Who killed off The Golden Compass?

[cali]

Sam Elliot believes the Catholic church killed off any chances of a sequel to The Golden Compass, but the truth may be far simpler


A victim of a Catholic conspiracy? … The Golden Compass

After the success of Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy looked a dead cert for epic fantasy book franchise success. In 2007, when first installment The Golden Compass was released, it looked to have all the right ingredients: moppet actors, spectacular battles, a sexy baddie, Ian McKellen, snow. But no sequels were made. Why?

Actor Sam Elliot thinks he knows. According to an interview in the Evening Standard, Elliot – who basically played himself in The Golden Compass – is pinning the failure of the series directly on the Pope, saying: "The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I'm concerned. It did incredible at the box office. Incredible. It took $85m (£52m) in the States. The Catholic church … lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off."

He could have a point. The Golden Compass was the subject of a prolonged attack from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, who proclaimed it to be "atheism for kids", and Fox News's Bill O'Reilly who, with typical restraint, apparently called the film a "war on Christmas". The attacks shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. Pullman has always been impressively vocal in his atheism, plus writing a book about some children literally murdering God is probably as overt an anti-Catholic statement as you can get – but there's something about Elliot's argument that doesn't quite ring true.

<snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/dec/15/golden-compass-sam-elliot-catholic-church

[AllentownJake]

1. It was expensive to make and sequels tend to do worse than the first

with exceptions of Spiderman, Batman, Twilight and Harry Potter. 2 of which is because the sequel was better than the first (Spiderman 3 sucked though) and Twilight/Harry Potter are based on books with cult followings.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

2. I loved the Golden Compass books, but I did not like the movie.

I think it simply underperformed. The pope hates the Da Vinci code and that still did well.

On edit: Yup, I think the Guardian nailed it. It's sad that Elliot has to resort to conspiracy.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Funny that "Christianity for kids" is supposed to be okay, but "Atheism for kids" is an affront.

Oh, I guess the huffy-puffy Godbags are supposed to have the proselytizing angle all to themselves.

[Syntheto]

4. What's your opinion about...

..."Islam for kids"? There's plenty of that in the world. I'm an atheist, but I'm an American, and I often wonder why folks get so worked up about Christianity and leave all other superstition-based 'belief systems' alone and council respect for them.

I think people should be honest and admit that they're really talking shit about American cultural values, which have been based on Judeo-Christian values since the inception of the Republic.

As far as any and all 'religions' are concerned, let me repeat what I always say:

JESUS OF NAZERETH WAS A REFORM RABBI WHO WORKED AS A CARPENTER.
MOHAMMED WAS A RUG MERCHANT WHO CONVINCED PEOPLE THAT SOME SUPERNATURAL ENTITY SPOKE EXCLUSIVELY THROUGH HIM AND THAT HIS (MOHAMMED'S) WORD CARRIED THE SAME AUTHORITY AS HIS SUPERNATURAL ENTITY.
BUDDHA STARTED OUT AS A RICH HINDU PRINCE, AND WHEN HE DECIDED TO BE SOME SORT OF SO-CALLED 'HOLY MAN', HIS WEALTHY FATHER INSURED THAT IT WAS A SUCCESS.

And finally...

UGHH WAS A PRIMITIVE MAN, WHO DECIDED THAT HE WOULD RATHER GET FUCKED UP ON CERTAIN ROOTS AND BERRIES THAN HELP THE OTHERS HUNT. HE MANAGED TO CONVINCE THE OTHERS WITH HIS EXCELLENT FREE-HAND DRAWINGS IN THE DIRT, AS WELL AS WEARING THE SKIN AND ANTLERS OF SOME NOW-EXTINCT TYPE OF CARIBOU, THAT HE COULD 'SEE' THEIR QUARRY ANIMALS IN HIS ECSTATIC STATE AND WITH HIS MIND, 'BRING' THEM WITHIN EASY HUNTING DISTANCE... HE GOT LUCKY THE MAGICAL THREE OUT OF FOUR TIMES AND THUS GOT HIS STREET CRED, ENTITLING HIM TO A CHOICE CUT OF THE KILL, AS WELL AS SEVERAL FAT-BOTTOMED FEMALES TO COPULATE WITH. ALL WITHOUT HAVING TO RISK HIS ASS AGAINST A CAVE BEAR OR MAMMOTH.

