The Golden Compass Movie

So, this is a movie review of “The Golden Compass”. We (my daughter who’s 8 years old, my adult sister and I) went to see it Sunday afternoon. We went to the 4:30 p.m. matinee, and there weren’t very many people in the theater, maybe 20 in total. Granted, it has been nearly 3 weeks since it came to the theaters.
The story was very close to the book. Nearly every episode of the book was in the movie. The various scenes had been moved around a little, but I was amazed that they got it all in. The movie was very fast paced, so I’m not sure that someone who hadn’t read the book would be able to follow it. The only character who didn’t look like the description in the book was Mrs. Coulter, played by Nicole Kidman. In the book, Mrs. Coulter was raven-haired. Also, Nicole Kidman had really blood-shot eyes throughout the film, and it was rather distracting. I’m not sure if that was part of the “wardrobe” for the part, or if she was suffering from allergies or something. I find it hard to believe that it was accidental, but I couldn’t figure out why Mrs. Coulter would have blood-shot eyes.
The technical features of the film were mind-blowing. Every person in this film had a daemon, and all the children’s daemons could change shape at will, although, the daemons seemed to prefer one shape most of the time over others. For instance, Lyra’s daemon, Pan, was a weasel most of the movie, and Roger’s was a dog most of the time. The reasoning behind that (beyond ease of tracking in the movie) might have been the fact that all the children were close to the age of puberty, when their daemon would become fixed. The CGI was unnoticeable. The animals looked so life-like. I would guess that for some of the characters, it may have been dummies or live animals for at least part of the time. I would especially say that they used that for the peripheral characters on which there is no focus.
The armored polar bears were particularly impressive. Not only did they look like real polar bears, but in the scene where there are many bears and it panned around them, every bear looked different with scars and facial expressions. I was in awe. Computer rendering has gotten so advanced! We were watching “The Last Starfighter” on TV a few weeks ago, and I remember when that was cutting edge, and now it appears so amateurish.
The movie ends before the book does. The final scene of the movie, Lyra and Roger are on their way to where Lord Asriel has set up his laboratory in the far north to take him the alethiometer. They are discussing how everything will be all better once Lord Asriel has it and can put everything to rights. Simultaneously, the witch, Seraphina Pekkala is discussing the coming war with the aeronaut, Lee Scorsby. However, the book ends after Lord Asriel has killed Roger and entered into one of the parallel universes. Presumably, that is where the next movie will start.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie, but I do not plan to see the other movies due to the theological Gnosticism. While I’m sure the movies will be well done, I’m not interested in being indoctrinated.