let the Magesterium bomb them unchallenged in 2x2?). It strips the Witches of their subtlety and ambiguity for the sake of cinematic action.

A side-effect of Serafina not being with her clan at Bolvangar is limiting our exposure to the Witches. Serafina is the only one invested in the main plot, we only hear about them from what she tells us. This poor set-up weakens the Witch subplot in S2

Lyra doesn’t speak to Serafina until 2x6. She laid eyes on her once in S1.

The dialogue in the S2’s Witch subplot is comparable to the Courasant section of The Phantom Menace. 

Two named characters, neither with any depth (Serafina and Coram's dead son developed him far more than her). The costumes look ostentatious and hokey- the opposite of what the Witches should be. They do nothing but repeat the same exposition at each other, even in 2x7.

We feel nothing when the Witches are bombed because the show never invests us in what is being destroyed- with the amount of time wasted on long establishing shots, there’s not one when Lee Scoresby is talking to the Council.

BEARS

Like the Witches; Thorne misunderstands and rushes the fantasy elements of the story. The 2007 movie executed both Iofur's character and the Bear Fight much better than the show- bloodless jaw-swipe and all

Iofur's court was not the parody of human court in the books. He didn't have his fake-Daemon (hi, Billy)

An armourless bear fight is like not including Pan in the cutting scene. After equating Iorek's armour to a Daemon (Lee does this- we don’t even learn how important it is from Iorek himself, and the comparison meant less because of how badly the show set up Daemons) the show then cuts the plotpoint that makes the armour plot-relevant. This diminishes all of Bear society. Like Daemons, we're told Iorek's armour is important but it's never shown to be more than a cool accessory

GYPTIANS

Gyptians suffer from Hermoine syndrome. Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves' favourite character was Hermione, and so Film!Hermoine lost most of Book!Hermoine's flaws and gained several of Book!Ron's best moments. The Gyptians are Jack Thorne's favourite group in HDM and so they got the extra screentime and development that the more complicated groups/concepts like Witches, Bears, and Daemons (which, unlike the Gyptians, carry over to other seasons amd are more important to the overall story) needed

At the same time, he changes them from a private people into an Isle of Misfit Toys. TV!Ma Costa promises they'll ‘make a Gyptian woman out of Lyra yet’, but in the book Ma specifically calls Lyra out for pretending to be Gyptian, and reminds her she never can be.

This small moment indicates how, while trying to make the show more grounded and 'adult', Thorne simultaneously made it more saccharine and sentimental. He neuters the tragedy of the Cut kids when Ma Costa says they’ll become Gyptians. Pullman's books feel like an adult story told through the eyes of a child. The TV show feels like a child's story masquerading as a serious drama.

LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

Let me preface this by saying I genuinely really enjoy the performances in the show. It was shot in the foot by The Golden Compass' perfect casting.

The most contentious/'miscast' actor among readers is LMM. Thorne ditched the books' wise Texan for a budget Han Solo. LMM isn't a great dramatic actor (even in Hamilton he was the weak link performance-wise) but he makes up for it in marketability- lots of people tried the show because of him

Readers dislike that LMM's Lee is a thief and a scoundrel, when book-Lee is so moral he and Hester argue about stealing. Personally, I like the change in concept. Book!Lee's parental love for Lyra just appears. It's sweet, but not tied to a character arc. Done right, Lyra out-hustling Lee at his own game and giving him a noble cause to fight for (thus inspiring the moral compass of the books) is a more compelling arc.

DAFNE KEENE AND LYRA

I thought Dafne would be perfect casting. Her feral energy in Logan seemed a match made in heaven. Then Jack Thorne gave her little to do with it.

Compare how The Golden Compass introduced Lyra, playing Kids and Gobblers with a group of Gyptian kids, including Billy Costa. Lyra and Roger are chased to Jordan by the Gyptians and she makes up a lie about a curse to scare the Gyptians away.

In one scene the movie set up: 1) the Gobblers (the first we hear of them in the show is in retrospect, Roger worrying AFTER Billy is taken) 2) Lyra’s pre-existing relationship with the Gyptians (not in the show), 3) Friendship with Billy Costa (not in the book or show) 4) Lyra’s ability to befriend and lead groups of people, especially kids, and 5) Lyra’s ability to lie impressively

By comparison, it takes until midway through 1x2 for TV!Lyra to tell her first lie, and even then it’s a paper-thin attempt. 

The show made Roger Lyra’s only friend. This artificially heightens the impact of Roger's death, but strips Lyra of her leadership qualities and ability to befriend anyone. 

Harry Potter fans talk about how Book!Harry is funnier and smarter than Film!Harry. They cut his best lines ('There's no need to call me sir, Professor') and made him blander and more passive. The same happened to Lyra.

Most importantly, Lyra is not allowed to lie for fun. She can't do anything 'naughty' without being scolded. This colours the few times Lyra does lie (e.g. to Mrs Coulter in 1x2) negatively and thus makes Lyra out to be more of a brat than a hero.

