Compare & Contrast: Show Vs. Books Vs. Movie

[Meredith Quill]

Discuss the differences here!

[Cranberry]

I thought it was interesting that we got to see Lord Boreal going through a window into Will's/our world already. Obviously we didn't see that in the first book because that book was all from Lyra's perspective, but we do find out later that Boreal had been crossing over for a while, so timeline-wise, it works. It was a bit jarring to suddenly see cell phones, though!

[LeGrandElephant]

When I read the book, I don’t remember doubting at all that Lord Asriel was Lyra’s uncle, maybe because there was more mention of Lyra having a different last name (Belaqua) and her father having been lord Belaqua. Or maybe just because I was a kid and less experienced in the ways of narrative fiction. Anyway, I didn’t guess he was her father until it was revealed.

But my husband, who hasn’t read the books and has only seen episode one of the show, keeps accidentally referring to “Lyra’s father” meaning Lord Asriel. I don’t even think he realizes he guessed anything, it’s just the way the show set it up with him bringing her as a baby etc and he keeps thinking that’s her father. So I don’t think the reveal will be as much of a surprise in the show. 

[Lemur]

On 11/12/2019 at 3:24 AM, Cranberry said:

I thought it was interesting that we got to see Lord Boreal going through a window into Will's/our world already. Obviously we didn't see that in the first book because that book was all from Lyra's perspective, but we do find out later that Boreal had been crossing over for a while, so timeline-wise, it works. It was a bit jarring to suddenly see cell phones, though!

I actually like this change, as one of the bigger complaints about the books I've seen was that Pullman spends so much time world building in the first book but then immediately drops it and sets a good bit of the second book in our current world.  Also, I think getting Will involved in the narrative earlier will be less jarring.  

20 hours ago, LeGrandElephant said:

When I read the book, I don’t remember doubting at all that Lord Asriel was Lyra’s uncle, maybe because there was more mention of Lyra having a different last name (Belaqua) and her father having been lord Belaqua. Or maybe just because I was a kid and less experienced in the ways of narrative fiction. Anyway, I didn’t guess he was her father until it was revealed.

But my husband, who hasn’t read the books and has only seen episode one of the show, keeps accidentally referring to “Lyra’s father” meaning Lord Asriel. I don’t even think he realizes he guessed anything, it’s just the way the show set it up with him bringing her as a baby etc and he keeps thinking that’s her father. So I don’t think the reveal will be as much of a surprise in the show. 

I guess I always knew, as it was the sort of orphan-narrative trick I'm always on the look-out for.  (I also read a lot of books featuring orphans when I was a kid.  Don't know why, I have a perfectly lovely family but yeah, orphans were cool.)  I agree though, it shouldn't be a huge shock to anyone but Lyra.  

[Cranberry]

I was somewhat bummed that Serafina Pekkala's daemon Kaisa was changed from a snow goose to a gyrfalcon, but apparently the animators couldn't make a goose speak without it looking ridiculous, so I get it.

[alotmorestupider]

Why, in the show, is Mrs. Coulter able to separate from her daemon? This wasn't the case in the books at all, was it? She's still fully conscious and sentient so she hasn't been severed and as far as I know, she isn't a witch and never abandoned her daemon the shores of the land of the dead. I wonder why this detail has been changed and where the show's writer intend to take it? 

[mrspidey]

4 minutes ago, alotmorestupider said:

Why, in the show, is Mrs. Coulter able to separate from her daemon? This wasn't the case in the books at all, was it? 

I am quite sure it was. 

[alotmorestupider]

14 minutes ago, mrspidey said:

I am quite sure it was. 

How did she acquire this skill? 

[Cranberry]

It's never explained. My personal theory is that they either ignore the pain or they're so disconnected emotionally that they don't feel it as acutely as normal people and their daemons do, but we're never given a reason.

[starri]

On 11/14/2019 at 10:46 AM, Lemur said:

I actually like this change, as one of the bigger complaints about the books I've seen was that Pullman spends so much time world building in the first book but then immediately drops it and sets a good bit of the second book in our current world

I wonder if part of that is intentional, though.  One of the things that I find so effective is that once Lyra gets to Asriel in the North, we find out the story we've been reading isn't the story we think we've been reading, but it still makes sense when you look back on the plot.

