I’m tired.
18 December 2007
this will come as a surprise to most of you, but I actually saw The Golden Compass tonight.
I know, I know, the guy’s an atheist and the books are about killing God or something — let’s not get into how it doesn’t make that much sense to write a book about killing God if you don’t actually believe there is a God… since you can’t kill something that doesn’t exist.
at any rate, I saw the movie. and it was better than I expected it to be. it’s not getting great reviews, but it’s not an awful film — to be perfectly honest, I liked it better than “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” but that’s probably only because I read the Chronicles of Narnia 56 million times growing up and thought the film interpretation would cause C.S. Lewis some heartburn, were he alive to see it. anyway. not awful. not great. regarding the whole religion thing, there definitely parallels that can be drawn and ideas that can be extrapolated from the outlines in the film, but there’s no strong underlying message.
I think it’s kind of funny that fantasy movies are okay with conservative Christians when all of the elements of it are morally aligned with the “Christian world view.” The Lord of The Rings might have some weird stuff, but it’s about a battle between good and evil! there are witches and such in The Chronicles of Narnia, but the whole thing is an allegory for the death and resurrection of Christ, so no problem there. but since The Golden Compass was written by an atheist, and the storyline’s not a clearly delineated battle of good vs. evil, it makes us a tad uncomfortable.
bottom line, not significant enough to protest, even if the books are about “killing God.”
—
I’m having trouble sleeping. it’s not for lack of trying.
this has happened to me before. there was a time when I went to sleep every night by reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
it seems that there are things I don’t want to think about. but I do think about them. or, to avoid thinking about them, I think about 50 million other things, and all this thinking going on makes sleeping basically impossible. I think I need to devise a new system for not thinking about these things. or maybe I could just deal with my problems. but who does that?
I’m turning inward a bit. kind of halfway, maybe. not badly enough to have realized it before this weekend; badly enough that I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m not quite sure what to do, but something’s got to give.
18 December 2007 at 10:41 pm
You’re going to hell, sinner.
I hope you’re happy.
I actually saw it too. Wasn’t wretched- and it toned down the atheistic stuff 100% (though granted, in Golden Compass it is mostly just “the church is evil” they don’t kill God until the last book) and I dunno.. the girl was cute and decent actress, and the story was pretty cool and all.
But the CG effects were wretched- particularly on Pantalimon in cat form, and I have issues hearing Ian McKellen’s voice but not seeing his face.
And also- did you stay to hear that end credit song? It was so awful, I was crying from laughter.
And for the record I love the Narnia movie. Granted… it could have been better, but seeing as I waited some 10 + years for it and still manage to cry in it while watching crucial scenes I’d say that qualifies as “definitely not bad”.
I can’t say how Lewis would feel about it (mostly due to Disney’s minor involvement, he kinda really disliked the company)… but his stepson produces them, and I’d guess he’d want to stay fairly true to how Lewis would have liked them.
Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen finer CG effects than that of Aslan in Narnia. He doesn’t have that creepy eye thing going on and his movements are perfect.
(end rant)
19 December 2007 at 12:34 am
I haven’t seen it, but from what I’ve heard (and we all know how true that can be, but…) the movie was a soft version that coated over the book’s atheistic messages and if the movie does well and they make the sequels they won’t be so… politically correct. Granted, I haven’t read the books either so I can’t speak myself for either of them, but that’s what i think the gist of the controversy is… the athiestic writer trying to hook others in until he can really share what he thinks (or something, i don’t know).
As for Narnia, I loved it and watched it right after reading it for the first time…. once again, loved it.
I do like the point you bring out about the “Christian world view” though. Even with things such as the Da Vinci Code (which i saw and must be a sinner too…) or Harry Potter, the most important part is that Christians know the truth and know what they’re up against. We cant’ expect to minister to the world by, “well this is what I heard about that, but I don’t have my own opinion because I haven’t read/seen/experienced it.” How can you have YOUR OWN opinion when you don’t know what it really talks about? that gets to me a little.
Sorry for rambling, get some sleep.
Ashley
19 December 2007 at 5:05 pm
you know, it is nice to hear some people saying what i have been thinking. i have not seen the film (we are waiting for it to play at the dollar theatre in town in order to save our budget), but i have read book one and read a lot of the stuff in the media. i also checked out pullman’s website in order to see what it was that he actually said, and when i dug a little deeper, it seems to me that the issue was akin to the harry potter debate. there are christians saying ‘wait, these are good stories.. do we believe in christ the risen savior and delineate between fact and fiction or do we simply denounce everything that looks a little shady as sin?’ and there are also christians saying ‘this is of the devil, we should steer clear.’
it comes down to discernment to me. am i asking christ what i should be putting in my mind or not? as for pullman being an atheist, he says that he was influenced by the church as a child and doesn’t know what he believes now… i get the feeling that the atheistic comments are simply a way to fuel the controversy and get people to read the books.
there was also some comment made in these articles that i read that the “god” that everyone is so up in arms about being killed in the book is actually just an angel of some sort that gets it in his head that he has the power of a god and starts acting like one. if that is the case, then an angel who takes on too much power and dies is different than the kids killing “God”. i don’t know, like i said, i have only read the one book, but i am sure i read that some where… maybe on christianitytoday.com.
i guess in the end, if just seems to me that there is a whole lot of hubbub going on about a movie that no one is really going to think much of in twenty years, you know?
****
btw? i know first hand the sleeping issues that you are having. i sometimes go a week or more doing the same thing… my husband is always quick with the “hand it to God” and then is snoring in ten minutes… that’s when i want to slap him! i hope it gets better soon!