This is a problem with telling Northern Lights from an outside, 'adult' perspective- to most adults Lyra is a brat. Because we’re introduced to her from inside her head, we think she's great. It's only when we meet her through Will's eyes in The Subtle Knife and she's filthy, rude and half-starved that we realise Lyra bluffs her way through life and is actually pretty non-functional

Thorne prioritises grounded human drama over fantasy, and so his Lyra has her love of bears and witches swapped for familial angst. (and, in S2. angst over Roger). By exposing Mrs Coulter as her mother early, Thorne distracts TV!Lyra from Book!Lyra’s love of the North. The contrast between wonder and reality made NL's ending a definitive threshold between innocence and knowledge. Thorne showed his hand too early.

Similarly, TV!Lyra doesn’t have anywhere near as strong an admiration for Lord Asriel. She calls him out in 1x8 (‘call yourself a Father’), which Book!Lyra never would because she’s proud to be his child. From her perspective, at this point Asriel is the good parent.

TV!Lyra’s critique of Asriel feels like Thorne using her as a mouthpiece to voice his own, adult perspective on the situation. Because Lyra is already disappointed in Asriel, his betrayal in the finale isn’t as effective. Pullman saves the ‘you’re a terrible Father’ call-out for the 3rd book for a reason; Lyra’s naive hero-worship of Asriel in Northern Lights makes the fall from Innocence into Knowledge that Roger’s death represents more effective.  

So, on TV Lyra is tamer, angstier, more introverted, less intelligent, less fun and more serious. We're just constantly told she's important, even before we meet her.

MRS COULTER (AND LORD ASRIEL)

Mrs Coulter is the main character of the show. Not Lyra. Mrs Coulter was cast first, and Lyra was cast based on a chemistry test with Ruth Wilson. Coulter’s character is given lots of extra development, where the show actively strips Lyra of her layers.

To be clear, I have no problem with developing Mrs Coulter. She is a great character Ruth Wilson plays phenomenally. I do have a problem with the show fixating on her at the expense of other characters.

Lyra's feral-ness is given to her parents. Wilson and McAvoy are more passionate than in the books. This is fun to watch, but strips them of subtlety- you never get Book!Coulter's hypnotic allure from Wilson, she's openly nasty, even to random strangers (in 2x3 her dismissal of the woman at the hotel desk felt like a Disney villain). 

Compare how The Golden Compass (2007) introduced Mrs Coulter through Lyra’s eyes, with light, twinkling music and a sparkling dress. By contrast, before the show introduces Coulter it tells us she’s associated with the evil Magisterium plotting Asriel’s death- “Not a word to any of our mutual friends. Including her.” Then she’s introduced striding down a corridor to imposing ‘Bad Guy’ strings.

Making Mrs Coulter’s villainy so obvious so early makes Lyra look dumber for falling for it. It also wastes an interesting phase of her character arc. Coulter is rushed into being a ’conflicted evil mother’ in 2 episodes, and stays in that phase for the rest of the show so far. Character progression is minimised because she circles the same place.

It makes her one-note. It's a good note (so much of the positive online chatter is saphiccs worshiping Ruth Wilson) but the show also worships her to the point of hindrance- e.g. take a shot every time Coulter walks slow-motion down a corridor in 2x2

The problem isn’t the performances, but how prematurely they give the game away. Just like the mysteries around Bolvangar and Lyra’s parentage. Neither Coulter or Asriel have much chance to use their 'public' faces. 

This is part of a bigger pacing problem- instead of rolling plot points out gradually, Thorne will stick the solution in front of you early and then stall for time until it becomes relevant. Instead of building tension this builds frustration and makes the show feel like it's catching up to the audience. This also makes the characters less engaging. You've already shown Mrs Coulter is evil/Boreal is in our world/Asriel wants Roger. Why are you taking so long getting to the point?

PACING AND EDITING

This show takes forever to make its point badly.

Scenes in HDM tend to operate on one level- either 'Character Building,' 'Exposition,' or 'Plot Progression'.

E.g. Mary's introduction in 2x2. Book!Mary only listens to Lyra because she’s sleep and caffeine-deprived and desperate because her funding is being cut. But the show stripped that subtext out and created an extra scene of a colleague talking to Mary about funding. They removed emotional subtext to focus on exposition, and so the scene felt empty and flat.

In later episodes characters Mary’s sister and colleagues do treat her like a sleep-deprived wreck. But, just like Lyra’s lying, the show doesn’t establish these characteristics in her debut episode. It waits until later to retroactively tell us they were there. Mary’s colleague saying ‘What we’re dealing with here is the fact that you haven’t slept in weeks’ is as flimsy as Pan joking not lying to Mary will be hard for Lyra.

Rarely does a scene work on multiple levels, and if it does it's clunky- see the exposition dump about Daemon Separation in the middle of 2x2's Witch Trial.

He also splits plot progression into tiny doses, which destroys pacing. It's more satisfying to focus on one subplot advancing multiple stages than all of them shuffling forward half a step each episode.

Subplots would be more effective if all the scenes played in sequence. As it is, plotlines can’t build momentum and literal minutes are wasted using the same establishing shots every time we switch location.

The best-structured episodes of S1 are 1x4, 1x6, and 1x8. This is because they have the fewest subplots (incidentally these episodes have least Boreal in them) and so the main plot isn’t diluted by constantly cutting away to Mrs Coulter sniffing Lyra’s coat or Will watching a man in a car through his window, before cutting back again. 