Thus, 'religion', the biggest scam in human existence was begun. Then, as this shit got more elaborate, they came up with the concept of 'we need to kill a young girl coming into menses or else the sun won't come up tomorrow.'

Yeah. Not much has changed... but, please, just say you despise American Christians, those goofy, (White) snake-handlers, rather than claim some sort of atheism. NO RELIGION DESERVES ANYTHING BUT THE BACK OF OUR COLLECTIVE FUCKING HANDS.

[Cassandra]

7. Reform Judaism didn't exist back then.

Otherwise, that's a useful statement.

[Syntheto]

21. Jesus of Nazereth....

...was trying to reform the existing religious/political system as it existed; sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm not Jewish, and I would imagine that some people who follow it have a different take on 'reform rabbi'. That's not what I had in mind.

[invictus]

8. Jeses was NOT a rabbi. He was an illiterate carpenter who ranted and raved

... about the end of the world, claimed to be king of the Jews, pissed off the real rabbis, and got lynched for it. Some of his followers later created a religion based on his cult of personality.

[dmallind]

9. Wrong way round

Atheists in the US strain against Christianity more because it is the dominant religion of thr majority and the one, by far, most likely to be forced upon us. Nobody is putting up crescents on public land, or making kids swear a bastardized oath to Allah that was forced into the originally secular pledge of allegiance. While Islamic groups doubtless oppose gay marriage, it is Christian groups that mobilized in large enough numbers to kill it in California and prevent its enactment in other states. It is not generally speaking gangs of Muslim kids who beat up gays here, nor is it outraged Muslim groups that harrass atheist families.

I know of not one single atheist who has any more respect for Islam than Xianity. It's an equally silly set of superstitions and folk myths. It just doesn't impinge on our daily lives to any great extent. As such we complain about Islam only when it rears its head to encourage some stupid action or other. Likewise we rarely mention at all equally silly beliefs such as Sikhism or Shinto. It's not because we find them any less goofy or pointless - just that they are too innocuous to get noticed in this society, where Christianity is the 800lb gorilla.

What incidentally are "Judeo Christian Values"? What values are intrinsic to either or both of these disparate faiths that are not found in others or no faith at all? Moral deontologies are older than either. So are precepts for ethical social living. We are a gregarious species after all. I've heard that phrase countless times and nobody has ever been able to identify a single value specific to those faiths,m let alone one that has anything to do with a country founded by a mixed bag of Deists, Christians of various stripes, atheists and natural law advocates. What come to think of it are "American cultural values" and how are they unique compared to, say, Swiss cultural values?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. This is the correct answer. -nt

[Syntheto]

26. Look around you...

...look at our legal system... How would you describe the values hard-wired into that? If America had been invented by folks of Mulsim extraction, then there's the possibility we would have sharia-based values. As it was, it was the Europeans who, even with the Reformation, had their cultural roots dug deep into the Roman Catholic church, which, whenever it's more or less tolerant, refers to Judasim as 'our elder brothers.' Had Constantine not made Christianity the state religion of Rome, we might have household statues representing our gods, giving us a set of cultural values based on Pagan deities. I think you're picking a nit, because what fucking difference does it make? Religions at best should be nothing more than some sort of social club; based on their statements of creed, you have a general idea of where everybody else in the overall clan stands, whatever bullshit story you all choose to believe.

I don't believe in tax-exempt status for any religious order, and although I don't have a daughter, I don't believe in sharia law that holds women down. Do you? No, because you've been raised with a Judeo-Christian value system, whether you were exclusively raised that way or if you absorbed it through culture.

So, you don't think roving bands of Muslims beat the shit out of gays? Hmmm. It hasn't happened here, that I've read, but I think it's kind of common over there, in the land of islamic values.

