The Golden Compass - What’s all the fuss about?
Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
The Catholic League in the US has called for a boycot of The Golden Compass, the film based on Philip Pullman’s novel Northern Lights.
I had the chance of seeing the film this afternoon and enjoyed it. The story is fairly predictable (in the film anyway) and the trailers I had seen ruined some of the twists and turns for me but this didn’t detract overly from my enjoyment of the film. The main reason I went to see it, to be honest, was for the CGI which met far exceeded my expectations. I wish my grandparents were still around so I could show them some of the imagery that we can create with computers now, I think they’d be pretty blown away.
Apparently the novels are a lot more directly anti-Church but this doesn’t really seem to come across in the film. From what I’ve read from Wikipedia even the novels aren’t that controversial, being more anti-dogma and encouraging free thought rather than blind adherence to what those in authority tell you. I don’t find this to be a negative message really at all, in fact I think it is a good one to give to our children.
When I’ve worked with children I’m always amazed by those who seem to want kids to stop thinking and just accept what they are told. This is the way to mental stagnation and the decline of the sciences and, ultimately, halting the advances in our society.
I want to try and read the books for myself rather than relying on second-hand summaries but, as far as I can see, Philip Pullman doesn’t attack my faith but he challenges me to form my own beliefs rather than relying on others to find the answers for me . There was another guy who liked to criticise and rebuke the guys in authority around 2007 years ago. It’s his birthday soon….
Posted in Christianity
15 Comments »
Zeigeist
God doesn’t exist, it’s the parents.
Honest question: why does this have to be in Planet KDE? IT has nothing to do with KDE.
BTW, that guy you mention is.. the son of Ra? Never mind.
Comment by Eduardo Robles Elvira — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 8:06 pm
Oh, come one Eduardo. How many blog posts on Planet KDE have nothing to do with KDE other than the blog poster being involed with the project?
I, at least, enjoyed reading this post (as I do for most of Mike’s posts).
Comment by Matthias Kretz — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 8:12 pm
It’s been quite a while since I read these books but I thought they were both entertaining and carrying a simple but pretty good message which made is way into my kid’s mind… From what I remember it is definitely not a novel that attacks faith but, as it’s been discussed in the comments to your previous post, some people can be offended by things none else would consider as “potentially offending” so the best we can do is letting them rant if they cling to their blinkers…
Comment by fullmetalcoder — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 8:14 pm
Eduardo, Matthias pretty much summed up what I was going to say. If you don’t care about my posts, don’t read them and certainly feel free to stop coming and trolling here.
Matthias, I’m glad you enjoy them
Comment by Mike — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
I’ve just seen now the response to why this is in planet KDE, sorry asking the same question twice
You said in a previous post:
“Religious faith is not the rejection of reason. ”
In fact, it’s precisely *that*. A beliver of the great and almighty FSM tells you!
The FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) told said to me that 2+2=3. Belive me, it’s true. Have faith =).
Comment by Eduardo Robles Elvira — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 8:26 pm
Actually, the books are pretty clearly anti-church, and the scriptwriters quite understandably toned it down because not everybody who sees movies is anti-church.
It might be a little clearer if I show you one way to make the screenplay closer to the novel: s/Magisterium/Church/g.
You seem to be pretty cool with the whole “challenging beliefs” thing, so I’d definitely recommend the novels. They’re a good read, and will show you much more what Pullman was actually trying to say.
Comment by Michael J — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 9:50 pm
Cheers Michael, I’ve added them to my Amazon wish list so might get them from family for Christmas, if not I’ll buy them myself.
Comment by Mike — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 9:55 pm
The way sciences are taught in school is the cause of this: “kids to stop thinking and just accept what they are told.”, schools encourage rope learning concepts without understanding or questioning the reasoning behind them.
That said people in science are very conservative, throughout history they have rejected valid arguments as it disagrees with what they think to be true one example of this being Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics. Needless to say there are many more, and they are often a result of people’s unquestioning acceptance of past theories and unwillingness to accept anything else even when demonstrated they are wrong. That is at least similar to dogma.