The best-written episode so far is 2x5. The Scholar. Tellingly, it’s the only episode Thorne doesn’t have even a co-writing credit on. 2x5 is well-paced, its dialogue is more naturalistic, it’s more focused, it even has time for moments of whimsy (Monkey with a seatbelt, Mrs Coulter with jeans, Lyra and Will whispering) that don’t detract from the story.

Structurally, 2x5  works because A) it benches Lee’s plotline. B) The Witches and Magisterium are relegated to a scene each. And C) the Coulter/Boreal and Lyra/Will subplots move towards the same goal. Not only that, but when we check in on Mary’s subplot it’s through Mrs Coulter’s eyes and directly dovetails into the  main action of the episode.

2x5 has a lovely sense of narrative cohesion because it has the confidence to sit with one set of characters for longer than two scenes at a time.

HDM also does this thing where it will have a scene with plot A where characters do or talk about something, cut away to plot B for a scene, then cut back to plot A where the characters talk about what happened in their last scene and painstakingly explain how they feel about it and why

Example: Pan talking to Will in 2x7 while Lyra pretends to be asleep. This scene is from the 3rd book, and is left to breathe for many chapters before Lyra brings it up. In the show after the Will/Pan scene they cut away to another scene, then cut back and Lyra instantly talks about it.

There’s the same problem in 2x5: After escaping Mrs Coulter, Lyra spells out how she feels about acting like her

The show never leaves room for implication, never lets us draw our own conclusions before explaining what it meant and how the characters feel about it immediately afterwards. The audience are made passive in their engagement with the characters as well as the world    

LORD BOREAL, JOHN PARRY AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

At first, Boreal’s subplot in S1 felt bold and inspired. The twist of his identity in The Subtle Knife would've been hard to pull off onscreen anyway. As a kid I struggled to get past Will's opening chapter of TSK and I have friends who were the same. Introducing Will in S1 and developing him alongside Lyra was a great idea.

I loved developing Elaine Parry and Boreal into present, active characters. But the subplot was introduced too early and moved too slowly, bogging down the season.

In 1x2 Boreal crosses. In 1x3 we learn who he's looking for. In 1x5 we meet Will. In 1x7 the burglary. 1 episode worth of plot is chopped up and fed to us piecemeal across many. Boreal literally stalls for two episodes before the burglary- there are random 30 second shots of him sitting in a car watching John Parry on YouTube (videos we’d already seen) completely isolated from any other scenes in the episode

By the time we get to S2 we've had 2 seasons of extended material building up Boreal, so when he just dies like in the books it's anticlimactic. The show frontloads his subplot with meaning without expanding on its payoff, so the whole thing fizzles out. 

Giving Boreal, the secondary villain in literally every episode, the same death as a background character in about 5 scenes in the novels feels cheap. It doesn’t help that, after 2x5 built the tension between Coulter and Boreal so well, as soon as Thorne is passed the baton in 2x6 he does little to maintain that momentum. Again, because the subplot is crosscut with everything else the characters hang in limbo until Coulter decides to kill him.

I’ve been watching non-book readers react to the show, and several were underwhelmed by Boreal’s quick, unceremonious end. 

Similarly, the show builds up John Parry from 1x3 instead of just the second book. Book!John’s death is an anticlimax but feels narratively justified. In the show, we’ve spent so much extra time talking about him and then being with him (without developing his character beyond what’s in the novels- Pullman even outlined John’s backstory in The Subtle Knife’s appendix. How hard would it be to add a flashback or two?) that when John does nothing in the show and then dies (he doesn’t even heal Will’s fingers like in the book- only tell him to find Asriel, which the angels Baruch and Balthamos do anyway) it doesn’t feel like a clever, tragic subversion of our expectations, it feels like a waste that actively cheapens the audience’s investment.

TL;DR giving supporting characters way more screentime than they need only, to give their deaths the same weight the books did after far less build up makes huge chunks of the show feel less important than they were presented to be. 

FRUSTRATINGLY LIMITED EXPANSION AND NOVELLISTIC STORYTELLING

Thorne is unwilling to meaningfully develop or expand characters and subplots to fit a visual medium. He introduces a plot-point, invents unnecessary padding around it, circles it for an hour, then moves on.

Pullman’s books are driven by internal monologue and big, complex theological concepts like Daemons and Dust. Instead of finding engaging, dynamic ways to dramatise these concepts through the actions of characters or additions to the plot, Thorne turns Pullman’s internal monologue into dialogue and has the characters explain them to the audience

The novels’ perspective on its characters is narrow, first because Northern Lights is told only from Lyra’s POV, and second because Pullman’s writing is plot-driven, not character-driven. Characters are vessels for the plot and themes he wants to explore.

This is a fine way of writing novels. When adapting the books into a longform drama, Thorne decentralised Lyra’s perspective from the start, and HDM S1 uses the same multi-perspective structure that The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass do, following not only Lyra but the Gyptians, Mrs Coulter, Boreal, Will and Elaine etc

However, these other perspectives are limited. We never get any impression of backstory or motivation beyond the present moment. Many times I’ve seen non-book readers confused or frustrated by vague or non-existent character motivations.

For example, S1 spends a lot of time focused on Ma Costa’s grief over Billy’s disappearance, but we never see why she’s sad, because we never saw her interact with Billy.

