The Golden Compass (film)

In an alternate Earth, a powerful church called the Magisterium strictly controls the populace's beliefs and teachings. In this world, every person's inner spirit partially exists outside the body, manifesting itself as an animal companion called a dæmon. The dæmon communicates with the person and must remain in close physical proximity. Witches, however, have bird-shape dæmons that are able to travel long distances from their bodies.

Lyra Belacqua, whose dæmon is named Pantalaimon or "Pan", is an orphan being raised at Jordan College in Oxford. Her uncle, Lord Asriel, a noted explorer and scholar, has been absent seeking the elusive Dust, a cosmic particle that the Magisterium forbids to be mentioned. When Asriel returns to Oxford, Lyra saves his life after seeing a visiting Magisterium agent spike his wine with an unidentified poison. Asriel later gives a presentation to other scholars regarding his discovery that Dust existing in the North Pole links infinite worlds. Asriel receives a grant for another expedition. If his theory is proven, it could severely undermine the Magisterium's control.

Lyra meets the wealthy Mrs Coulter, a "friend" of the college. She invites Lyra and invites to stay with her in retrofuturistic London. Before Lyra leaves, the Master of the college entrusts her with her uncle's alethiometer, a compass-like artefact that reveals the truth (the titular golden compass). Few individuals can decipher its symbols. The Magisterium has seized or destroyed all other alethiometers, and Lyra is warned to keep hers a secret.

Lyra notices the alethiometer continuously points to a symbol of a lady, a lightning bolt, and an infant, though she is unable to comprehend its meaning. Soon, Mrs Coulter's congenial manner changes and shows she is aligned to the Magisterium and its mandate. When Lyra casually mentions Dust, Mrs Coulter sternly warns her to never mention it again.

Kidnappers called Gobblers have been snatching poor, orphaned, and Gyptian children, including Lyra's friends Roger, an Oxford servant boy, and Billy Costa, a young Gyptian. Lyra later discovers that Mrs Coulter is head of the General Oblation Board and realizes they are the "Gobblers."

When Mrs Coulter's dæmon attempts to steal the alethiometer, Lyra and Pan escape with it into the streets. Gobblers pursue her, but she is saved by Ma Costa, Billy's mother. Lyra is taken to the Gyptian king, John Faa, whose ship is heading north to search for the captured children. A wise Gyptian elder named Farder Coram is able to decipher the compass.

After consulting with Magisterium agent Fra Pavel, Mrs Coulter sends two mechanical spy-flies after Lyra. One is batted away but the other is caught and sealed in a can by Farder Coram, who says the spy-fly has a stinger filled with a sleeping poison. Meanwhile, Lord Asriel has reached Svalbard, the kingdom of the Ice Bears, but he is captured by Samoyed tribesmen hired by Mrs Coulter.

The witch queen, Serafina Pekkala, tells Lyra the missing children are in an experimental station called Bolvangar. At a northern port, Lyra is befriended by a Texan aeronaut named Lee Scoresby. He advises her to hire him and his friend Iorek Byrnison, an armoured bear that Lee has come to rescue. Once a prince of the armoured bears, Iorek is now exiled in shame, the local townspeople having tricked him out of his armour. Lyra uses the alethiometer to locate Iorek's armour. After recovering it, Iorek joins the Gyptian trek northward, along with Scoresby.

Lyra, astride Iorek, goes to an abandoned building the alethiometer pointed her toward. There, Lyra finds Billy Costa, who has been surgically separated from his dæmon. The Gobblers are experimenting on the kidnapped children using a procedure called "intercision." Lyra reunites Billy with Ma Costa, but the group is attacked by Samoyeds, who capture Lyra. Iorek and Lee follow her in Lee's airship. Lyra is taken to the bear king Ragnar Sturlusson. Knowing Iorek will be outnumbered, Lyra tricks Ragnar into fighting Iorek one-on-one. Ragnar, who usurped Iorek's throne, initially appears to be winning; Iorek feigns weakness and kills Ragnar, avenging his father and regaining his kingdom.

