Trailer Tuesday: Golden Compass new theatrical trailer

A while ago I posted up the teaser trailer for The Golden Compass. Now the final trailer has been unveiled in the build up to this family fantasy's worldwide release in early December.

I've been reading the novel in preparation, and I'll be finishing it off as soon as I complete the first story in the Earthsea Quartet (Ursula K. Le Guin's paperback was a lot easier to transport overseas than Philip Pullman's massive The Dark Material tome).

Regardless, this new Golden Compass trailer gives a far more accurate reflection of the alternate universe the characters inhabit, where Polar Bears are ferocious humanoid warriors in the North, and every person has a personal "daemon" spirit, a lifelong companion.


But of course, what would a family fantasy film be without controversy? According to the IMDB, the Catholic League is in the process of launching a campaign to deter people from watching the film. If I remember correctly this is the same group that freaked out about Dakota Fanning's child-rape drama Hounddog, saying it was child porn. That's some serious opinion credibility right there!

Anyway, here's the Golden Compass article:

Catholic League Protests 'Golden Compass'
Two months before the scheduled release of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass, the Catholic League has launched an all-out assault on the fantasy film. The League, the largest Catholic lay organization in the U.S., has produced a 25-page pamphlet, titled "The Golden Compass: Unmasked," that it is selling on its website for $5.00 per copy, which damns the film as a pernicious effort to indoctrinate children into atheistic beliefs.

Acknowledging that the film itself is unlikely to contain offensive material, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement, "If unsuspecting Christian parents take their children to see the movie, they may very well find it engaging and then buy Pullman's books for Christmas. That's the problem. We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film's producers." Pullman has acknowledged his anti-religious stance but critics have said that his books present little that is likely to offend believers.

Stephen Whitty, critic for the Newark, NJ Star Ledger wrote Thursday that he had read C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, which contain Christian imagery while attending a Catholic parochial school as a child and later read them to his Jewish children. "But that doesn't mean that any of us accepted Lewis's Northern-Irish Protestantism as our own faith. ... I know, for example, that when my children saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe they saw absolutely no obvious Christian imagery in it. I am sure that, when we go to see The Golden Compass, they'll see no atheistic agenda either."

*Sigh*

With JK Rowling it was the threat of indocrination into Witchcraft and Satanism.
With CS Lewis it was conservative Christian propaganda.
With Roald Dahl it was perceived Anti-Semitism.
And now we have Philip Pullman's atheism.

For the record, yes, The Golden Compass is critical of organised religion, in that religous powerhouse The Magisterium backs the film's villains. However, it's not the Catholic Church per say that comes up for critism. As I've said before, the film takes place in a parallel universe to ours, where the Protestant Reformation actually overthrew Catholicism, and in turn forever altered education and scienticific advancement. It is "A Church" that rules the world of The Golden Compass with an iron fist.

And my personal understanding is that the religious criticism present in the novel has been toned down or either stripped out completely for the film... which is itself a bit of a cop out.

However, this doesn't distract from the fact that I'm truly sick of these ceaseless attacks on children's fantasy. People bitch when kids watch TV. They bitch when kids play video games. When kids actually do sit quietly and read something they enjoy and find engaging, that gets slammed as well.

You just can't win!

Why must magic and anything "special" be ripped from our children's lives? Real life is enough of a grim horror story as it is, devoid of happy endings and determined heroes dedicated to helping others without personal gain. Fantasy fiction awakens children's imaginations to the possibility of change. It exposes them to characters guided by moral codes that centre on loyalty to friends and family, and who are dedicated to doing the right thing regardless of the sacrifices it may entail.

Hmmm, that actually sounds very similair to a familiar message from another source...

So to all those critics of children's fantasy, whether in book form or on the big screen, I have just one message for you: Get over yourself, you fucking twats!