Furthest I’ve gone to see a film

Three friends and I took BART to San Francisco last night to see The Golden Compass at the Metreon.  If I’d gotten around to it sooner, we wouldn’t have had to go 45 miles each way to do it.  Prior to that, the longest trip I’d taken to see a film was 35 miles from Olathe KS to Lawrence KS, not because the film wasn’t showing near Olathe, but because I wanted to see it with friends in Lawrence.

From the trailer for The Golden Compass,  I was someone concerned with the liberties the screenplay had taken.  I was pleasantly surprised that the movie actually followed the book pretty well, and the plot changes that were most noticeable actually did seem like improvements.  The film downplayed (but did not eliminate) the idea that the Magisterium is a religious organization, and made an agent of the Magisterium directly responsible for an attempted poisoning early in the film.  The ending of the novel was omitted from the film, however, presumably in order to end on a more positive note.

The biggest problem with the film is that it is too short; there is a great deal of action in the novel and it has been packed into less than two hours, resulting in a frenetic pace.  I think it would have been much better if the running length was two and a half or even three hours.

It will be very interesting to see the film treatments of the middle and final novels if they are made.  It would be impossible to make a faithful treatment of the third novel while eliminating the religious nature of the Magisterium.

On the whole, I thought it was a good film, but recommend reading the novel before watching it.  I’ll want to see the extras on the DVD or Blu-Ray when it is released in May.