Whether you like it or not, America has it's roots in a judeo christian system of laws and values. I don't understand how you can dispute that. It's not chest-thumping that jesus is lord or handling a snake or anything like that. It's a socio/political fact.

Why does our President put his hand on the bible to swear the oath of office?

Why does our money say 'one nation under god?' So on and so on.

It's all bullshit, and I'm not disputing it, but the value system underlying our society is based on judeo/christian values.

[invictus]

28. Western legal systems are based on Roman law and Anglo-Saxon common law. Neither has anything to do

... with Christianity.

[dmallind]

31. Quite easily

Much of the legal philosophy is based on English common law. Much of the structure for administering and legislating is based on Roman precedent. English common law has roots that predate Christianity reaching England. Much of teh founders views of rights is secular Enlightenment philosophy. The nit I am picking is the core issue you ahve a problem with - that we are attacking American culture if we attack Christianity. I just think that's BS.

I DO think Muslims have attacked gays. But that's not the point. The point is Christians do it more here. You are questioning why American atheists primarily attack Christianity. I am telling you it's becauise Christianity is our overwhelming threat in this nation. If you go to positiveatheism.org (an Indian atheist site) you will find all the examples of the threat of religion are based on Hinduism. Is that because the authpr hates Inidan values, or because Hinduism is his biggest headache? The latter makes much more sense.

I dispute that there IS a Judeo-Christian set of values, and you have done nothing to support that contention. What values are these? Are they not also valued in other belief systems, and in secular ethical philosophy? Your "fact" presupposes that there is anything uniquely "Judeo-Christian" (a meaningless term in itself as Judaism and Christianity value very different things in their faith) about any particular set of values. It's just as silly as saying we based our culture on white values because all of our founders were white. You would have to point out what white values are and how they differ from black or brown or red values. Same here.

Why does our president swear on the Bible? Because Christians are a majority of the voters and would go apoplectic if he didn't, and would never ever elect anyone who did not kow-tow to their sensibilities (this of course makes my point - Christians are attacked because they force their will on the rest of us). There is nothing in the law that says he must. There is in fact explicit in the law that he need not (no religious test for office - kind of strange for a scoiety built on "Judeo-Christian values"). This does not mean religion is the root of our culture - it means that overly sensitive religious follows are a majority in it.

Why does our money say "In God we Trust". Simple - for coins an excessively religious director of the Mint during the Civil War who exceeded his remit, and for notes the red scre paranoia of the McCarthyite 1950's to separate us from "godless communism". Neither are relevant to our founding culture as both came long long after it. Our original motto was "e pluribus unum" and was changed less than 60 years ago due to the same McCarthyism.

You are making an incorrect extrapolation that a majority Xian society is the same as a society based on Xian thought.

[invictus]

27. +1

[Iggo]

19. I don't understand why i can't despise xtianity and also be an atheist.

Help?

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Who the fuck are you talking to?

It's not me, Jack. Your pre-packaged rant doesn't have jack diddly doofus squat to do with anything I've said, or think.

It's very simple: "Christianity for Kids" is to The Chronicles of Narnia as "Athiesm for kids" is to The Golden Compass.





As "Islam for kids" is to..


...wait... uh, errrr, um... yeah.

You know, the uh, major Hollywood kids movie franchise pushing some watered down version of Islam, which is... Um... Er.... Uh....

...

Yeah. Why don't you get back to me on that; maybe after you get your CAPS LOCK button fixed.




Oh, and as for "they're really talking shit about American cultural values, which have been based on Judeo-Christian values since the inception of the Republic"

As a "fellow Atheist" (... mmmmmm hmmm. :eyes:) I will humbly submit that you should take that tired line of shit and BIOYA. :hi:

[Dorian Gray]

23. Meh...

the movie was boring. I loved the books, so it's not the concept I'm against. Just the boring movie.

[TexasProgresive]

5. Ooooh! The Catholic Church smashed the Compass movies

and yet people say that Catholic opposition was a plus for Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. I guess you can have it both ways.

[Cassandra]

6. A children's movie...

is different from an adults' movie.