[Athena]

18 hours ago, alotmorestupider said:

How did she acquire this skill? 

11 hours ago, Cranberry said:

It's never explained. My personal theory is that they either ignore the pain or they're so disconnected emotionally that they don't feel it as acutely as normal people and their daemons do, but we're never given a reason.

We never get the explanation about Mrs Coulter' and her daemon separation but Pullman discusses the daemon separation much more depth in the Book of Dust trilogy especially in the latest book The Secret Commonwealth. Minor spoiler from the post-Amber Spyglass books: 

Spoiler

Once the first separation happens, it becomes easier and is less painful. It's an acquired skill. 

[alotmorestupider]

13 minutes ago, Athena said:

We never get the explanation about Mrs Coulter' and her daemon separation but Pullman discusses the daemon separation much more depth in the Book of Dust trilogy especially in the latest book The Secret Commonwealth. Minor spoiler from the post-Amber Spyglass books: 

  Hide contents

Once the first separation happens, it becomes easier and is less painful. It's an acquired skill. 

Hmmm interesting! i just ordered the Book of Dust trilogy. Mrs. Coulter does have some pretty unique abilities like being able to see a witch when "invisible" and teaching the Spectres to fly. I don't remember the daemon-distancing skill being very prominently mentioned in the books. Thanks! 

[Cranberry]

This is the first thing that's really disappointed me so far: Billy didn't have his dried fish. I don't mind that they changed Tony to Billy; that makes more sense from a storytelling efficiency perspective, but that fish thing was so important. Not only did it show us just how lost someone was without a daemon, but it gave us insight into Lyra's character when she scolded the gyptians for throwing the fish away.

I don't think the absolute horror of a human without a daemon was properly conveyed, either, or Lyra's strength in overcoming her disgust to help the severed boy. 

From the book... the horror of a severed child:

Quote

The little boy was huddled against the wood drying rack where hung row upon row of gutted fish, all stiff as boards. He was clutching a piece of fish to him as Lyra was clutching Pantalaimon, with her left hand, hard, against her heart; but that was all he had, a piece of dried fish; because he had no daemon at all. The Gobblers had cut it away. That was intercision, and this was a severed child.

Her first impulse was to turn and run, or to be sick. A human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense.

Lyra's fury over the fish:

Quote

She was on her feet in a moment, and her eyes flashed fury at the men nearby.

"Where's his fish?"

They stopped, puzzled, unsure what she meant; though some of their daemons knew, and looked at one another. One of the men began to grin uncertainly.

"Don't you dare laugh! I'll tear your lungs out if you laugh at him! That's all he had to cling onto, just an old dried fish, that's all he had for a daemon to love and be kind to! Who's took it from him? Where's it gone?"

Pantalaimon was a snarling snow leopard, just like Lord Asriel's daemon, but she didn't see that; all she saw was right and wrong.

I love the show version of Lyra just as I love book Lyra, but I feel like the show is omitting, or downplaying, some of her most important moments -- I don't think that viewers who haven't read the books really understand that lying is like breathing to her or that she won't let anyone stand in the way of things she knows she has to do.

[Capricasix]

I agree, Cranberry - I was looking for his dried fish, too. I suppose there’s only so much the showrunners can do with the time they have, but Lyra’s feelings of disgust and even nausea are pretty key to the horror of seeing a person without a daemon.

[Cranberry]

The screenwriter addressed the dried fish thing:

[Capricasix]

I can’t remember - was there a funeral pyre in the book when Billy died? (I’ve read it at least three times; you’d think I would remember 😄)

Regardless, it’s unfortunate that the dried fish apparently didn’t work onscreen...but I did find the pyre and the mourners very moving, especially Ma Costa’s grief.

[LeGrandElephant]

I think the problem is not the dried fish but the fact that Billy didn’t say anything, just lay there like he was unconscious. There was nothing from the actor indicating his trauma was more than hypothermia. In the book, doesn’t he shake and ask over and over again “where’s ratter?”  Did they just not cast a little boy actor who could act convincingly traumatized, so they had to have everyone else tell us what was wrong instead of having him show us?

[LeGrandElephant]

I also always thought, from the extra vowel, that it should be pronounced daymon instead of exactly like demon, since they are not at all what we think of as “demons” in our language. But I guess Phillip Pullman must have said at some point that it is pronounced demon 😕

[LeGrandElephant]

I also realized that telling Billy to “go to Ratter” in death is ironic considering what we find out about death in The Amber Spyglass. 

