His Dark Materials

I haven't forgotten about the final part of my UK PonyCon report, but as that will take the form of a (moderately) thoughtful summing up, I want to take my time a little and get it to say what I want it to say. Unless anything comes up, though, I will have it up on the blog at some point this week. I'll also have a mini-review of Holidays Unwrapped, though it's not much of a spoiler to say now that it didn't exactly blow me away.

And now for something completely different. Last night, I watched episode one of the BBC/HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Well, all right, episode one of the first series, which will cover Northern Lights (US: The Golden Compass). I am a big fan of HDM, so I was nervous. I'm happy to report that I was very pleased. Not everything was perfect, but I definitely feel the makers get this world. So yes, recommended!

A few more specific thoughts now, with spoilers – though many probably won't make sense unless you've read the books, in which case they won't be spoilers!

The start of Northern Lights is largely set in an old-fashioned (yes, I know it's more complicated than that!) Oxford college, and there's no getting around the fact that this will be off-putting for some. It's a shame, as there's a lot more action later on, but I don't think it can be helped. They did cut down a bit of the Jordan stuff, and it's a shame to have lost some of the details of the Retiring Room scene as it's crucial to the plot, but I think they largely got away with it.

I was moderately impressed with how dæmons (here spelt "daemons", boo hiss) were shown. The CGI was good enough for them not to bother me from very early on, though it wasn't perfect in a few close-ups. There were too few dæmons visible in crowd scenes, which I can only imagine was due to budget/time restrictions. Stelmaria was impressive and Pan looked fine in his various forms, though it was a shame we didn't see any on-screen transformation as the 2007 film managed.

Another thing from the novel that didn't show up here was the web of social rules about people and dæmons. We didn't see two dæmons greet each other, we didn't get anything about the taboo surrounding a human touching another's dæmon, and so on. That may come later, of course: we're going to be getting eight hours for this first book, which is a whole different kettle of fish from the two the movie was given.

I was very pleased with the casting, and Dafne Keen made a good Lyra. Nobody stood out as being wrong, with Clarke Peters solid as the Master of Jordan and James McAvoy decent as Lord Ariel. (Daniel Craig still shades that role for me, though.) Ruth Wilson made an excellent, disturbing (already!) Mrs Coulter, though her monkey-dæmon was one piece of CGI that looked slightly ropey. Wilson had a lot to live up to, since Nicole Kidman's Mrs Coulter was widely seen as the best thing about the 2007 film.

I may be wrong, but I don't remember quite as much about the gyptians in this early part of Northern Lights as we got here. The coming-of-age ceremony admittedly added a bit of excitement to proceedings, though of course tinged by sadness with the disappearance of Roger. (And knowing what will happen to him later on, the sadness is only magnified.) Ma Costa, Lord Faa and Farder Coram were all well cast too, so I think we'll be satisfied there.

A word of warning: the trailer at the end of the episode is very spoilery. I think it's intended as a preview of the whole series, not just of episode two, but even so. Bolvangar, Iorek, Lee and lots more are all shown. One final tiny gripe: why was "zeppelin" changed to "airship" throughout? It's always "zeppelin" in the books. Unless Zeppelin is still a trademark somewhere, it seemed a pointless, irritating change, though thankfully the craft themselves looked great on the screen.

But that is a tiny gripe. If I accept that the lack of dæmons in crowd scenes is simply a question of not having a Hollywood budget available (although it's clearly high by TV standards) then I think this version of His Dark Materials is likely to be one I'll remember gladly. I don't dislike the 2007 movie anywhere near as much as some do (I even paid to see it in the cinema) but the new adaptation should surpass it with some ease.