Iorek carries Lyra to Bolvangar, but only Lyra crosses a narrow ice bridge before it collapses. Upon reaching the station, Lyra reunited with Roger. Lyra overhears Mrs Coulter telling the station scientists that Asriel escaped and has set up a laboratory. Magisterium soldiers are going there to arrest him for heresy. Lyra discovers scientists are experimenting to sever a child from their dæmon. Caught spying, Lyra and Pan are thrown into the intercision chamber but Mrs Coulter rescues her.

Mrs Coulter tells Lyra that the Magisterium believe intercision protects children from Dust's corrupting influence. She reveals she is Lyra's mother but was forced to give her up; Lyra realises that Asriel is her father. When Mrs Coulter wants the alethiometer, Lyra instead gives her the can containing the spy-fly. The fly stings Mrs Coulter, rendering her unconscious. Lyra destroys the machine, setting off a series of explosions.

Outside, the fleeing children are attacked by Tartar mercenaries and their wolf dæmons. Iorek, Scoresby, the Gyptians, and flying witches led by Serafina join the battle. The Tartars are defeated and the children rescued. Lyra, Roger, Iorek, Lee, and Serafina fly north to search for Asriel. Confirming Serafina's prophecy of an upcoming war with Lyra at its centre, Lyra is determined to fight the Magisterium, who plot to control all the other worlds in the universe.

Nicole Kidman at the film's premiere.

• Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua, who embarks on a voyage to battle the forces of evil and rescue her best friend. New Line Cinema announced 11-year-old Richards' casting in June 2006.[5] It was her first acting role.[6]
• Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter, an influential woman who takes an interest in Lyra (and later admits that she is Lyra's mother). Kidman was author Philip Pullman's preferred choice for the role ten years before production of the film,[7] and despite initially rejecting the offer to star as she did not want to play a villain, she signed on after receiving a personal letter from Pullman.[8]
• Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, Lyra's strict and mysterious adventurer uncle. In July 2006, it was reported that Paul Bettany was in talks to play the role.[9]
• Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby, a Texan aeronaut who comes to Lyra's aid. Pullman has singled out Elliott's performance as one the film got "just right."[10]
• Eva Green as Serafina Pekkala, a witch queen.
• Jim Carter as John Faa, the king of the Gyptians.
• Clare Higgins as Ma Costa, member of a Gyptian family that aids Lyra.
• Ben Walker as Roger Parslow, Lyra's best friend, who is kidnapped and taken north.
• Charlie Rowe as Billy Costa, son of Ma Costa, and Lyra's friend.
• Steven Loton as Tony Costa, son of Ma Costa and Billy's older brother.
• Christopher Lee as the Magisterium's first high councilor. Lee's casting was also at New Line's behest, rather than that of Chris Weitz.[5]
• Tom Courtenay as Farder Coram, Gyptian second-in-command and advisor to John Faa.
• Derek Jacobi as the Magisterial emissary.
• Simon McBurney as Fra Pavel, a Magisterial agent.
• Jack Shepherd as master of Jordan College.
• Magda Szubanski as Mrs Lonsdale.
• Edward de Souza as the Magisterium's second high councilor.
• Paul Antony-Barber as Bolvangar Doctor.
• Jason Watkins as Bolvangar Official.
• Jody Halse as Bolvangar Orderly.
• Hattie Morahan as Sister Clara.

Numerous scenes from the novel did not feature in the film or were markedly changed. On December 7, 2007, New York magazine reviewed draft scripts from both Stoppard and Weitz; both were significantly longer than the final version, and Weitz's draft (which, unlike Stoppard's, did not feature significant additions to the source material) was pronounced the best of the three. The magazine concluded that instead of a "likely three hours of running time" that included such scenes as Mrs Coulter's London party and Lyra's meeting with a witch representative, the studio had opted for a "failed" length of under 2 hours in order to maximise revenue.[23]

