A public service announcement

Published on Sunday December 9th, 2007

Many of you know I used to edit children’s books for a living. It was work I mostly loved, and it carved my affection for children’s literature into a lasting passion. That means I’m snobby about the quality of books: of course I want kids to fall for reading, and if that means they devour a lot of trash on their way to the good stuff, so be it. But I hope they’ll develop palates discerning enough to tell the difference and appreciate well-written, thoughtful books with something worthy at the core. I want those stories and their characters to live on in children’s imaginations after the last page is turned. And I jealously guard my own experiences of good books.

So I greet the current parade of adaptations for the big screen with a healthy dose of distrust and chagrin. The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter seem to have inaugurated a veritable gold rush to mine the children’s literature canon for blockbusters. When the former head of Dutton Children’s Books made the decision to sell merchandising rights to Winnie the Pooh, he privately referred to it as the Rape of Pooh. I can’t help but see a Rape of Children’s Classics underway. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Bridge to Terabithia, Charlotte’s Web. I can hardly bear to mention The Polar Express. And according to the previews, they’re plowing through the contemporary best-sellers next: Inkheart is next on the block, and there were posters for The Spiderwick Chronicles all over the theatre. This is not to say that good movies can’t be and haven’t been made from children’s books. (I’ll skip, for now, the tangential argument that having the experience handed to you visually is far less fulfilling than animating the story yourself as you read.) But too many attempts to capture the worlds and characters that live in our hearts fall desperately flat, and I’m afraid I have to pronounce The Golden Compass just such an effort.

I probably should have known better. It lured me with its fine cast and promising visuals. I love the story, and I wanted to see if Hollywood had taken the care to do it right. They didn’t. The directing, screenwriting, and editing are poor. I’m not sure I’d have been able to follow the story at all if I didn’t know the book. It’s choppy; it’s a madcap dash from one plot point to the next in order to squash the tale into feature length. Countless subtleties that slowly dawn on you in the book are dumped out in expository dialogue like Spam from a tin. The CG isn’t convincing except in a few scenes (the bear fight, notably, and for some reason the forms of transportation) where they clearly spent the extra money to dazzle us. And the movie isn’t convincing, either. Mostly, it’s just frustrating. You catch glimpses of what it could have been: Lee and Hester are pitch perfect, Fra Pavel is unctuous and creepy, Lyra is forthright and brave and doesn’t overact, Lord Asriel is suitably haughty, Serafina Pekkala is luscious and otherworldly (and boy can she fight without mussing her hair). Nicole Kidman is a reasonably good Mrs. Coulter, although she looks disconcertingly like Renee Zellweger in many of her costumes. Unfortunately, the golden monkey is such a lousy piece of digital work that I was distracted from her performance.

So what’s the silver lining of two wasted hours? Peter Jackson just keeps looking better and better. I may have to do my evening cashmere lace knitting to one of the Lord of the Rings movies.

P.S. If you’re set on seeing The Golden Compass despite my warnings, at least do yourself the favor of sprinting from the theatre as Lee’s balloon sails off into the sunset after the fight at Bolvangar (yes, that’s really where the film ends), before the soul-sucking treacle of the Original Song oozes stickily over the credits. It’s quite honestly the worst piece of music I’ve heard in years. My ears and stomach have not yet recovered.

24 Comments to “A public service announcement”

  1. materfamilias Comment Says:

    Thanks for the warning, altho’ I’m not sure I would be tempted anyway. Had no trouble resisting the screen version of Narnia, and can’t imagine watching Bridge to Terabithia except in my own head and on the face of anyone I’ve read it to.

  2. Alli Comment Says:

    I saw Golden Compass last night and even if I had read your warning I fear I would have been unable to resist its glossy lure.

    However, I must say I agree with you on all counts. Especially the distressing trend of making movies out of all the best books. At least sometimes an intriguing movie inspires me to reread a book I read a long time ago.

    Golden Compass was especially sad though because I read it so many times when I was younger and the film had so much promise.

    What a letdown!

  3. Monica Comment Says:

    I’ve never read the book, but I’ve been on the fence about seeing the film. I’ll definitely pick the book up instead.

  4. Eva Comment Says:

    Oh dear. The reports from the Front Lines of this film just keep coming back worse and worse. It makes me so sad.