[TexasProgresive]

10. Regardless the movie was quite sanitized from the book

A young (18) friend of mine read the 1st book- and part of the 2nd. Kathleen is a prodigious reader. She gave up saying that she thought it was poor writing and whats the point of writing about hurting children for children.

I read the whole trilogy, His Dark Materials and was less then impressed by Pullman's writing skills. Better then mine I admit but definitely not superior. I watched The Golden Compass with my granddaughter (9) she sort of liked it but tended to get bored. I had recently read the book and was amazed as usual at the liberties screen writers and directors take with a story. It was not as bad as some - some movies should say that they were inspired by the title of the book because it is evident it was never read by the writers.

One other thing, in this day of multiplex theaters with parents dropping their children off there is no way to stop them from watching what they want. They will go in to whichever room is showing what they want. And when they are released on DVD they will watch at their friends' houses.

[Cassandra]

15. I was wondering...

how they were going to do the second film featuring a boy bleeding all over everything throughout the movie.

[TayTay]

11. I thought the movie was a okay, not great

Parts of it dragged, the storyline was confusing and the characters were not well drawn on screen. As a movie, it was a middling effort.

Loved the books, but the movie was just so-so. Could it be that this was the reason for no sequel?

[TexasProgresive]

12. The conclusion of the guardian article says a lot

So maybe, just maybe, The Golden Compass wasn't given any sequels because it didn't deserve any. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a score of 42% – ranking it alongside such masterpieces as Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle – with reviewers calling it "bland", "patchy" and "a crushing disappointment". It looks as if people were too busy despairing at the film's long, impenetrable voiceovers about dust to notice that it was apparently waging a war on Christmas.

It's a little sad that Elliot has to blame a shadowy religious conspiracy for the failure of The Golden Compass, especially since he was just about the film's sole redeeming feature, but the truth is that not many of us could bear to sit through any more sequels if there was any chance they would be as ropey as the first film. Nice try, though.

[X_Digger]

13. Meh.. great books, not so great movie.

My wife and I guessed it would end up like Dune, with lots of voiceovers and spotty action.

No surprise there.

[phantom power]

16. Are the Narnia movies going to continue?

They are Not Awesome either.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

17. Don't think so. I heard Disney dumped the series.

[Cetacea]

18. Joe Lieberman.

[Cetacea]

33. Sorry. This was posted just after he killed HCR.

[DavidDvorkin]

20. Elliot didn't play himself in the movie

He played the same character he always plays, a character with no relation to his real life.

Other than that quibble, I think he might have a point. I don't know if it was the Catholic church specifically, but the religious establishment certainly screamed their heads off. Whether that contributed to inadequate audiences is hard to say.

I saw the movie before I read the books. I liked the movie and was hoping for a sequel, but I don't know if I would have felt that way had I read the books first.

[Dorian Gray]

22. I thought the movie

was horribly boring, and I loved the three books.

I think that it received some pretty negative reviews, as well.

Kind of interesting that this article is being talked about now, though. Didn't the film come out over two years ago?

[Johonny]

24. Ebert gave it a great review

went to see based on that. Thought is was a huge downer.

[Dorian Gray]

25. I like reading Ebert's reviews

but I don't often agree with him. I think that in this case, sci-fi fans and atheists both really wanted this to succeed, and I believe he is both. But he's a movie lover (much more so than I am), and he finds positive in many films that I find boring or uninteresting. That was the case with The Golden Compass, as well.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. Probably a little of both.

The movie sucked.

The movie sucked because the studio made the film makers dumb it down and dilute the message. And they fucked up the ending.

The studio probably dumbed it down due to pressure from the church, in addition to the usual reasons they dumb things down.

[JHB]

30. "The Pope" of Hollywood is a better guess...

...whoever that is.

Someone correctly saw it as a "me too" FX-heavy epic franchise (or franchise-wannabe) in a market that's gotten pretty much saturated with that sort of thing, and decided to get out after one moderate success instead of flushing it down the drain on a big-budget sequel that seemed ripe to fizzle.