On October 9, 2007, Weitz revealed that the final 3 chapters from Northern Lights had been moved to the film's potential sequel, The Subtle Knife, in order to provide "the most promising conclusion to the first film and the best possible beginning to the second,"[24] though he also said less than a month later that there had been "tremendous marketing pressure" to create "an upbeat ending."[25] (The San Francisco Chronicle found this "truncated" ending abrupt.[26]) Author Pullman publicly supported these changes, saying that "every film has to make changes to the story that the original book tells—not to change the outcome, but to make it fit the dimensions and the medium of film."[27] In addition to removing the novel's unsettling ending, the film reverses the order in which Lyra travels to Bolvangar, the Gobbler's outpost, and then Svalbard, the armoured bears' kingdom.[28] (Neither deviation from the book features in Scholastic Publishing's The Golden Compass: The Story of the Movie novelisation.) In July 2009, Weitz told a Comic Con audience that the film had been "recut by [New Line], and my experience with it ended being quite a terrible one";[4] he also told Time magazine that he had felt that by "being faithful to the book I was working at odds with the studio."[29] In 2011, Pullman told an audience at the British Humanist Association annual conference that he was also disappointed by this decision, and hoped that a director's cut of the film would be released some day including the footage cut by New Line.

In the book, the Jordan College Master reluctantly poisons Lord Asriel's wine; in the film a visiting Magisterium official undertakes (more willingly) this action. The alethiometer is mentioned multiple times throughout the film as a "golden compass."

In the film, Billy Costa replaces Tony Makarios as the victim of intercision, and Tony is left out. Billy has the daemon Ratter, which is Tony's in the book. Billy features in the first scene of the film, whereas, in the book, he is first seen at Bolvangar, and is saved before ever having to go through intercision.

Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club argued that through the use of a spoken introduction and other exposition-filled dialogue, the film fails by "baldly revealing up front everything that the novel is trying to get you to wonder about and to explore slowly."[28] Youyoung Lee wrote in a December 2007 Entertainment Weekly that the film "leaves out the gore", such as the book's ritualistic heart-eating that concludes the bear fight, "to create family-friendlier fare."[30] Lee also said that the film "downplays the Magisterium's religious nature", but Robinson argued that the depiction of the church in the film is as "a hierarchical organisation of formally robed, iconography-heavy priests who dictate and define morality for their followers, are based out of cathedrals, and decry teachings counter to theirs as 'heresy.' ... doing ugly things to children under cover of secrecy." Robinson then asks, "Who are most people going to think of besides the Catholic Church?"[28] The film gives more prominence to scenes showing the Magisterium officials' perspective than the novel. The novel rarely mentions explicitly the Magisterium's intentions, relying on the gossip of others, and the comments of Mrs Coulter.

Although the character of Mrs Coulter has black hair in the novel, Pullman responded to the blonde Kidman's portrayal by saying "I was clearly wrong. You sometimes are wrong about your characters. She's blonde. She has to be."[31]

Several key themes of the novels, such as the rejection of religion and the abuse of power in a fictionalised version of the Church, were diluted in the adaptation. Director Weitz said that "in the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots", but that the organisation portrayed in his film would not directly match that of Pullman's books. Instead, the Magisterium represents all dogmatic organisations.[32] Weitz said New Line Cinema had feared the story's anti-religious themes would make the film financially unviable in the US, and so religion and God ("The Authority" in the books) would not be referenced directly.

Attempting to reassure fans of the novels, Weitz said that religion would instead appear in euphemistic terms, yet the decision was criticised by some fans,[33] anti-censorship groups, and the National Secular Society (of which Pullman is an honorary associate), which said "they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it ..."[34] and "this is part of a long-term problem over freedom of speech." The Atlantic wrote: "With $180 million at stake, the studio opted to kidnap the book's body and leave behind its soul."[35] The changes from the novel have been present since Tom Stoppard's rejected version of the script,[13] and Pullman expected the film to be "faithful",[32] although he also said: "They do know where to put the theology and that's off the film."[35] A Christianity Today review of the film noted that "'Magisterium' does refer, in the real world, to the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church, and the film [is] peppered with religiously significant words like 'oblation' and 'heresy'", adding that when one character smashes through the wall of a Magisterium building, the damaged exterior is "decorated with [Christian] Byzantine icons."[36]