Compare this to another show about a frantic mother and older brother looking for a missing boy. Stranger Things uses only two flashbacks to show us Will Byers’ relationships with his family: 1) When Joyce Byers looks in his Fort she remembers visiting Will there. 2) The Clash playing on the radio reminds Jonathan Byers of introducing Will to the song.

In His Dark Materials we never see the Costas as a happy family- 1x1’s Gyptian ceremony focuses on Tony and Daemon-exposition. Billy never speaks to his mum or brother in the show 

Instead we have Ma Costa’s empty grief. The audience has to do the work (the bad kind) imagining what she’s lost. Instead of seeing Billy, it’s just repeated again and again that they will get the children back.

If we’re being derivative, HDM had the chance to segway into a Billy flashback when John Faa brings one of his belongings back from a Gobbler safehouse in 1x2. This is a perfect The Clash/Fort Byers-type trigger. It doesn’t have to be long- the Clash flashback lasted 1:27, the Fort Byers one 55 seconds. Just do something.

1x3 beats into us that Mrs Coulter is nuts without explaining why. Lots of build-up for a single plot-point. Then we're told Mrs Coulter's origin, not shown. This is a TV show. Swap Boreal's scenes for flashbacks of Coulter and Asriel's affair. Then, when Ma Costa tells Lyra the truth, show the fight between Edward Coulter and Asriel.

To be clear, Thorne's additions aren’t fundamentally bad. For example, Will boxing sets up his struggle with violence. But it's wasted. The burglary/murder in 1x7 fell flat because of bad editing, but the show never uses its visual medium to show Will's 'violent side'- no change in camera angle, focus, or sound design, nothing. It’s just a thing that’s there, unsupported by the visual language of the show

The Magisterium scenes in 2x2 were interesting. We just didn't need 5 of them; their point could be made far more succinctly.

In 2x6 there is a minute-long scene of Mary reading the I Ching. Later, there is another scene of Angelica watching Mary sitting somewhere different, doing the SAME THING, and she sees an Angel. Why split these up? It’s not like either the I Ching or the Angels are being introduced here. Give the scene multiple layers.

Thorne either takes good character moments from the books (Lyra/Will in 2x1) or uses heavy-handed exposition that reiterates the same point multiple times. This hobbles the Witches (their dialogue in 2x1, 2 and 3 literally rephrases the same sentiment about protecting Lyra without doing anything). Even character development- see Lee monologuing his and Mrs Coulter's childhood trauma in specific detail in 2x3

This is another example of Thorne adding something, but instead of integrating it into the dramatic action and showing us, it’s just talked about. What’s the point of adding big plot points if you don’t dramatise them in your dramatic, visual medium? In 2x8, Lee offhandedly mentions playing Alamo Gulch as a kid.

I’m literally screaming, Jack, why the flying fuck wasn’t there a flashback of young Lee and Hester playing Alamo Gulch and being stopped by his abusive dad? It’s not like you care about pacing with the amount of dead air in these episodes, even when S2’s run 10 minutes shorter than S1’s. Lee was even asleep at the beginning of 2x3, Jack! He could’ve woken from a nightmare about his childhood! It’s a little lazy, but better than nothing.

There’s a similar missed opportunity making Dr Lanselius a Witchling. If this idea had been introduced with the character in 1x4, it would’ve opened up so many storytelling possibilities. Linking to Fader Coram’s own dead witchling son. It could’ve given us that much-needed perspective on Witch culture. Imagine Lanselius’ bittersweet meeting with his ageless mother, who gave him up when he reached manhood. Then, when the Magisterium bombs the Witches in 2x2, Lanselius’ mother dies so it means something.

Instead it’s only used to facilitate an awkward exposition dump in the middle of a trial.

The point of this fanfic-y ramble is to illustrate my frustration with the additions; If Thorne had committed and meaningfully expanded and interwoven them with the source material, they could’ve strengthened its weakest aspect (the characters). But instead he stays committed to novelistic storytelling techniques of monologue and two people standing in a room talking at each other

(Seriously, count the number of scenes that are just two people standing in a room or corridor talking to each other. No interesting staging, the characters aren’t doing anything else while talking. They. Just. Stand.) 

SEASON 2 IMPROVEMENTS

S2 improved some things- Lyra's characterisation was more book-accurate, her dynamic with Will was wonderful. Citigazze looked incredible. LMM won lots of book fans over as Lee. Mary was brilliantly cast. Now there are less Daemons, they're better characterised- Pan gets way more to do now and Hester had some lovely moments. 

I genuinely believe 2x1, 2x3, 2x4 and 2x5 are the best HDM has been. 

But new problems arose. The Subtle Knife lost the central, easy to understand drive of Northern Lights (finding the missing kids) for lots of smaller quests. As a result, everyone spends the first two episodes of S2 waiting for the plot to arrive. The big inciting incident of Lyra’s plotline is the theft of the alethiometer, which doesn’t happen until 2x3. Similarly, Lee doesn’t search for John until 2x3. Mrs Coulter doesn’t go looking for Lyra until 2x3. 

On top of missing a unifying dramatic drive, the characters now being split across 3 worlds, instead of the 1+a bit of ours in S1, means the pacing/crosscutting problems (long establishing shots, repetition of information, undercutting momentum) are even worse. The narrative feels scattered and incohesive.   

