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His Dark Materials Series


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7 hours ago, john said:

Interesting point in this Radio Times article (terrible website, I advise you not to click) about how having the Magisterium nipping through a portal to our Oxford already kind of undermines the whole point of the first book.

While I'm a bit unconvinced about the decision to show journeying between the worlds so early, I'm not sure I really felt that Asriel's quest was the primary focus of Northern Lights. When I first read I think Lyra and the stolen children seemed to me like the main focus of the narrative. In retrospect, Asriel's actions are probably the most important part of the story in terms of the overall series but it didn't initially feel like that.

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

One potential issue I can see is pacing. Having Oxford take up one episode makes sense, having Lyra in London for one episode also works, but the rest of the book makes it a bit harder to break down (from what I remember; I think I read the books shortly before I ever signed up on this board in the first place, so that's at least 15 years ago), and the pacing could suffer later on. Just because 2 hours was far too short for the whole book in the film doesn't necessarily mean that let it sprawl across 8 hours is a good idea as well.

I guess we'll probably have some added content showing what Mrs Coulter, Asriel and Boreal are up to until Lyra encounters them again. We'll have to wait to see what that does to the pacing.

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2 hours ago, Maltaran said:

However, in the books Boreal has already been going back and forth for years, it’s just we don’t find out about it till Subtle Knife

True, I suppose it’s a complaint about the structure, rather than about a perceived change in the plot.

Like Wert says, it’s normal for shows to bring stuff forward and have more of a disperse narrative than books.  Dublin Murders on BBC just adapted the first two books in one series and mixed them together (haven’t seen it so I don’t know if that worked).  On the other hand, shows often also use different worlds as a big moment at the end of a season.  Fringe comes to mind, I’m sure there’s other examples.

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@Krishtotter so i started my reread today. My perception is reinforced in that in the books Mrs. Coulter is initially portrayed as much more affectionate towards Lyra. (The tender bathing scene is even obliquely mentioned in passing). Of course our perception in the books is coloured by the knowledge that she is the one luring children away but certainly pre-cocktail party she is much less sinister than her show counterpart 

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On 11/13/2019 at 1:23 AM, Martini Sigil said:

I just found out about this from a previous poster... and i am very happy to be wrong... 

We talked about it earlier in the thread too. Before the show started airing. Hopefully they'll start on season 3 next year. *fingers crossed*

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8 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

@Krishtotter so i started my reread today. My perception is reinforced in that in the books Mrs. Coulter is initially portrayed as much more affectionate towards Lyra. (The tender bathing scene is even obliquely mentioned in passing). Of course our perception in the books is coloured by the knowledge that she is the one luring children away but certainly pre-cocktail party she is much less sinister than her show counterpart 

Interesting, I haven't read the books in more than a decade, so I had only faint memories of the finer details. 

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The latest episode was potentially a tricky one because it's a bit of an in-between episode, having to join up the time between Lyra escaping from Mrs Coulter and getting to the North, but I think they did a decent job with it. Ruth Wilson continues to be a highlight, both in her walking along the edge of her balcony while her daemon looks on terrified and the confrontation with the Gyptian. I wondered before whether we would see Will in the first season and we have now seen him in photograph form, even if we may not see him in person.

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1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

Still not remotely impressed with why they have changed Lyra's whole personality. 

Yeah, it's a weird choice. And it surely must have been a deliberate choice of direction, becuase we've seen in Logan that Dafne Keene is totally capable of playing fierce and defiant.

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1 hour ago, Liffguard said:

Yeah, it's a weird choice. And it surely must have been a deliberate choice of direction, becuase we've seen in Logan that Dafne Keene is totally capable of playing fierce and defiant.

So she didn't do "fierce and defiant" tonight?

I thought that was all she did..

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I suppose we're getting into semantics now.I guess book Lyra would not have let the raid on Mrs Coulter's place happen without her present?

Anyway for tv she can't just tell everyone she meets to fuck off, otherwise it would be an extremely long tv series.

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6 hours ago, redriver said:

I suppose we're getting into semantics now.I guess book Lyra would not have let the raid on Mrs Coulter's place happen without her present?

Given that she spends a lot of time trying to join the Gyptian spies on their raids, she certainly would have tried to go with them.

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51 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Has she even showed evidence of her lying yet? Lyra Silvertongue got her name for a reason. 

There was a scene with Mrs Coulter in episode 2 where she made up a story about having long hair.

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Yeah her talent at lying is a central part of her character and is very important to the plot, but there been little emphasis on it. Granted there’s still time, but it does need to be shown.

 

I like the portrayal of John Faa and Farder Coram, and am very much looking forward to meeting Lee and especially Iorek.

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So so so ready to get to the north, meet Lee Scoresby and Hester. 

I'm still not totally feeling Lyra. If she doesn't show a bit more character soon then she might not be convincing enough when she does take action. 

Not sure how I feel about the golden monkey having an existential moment about death - when the dæmon disappears as the Gyptian dude kills himself. It made me feel weird and uncomfortable and I guess that's the point. 

Someone I know online was complaining they didn't understand what was going on (they've not read the books). I said 'some kids have been kidnapped and people want to get them back'? Then they said 'and the talking animals!'... I replied that I think the dæmons have been explained a few times. I especially think that Mrs Counter and the golden monkey are used to great effect to show the relationship between a person and their dæmon: sometimes they act in unison (when they fight the gyptian), other times they display different facets of the same emotions, and other times one hides all emotion and but the other shows it. I think that it's really well done.

Ultimately the guy who didn't get what was happening confessed he was paying more attention to his phone than the TV. 

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Interesting choice to introduce Will so early (even just as a photograph). I like the idea of them integrating the story more across the books. In the books it felt a bit disconnected, like "Here's Book 1 and Book 1 stuff and now here's Book 2 and a load of new stuff, a lot of it not hugely set up beforehand." It feels a bit like The Expanse, taking the luxury of knowing what's coming to spread things out a bit more evenly.

I think it's a really strong series so far.

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