On October 7, 2007, the Catholic League called for a boycott of the film.[37] League president William A. Donohue said he would not ordinarily object to the film, but that while the religious elements are diluted from the source material, the film will encourage children to read the novels, which he says denigrate Christianity and promote atheism for children.[38] He cited Pullman telling The Washington Post in 2001 that he is trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.[39] The league hoped that "the film [would fail] to meet box-office expectations and that [Pullman's] books attract few buyers",[40] declaring the boycott campaign a success after a North American opening weekend which was lower than anticipated.[41]

Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, agreed that the broad appeal of the film was a dangerous lure to the novels, which he criticised for carrying a clear agenda to expose what Pullman believes is the "tyranny of the Christian faith" and for providing "a liberating mythology for a new secular age."[42] Denny Wayman of the Free Methodist Church made the assertion that The Golden Compass is a "film trying to preach an atheistic message."[43] Other evangelical groups, such as the Christian Film and Television Commission, adopted a "wait-and-see" approach to the film before deciding upon any action,[44] as did the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.[45] Some religious scholars have challenged the view that the story carries atheistic themes,[46][47] while in November 2007, a review of the film by the director and staff reviewer of the Office for Film and Broadcasting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) appeared on the website of the Catholic News Service and in Catholic newspapers across the country. The review suggested that instead of a boycott, it may be appropriate for Catholic parents to "talk through any thorny philosophical issues" with their children.[48] However, on December 10, 2007 the review was removed from the website at the USCCB's request.[49] On December 19, 2007, the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published an editorial in which it denounced the film as godless.[50]

Pullman said of Donohue's call for a boycott, "Why don't we trust readers? Why don't we trust filmgoers? Oh, it causes me to shake my head with sorrow that such nitwits could be loose in the world."[45] In a discussion with Donohue on CBS's Early Show, Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, said that rather than promote atheism, the film would encourage children to question authority, saying that would not be a bad thing for children to learn.[51] Director Weitz says that he believes His Dark Materials is "not an atheistic work, but a highly spiritual and reverent piece of writing",[33] and Nicole Kidman defended her decision to star in the film, saying that "I wouldn't be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic."[16] Some commentators indicated that they believed both sides' criticism would prove ultimately impotent and that the negative publicity would prove a boon for the film's box-office.[45][52][53] Sales were in fact poor; one week after the film's release, Roger Ebert said of the Catholic campaign, "any bad buzz on a family film can be mortal, and that seems to have been the case this time."[54] The planned film trilogy has not been continued, prompting actor Sam Elliott to blame censorship and the Catholic Church.[55]

Nevertheless, in a production independent of the film, a His Dark Materials television series debuted in November 2019, and does not skirt around the parallels the novels draw between the fictional Magisterium and the real-world Church; e.g., Magisterium officials in the show wear priests' cassocks and collars, unapproved teachings are called "heresy", and prayers at the dinner table are said in Latin.

The film premiered in London on November 27, 2007, and was released on December 5, 2007, in British cinemas by Entertainment Film Distributors and released on December 7, 2007, in American cinemas by New Line Cinema.

French composer Alexandre Desplat composed the film's music. British singer Kate Bush wrote and performed the song "Lyra" which is played over the end credits.[79] The film's soundtrack album was released on January 22, 2008, by WaterTower Music.

The video game for this film was released in November 2007 in Europe and December 2007 in North America and Australia for the PC, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and the Xbox 360. It was developed by Shiny Entertainment and published by Sega.[80]

Players take control of the characters Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison in Lyra's attempt to save her friend Roger from the General Oblation Board. As this game does not fully take into account the changes made by the final version of the film, a small amount of footage from the film's deleted ending can be viewed near the end of the game, and the order in which Lyra travels to Bolvangar and Svalbard follows the book and not the film.

• The Golden Compass at IMDb
• The Golden Compass at AllMovie
• The Golden Compass at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Golden Compass at Metacritic
• The Golden Compass at Box Office Mojo
• Book Vs. Film: The Golden Compass by The A.V. Club
• The Golden Compass Production Notes