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Dec. 27th, 2007 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseI had a fabulous day today, filled with working on what turned out to be the ideal work day: juuuust enough customers to keep me busy, just enough stock to give me something else to do and mix it up a little, just enough downtime to nearly finish the two-speed crossword! Charming. After that, I wandered down to Whitcoulls to spend the $100 vouchers I got from various relatives. I scored - hem, hem - the Angel Complete Series Boxset, which is OMG SO PRETTY. Normally $250, but they had a 25% discount I bargained down to 30% because the only one they had left was the display set and it was a little battered, and I had $10 vouchers left over from last year, and I ended up paying like $65 in actual spendable money and!!!! OMG SO PRETTY SO SHINY SO OMG.
Then we went and saw OK so, I re-read Northern Lights last month in prep and hm - well, I really enjoyed it and I thought the look was fabulous, and most of the cuts were relatively well-thought-out; some of them bugged me a little (for example, I felt Lyra should have played Mrs. Coulter in London for a little bit longer, to give a more solid foundation for Lyra Silvertongue) but I could generally get over it. I thought Dakota Blue Richards was EXCELLENT and I've been looking forward to seeing Nicole Kidman play Mrs. Coulter since the first rumour, which was, what, four, five years ago? Something like that. So they were both excellent and there was a lot of truly awesome stuff - I thought Iorek was great; Roger and (*sniff*) Billy were both good; what we saw of Lyra at Oxford was good; I thought Lyra the liar was well-portrayed; I was OK with the little expositiony bit at the beginning although, OK, it basically spoils you for the ending of The Amber Spyglass, but w/e; I even didn't quite mind that they cut the film off before Roger dies, although it did make her moving you & me speech kind of hilarious. The witches were AMAZING and I loved seeing Ma Costa shoot the Tartars, although it directly contradicts canon.
However! There were one or two details which, well, kind of bugged me.
The first? OK, the thing with Iorek Byrnison - um, dumb!!!!!! If the story is that he killed a young bear and got kicked out, the panserbjorn have dimensions of morality, intelligence, society - the whole thing. Also, Lyra has a fairly good reason to think Iorek might beat Iofur. OTOH, if it was just that Iorek lost to Iofur, the bears become two-dimensional short-hands for animal/warrior/biggest-wins society. Which is lame and dumb and I don't get at all why they changed that.
Secondly - OK, everyone in the world probably bitched about this? But the xtianity thing. OK, I know the movie probably wouldn't have been made if it had been as explicit a statement as the book. However, I seriously think that Mrs. Coulter, in particular, suffered. Her little speeches about Authority and obedience and ancestors making a mistake sound basically like the ravings of a delusional, kinda dumb woman. The history of respectability of Xtianity in the Western world, of which most of the audience is part, is what really gives Mrs. Coulter her strength as a character and as a threatening figure - IMO - and gives her arguments any kind of weight, which are vital to her being a well-rounded character. "Once upon a time our ancestors screwed up" is a very vague and kind of confusing rant, whereas "Do you know the story of Adam and Eve?" is an instant and familiar appeal to the audience, as well as to Lyra. SIGH.
But I still really enjoyed it, so!
Hey, any of you who did reviews, drop me a link? It just came out here on Boxing Day and I tried to remember whose cut-tags I scrolled past but, well, I can't.
What else? Yuletide! I really want to do a comprehensive set of YW recs, but basically it would come down to: they're ALL amazing this year, and if you're familiar with the fandom, run and read them right now. (Sarah, IIRC, none of them are very spoilery for W@W, but you may want to avoid the one about a day in the life of Dairine.)
ETA: oh! Do you know what the difficult thing about Bones is? their names! Are so ridiculous! Every time I read "Seeley", I want to laugh! Temperance even worse! And Tempe is just awful for me, no idea why. *sigh*
Then we went and saw OK so, I re-read Northern Lights last month in prep and hm - well, I really enjoyed it and I thought the look was fabulous, and most of the cuts were relatively well-thought-out; some of them bugged me a little (for example, I felt Lyra should have played Mrs. Coulter in London for a little bit longer, to give a more solid foundation for Lyra Silvertongue) but I could generally get over it. I thought Dakota Blue Richards was EXCELLENT and I've been looking forward to seeing Nicole Kidman play Mrs. Coulter since the first rumour, which was, what, four, five years ago? Something like that. So they were both excellent and there was a lot of truly awesome stuff - I thought Iorek was great; Roger and (*sniff*) Billy were both good; what we saw of Lyra at Oxford was good; I thought Lyra the liar was well-portrayed; I was OK with the little expositiony bit at the beginning although, OK, it basically spoils you for the ending of The Amber Spyglass, but w/e; I even didn't quite mind that they cut the film off before Roger dies, although it did make her moving you & me speech kind of hilarious. The witches were AMAZING and I loved seeing Ma Costa shoot the Tartars, although it directly contradicts canon.
However! There were one or two details which, well, kind of bugged me.
The first? OK, the thing with Iorek Byrnison - um, dumb!!!!!! If the story is that he killed a young bear and got kicked out, the panserbjorn have dimensions of morality, intelligence, society - the whole thing. Also, Lyra has a fairly good reason to think Iorek might beat Iofur. OTOH, if it was just that Iorek lost to Iofur, the bears become two-dimensional short-hands for animal/warrior/biggest-wins society. Which is lame and dumb and I don't get at all why they changed that.
Secondly - OK, everyone in the world probably bitched about this? But the xtianity thing. OK, I know the movie probably wouldn't have been made if it had been as explicit a statement as the book. However, I seriously think that Mrs. Coulter, in particular, suffered. Her little speeches about Authority and obedience and ancestors making a mistake sound basically like the ravings of a delusional, kinda dumb woman. The history of respectability of Xtianity in the Western world, of which most of the audience is part, is what really gives Mrs. Coulter her strength as a character and as a threatening figure - IMO - and gives her arguments any kind of weight, which are vital to her being a well-rounded character. "Once upon a time our ancestors screwed up" is a very vague and kind of confusing rant, whereas "Do you know the story of Adam and Eve?" is an instant and familiar appeal to the audience, as well as to Lyra. SIGH.
But I still really enjoyed it, so!
Hey, any of you who did reviews, drop me a link? It just came out here on Boxing Day and I tried to remember whose cut-tags I scrolled past but, well, I can't.
What else? Yuletide! I really want to do a comprehensive set of YW recs, but basically it would come down to: they're ALL amazing this year, and if you're familiar with the fandom, run and read them right now. (Sarah, IIRC, none of them are very spoilery for W@W, but you may want to avoid the one about a day in the life of Dairine.)
ETA: oh! Do you know what the difficult thing about Bones is? their names! Are so ridiculous! Every time I read "Seeley", I want to laugh! Temperance even worse! And Tempe is just awful for me, no idea why. *sigh*
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Date: 2007-12-27 04:51 pm (UTC)And Dakota Blue Richards rocked hardcore. That completely made my day when I saw it. Yes, a child unknown who's actually good!
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Date: 2007-12-27 06:09 pm (UTC)Dakota Blue Richards definitely did an awesome job. I was very, very impressed.
The ending theme was probably the most annoying song I've heard in a looong time though.
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Date: 2007-12-28 04:13 am (UTC)She was incredible! :D
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Date: 2007-12-28 07:28 am (UTC)LOL, I was with like half my extended family, so we left RIGHT away!
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Date: 2007-12-28 05:42 pm (UTC)