These flaws are inherent to the source  material and are not the show’s fault, but neither does it do much to counterbalance or address them, and the flaws of the show combine with the difficulties of TSK as source material and make each other worse.

A lot of this has been entitled fanboy bitching, but you can't deny the show is in a bad place ratings-wise. It’s gone from the most watched new British show in 5 years to the S2 premiere having a smaller audience than the lowest-rated episode of Doctor Who Series 12. For comparison, DW's current cast and showrunner are the most unpopular since the 80s, some are actively boycotting it, it took a year-long break between series 11 and 12, had its second-worst average ratings since 2005, and costs a fifth of what HDM does to make. And it's still being watched by more people.

Critical consensus fluctuates wildly. Most laymen call the show slow and boring. The show is simultaneously too niche and self-absorbed to attract a wide audience and gets just enough wrong to aggravate lots of fans.

I’m honestly unsure if S3 will get the same budget. I want it to, if only because of my investment in the books. Considering S2 started filming immediately after S1 aired, I think they've had a lot more time to process and apply critique for S3. On the plus side, there's so much plot in The Amber Spyglass it would be hard to have the same pacing problems. But also so many new concepts that I dread the exposition dumps.

[pierrotdameron]

Of all the roles in James McAvoy‘s character Rolodex, which includes Xavier in the X-Men movies and Bill in this year’s It Chapter Two, the actor is most precious when it comes to Lord Asriel in HBO’s His Dark Materials. “I’m probably even more precious about Asriel than they may want me to be sometimes,” the actor tells EW, speaking of the show’s executive producer Jane Tranter and writer Jack Thorne.

The creators were in a bind. As McAvoy tells it, two actors previously backed out from playing Asriel “at the last minute,” leaving Tranter and Thorne “scrambling” to find a replacement. McAvoy, as it happens, visited the home of Kathleen Crawford, the show’s casting director. They were just casually “waxing lyrically” about the source material, author Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy.

[...]There are so many layers to this story. There are daemons, physical manifestations of human souls that exist outside the body as talking animal companions; the Magisterium, this world’s reigning religious institution that claims an authoritarian hold over the populace; and the journey of a child discovering herself while on an inter-dimensional journey. “I was fanboying,” McAvoy recalls of that meeting with Crawford. “Really just getting in deep as fans.”

Two weeks later, McAvoy got the call to take over the Asriel role — on the Friday before filming was to begin that Monday, no less. “I was like, ‘Look, I can give you 10 days worth of filming if you can make it work.’ And they made it work,” the Glasgow-born actor says. “I had to go up and do It 2, so they squeezed in 10 days of filming before It 2 and then squeezed in 10 days of filming at the end of It 2.”

Now, after shooting his part in the first two seasons, which shot as close together as possible for logistical reasons, McAvoy “really knows the part inside out” to the point where he drives everyone “slightly nuts.” His words, not ours. Game of Thrones actress Indira Varma first introduced McAvoy to Pullman’s novels during work on 2001’s London theater production of Privates on Parade, and he quickly transformed into a “humungous fan.” It’s why he and the creative team on the series have “a thousand, gazillion” conversations on certain elements of the adaptation.

“The narrative drive you need for a TV show or a movie isn’t the same as the focus and attention that you can pay in a novel,” he muses. “Missing things isn’t necessarily the worst thing, you’ve just got to do it right. If you do change something, if you take something away, you’ve got to show everything else tip-top and spick and span.” Asriel only appears in a few episodes — in the beginning of season 1, which adapts a small portion of Pullman’s Book of Dust prequel novel, and one in the finale — but McAvoy’s biggest conversations were about getting such a high fantasy concept across to viewers so that finale would make sense. “In episode 8,” he explains, “there’s a lot of work to do, and incredibly intellectual and metaphysical conversations that Asriel has with Lyra that the audience needs to understand in order for them to have more than a ‘what the f— is going on in this crazy multifaceted and multilayered multiverse that is His Dark Materials?'”

One scene he shot, though it’s unknown if it will make the final cut of the season, is an interaction between Asriel and his snow leopard daemon Stelmaria (voiced by Helen McCrory) that he found intriguing. He describes it as a “slightly argumentative nature” between the two characters. “Asriel really won’t let anyone argue with him,” McAvoy points out. “He doesn’t really accept anyone else’s opinion except his own. So, it was quite interesting to have him warring with himself and have her warring with herself. They are still very much allies, he’s not at odds with his own soul in the way that the [younger Asriel] from The Book of Dust is, but there’s a bit of antagonism between the two of them.”

It’s really in season 2, adapting The Subtle Knife, the second installment of Pullman’s trilogy, that McAvoy can deeper explore aspects of Asriel that aren’t laid out in the source material. “His absence is a big original factor for Lyra and it’s important to be mysterious,” McAvoy says. “So, we can explore further but actually you end up demystifying him somewhat. He needs to remain an enigmatic and slightly mercurial figure in Lyra’s view. His personal journey is huge but he’s very static in his movement, he’s very solid in his position up to the very end and then everything changes for him.”

At the time EW spoke with McAvoy in mid August, a few weeks after the show’s presentation at San Diego Comic-Con, this super fan said he still hadn’t met Pullman in person, though he expected to at some point. “I’m not bothered about that. That’s alright,” he says. “I’ve had bad experiences meeting the authors that I’m dramatizing in the past, so if I don’t meet him, I might be okay. I sometimes feel it’s better not to meet your heroes.” That, however, is a story for a different time.

