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fantasy

“The Golden Compass” — Just how dead is God?

by Rick on December 2, 2007

In my previous post I reviewed The Golden Compass as a movie and didn’t go into the more controversial aspects of the story — that of its portrayal of the Church and of God. However, I didn’t want to simply let those things go after having responded to a critic of the story two posts ago; now that I’ve seen the movie for myself, what do I say?

Well, perhaps most notably, is that there was no character in the movie that went by the name of God.1 This movie did not portray the death of God. Actually, if the movies stick to what the books portray, that won’t happen until the third film, though apparently TGC’s God character simply dies of old age, despite an attempt by the story’s protagonist to help him.

Anyway, in light of that, I do not think TGC the movie will do no more harm to the idea of “God” than a 24-hour clock would.

24 Hour Clock

Within the world of TGC there exists an entity known as the Magisterium. This Magisterium is the ruling power of the world and has its hands in just about everything — including scientific progress. As Nicole Kidman’s character — who worked for the Magisterium — put it, they tell people what to do in a “kindly” sort of way in order to keep people out of trouble.

Disobeying the Magisterium is of course seen as a challenge to Authority, and such disobedience may be punished as heresy.

I cannot help but be reminded of an episode of Star Trek: Voyager called “Distant Origin”; in it, an alien scientist believes that his reptilian race, the Voth, had its origins on Earth, thousands upon thousands of lightyears away from their current home. Upon tracking down Voyager, the scientist Forra Gegan confirms his findings that humans and his race have the same genetic ancestry. The Voth Ministry of Elders, however, condemn his findings as heresy against Doctrine.

It doesn’t take a Masters of Divinity degree to realize that both the Magisterium & the Voth Ministry of Elders are meant to represent Christianity and its attempts to maintain power.

Forra Gegan and a Human Skull

But is that real Christianity? Or is it simply a straw man which is far easier to knock down than characterizing those who actually live out what Jesus taught?

To be quite honest after having seen the first movie, I get the impression that Philip Pullman (TGC author) doesn’t so much have a problem with Christianity but with authority in general. The protagonist Lyra points out that she doesn’t like to be told what to do, and neither does her father, who the Magisterium attempted to kill due to his research into Dust.2

All told, the plight of the film’s protagonists against the Magisterium seems more like V attempting to overthrow the British government3 than it does atheists attempting to do whatever it is they do to irk Christian/government/thing…4

Is the message threatening? Perhaps, if you’re defending an Orwellian churchstate.

The movie was not without its flaws — both in its story and in its morality — but a threat to the concept of God in the minds of children it is not. If it is, I cannot help but wonder how weak an idea of God is being presented to children within the Church.

Popularity: 6%

  1. Or Yahweh or Jesus or Jehovah, or anything else. [↩]
  2. In the world of TGC, Dust is supposed to represent Original Sin, though it seems much more like the concept of the Age of Accountability; either way, the Magisterium seeks to suppress knowledge of Dust, which is odd — one would expect a type of the Christian Church to be the one teaching a corresponding type of sin… [↩]
  3. See V for Vendetta. [↩]
  4. Seriously, the only real life entity which comes close to the Magisterium is the Roman Catholic Church, and I certainly don’t equate them with Christianity. [↩]

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“The Golden Compass”

by Rick on December 2, 2007

Movie poster: The Golden Compass The Golden Compass

Alicia & I went out with some friends of ours last night and saw The Golden Compass (TGC) during its week early preview showing. Regarding the movie itself, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

Sure, I had an inkling of what the story was like — Alicia has studied the book when she was in school, and it has been hard to view any Christian news sources lately without hearing something about the movie.

I felt that the movie itself had a lot to live up to. As a fantasy film, it is up against quite a few heavyweight contenders — notably The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Harry Potter series, and even the lighter weight entries of, say, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Stardust, and The Bridge to Terabithia or The Last Mimzi. Frankly, the last decade has been a bonanza of fantasy films and I’m glad to see the genre getting so much attention.

Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra Belacqua

But I also expected a lot out of TGC simply based on what I have heard of the story. The way Alicia has described the book to me, I expected something epic, something that would give Star Wars: A New Hope a run for its money in the “story” category and The Matrix a run in the “Things that make you go ‘Wow, never thought about it like that!’” category.

After at long last seeing TGC,1 I confess that I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand there was what could have been a very interesting storyline. Unfortunately, it did not translate onto the big screen quite so epically. Indeed, where time should have been spent developing the story & the characters which populate author Phillip Pullman’s imaginative world, there are instead elaborate visual effects — whether the beautiful locations or the CGI of the various daemons, snow bears, or the golden compass2 itself.

