Peven wrote:imo the fundamental problem in adapting the books was the books themselves, or rather, the real motivation behind the author in writing them. he came up with a story to weave with his personal manifesto. thats it. he didn't sit down to write a great story, the story is secondary to his "message". LOTR, and other books like it, are vastly superior and will stand the test of time much better because they are not trying to preach or lay down some clever subversive commentary. they are telling great stories, period.
Peven wrote:tapehead wrote:I've read the books, would that make my opinion just a little more valid based upon a personal familiarity of their contents?
Can you link the said interview? I've read Pullman relating what you mention as part of his intent, but never as the reason that the books were written as such.
honestly, it would take me hours to try to find the particular interview. during the lead up to its release i was intrigued by the story as i had not read the books yet but am a fan of quality fantasy, so i read as much as i could about the books and the author, both here and following links to interviews/articles.
...
before the movie was released some of those very people were talking about how they thought it was going to be a tough sell to the general public if the movie stuck strictly to Pullman's vision due to the anti-religious tone. and based on their discussions, and what i remember reading of articles/interviews with Pullman, i still think that the message is the core of the story,the reason for its being, so when you thin it out to keep from offending the masses what you are left with is empty spectacle.
First of all- I think it's a fairly basic presumption that in order to have an opinion about a book or its writer, you should have read it. Furthermore, I think not only have you not read the books -but also you haven't read any actual interviews with Pullman himself. You may have read
other people's statements about Pullman, but that's just not the same you know.
Lucky for you I've taken some work off your hands, and looked up some actual quotes for you:
Directly from Phillip Pullman's
own website (posted earlier in the His Dark Materials Trilogy thread):
As a passionate believer in the democracy of reading, I don't think it's the task of the author of a book to tell the reader what it means. The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain.
Anyway, I'm not in the message business; I'm in the “Once upon a time” business.
However, I suppose there are things I can say about the books I've written – I can say why I enjoyed writing them, perhaps, or why I did something one way rather than another.
So here goes.
here:Is there an underlying message for atheism in your book or did you simply want to write a fantasy story, like Tolkien? Kim Mapstead, Friday Harbor, Wash.
Hello, Kim: What I was mainly doing, I hope, was telling a story, but not a story like Tolkien’s. (To be honest I don’t much care for “The Lord of the Rings.”) As for the atheism, it doesn’t matter to me whether people believe in God or not, so I’m not promoting anything of that sort. What I do care about is whether people are cruel or whether they’re kind, whether they act for democracy or for tyranny, whether they believe in open-minded enquiry or in shutting the freedom of thought and expression. Good things have been done in the name of religion, and so have bad things; and both good things and bad things have been done with no religion at all. What I care about is the good, wherever it comes from.
here:Pullman says that people who are tempted to take offence should first see the film or read the books. "They'll find a story that attacks such things as cruelty, oppression, intolerance, unkindness, narrow-mindedness, and celebrates love, kindness, open-mindedness, tolerance, curiosity, human intelligence. It's very hard to disagree with those. But people will."
How will he respond to those attacks? "A soft answer turneth away wrath, as it says in my favourite book." (Proverbs 15:1.) So he won't argue back? "It's a foolish thing for the teller of a story to answer critics. If you're putting forward an argument, you can argue back and demonstrate why your argument is better than theirs. But if someone doesn't like a story you've written, what are you going to say? ‘Well, you should'?"
As for your assertion that Tolkien did not have an agenda - chew on this
quote:
"'The Lord of the Rings' is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision," Tolkien wrote in a letter in 1953 to Robert Murray, a Jesuit priest.
Anyway. I watched the first part of the movie; I'll watch the second half soon. By the first part, I was pleasantly surprised - I liked Lyra's acting, I liked the imagery, and both Kidman and Craig worked quite well, I thought. I didn't find the story too watered down either.
But I will reserve further comments for when I have actually watched the rest of the movie. As one does, of course.