    Thank you for the introductory paragraphs to this post! I adore children’s and young adult books, and have had my heart broken over and over as they’re viciously mined for poor film adaptations. The Polar Express…. I couldn’t even watch the previews. (Chris Van Allsburg’s books are being adapted one-by-one, and I just can’t bear it. He’s such a genius, and these films paint over his stories and illustrations in horribly gaudy, amateur style, rendering them nearly unrecognizable.)

  5. Jodi Comment Says:

    Sigh… thanks for writing on this, Sarah. I have similar laments about the Rape of Classics. Troy, Rome, and 300 paint dishearteningly violent pictures of the classical world that bolster contemporary sexism, machissimo, and the war-mongering spirit fostered by a certain Texan.

  6. stacey Comment Says:

    how disappointing – but most of the time the movie of a well loved book doesn’t live up to my expectations…..i may pass on this one!

  7. Katie Comment Says:

    Sorry, I have to disagree with you on all counts. I thought the movie adaptation was splendid well composed, the music was lovely and, in my opinion, they did an excellent job turning the book into a comprensive film.

    To each his own!
    🙂

  8. gleek Comment Says:

    i probably won’t see it in the theater for the one reason that i can’t find a babysitter 🙂 ha.

  9. melissa Comment Says:

    ugh, i agree with you completely. i eagerly went to see it on friday (even though i thought it might be bad…i so wanted it to be good!), and i was bitterly disappointed. you’re right…if you didn’t already know this story, the movie would make NO sense at all. and i’m so angry with where they chose to end the movie! it’s so sad…

  10. Lisa Comment Says:

    Thanks for the warning. I haven’t read the books (I know – gasp!), so I wasn’t planning to see the movie. But now I’ll know to go straight to the books. Snuggling up with some LoTR and cashmere sounds like the perfect antidote to the disappointment of The Golden Compass.

  11. Veronique Comment Says:

    I totally understand your frustration. I went to see the movie after reading the NY Times review, so I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece. My favorite catty quote about Nicole Kidman: “the smooth planes of her face, untroubled by visible lines, serve the character”. Oh snap!
    By the way, am I the only one who’s trying to figure out how to make Lyra’s beige hat? And who in the world knitted that amazingly awful knitted purple and red super bulky coat?!!

  12. mamie Comment Says:

    so sad, the treatment beautiful books like that get from the hollywood land. i will be sure to wait until it is out on dvd to even consider spending two precious hours on it.

  13. Kirsten Comment Says:

    My husband and I went to the see The Golden Compass yesterday and I will say that for the most part I enjoyed it. However, I do agree with you that if I hadn’t read the book ahead of time, I’m not sure I would have followed the plot at all. In fact that was exactly what I said to my husband as the credits were rolling. There were a lot of kids in the theater with us and I can’t imagine that they all understood the movie. And ditto regarding the golden monkey – did not impress me at all. But what did impress me was all of Lyra’s knitted winter wear! I loved her hat! And we did see the previews for Inkheart and I am sheepishly admitting I am going to be lured in by that one too – I hope it does justice to the book!

  14. Linda Fisher Comment Says:

    I respect your oppinion immensly. Just the other day I was looking with my daughter (she was home sick from school) for a book on tape for her to listen to. We looked at Golden Compass and she was not in the least interested (age 7, maybe too young). Then we went to the movie yesterday. And I agree totally with your synopsis. So I have decided to download the book on tape anyway and we will all listen to it together. Pausing to explain any areas that might need explaining. I am really looking forward to “reading” the real story. Thanks for your professional viewpoint!

  15. Karma Comment Says:

    Thank you for the review; I loved The Golden Compass when I read it last year for the first time and I’ve been hesitant to ruin that impression with the film. I’ll probably see it on DVD to satisfy my curiousity, though.

  16. Adelaide Comment Says:

    Damn! What a disappointment, and you’re hardly the first to give this review. We read His Dark Materials as the final titles in our English Junior Seminar – the theme of which was ” The Fall AFter Milton” – and, while many of us snickered at the idea of reading children’s lit in a college course, it was amazing what class kinship it formed: all of us curled up in corners of the library, reading far beyond the assigned chapters. There’s no way I’ll tarnish that reading experience.

