Film Friday: The Golden Compass (2007)

The left politicizes children’s stories. They’ve discovered that once kids learn ideas like personal responsibility, the value of families and cause and effect, it becomes rather difficult to brainwash them to believe leftist dogma. Thus, they attack centuries old fairy tales as sexist, racist and evil, and they churn out propaganda to replace them. The Golden Compass is propaganda. Indeed, Compass, the first book in Philip Pullman “His Dark Materials” trilogy, is anti-Catholic and anti-religion. “Ridiculous” screamed the left. But it's true. What's more, it's a bad film.

** beware of spoilers comrade **

The Plot

Compass is the story of Lyra Belacqua, a supposed orphan living in a universe where people’s souls (called “demons”) take the shape of animals and live outside the body. This world is dominated by an evil version of the Catholic Church called the Magisterium, which suppresses independent thought. Moreover, the Magisterium is kidnapping children to perform surgery on them to sever their connections to these demons, which makes the kids into zombies. Investigating the disappearances are a group of gypsies un-creatively called “Gyptians,” whose children are being stolen (flipping the age-old European complaint that gypsies steal children).

Lyra is the daughter of Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman), an evil rich woman who conspires with the Magisterium to steal the children. But Coulter apparently doesn’t know Lyra is her daughter. Lyra’s father, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) also doesn't know Lyra is his daughter (or they're both lying). Asriel is an enemy of the Magisterium and intends to travel north to prove there is no God. When he leaves, Lyra is given a golden compass that lets her see vague answers to some questions. Then a series of CGI fight scenes ensue which involve the Gyptians, talking polar bears, a guy with a flying ship, and flying witches. The end.

This Is A Bad Film

As a film, this is a turd. The Magisterium is a cartoon villain. It wants to turn kids into zombies to protect its power, which really isn't in danger. And the plot is minimal: go north, save the kids. The film tells us Lyra is important to all of this, but never tells us why. She moves from scene to scene seemingly randomly, as the other characters usher her to the places she needs to be to make the plot work. She does nothing personally. And in the end, she saves the day by being led to the ending scene, where everyone else fights a big battle.

The actions of the individual characters also make little sense, except that their actions tie them to Lyra. The Gyptians are dirt poor, live on boats and travel the world, yet for some reason they drop their kids off at Lyra’s private school. When those kids go missing, they seek out Lyra for no particular reason except that she’s a main character. Coulter decides to coopt Lyra for no particular reason except that she’s a main character. Irresponsible, 12 year old Lyra is given this priceless golden compass which the scholars apparently never bothered to examine because she is the main character. The witches are attracted to her because she’s a main character. Etc. etc.

The story is also full of pointless story arcs that wait for the sequel. For example, Asriel announces his great crusade, gets caught immediately, and is then forgotten until the post-plot voice-over wrap up. Even if you're expecting a sequel, it's still bad filmmaking to treat your film like it's part of a series rather than treating it like a complete story. Indeed, this film feels like half a movie. Moreover, halfway through the story, the writer suddenly loses interest in the plot and just inserts a series of CGI fight scenes until the credits roll.

The acting stinks too. Dakota Richards plays Lyra like a reject from a Dickens play and comes across like English gutter trash. Daniel Craig bizarrely plays each scene angrily and with his hand jammed into his pants. Kidman acts like someone shoved an ice cube up her rear. Everybody else is a tired stereotype. Even the score mocks the film at times.

The Propaganda Factor

Even worse, Compass is propaganda. The author of the books is an atheist with a lot of hatred for religion and he apparently intends these books as a lure to draw children to angry atheism. Consequently, at its core, Compass is an anti-religious and anti-Catholic tirade.

For example, it’s obvious the Magisterium represents the Catholic Church. The word "Magisterium" actually means the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Similarly, throughout the film, Catholic terminology is used for various characters and various practices, and they even decorate their buildings with Christian icons. So how is this ersatz Church represented in the film? The Magisterium is intentionally kidnapping and hurting children because they are afraid that people will learn the truth, that there is no God, and thus, the Magisterium will lose its power. To suggest that the Catholic Church believes there is no God, but only uses the myth of God to maintain its power is blatant slander. And hiding this suggestion by changing the name of the church is cowardly.

And make no mistake, the series clearly states there is no God in our universe. According to the books, there was an angel named “The Authority.” He was the first being in the universe and was made from a substance known as dust. Because he was first and an evil liar, he pretends to be the creator of the universe so that people will worship him. He is also specifically identified as the God of the Christian, Islamic and Jewish religions in our universe, whom he has tricked to follow him. He is eventually captured and dies when he tries to escape his prison.

The studio told the screenwriter to downplay the anti-religious themes, but he admits he left them in the film by hiding them behind “euphemisms.” Thus, there is no specific mention of the word “God” for example, though you’d have to be an idiot not to know that is being discussed. Even this, however, was too much for atheist groups who called this “censorship” and “castrating” the books, which they see as the anti-Narnia series.

Moreover, there was a very dishonest public relations campaign surrounding the film. The cast and crew repeatedly denied any attempt to push atheism and claimed this was a lie pushed by right-wing religious crazies -- even as the writer was trying to assure the atheist community that this film would remain true to the atheist mission of the books. And aiding them in their deception, they paraded around Nicole Kidman (a supposedly devout Catholic), who would do interviews in which she assured the audience she would never do any film that attacked the Catholic Church. Uh huh. The “useful idiot” is alive and well.

Conclusion

I have no problem with atheists, as I believe everyone is entitled to their beliefs and has a right to try to convince others of their beliefs. But I do have a problem with deception, and everything about this film is deceptive. Compass is propaganda. It has a specific political agenda that it pushes while pretending it isn’t pushing that agenda. And they are trying to convince parents to show this to their children under false pretenses. This is exactly why people don't trust Hollywood anymore.