Seemingly pivotal moments in the movie, such as the revealing of who Marisa Coulter3 really is, come and go so quickly that a sneeze may have caused you to not only miss the scene but even the significance thereof. I’m also told that the climax of the book, the part which cliffhangers in preparation of the second book in the trilogy, is completely left out of the movie.

However, having not read the book, I felt the movie ended suitably enough, and it did so within two hours.

My final estimation of the movie is that it is a 6 on a scale of 10. The visuals & music were fantastic, and Dakota Blue Richards does an exceptional job as the film’s protagonist, Lyra Belacqua.4

Nicole Kidman as Marisa Coulter

However, everything good about the movie doesn’t fully redeem that which was simply mediocre. Nicole Kidman, who played film’s primary antagonist, was little more than a bore; I actually found myself losing interest and zoning out during scenes where Kidman was the focus. The characters which I really did enjoy — Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel and Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby come to mind — turned out to play surprisingly little part in the film.5

And as I said above, the story was somewhat of a letdown. I’m not talking about the “Anti God” nature of the film here; rather, it seemed that the plot served only to lead us into the film’s action scenes. I heard the same criticism regarding The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but it was worse with TGC. I am hoping for an extended edition home release to help fill in the gaps.

Should you go see this movie when it is fully released this coming weekend? If you love fantasy movies, absolutely; as with most special effects-driven movies, it’s simply going to look & seem better on the big screen. If you are a fan of the book, I expect that you will watch it — if you didn’t make it to the preview showing yesterday — but I caution that you may be disappointed. To everyone else, this movie may be a rental.

For those who are interested: The movie contained no adult language, little scary imagery, no sex, and is certainly made to be enjoyed by the whole family. There was quite a bit of violence, but little gore — the goriest scene is seen in a very wide angle and if you aren’t paying close enough attention, you’ll not even know what just happened. And that scene involves bears, not people.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Popularity: 17%

  1. Alicia has been raving about it for quite some time. [↩]
  2. In the movie, it is instead referred to as an alethiometer, a device for finding out the truth. [↩]
  3. Played by Nicole Kidman. [↩]
  4. This was Richards’ first film, and I fully expect to see a great career spring up from it. [↩]
  5. Though Craig’s Lord Asriel should have played a huge part in the climax of the film, if it hadn’t had been left out of the movie. [↩]

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Beware of “Golden Compass”

by Rick on November 30, 2007

First, I want to apologize that my blog has been unavailable for the better part of twenty hours or so. You all must be starved for some RickBeckman.org browsin’ by this point! What, you’re not? Not even a little? Oh come on, humor me!

Second, as a preface to the main part of this post, I have not seen or read The Golden Compass. However, I know the difference between truth & fantasy, nonfiction & fiction. I also have a fantastic wife1 who has read The Golden Compass for college, and she’s not going to let this make it online with any glaring errors concerning the book itself.

This is in response to something written by Berit Kjos in an article called “The Upside-down World of Pullman’s ‘Golden Compass.’” It was quoted by David Cloud of Way of Life Literature in today’s Friday Church News Notes (PDF link):

BEWARE OF “GOLDEN COMPASS” (Friday Church News Notes, November 30, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is excerpted from “The Upside-down World of Pullman’s ‘Golden Compass,’” Berit Kjos, November 13, 2007: “More than 15 million copies of Philip Pullman’s trilogy have been sold. The first movie in the series opens December 7. Flying witches, evil specters, talking bears and evolving ‘Dust’ abound in The Dark Materials, Philip Pullman’s popular fantasy series for children. In this confusing cosmos of multiple universes, humans are linked to personal daemons, and telepathic seekers find answers to life’s mysteries through divination, Eastern meditation, ancient ‘wisdom’ and ritual magic.

A work of fiction is criticized for being imaginative and fully-realized. What should be pointed out is that the world of the book & movie is clearly not our world. The Scriptures describe our world, and they do so better, more accurately than any philosopher has ever done. L. Frank Baum didn’t describe our world. He imagined his own and contained his story therein. Ditto C. S. Lewis. Ditto J. R. R. Tolkien. Ditto J. K. Rowling. And so too Philip Pullman.

These occult practices are essential to the battle for the ‘free’ Republic–against the despised old Church.

Not surprisingly, the “Church” often presented as being the evil in the world is often a far cry from the real Church. For example, V for Vendetta portrayed the Church as a dictatorial government which deservingly was toppled quite climactically by V & Evey. The same theme seemed to be hinted at in Cube Zero as well.