Comment by Josh — Saturday 8th December, 2007 @ 11:34 pm
Actually, that guy’s birthday might be off for a few years.
Other than that, nice post, and I think the film (which I do not intend to watch) has motivated me enough to buy the original book
Comment by Jakob Petsovits — Sunday 9th December, 2007 @ 2:31 am
I think the anti church part is the part where the “kids kill god”. It doesn’t get more anti church than that.
Even though a second read of the novel would make you notice this “god” character is actually a fallen angel, so I don’t think the church really got a case…
But I think the catholic church does have all right to boycott it, like any other organization does, if you are not a catholic just don’t listen to their boycott call.
Comment by Vexorian — Sunday 9th December, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
Going off at a tangent for a moment, I work for Framestore CFC, the company that created
the CGI bears and the battle sequence between them. I thought you might like to know we
use KDE on nearly all of our systems here, including the ones that produced the effects
for the Golden Compass. Amazing where you can find KDE these days, eh?
I thoroughly recommend the books, by the way, they’re a fantastic read regardless of your
beliefs. I personally read them as an attack against religious institutions who use
people’s faith to instigate evil, rather than anything against Christianity
specifically. But to each their own!
Comment by Karl — Sunday 9th December, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
I never understood why people boycott productions they consider anti-Christian. It seems to me that they present ideal talking points. Nine times out of ten people get the impression that Christianity is about rules & regs, and boycotting will promote that idea. Christianity is about a personal relationship with God.
Comment by Paul Dann — Monday 10th December, 2007 @ 11:33 am
The covered attacks are specifically against the Catholic Church. I’m sad when I read here that the Church “instigates evil” or that It forces people to think this or that way. The Church, being much more than a “institution” (the Institution is the visible part of the Mystical Body Of Christ), with it’s foundations in the first century, does more good than whatever institution/society/government in the world. Dogmas in the Church are seen as as evil by some malicious people, but they are precisely to preserve the True Faith, not to prevent people from self-thinking. For example, the dogma of the Holy Trinity was the faith of the Church, but was established in the fourth century as a dogma to preserve it against heresies. The Sacred Magisterium is able to interpret the Truths or the faiths. There’s nothing evil on that.. I see much worse to take up the Bible (or the Qur’an or whatever) and interpret it by your own. Personal interpretation in matters of faith can bring distortions and even evil. That’s why there’s the need of a Deposit of the Faith.
You can blame some particular person of doing evil. But what’s common today is that the whole Church receives attacks because of a minority. No one can deny the tremendous good that the Church brings to the world, both spiritually (the most important mission of the Church is to save souls) and materially (charity). It’s obvious that the Hell hates the Holy Catholic Church.
Comment by nacho — Monday 10th December, 2007 @ 2:38 pm
Meh
You fail mike. This film was fail.
I have to say, as a long time fan of the books, I have never been so disappointed by a film. The entire religious context has been removed. Everything was in the wrong order. And why was ‘Dust’ explained in the first 30 seconds? It takes 3 books to fully understand it.
And where was the ending!?
Comment by Chris Howison — Wednesday 12th December, 2007 @ 10:33 am
Michael J : “Actually, the books are pretty clearly anti-church”
I’d just like to point out that curch and faith are two different things. Going church is a social event (though it still have a religious meaning, don’t get me wrong…) whereas faith is above all a set of personal beliefs.
Thus, attacking Church and dogma has little to do with attacking faith and even very faitful people can criticize Church which sometimes turns out to be a pretty good thing. This is probably not the best example by far but do you think every Catholic should be proud of what’s been done by Curch in Europe during the Middle Age? Would criticizing these acts be an attack to faith? I don’t think so and someone who does can not honestly pretend to be Christian IMO…
Comment by fullmetalcoder — Wednesday 12th December, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
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