[akajustmerry]

am i the only one who finds it funny that the golden compass movie creators specifically looked only at blonde-haired girls when looking for lyra & lightened & curled the child actress’ hair so she would look prettier & more like book!lyra but hbo production ppl were like let’s just pick a rly good child actor (sad they didn’t choose a girl of color though) but I’m so glad they chose a boy of color for will - can’t see this character as anymore since I saw ppl’s fancasts of color here yrs ago

dkfdsbf i know!!! i was so happy when daphne was cast tho cos she was spectacular in logan (2017) i had a feeling she was a perfect choice for lyra’s general ferality (and so far she definitely is!!). i personally never thought lyra was a poc just cos her parents are so fkn ignorant and pious and privileged they have to be white so it makes sense for lyra to be white too!! but omg i forgot will was cast as poc that is absolutely fantastic!! thank u for reminding me!! honestly, the whole tv production seems to be a really faithful adaption thus far and i am honestly so excited to watch the crap out of it!!

[aion-rsa]

UK Utopia Creator Dennis Kelly: ‘There’s Always a Possibility of Going Back’

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This is almost certainly an exercise in cruelty. Fans of Channel 4’s conspiracy thriller Utopia have already gone through the pain of its premature cancellation. To hope for more at this late stage is surely just setting ourselves up for more hurt?

And yet… Speaking to Den of Geek about new experimental mystery thriller The Third Day, currently airing on Sky Atlantic and HBO, Utopia writer Dennis Kelly admitted that he hasn’t “quite closed the door” on Utopia.“I haven’t quite gone ‘that’s something I’ll never do’.”

In 2014, Channel 4 tore Kelly’s visionary thriller out by the roots to make room for other drama with a broader appeal. It didn’t want a cult hit, which is what Utopia had grown into over two striking and provocative series.

Kelly indicated at the time that he had plans to continue the story, which had started as a mystery about an unusual comic book and ended somewhere… bigger and bolder.  

Had the cancellation happened in 2020, a streaming service or co-production deal may have allowed Utopia to continue, but in 2014, Netflix’s expansion into original drama, for instance, was only just getting off the ground. Complicating matters for any potential Utopia return is the imminent release of a US remake, which arrives on Amazon Prime Video on Friday the 25th of September.

Den of Geek asked Kelly how he felt about the Utopia remake, and whether fans should give up hope of ever seeing the UK versions of Jessica Hyde and Arby again…

How does it feel for the Utopia remake to be arriving at a time that couldn’t really feel more apt, in that viruses and vaccines are daily news headlines now?

Weird. It feels really weird. It’s odd. You’re right, it feels like it’s exactly when it was written for in some ways! It’s a strange thing. I don’t know how people are going to take it. I think it looks great. I’ve seen two episodes and they look great. I’ve not really had anything to do with it. Even though I’m an exec on it, I’ve not really had much input at all, but it looks really good and it’s going to be really interesting to see how people feel about it.

You weren’t involved at a script level?

I’ve not really read the scripts in probably four or five years. But I’ve seen a couple of episodes and they look really good. The last time I read the scripts was probably back when David Fincher was involved. I really liked them, I thought they were great. I’ve had a few chats with Gillian [Flynn], who’s adapted it but my sense of it was that she obviously wanted to make it her own. She was always really lovely to me, but I felt like the last thing you want is ‘that bloke’ hanging around going ‘do it like this’. You don’t want that. She’s making her show, even though some of the ideas might be taken from mine, it’s her show and if it were me, I wouldn’t want someone else to be around. I stepped back and let her do her thing.

Just before the Fincher version of the remake fell apart, you said it had been changed in some really clever ways?

Yeah. There are some new characters that are really interesting, really intriguing. There’s some of the old characters there as well. It’s different. It’s a strange experience watching it because you know it so well. I can’t remember when Utopia was out, but it’s probably six years ago and I’ve not watched [the UK version] in that time, so it was kind of nice. I did get to watch it as if it was new.

Read more

TV

Utopia Review (Spoiler-Free)

By Lyra Hale

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Iain M. Banks’ Phlebas TV adaptation at Amazon no longer happening

By Louisa Mellor

The original might not have had as broad an audience as Channel 4 wanted, but the people who loved it, loved it. Some might feel a bit protective of it, like ‘who are these Americans ruining it? Watch the original!’ What would you say to that?

My background is theatre and I’ve been lucky that a lot of my plays have gone on in other countries, so I feel like you can do different versions of a script. TV and film are very, very different, you only really do one version, but if you wrote a play… I’ve got a play that’s been done 40 times in Germany alone – I haven’t seen all those productions by the way, I’ve only seen two or three but you see that they’re really different, so I do think the world’s a big place, I do think there’s room for lots and lots of different things.

My view on it was always, what you can’t ever do is harm the original. You can do a new version and there will be a lot of people that will go ‘it’s not as good as the original’, and there’ll be a lot of people that will go ‘it’s better than the original’. But I don’t think it harms the original.

Is it final that you wouldn’t revisit the UK Utopia, given the chance?

