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His Dark Materials Series


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38 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Would someone who’s not into YA stuff like this?

Cast has me intrigued. 

Yes. The video above actually addresses this too - works for both kids and adults as adukts see and understand the darker and deeper themes and topics of the books/show.

its very different from most YA stuff that gets made into tv and film these days, imo

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18 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

My appraisal of the first episode is a little less glowing, perhaps, than many of the reviews on here - although I would still rate it positively - indeed very positively in parts. (I note that the professional critiques have been more mixed, as opposed to the near-universal acclaim with which it has been received on the forum, with some - like the Guardian and Telegraph in Britain - loving it and others more along the lines of 'like but not love'.) 

I think some of my reaction to it is judging it as a pilot episode, because I don't usually expect them to be the best of a series and I think this does have some common first episode issues. It is fairly common for the narrative to have to spend a lot of time explaining the premise (particularly for a fantasy show) and actors can sometimes take a while to really get their character right.

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While many lines were excellent, there were some really bad, clunky ones as well. Lord Asriel's statement to Billy from the airship - "

everyone's special"

I agree that was a weird line. I don't know why Asriel is even bothering to explain himself to a servant.

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McAvoy, while I bristled at the earlier suggestion that he looked like an "

undernourished Glaswegian" (awotch! I'm Scottish! Talk about an ethnic slur!)

John is also Scottish so I think can get away with such comments.

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I'm not entirely persuaded by his portrayal. McAvoy is a versatile and dependably great actor who has a real presence in front of the camera - but the characterisation, again, as with Lyra feels slightly underwhelming to me and a bit forced in places, as for instance when he delivered his oration to the scholars about the discovery of Dust and parallels worlds (a bit too stagey/Thespian/exaggerated?).

I think for that specific scene it makes sense for it to be stagey, he is giving a dramatic performance to try to win the scholars to his cause.

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18 minutes ago, Isis said:

I thought the 'everyone's special' line was great, including the delivery.

Yeah, I thought so too. It was the delivery that made it for me - the despairing angry irony of it, at least that's how it came across to me. 

True about the Mrs Coulter music - I thought at the time it was really heavy-handed. 

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If you have watched amy promo stuff or press stuff, interviews etc. They really arent trying to be subtle about Mrs Coulter. And i’m okay with that personally. 

Also Ruth Wilson’s performance look promising at conveying the complexity of her relationship with Lyra.

 

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I’d totally forgotten that (spoilers I guess)

Spoiler

Lyra didn’t know Asriel was her father and Coulter her mother

I also don’t think I ever knew the plot line about the Master guiding Lyra using the alethiometer.  Is that in the book?

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3 hours ago, john said:

I’d totally forgotten that (spoilers I guess)

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Lyra didn’t know Asriel was her father and Coulter her mother

I also don’t think I ever knew the plot line about the Master guiding Lyra using the alethiometer.  Is that in the book?

Are you a time traveller? :blink: how had you seen this episode already? 

Anyway, excellent episode. The scene with the golden monkey attacking Pan was suitably tense and horrifying. Ruth Wilson continues to shine and Dafne Keen was brilliant and showed great range too. 

Love that they have introduced the concept of Windows between the worlds already. I don't think it should ruin the impact of Asriel's mission because it is clear they are highly secret. I assume Thomas is going to be one of the men from the opening of The Subtle Knife who

is killed by Will when he breaks in

I think they have done an excellent job with the daemons so far. The emotion on Pan's little face! And in addition to the tension of the scene where the golden monkey attacks him, the other scene where he reaches out tenderly was equally haunting. 

 

Anyone know the name of the actress playi g the journalist? She reminded me so much of tess Thompson I had to check it wasnt actually her! 

 

The theme music is now stuck in my head

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2 minutes ago, Isis said:

Sad Pan's face is heart-breaking 

Absolutely. As I said above the daemons have been done very well imo. Was listening a bit about how they shot daemon scene with the actors working with puppets, pretty ingenious really

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16 minutes ago, Denvek said:

Boreal crossing over to Will’s Oxford is intriguing, is the show going to have us know from the start

Book spoiler

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That Grumann is really Will’s dad? I can’t remember when the books revealed that

 

From what I remember, while it was heavily implied, I don’t think it was confirmed until Will found out

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46 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Are you a time traveller? :blink: how had you seen this episode already? 

Hmm, my wife asked me the same thing after she saw this post.  Just a coincidence this ep went into the parents thing.

The journalist was played by Georgina Campbell btw. She was in the Hang the DJ episode of Black Mirror.

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1 hour ago, Isis said:

Sad Pan's face is heart-breaking 

They've done a great job with Pan and with showing the viciousness of the golden monkey. The daemons do give an extra way to show characterisation both in their reactions and in how their humans interact with them.

It's been over a decade since I read the original trilogy, so I can't remember whether Lyra saw the monkey running about on its own in the book? It would fit in well with parts of The Secret Commonwealth.

1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Anyway, excellent episode. The scene with the golden monkey attacking Pan was suitably tense and horrifying. Ruth Wilson continues to shine and Dafne Keen was brilliant and showed great range too. 

I agree, all the scenes with Ruth Wilson and Dafne Keen were great. I thought Kidman was good in the role but Wilson seems almost born to play this.

The gyptian subplot was less compelling, but will hopefully pick up a bit once Lyra meets them.

Love that they have introduced the concept of Windows between the worlds already. I don't think it should ruin the impact of Asriel's mission because it is clear they are highly secret. I assume Thomas is going to be one of the men from the opening of The Subtle Knife who

I was a bit surprised that they brought that plot element in so early. Since we've now seen 'his' Oxford I wonder if we'll see Will later in this season?

 

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1 hour ago, Maltaran said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

From what I remember, while it was heavily implied, I don’t think it was confirmed until Will found out

 

He reveals his name and essentially confirms that he is Will’s father to Lee Scoresby while in the balloon with him, but that’s not too long before he meets Will.

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I really liked this episode, much more immersed in the narrative than I was in the rather exposition-heavy pilot.

I think Dafne Keen really found her feet as Lyra in this one, she acted the role excellently. 

Ruth Wilson, again, was a revelation on screen. I loved those delicate moments when she was by herself, looking in the empty bathtub after Lyra had washed or with tears streaming down her cheeks outside Lyra's door after her psycho moment and reveal that Asriel was Lyra's father. And indeed the truly evil scene where she burnt the childrens letters to their mothers and without a shred of empathy went, "aww".

And then her overt sociopath turn when the mask fell and she allowed her daemon to callously torture Lyra's, was appropriately chilling.

I'm still not sold on the Gyptians. Remains the weakest dimension of the plot by far.

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Mrs Coulter seems to be a more subtle character than in the book. Wilson really does a masterful job, how are you going to feel sorry for this evil person? But you do.

Still not convinced by Lyra performance but I now think that the awkward acting is more a choice by Dafne Keen.  Will Keen, the priest guy, who I just found out is her father, does an excellent job too.

 

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