His Dark Materials

[AllGoodDogs]

New BBC adaptation, looks so good, can't wait trailer here -

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I’ve just read the first 2 books and reading the 3rd. I agree there are not enough daemons, I suppose they don’t have the budget for all the CGI work. There was a lot of setting up and things happening in different places, it seemed a bit disjointed to me, hopefully will come together more in future episodes.

I did NOT like the Gyptian coming of age scene. Don’t remember that from the books, it came across as a very cliched scene. Major mistake as I don’t find anything cliched in the books
It’s not in the book, it was used as a (heavy handed) way to tell the audience that daemons stop changing form when they are no longer children.

The mulefa are my favourite book characters. Ever.

But then elephants are my favourite animals. Ever.

I adored the Mulefa and the third book is by far my favourite.

I didn't think that the daemons were going too far away from their humans, it was a plot point in the original book too, but I always had the sense they could travel about 6-10 feet away, at a push. They had to be nearby but not right by their sides. I haven't read the new books yet, though.

The Mulefa were probably one of the weaker aspects of The Amber Spyglass for me. Highly imaginative but just a bit too holier than thou with all that 'look how perfectly they live in harmony with nature' stuff.

Isn’t that what we should be aspiring to?

I liked the mulefa.
I think maybe I need heavy hints bashed over my head though.
Creatures evolve to suit their environment... oh yeah! I get it now!

YMMV

I think PP was a bit inconsistent with the daemon distance thing to be honest. At one point Mrs C had hers searching a completely different room.

It might depend a bit on the animal though I suppose. A snow leopard couldn't be quite as close to you as a mouse, or you'd constantly be tripping over it!

The monkey Lyra noted several times was unsettling specifically because he seemed to be able to move further away from Mrs. C than was usual, IIRC. As the ability to move much further away was generally thought to be unique to witches - although (tries to be vague) as explained later it's not an innate witchy thing but due to something that the witches specifically choose to do, which implies that it's possible to learn to stretch the distance.

The Secret Commonwealth sort of throws all the pre-conceived ‘norms’ about Daemons and separation out the window. Whilst the Separation of human and daemon is not commonplace, it is not as rare as the first three books lead the reader to believe.

What does become apparent is that people and daemons can sense a ‘wrongness’ in the relationship between a person and their daemon - regardless of physical closeness.

I think they alluded to it a little with the dolphin daemon, in that your character settling isn't necessarily a positive thing.

Though it is surprising that PP has introduced a little plot hole around Iofur Raknisson, when most of his plotting has been pretty robust between the two trilogies.

I need to buy The Secret Commonwealth. I knew it was coming out, then was busy and just forgot about it.

Sweet they have that in a Northern Lights a bit don't they? Being vague, but when she thinks that some of the adults' daemons in the north look odd.

I think it isn't always easy for us to know, because in Northern Lights especially, Lyra is a bit of an unreliable narrator. Just because she's young and inexperienced, and a lot of the story comes from her feelings and reactions. So some things she does or doesn't notice might be completely normal (or not), and she's all we have to go on.

Not enough daemons and, someone p!ease tell me, 1) how could Asriel walk through that flood carrying a baby and 2) how could the door to the college be opened given the weight of water? Petty but irritating.

The door in the water annoyed me too.

Haven't yet read Secret Commonwealth.

The beginning part with Asriel and the water just wasn't needed. The door/water logistics annoyed me too.

The girl playing Lyra is a MUCH BETTER actress than "Hermione"!! DH emphatically agreed. He can't stand her and like many other finds her acting wooden. Maybe we are also a bit biased because we both remembered her from Logan and really liked here there too!

The boy was played extremely well too, but I haven't read the books. DH read them a long time ago and doesn't remember much, only that he adored them and the meaning they had.

I agree about finding Lyra a bit too middleclass. She needs to be more urchin, as someone said. An educated and stubborn urchin. I found her a bit expressionless and vacant at times, I always imagined Lyra as drinking things in with her eyes and ears. I would have liked to see Dafna’s eyebrows raise a bit more, or a furrowed brow, or her eyes widening in excitement or fear.
Yes, exactly. In the books (in my mind's eye, anyway) Lyra is rough around the edges, a bit reckless, thoughtless even, at the same time as being fiercely 'alive' and awake and questioning.

I actually disagree that Lyra should be full urchin.

I had her in my head as a blend of what she was - a girl living in a middle/upper class environment and therefore probably taking her accent from them, but because she lacked a consistent parental figure or children of her own background, picking up a lot of colloquialisms and slang of the kids she played with.

So I think her accent is fine, but she should be saying en't a lot more!

I don't think she should be 'full urchin' and I agree she should be a blend of a girl living in a middle/upper class environment and one who has had to look after herself a lot and been exposed to everyone from masters to kitchen staff.

I just thought none of the urchin showed through at all.

Roger was the poshest, rosiest, most well fed and well dressed steampunk serving-urchin I’ve ever seen! And his speech was straight out of Friends, or maybe ScoobyDoo.

More fundamentally I’ve never quite reconciled myself to Lyra’s Oxford. How do child servants fit into the mental universe of such a place? Although, thinking about the Master’s poisoning attempt, I suppose I should accept that the university’s intellectualism was a mere sham - there wasn’t any independent thought happening there.

One thing they didn’t manage to translate from the book was the moral ambiguity surrounding Lord Asriel. I found him extraordinarily hard to pin down in the novel; on TV he was, from the start, unequivocally the put upon hero. Made the story much less intriguing.

I’ve been seeing the trailers for months so I’ve kind of got used to the idea that Lyra looks nothing like how I imagined her to. Unfortunately, I’ve also got Michael Sheen’s audiobook voice for her firmly stuck in my head, so she sounds totally wrong as well.

I’m very nervous about Lee Scoresby’s characterisation - the trailers aren’t filling me with love for the portrayal.

What I've seen so far looks like it'll be better than the film. I thought the film was good enough as a film but fairly shit as a depiction of the book.

The boy playing Roger is the son of a theatre director. I liked him in it and think he has talent but he wasn’t very authentic “kitchen boy”. Not sure it was exactly the right role for him but I guess if you have family in the business then strings get pulled. I would have have preferred to see a child actor from wherever they find them for things like Eastenders. Much more working class background. Give those kids a chance to shine. It would just have been nice to see someone who wasn’t middle class trying to act “poor”. It’s like Keira Knightly in that football film she did. Just not authentic.

I know nothing about Dafna apart from her name, but I would lay bets that she comes from either an acting or theatrical family or with close links to one.

Agree about Asriel being portrayed too much as the put-upon hero. The first book is supposed to leave you with a “is he the good guy or the bad guy?” feeling. But this, even the first scene portrays him as the baby-saving hero, prepared to risk his life for her. And the tender look in the scene wirh the gyropter..... I guess the aim is to let the parts of the audience who haven’t read the books know that there is history there that we are unaware of. Not sure it works for those who have read the books though.

CurlyhairedAssassin have you read La Belle Sauvage? That does portray him as the baby-saving hero (the first scene of the show was an adaptation of the end of the book). I don’t think it detracts from his overall arc in the books.

CurlyhairedAssassin bingo - her dad is an actor who attended Eton and Oxford and her mother is a Spanish actress and theatre director!