We’ve spoken about it before. There is always the possibility. I think it would be difficult to go back now because everyone’s a lot older [laughs]. There’s always a danger that if you go back you’re a different bunch of people with different criteria and often, going back, you end up with something that’s a bit of a shadow of what it was, or a shit version of what it was.

You’ve always got to think about what your reasons are for going back. It was difficult at that time not to finish the story because I think it was going to go to some interesting places. Now, I’m a different person from the person that wrote that.

If you decided you were never to go back to it, would you ever reveal what those ‘interesting places’ are?

Maybe one day, maybe one day [laughs]. I don’t know at the moment, who knows? There’s always a possibility of going back. I haven’t quite closed the door on it, I haven’t quite gone ‘that’s something I’ll never do’.

And you don’t want to burn your bridges. If you tell me the whole plot now, that’ll ruin it.

If I tell you, and you go ‘Huh’, then that’s it, that’s my ideas ruined! Honestly, I never tell anyone anything, or as little as possible I try and not tell anyone, because what happens is, the moment you tell someone, every part of you is attuned to what the response is and any response can be bad. If they go ‘Wow, that sounds fucking amazing!’ you go ‘Oh shit, I’ve got to write something amazing now’ and if their response is like ‘Huh’, you go, ‘Oh fuck, that idea’s terrible’. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You’re better off not telling anyone anything!

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Utopia (US) is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video from Friday the 25th of November. Both series of the UK original are also available to stream on Amazon Prime UK.

The post UK Utopia Creator Dennis Kelly: ‘There’s Always a Possibility of Going Back’ appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/35IGC48

[nestofstraightlines]

I feel as if not so many people know about the wonderful graphic novel version of Northern Lights/ The Golden Compass so I want to recommend it!

It was adapted by Stephane Melchior and drawn by Clement Oubrerie in French and was published in the last couple of years for the English speaking markets.

It took me a second to acclimatise to Ouberie’s style but I soon adored it. It’s so wild and free but detailed at the saem time. His vision of Lyra’s world feels so close to the feeling I got from the book. I love how he uses colours. Of the adaptations this is the one that includes that sense of the gritty and visceral that Pullman does. You feel the grubbiness of Trollesund, the stink of Lyra’s furs by the time she gets to Bolvangar etc.

I think the directors and/or writer of the BBC/HBO His Dark Materials definitely read this and took some ideas. Look at those second two pages - Lyra hiding in a space behind an ornate grill instead of the book’s wardrobe; escaping a lesson with a scholar out the window (even the angles are very similar there).

I also really love his Iorek. He reminds me a little of Kevin O'Neill’s Mr. Hyde from the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen sometimes, and I love that. The screen adaptations (and most cover art) stick pretty close to what polar bears look like and make him look kind of immediately appealing, not really embodying the scary alien uncanniness Lyra feels when she first encounters him. But my idea of Iorek, perhaps because the first cover of the book I encountered was this, was always far more like this, occupying a sometimes uneasy middle ground between person and animal.

I also love what Ouberie does with Svalbard, it’s just how it should look, all incongruous classicism and rotting seal carcasses.

I believe Melchior has already published the first volume of The Subtle Knife in France, this with a new artist, I hope they translate it to English too!

Here’s the UK link to buy

And here’s the US one

[keirametzbrassknuckles]

Ok so what are your thoughts on HBO’s HDM so far? Good, bad, like it, don’t like it, it’s done well, it isn’t done well, etc etc?? Because I have /thoughts/ and idk if I’m biased or if other people who loved the books are having similar thoughts, so just curious what you feel about this adaptation, would love to hear your thoughts!!

As a preface it's been about 5 years since I read TGC in its entirety and about 7-10 since I last read the entire series so most of my analysis is coloured by nostalgia. I also havent watched the most recent episode yet.

That being said, I'm really enjoying the show so far, as a piece of television. I think the longform omniscient storytelling style is really conducive to showing the breadth and depth of the world building, I like how they set up Will and showed us how the portals work thereby setting up the larger story in a way that TGC didnt. That being said I think it has some issues with tone and has a tendancy to tell instead of show which is a cardinal sin.

My major complaints are with the structure and design of the show itself. Episode 5 is, I think, the most egregious example of the show's shortcomings with all of the emotional beats bogged down with verbal exposition and the natural rising and falling action absolutely curtailed by the need to fit a designated run time. The constant cutaways to Will and his story are jarring and feel almost like switching between channels to a totally different show. A cameo would have been nice, to set him up as someone important to the story and throw an easter-egg to fans, but the constant back and forth takes away more emotion and immersion than it gives narrative clarity (in fact if I didnt know the books I feel like I would be completely confused by Will's presence at all). I also feel that they've messed with Lyra's character quite a bit in order to make her spunky but likeable instead of the agent of chaos she is in the books.

 Besides that though I love Dafne Keen and shes clearly doing the absolute most with what shes been given which makes her talent really shine through. I think the casting at large is impeccable; Ruth Wilson sends me into chills and also a perverse sense of sympathy whenever shes on screen, LMM as Lee Scoresby was something I wasnt expecting to like but do immensely, and James McAvoy is a wonderfully youthful yet simultaneously worldweary and menacing Asrial.