[starri]

On 12/5/2019 at 11:27 AM, LeGrandElephant said:

I also realized that telling Billy to “go to Ratter” in death is ironic considering what we find out about death in The Amber Spyglass. 

Spoiler

Lee deciding to let go so that he could be reunited with Hester, at least after a fashion, is one of my favorite things in the book.

[Cranberry]

I said in the episode seven thread that it was almost perfect, and it was, but the bear fight felt anticlimactic. First, they were supposed to be in armor, and Iofur's fancy high-coverage armor was supposed to make him look more intimidating than Iorek in his rusty, dented armor, really cementing Iorek as the underdog... second, Iorek was supposed to trick Iofur by pretending one of his front legs was useless before striking with it... and third, that strike was supposed to take off Iofur's jaw (at which point Iorek would go in for the kill and then eat his opponent's heart). I realize they want this show to be "family-friendly," but the bear fight is a huge deal in the books, and having the kill offscreen took away a little of the impact.

It also wasn't obvious enough that Iorek was tricking Iofur; it seemed more like knowing Lyra was in imminent danger gave him enough strength for one final lunge. We needed to rely on later dialogue to know he was only pretending to be weak.

The Bolvangar fight last week was similarly underwhelming, going from a huge battle with Tartars, Gyptians, Witches, Lee in his balloon, and Iorek, to a short indoor battle with one witch. The movie did a lot of things wrong, but it got the Bolvangar and Svalbard fights very right.

[Cranberry]

All of this Magisterium coup/witch bombing stuff is new for the show, but it really works. I assume they added it for a few reasons (giving Ruth Wilson more to do, fleshing out Mrs. Coulter's character more so the eventual culmination of her arc hits harder, and including adult-only scenes because of child labor laws restricting how often the kids can be on screen). And of course the books were from Lyra/Will's perspective and they didn't get to see this stuff, so we're actually getting to see things they only learned about in passing. I think the show's been doing a great job, especially so far this season, of fleshing out the characters and expanding the world(s). Will's untrustworthy grandparents were a great show-only addition, as well.

[PurpleTentacle]

I don't want to read too much of this thread, because I don't want to get spoiled for the books and the rest of the show, but I recently saw the movie and uh boy, was that a mess. I can see why some people might like it, if that was their first contact with the material, but compared to the show, it was attrocious. Everything was so rushed. Nothing could breathe. I think they hit every major plot point, but that was their mistake. Some things they hit for like a minute and it would have been better to just cut it. Because with this little time it wasn't enjoyable anyway and the time could have been better spent elsewhere. Like the Gyptians. Just cut them. They aren't important and from what I can see, they won't be for the rest of the series either.

A lot of what we learned in the show organically was even frontloaded in an exposition dump in the movie and it was still a rushed mess.

The props were weirdly all worse in the movie than in the show. You'd think a movie would have a higher budget and could do more.

Every actor in the movie was just a bit worse than in the show, too. The child actors, Daniel Craig, etc. Especially Nicole Kidman who gave a fine performance, but nothing special. Certainly nothing like Ruth Wilson, who can act circles around her. I guess Sam Elliot was the exception, but it's not that hard to give a better performance than Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Then they even ended the movie on a super low note, with them just flying into the night in the balloon, instead of ending on the cliffhanger of Rogers death and the rift to another world being opened, like the show did. A bizarre choice, if they wanted to get a sequel.

All in all, I'm really not surprised that this movie underperformed and they never made a second one.

[Bill1978]

1 hour ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Then they even ended the movie on a super low note, with them just flying into the night in the balloon, instead of ending on the cliffhanger of Rogers death and the rift to another world being opened, like the show did. A bizarre choice, if they wanted to get a sequel.

They actually filmed the book ending with Asriel killing Roger and the world being opened up, there are stills of that scene out there and was included in at least one licensed book for the movie. If memory serves me correctly the studio demanded a more upbeat ending as they thought the downbeat ending would be bad for repeat viewings. There was a lot of behind the scenes 'fighting' with The Golden Compass. Too many cooks so to speak, and unfortunately the production company was overruled by the studio.

