'The Golden Compass' - High-Def Digest Review

[Attebery]

Josh's review of the 'The Golden Compass' has been posted. He's not a fan. This Blu-ray has excellent video and audio, and the 2-disc set comes with an excellent selection of bonus features, but this is a rental.

Full review here:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1352/goldencompass.html

[duckydan]

I saw the film in theaters with my daughter and thought it was very good... and since the theater we saw it in had shotty projection I can't wait to see it in HD. I just wish they would include the extended ending which was shot and planned to be put at the beginning of part two since in all likelyhood part two will never exist.

[CaptainCanuck]

I loved this film and will be buying it for sure.I never even clued into the whole religious aspect of it until i read about it so that whole thing is silly.
The actress who plays the little kid in it is excellent.

[maley]

You said in the review that this was a box office failure for New Line in the final thoughts. Sure it didn't make a HP type splash in America but it did awesome overseas and made well more than it's huge $200 million budget. Pretty sure at final tally it was around $300 million.

edit: I was very upset in theaters when I saw this and the butchering job they did on the ending, I didn't read through the whole review but I really hope this rumored filmed ending made it into this edition.

[Giles]

I'm kind of surprised that Chris Weitz did do an audio commentary - if it's true that New Line did a botched editing job, without his consent (GC's website does go into great detail his original edit), he must be biting his tongue throughout the entire film.

I thought the design and cinematography of the film was one of the pluses, but having to endure this film in a very bad digital projection presentation (white's flickered throughout), I might rent this.

[David Vaughn]

It made money overseas, but New Line gave away the overseas distribution because they couldn't afford a world wide release. This is one of the reasons New Line has been absorbed into Warner so they don't have to sell their soul in order to release a big film.

[Josh Z]

Originally Posted by Giles

I'm kind of surprised that Chris Weitz did do an audio commentary - if it's true that New Line did a botched editing job, without his consent (GC's website does go into great detail his original edit), he must be biting his tongue throughout the entire film.

The commentary was recorded before the film was released to theaters and flopped. He was probably still hoping for the best. Throughout the bonus features on the disc, it's clear that Weitz was beaten down by the end of production and that the film had completely consumed his life. He looks very tired. He probably just wanted to be done with it.

[ddwyer]

Originally Posted by duckydan

I saw the film in theaters with my daughter and thought it was very good... and since the theater we saw it in had shotty projection I can't wait to see it in HD. I just wish they would include the extended ending which was shot and planned to be put at the beginning of part two since in all likelyhood part two will never exist.

I saw it in a very good theater days after its release and the film quality was very poor. I'm not surprised it didn't get a five star video score here as I think the source was pretty lousy to begin with.

[that1guypictures]

I can't decide which is more controversial...the movie, or Josh's review.

I'd love to give it a rent and see how it turns out on Blu-Ray...
I'll be able to pick it up this Thursday since us
Blockbuster employees get them earlier than street date.

In his review Josh said that this was a little better than the first Narnia film...any thoughts?

I thought it was ok...but it could have used a little more blood/guts realism...I felt like it was watered down for children a little too much.
That and the songs were retarded. I wish Warner had bought the rights instead...Narnia seemed to be missing the dark elements needed to make it more interesting...Warner has done well bringing both dark and light to the Potter franchise.

I'm looking forwards to Prince Caspian in May, it is a much darker novel in tone than Wardrobe...so I'm hoping it might be a little less kiddie-friendly.
Oh wait...it's a Disney film. All hope is lost.

[CaptainCanuck]

Originally Posted by that1guypictures

I can't decide which is more controversial...the movie, or Josh's review.

I'd love to give it a rent and see how it turns out on Blu-Ray...
I'll be able to pick it up this Thursday since us
Blockbuster employees get them earlier than street date.

In his review Josh said that this was a little better than the first Narnia film...any thoughts?

I thought it was ok...but it could have used a little more blood/guts realism...I felt like it was watered down for children a little too much.
That and the songs were retarded. I wish Warner had bought the rights instead...Narnia seemed to be missing the dark elements needed to make it more interesting...Warner has done well bringing both dark and light to the Potter franchise.

I'm looking forwards to Prince Caspian in May, it is a much darker novel in tone than Wardrobe...so I'm hoping it might be a little less kiddie-friendly.
Oh wait...it's a Disney film. All hope is lost.

These are kids films though.I though Compass was even bordering on being too violent for kids with the bear fights.
I put the Compass and Narnia on about the same level.

[burndive]

I've read the book (trilogy), which was a decent read, but nothing special.

I think the movie absolutely butchered the book, and the review was completely spot-on about racing from one CGI-laden plot point to the next, without ever stopping to convince the audience that they actually care.

Both my girlfriend (who has not read the books) and I (who have) thought this was a horrible movie. The writing was what killed it: there was no reason for the characters to say most of what they say, except to explain what's going on to the audience. Having characters explain things to the audience is just annoying. Also, why do we care about Lyra in this movie? She's a brat with no redeeming qualities except her purported child-like innocence, which is a total farce.

[freekedoutfish]

Ill give a perfect example of why I thought this was the wort edited film ever made!

Keep in mind ive never read the book, so i was even more cluless!

There is a scene where the little girl is sat in an American-esc port and she is sitting on a box, and suddenly the cowboy character starts talking to her.

Suddenly, without reason he says something along the lines of "I recon you should get yourself an armored pola bar, to help on this adventure of yours"!

Why is this just one of many annoying plot issues.....

....she didnt mention any journey or adventure!

Then you have the epic starwars plot-twist rip-off which was SOOO obvious (concerning the little girl and the evil women) that it could have been written in big letters on screen and I would have still gone "wow.... big surprise" in a sarcastic tone.

You also have the other major announce of one minute the bear and the girl arent that close emotionally (or its not evident), and then all of a sudden they have grown attached to one another and care about each other and shes riding him accross the snow.

No evidence of any of that developing! It just happened!

And dont even get me started on the climatic (yeah right) ending, which cannot even compare to the Peter Jackson's ending for LOTR1. Atleast I wanted to go back and see how LOTR continued!

Dont get me wrong... it was an enjoyable romp (but was it really only 113 minutes long?), and the visuals were good and those who have read the book would love it I expect, but either the director, producer or the company in charge should be shot.

This could have been a really good film and contended with harry potter, but its missing SOOOO many plot aspects, that it jumps from one situation to the next without any explanation.

Fill those gaps in, with actual content from the book and you have a winner!

Oh and FGS please add the contriversal religious stuff into the sequels, otherwise im really not going. I only went to see the first one because I was intrigued by the religious stuff...... WHICH DIDNT EXIST in the film!

[DoubleJ]

who warned parents of the picture's evil intentions to warp their children's minds. That is, of course, a big load of nonsense.

It's not nonsense! Our village is still overrun by kids who have pale white skin and hair, and they travel in numbers terrorizing our citizens daily.

Superman's here, but he seems to play his powers down, so we don't know what to do.

Oh, maybe that was a movie that I saw.

Nevermind, no warped minds here.

[duckydan]

Weitz did the commentary because he still claims that part two will be filmed (The Subtle Knife) and released. The problem is (and likely why they went out of business) that New Line sold the foreign rights and it was overseas that it made 400million whereas it bombed over here making under 100. If they had not sold the rights that is a $300 million profit instead of a breakeven due to overseas sales.

As for the editing the reason being is that it was started by Weitz, he quit, someone else came in , they quit, Weitz picked up the pieces but by that point it was almost finished. He has stated this is not the true vision he had and he wanted it to be more complete and less heavily edited down from the book.

[ben1080p]

I heard the only cool thing about this was the polar bear fight.