I got into a sneak preview last night, and wow, this is so not the review I had hoped to be writing. While it looks beautiful and the acting is great (especially from the girl playing Lyra and Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter), the script is a mess. For those that haven’t read the books, we get a long quest narrative that seems to have no point. For those that have, the pivotal final scene in which Lord Asriel opens the way between worlds is omitted — which lead to mass yelling at the screening I was at. While I’ve read that this scene will now be placed at the begining of the next film, that move changes the films critically and emphasizes how hard they worked to make them “child-friendly.” While His Dark Materials was always YA literature, it was successful because it understood that the world of children is a dark place full of betrayals — not just in the petty games kids play but also in the dishonesty of adults and the surprises of puberty. Moving Asriel’s attack on the order of the universe to the second film (which may or may not be made), weakens the first severely and makes me worry whether anyone will come back for the next installment. For me, these books were always about storming heaven — not in a religious sense, but in the sense of talking about the costs and lures and prides of power and ambition. Unfortunately, that message is lost amongst snow and some really amazing fighting ice bears that weirdly don’t bleed.