The world building and design, while parts of it are out rightly stolen from the 2007 film  (I'm mad about this okay), is immersive and has just enough of an otherworldly feeling to it, although I would have liked more clearly drawn thematic lines in regards to the design of the different parts of the world (why do the Gyptians have 60s era diesel riverboats instead of steam? Why not make up a new type of vehicle as opposed to having cars from different eras on the same street? A little consistency with era (or a  carefully curated inconsistency) would be nice).

Overall I feel like less focus on Will beyond brief insights into his life (perhaps through Lord Boreal's eyes only?) and more visual confirmation of why the dæmons are important and what they are would go a long way toward fixing the issues I have with the structure. Otherwise I cant really find much fault in it from a story standpoint.

TL;DR: my feelings are complicated.

[aion-rsa]

His Dark Materials Review: An Adaptation Worth Waiting For

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The BBC’s Philip Pullman adaptation is a rich family fantasy that retains the books’ dark power…

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This His Dark Materials review is spoiler-free. It was originally published on Den of Geek UK.

Current wisdom teaches that the age of family home viewing is over; parents and kids no longer crowd around the TV in a tumble of wet-from-the-bath hair, pyjamas and shushing. Instead, they’re dispersed around the home and plugged into separate devices.  

That may be largely so, but it’s not the whole picture. In 2017, Ofcom reported that 70% of UK families still watch a shared TV programme at least once a week. If you’re among them and open to suggestion, then from Sunday the 3rd of November (or November 4th, in the U.S.), make it this one. 

In terms of family viewing, His Dark Materials is the real thing: as Douglas Adams might have said, it’s both complicated enough for children and simple enough for adults. Its richly constructed fantasy world is magical without being cutesy. There’s no wise-cracking sidekick or sickly sweetness. Fear, frustration and a sense of never knowing quite who or what you can trust – things that kids know all about – are woven thrillingly into the adventure.  

read more: His Dark Materials Creator Discusses Religion in TV Show

Episode 1 is wise enough to know that the childish exuberance of escaping, exploring and trespassing is exciting at any age. It’s also clever enough to ground its scares not in fantasy monsters, but the shadowy unknowable world of grown-ups operating with hidden agendas. 

The adventure starts, as the opening scene explains, in a world “both like, and unlike, your own.” The city of Oxford (where much of this episode’s filming took place) exists but its rivers are peopled by water travellers the Gyptians, and its rooftops adorned with animal statues instead of stone gargoyles. These don’t represent true animals, but daemons, the talking, moving human soul in creature form that accompanies each living person in this world. 

While an adult’s daemon is fixed as one animal, children’s daemons swap between forms until puberty. This information is quickly passed on and takes only a little getting used to (there are moments in episode one when a voice seems to be speaking from nowhere until you jolt and remind yourself you’re listening to the words of a computer-generated stoat or snow leopard.) It’s all established with a minimum of fuss, lending a matter-of-factness to the magic of the world that makes it feel satisfyingly lived-in. There will no doubt be questions at home about how it all works, but asking questions is very much the point of this story. Trust these creators, they clearly have all the details worked out.  

read more: Nicole Kidman's 7 Best Genre Roles

The original Creator, or Almighty as he would doubtless not want to be known is Philip Pullman, writer of the original book trilogy published between 1995 and 2000 (The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass check). His work has been faithfully adapted here by screenwriter Jack Thorne (The Virtues, This Is England, Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, The Fades) and director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Miserables, Cats). The British production company is Bad Wolf, led by Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, the two producers behind the 2005 revival of Doctor Who. In other words, it’s been brought to life by a tribe of experienced storytellers.

The story is, as many are in the fantasy genre, about a child, a prophecy, a magical talisman, an all-powerful ruling organisation and a long, dangerous journey. Its engagement with theological and philosophical debate is what distinguishes it from the crowd (dodged by the 2007 feature film adaptation, which watered down Pullman’s criticism of theocracy). It’s been described as an inverted retelling of Milton’s Paradise Lost, from where the title is drawn.  

This version also stands out for its casting, which is so far faultless. Dafne Keen, recognizable from 2017 X-Men film Logan, plays main character Lyra with wilfulness and spark. James McAvoy is terrific as her Byronic uncle Lord Asriel, while you’d call Ruth Wilson a revelation as the glamorous and mysterious Mrs. Coulter if she weren’t always this watchable.   

While the Harry Potter phenomenon proves it can hit big in cinema, British fantasy on TV has struggled to find a foothold of late. ITV’s Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde sank without a trace. The success of Merlin wasn’t matched by its successor Atlantis. Peter Harkness and Check Check’s Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell, a jewel of an adaptation, was tossed away on Tuesday nights in the summer of 2015, when it should have been set, just as this has been, against a dark and wintry backdrop.   

As right for cold Sunday evenings as buttered crumpets and lashing rain, His Dark Materials’ arrival has been timed to perfection. One episode a week from the start to the finale will take you all the way up until the 22nd of December (December 23rd in the U.S.), after which the wait begins for the already-filmed second season. At least one more is planned, to complete the adaptation of the novel trilogy, and a second trilogy set in the same universe is currently mid-publication, so if enough of us climb aboard, who knows where this fantastic journey might take us. 

His Dark Materials premieres on Monday, November 4th on HBO. Find out more about the TV series here.

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Review

Books

Louisa Mellor

Oct 30, 2019

His Dark Materials

HBO

Jack Thorne

from Books https://ift.tt/2JBZMwy