The Compass is not so Golden after all

Dare I admit it, but my usual attempt to address cultural issues in a timely manner does slip on occasion. Most recently, I had intended to do a brief post on the controversial movie, The Golden Compass. However, since it basically plunged at the box office (with a 65% drop over two weeks for a relatively meager $44 million, compared with Will Smith's $77.2 million opening weekend coup with I Am Legend.), the pressing need to address this movie dissipated somewhat.

Author Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy provides the material behind The Golden Compass movie. His publicly-stated intention with the series is that of "killing God." Further, in an interview he explains, "I'm trying to undermine the basis for Christian belief." Ironically, he has been described by Peter Hitchens as "the one the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed."

Beyond that, in another recent interview he dismissed J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy as "trivial" and "not worth arguing with." Regarding C. S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles, Pullman admits, "I don't like the answer Lewis comes up with." Such dismissive assessments come from the person who, in the same interview, said about fundamentalists, "You can't communicate with people who know they've got all the answers."

I must confess, this seems highly ironic from where I'm writing. Now, it's understandable that Christians often come across as seeming to believe they have "all the answers" (After all, to have a worldview built on the fundamental idea of Truth is to correspondingly imply that anything which does not correspond to that standard of Truth is wrong.) The irony lies in suggesting that it is Christian "fundamentalists" alone who claim to have "all the answers". The assumption that "I am right and you are not" is a human condition that permeates Christians and non-Christians alike. However, the non-Christian crowd is quite reluctant to acknowledge their own arrogance in this regard.

Some may say that pressure from the Vatican and other conservative groups accounts for the dismal showing at the box office. While such groups certainly have influence, they don't have that much influence. I believe there's a reason The Golden Compass didn't resonate with audiences the same way that C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe did (which is currently ranked number 29th all-time by taking in over $291 million to date). The Golden Compass stands (or in this case, falls) on its own merits.

Of course, maybe those millions of people who didn't go see it on the big screen are simply waiting to rent a copy at their local Blockbuster in order to make up the difference in lost revenue for the New Line Cinema production company? Somehow I doubt it.

Comments

[Greg]

This goes to show you that when alerted and detected early enough, Christians can boycott something and have a huge effect on the outcome. My first e-mail that I recieved on the Golden Compass was sometime late October.
I still remember how word got around on the Davinci Code and the flop it did at the box office. The people have spoken.

[Liberace]

the golden compas is an amazing story that got diluted for mass consumption by big hollywood who is afraid of the conservative bully pulpit.

they made a horrible movie out of a great story.

that's why the movie will tank.

it is the book that has all the controvesial messsages, the movie is almost completely lacking in them --- and yet it is NOT the book that christians are boycotting.

this goes to show that it is the symbolic, rather than the real, that boycots are about.

the opposite is also true: the passion of the christ did well.

and it was a symbolic gesture, not a real turning of the country towards god.

[Liberace]

oops, forgot this:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTdiMjk0NmU4NDQ1ODc1MDUyYTVjMGVhZmMxODVjYzE=

[andy]

that's funny

"Further, in an interview he explains, "I'm trying to undermine the basis for Christian belief.""

so he's trying to beat down what he believes is myth, with a fantasy movie. Brilliant.

well i'm planning on seeing it anyway, i just cannot get out to the movies anymore with kids to take care of. any movie with a freakin' huge ol' polar bear with body armor deserves some view time from me.

[Mandy Leech]

Liberace, do you really think that the people who are boycotting the movie are going to read, or allow their children to read the book? I doubt it. They're boycotting the whole deal. We've got so many other movies to see...the new National Treasure, The Bucket List among others. Compass won't be one, not only because of its message, but because Nicole Kidman creeps me out.