And as much as I wanted movie sequels, after seeing where the story has headed in the TV show, I just cannot see how any major Hollywood studio would have happily made the sequels and stuck to the story. There was already an outcry from certain religious quarters over The Golden Compass and what it has to say about religion (in particular Christianity) is nothing compared to what is being delivered in The Amber Spyglass at the moment. I can only imagine the complaints that would have occurred with the sequels.

[PurpleTentacle]

Movie execs are the death of this industry. The ending we got wasn't even upbeat, it was just boring and certainly no good setup for another movie. I also don't see how it would impact rewatchability. These kinds of assholes would have changed the ending to Empire strikes back, because it's too dark.

I think I also already layed out why I'm glad that they didn't make more movies. But I don't think religious groups would have been that much of a problem. They are loud, but don't actually have as much influence as they think.

[Cranberry]

Watching the end of episode six, I was frustrated that Will sat stoically on the boat while Lyra screamed like a piece of her was being literally torn away. Will was supposed to feel the same way -- his soul was being ripped out, too, even if he couldn't see it.

I'm a little sad that the Chevaliers don't have dragonfly mounts (and that they weren't explained at all, just thrown in with Asriel), but I'm gonna chalk that up to budget constraints.

I have read the books more than once and I still forget exactly how Mary ended up in the mulefa world and what she was trying to find in the first place. I see complaints in the episode thread that her story feels pointless (when we all know she's an extremely important figure in this book), so I hope the show manages to get her importance across.

[PinkRibbons]

Mary's using I-Ching divination to tell her where to go. It's powered by Dust (like the alethiometer), and it's guiding her through windows that previous knife-bearers left open until she can get to a world with the safety and resources she needs to make the amber spyglass. I do think the show dragged her journey out too much.

21 hours ago, Cranberry said:

Watching the end of episode six, I was frustrated that Will sat stoically on the boat while Lyra screamed like a piece of her was being literally torn away. Will was supposed to feel the same way -- his soul was being ripped out, too, even if he couldn't see it.

I had a bit of hope that they'd show Will's daemon materializing next to Pan as the boat pulled away (it's never shown in the book, but I wanted to see her come into awareness). The thing is, her being there undercuts how awful it was to leave Pan stranded alone. I think that's also why they didn't show Will's loss. Lyra's Great Betrayal needed to stand alone. Maybe next episode starts with Will losing his daemon and her appearing to Pan?

I'm a little surprised at the sentiment in the show threads that Lyra is being stupid and selfish for not going to help Asriel and/or Mrs. Coulter. As far as she knows, Lyra doesn't have a stake in this fight. She left Oxford as a child and so far has never had real trouble from the Magisterium or beef with The Authority. What she has had is a mother who designed something of pure evil and is incapable of seeing Lyra as her own person (as opposed to an extension of herself she needs to control), that has a habit of trapping her and hurting her. She also has a father who never showed her anything but indifference (aside from maybe one short moment before he took away Roger) and then deliberately murdered her best friend in the most gruesome way possible. And here Asriel has basically written that moment off as means to an end in a plan that is frankly megalomaniacal, even though he couches it in terms of freedom for all.

The books take place pretty non-stop though, so maybe the slower pace of the show is making Lyra seem unreasonable in her quest to help Roger. In the books, it's what - 3 months between Roger's murder and her traverse to the Land of the Dead? It's a really open wound. Anyway, as far as Lyra is concerned, the Magisterium is personified in her mother doing Bad Things and The Authority is some idea her father is passionate about to the point of murder. Why should she listen to a cryptic message from Will's dad about helping her monstrous father instead of following her instincts, dreams and alethiometer to The Land of the Dead?

But I guess I'm biased, because I know that what Will and Lyra are heading to do is in fact the Correct Path, no ifs ands or buts about it.

[Bill1978]

1 hour ago, PinkRibbons said:

Mary's using I-Ching divination to tell her where to go. It's powered by Dust (like the alethiometer), and it's guiding her through windows that previous knife-bearers left open until she can get to a world with the safety and resources she needs to make the amber spyglass. I do think the show dragged her journey out too much.

Thank you so much for explaining what Mary is doing and how. I'm not sure the show spelt this out explicitly. My memory says that 'the machine' just told her to take the sticks and go for a walk. And for the life of me, I had no idea how she was opening windows with the sticks without minimising the importance of the subtle knife.