Movie 2008.01.18 - The Golden Compass

The movie is based on the book of the same title written by Philip Pullman. The Golden Compass (a.k.a. Northern Lights) is the first book in Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. There's been quite a commotion around the movie even before it was shown in the theaters. Emails started circulating that the movie is anti-Christian, anti-Catholic, and/or anti-God. (Reason why GF didn't want to see it at first.) Anyway, I've seen the movie with GF, and I don't believe it is any of those. (The book could be a different matter though.) If anything, it's anti-establishment. It's anti any organization that forces its will, its teachings, its version of truth to individuals by hook or by crook.

It's true that the movie touches on some strange ideas, as most fantasy movies do. Parallel universes connected by "dust", altheiometers that reveal the truth, Ice Bears that talk and rule the North Pole, Gyptians that rule the seas, Witches that fly the skies, and souls in the form of animals (called daemons) that exist outside people's physical bodies. Not having read the book, it is possible that it is actually anti-God. All I'm saying is, anti-religious books and movies have been around for a long time. Look at Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code or Richard Dawson's The God Delusion. I mean, you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. If people are swayed and turn agnostic or atheist after reading such books, they're never true believers in the first place.

To make things more objective and clearer, let me quote from Snopes.com's article on The Golden Compass: "Books of the trilogy have sold more than 15 million copies around the world, with Northern Lights winning the Carnegie Medal for Children's Literature in 1995 and in 2007 being awarded the 'Carnegie of Carnegies' for the best children's book of the past 70 years. The Amber Spyglass, the final book of the series, won The Whitbread Prize in 2001, making it the first children's book to do so. The series' author, Philip Pullman (who has described himself as both an agnostic and an atheist), has averred that "I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God; I have the greatest difficulty in understanding what is meant by the words 'spiritual' or 'spirituality.'" Critics of Pullman's books (conservative British columnist Peter Hitchens in 2002 labeled Pullman "The Most Dangerous Author in Britain" and described him as the writer "the atheists would have been praying for, if atheists prayed") point to the strong anti-religion and anti-God themes they incorporate, and although literary works are subject to a variety of interpretations, Pullman has left little doubt about his books' intended thrust in discussions of his works, such as noting in a 2003 interview that "My books are about killing God" and in a 2001 interview that he was "trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief."" I say to each his own.