  17. minnie Comment Says:

    i just recently discovered these books, and ended up listening to the last one first (i adore book tapes!). so, i already knew the end before i’d heard the beginning. however, i thoroughly enjoyed them (they did a whole cast of characters, not just one person changing his/her voice). in fact, from what i’ve heard on the commercials, the voice for pan is pretty close to what they did in the books.

    however? disappointment reigns supreme. i think i’ll wait for netflix to get them on dvd and rent it that way. sigh.

  18. thursday Comment Says:

    I probably won’t see this in the theater…maybe someday when I’m bored I’ll rent it. I assume I will be disappointed, though. I passed on watching The Polar Express today. I don’t want to ruin all books! As it is, the Harry Potter movies have changed the way action in the books takes place in my head. Isn’t it horrible to forget the picture you had of a character and replace it with an actor?

  19. Seanna Lea Comment Says:

    My hubby rented Bridge to Terabithia a few months ago. I watched it and was just a little bit horrified. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it fell far short of my memories from reading it.

    I sort of want to see the Golden Compass, because the previews look so shiny and pretty. I’m sure I won’t. Instead, I will attend Sweeney Todd for my dose of disappointment.

  20. Celine Comment Says:

    I’m so sad! I just finished the audiobooks of His Dark Materials about two weeks ago, for the first time…they were so enchanting that I didn’t want to do anything but sit and knit lace and listen to them. It was so hard to take off my headphones when I got out of the elevator at work…made a total fool of myself at the end of The Amber Spyglass, crying over Will and Lyra’s parting on the rush-hour bus…

    I’ve been nervously looking forward to the movie, hoping it wouldn’t be too badly mangled, but not expecting much. To hear that they couldn’t even get the CG right is very sad. Though, I can’t say I’m surprised after what they’ve done to Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Charlotte’s Web (my husband and I couldn’t even finish the new one)…well, I’ll NetFlix it anyhow…

  21. Kristen Comment Says:

    Well, darn. We only get out to a few movies a year, but I was considering making this one of them. However, I know from experience that we have similar taste in children’s literature, and I suspect I’d leave just as irritated as you are, especially as The Golden Compass is my favorite of the books in the His Dark Materials series.

    The mister works in CG, and it doesn’t surprise me to hear that the graphics are uneven. It seems like in the big movies, the budget for graphics is distributed pretty unevenly, and often they’re farmed out to a number of different studios, not to mention that most of the big studios are suffering under War of the Worlds syndrome. War of the Worlds’ graphics were done very quickly, because they were started while the movie was still filming. Now a lot of studios are demanding graphics done that quickly without wanting to pay for it, or understanding that War of the Worlds was only done so fast because the lead artist had worked with Spielberg before and started on the graphics much earlier in the process than is usual. We’ll probably be seeing a lot of wildly uneven and choppy CG until that’s worked out.

    And now I’ll stop being unbearably boring and thank you for your review! I’ll wait for video with this one, if I see it at all.

  22. heather Comment Says:

    despite your – not at all surprising – warning, i suspect that i’ll end up seeing the movie anyway and i know i’ll end up disgusted and annoyed. not only do many directors utterly fail to take on plot subtleties these days, i can’t imagine hollywood making any great effort to try to express any of the religious/philosophical aspects of the story either. at the very least, once i’ve seen and hated the movie, i’ll just have to go back and reread all three books to reassure myself.

  23. Debby Comment Says:

    I did not know that you used to edit children’s books. As I used to be a YA librarian, and do some editing now of educational books, I really appreciate your comments.

    After I left the library world, it pained me to see the celebrity children’s books featured prominently, with the lesser-known quality authors hidden in the stacks. Perhaps because many of these celeb books are so poorly written as to be unuseable for movies, the film companies are turning to the better books for material. And then, for the most part, rendering it unrecognizable. I’m worried about Madeline L’Engle next.

  24. Cindy Comment Says:

    Oh, how disappointing. I reckon the only decent CGI i have ever seen that truly fooled me the whole way through is Jurassic park, which is one of the pioneers of CGI. This trilogy is my absolute favorite of all time, but it seems that The Amber Spyglass is going to be trashed if the CGI isn’t up to standard. Lame. I was going to see this too, but with reservations, i dont’ think i will now