As surely as sinful man deserves to perish, so does an evil church deserve to be struck down. I can’t recall ever seeing a truly Christian character represented in any work of fiction’s “evil church” antagonist. Honestly, it’s hard to villainize loving, charitable believers who live out the Kingdom of God on Earth, and so such Christians understandably don’t show up often in entertainment.

So if the “church as a bad guy” theme in entertainment so rarely, if ever, has anything at all to do with Christ’s true gathering of believers, it seems quite unnecessary that men like Kjos spend their time defending false illusions of the church rather than proclaiming the Christ of the true Church.

But I also can’t help but wonder if such negative portrayals of the Church in literature is reactionary; with a messy war being waged in Iraq currently under a pretense of it being “God’s will,” it isn’t surprising that God & His people are gaining quite the bad reputation.

Never mind the Christianity (if you can even call it that) of King James Onlyism, the Prosperity Gospel, the Charismatic Movement, the Name It Claim It Gospel, cultural conservativism,2 and so on.

Frankly, Jesus’ bride isn’t putting her best foot forward, and I think people are sick of it.

I’ll even be so bold to say that many are longing for a Church that is capable of lovingly existing within their desired “‘free’ Republic” (to borrow Kjos’ phraseology). If we are truly being the salt & the light of the world, that seems to imply that we are making the world both tastier and brighter; we do that by presenting Christ, and we present Christ by living out His commands.

And I wouldn’t be surprised if the opposition to such actions come from within Christendom rather than from those outside of the Church. We need only think of where Christ’s primary opposition came from.

Lyra, the pre-teen heroine, is a headstrong tomboy raised without parents at an Oxford college in a universe parallel to ours. A proficient liar, she’s first seen snooping in a forbidden area with her daemon camouflaged as a moth. From then on, she follows her intuition from one crisis to the next until all remnants of Biblical truth and authority have been destroyed.

Why this is threatening I don’t know; are we worried about extradimensional preteens? I’ll pass on that one, thanks.

And I can’t help but wonder what kid isn’t a proficient liar; I’ve seen studies which claim even babies use deception in order to get attention or food or whatever. Do not the Scriptures declare every man a liar?

Okay, I’m not thrilled that biblical truth is supposedly being destroyed, but the “biblical truth” as understood by a great majority of the unbelievers I’ve interacted with is hardly representative of real biblical truth; those straw men raised by skeptics can be knocked down again and again for all I’m concerned! As I understand the mythos of The Golden Compass, “God” is simply the senior angel who is in charge simply because he is the eldest. How that is in any way similar to “biblical truth,” I have no idea at all.

It honestly sounds far more similar to Mormonism than to Christianity.

By the end of the series, God is dead. Free-spirited Lyra (still a 12-year-old) has sexually ‘come of age’ and fulfilled her prophetic assignments in the war against Christianity.

“Eldest Angel Dies, Story at 11.”

Sorry if I don’t quite get the urgency of the situation here. It’s nothing more than a plot element in a world of fantasy. Our imaginations as Christians ought to be great enough that we can envision a story containing imaginary people, imaginary places, and indeed, imaginary deities — even deities which die. But let’s suppose the world of The Golden Compass did reflect ours and thus did portray the death of the true God…

Keep in mind, Christianity depends on the fact that Jesus Christ — God in the flesh — died on a Cross. And He did so willingly. That is Gospel. That is truth.

So a work of fiction portrays the death of a fictional deity? Okay, redeem that; take that and say, “Okay, God is dead; betcha can’t guess what happened next in real life!”3

Further, Kjos seems to be bothered by a 12 year old having “sexually ‘come of age’” (otherwise, I fail to see the importance of her age being noted in that statement). First, I’d have to ask what he means by his use of coming of age. Twelve year old girls are commonly sexually mature; I know someone who knows someone who started her monthly cycle. She’s nine. That’s nature. That’s life. Welcome to Earth.

Besides, our society’s link between ages 18 or 21 with “adulthood” might not apply to an extradimensional girl. Fantasy is a fantastic thing, after all!

I’m told that Lyra never engages in any sexual activity within the books. All that is explicitly stated is that she kisses someone.4

As readers move from book to book, they meet likeable God-haters,

Shall “God-haters” only be unlikeable? Even that would not exempt a Christian’s responsibility to befriend them & love them, as Christ did with the “sinners” at Matthew’s home. If you only love those who love you in return, what benefit is there? Even the Pharisees do that!

experience magical worlds, and discover the strange forces that drive Pullman’s occult cosmos.

If fiction was only allowed to mirror real life, there’d be even less incentive to read. I can experience real life for myself. Magical worlds and strange forces, on the other hand, make for a great fantastical escape from reality. (What’s that? You’re perfectly content with this sin-cursed world?)

… Pullman’s crafty tale pulls the readers’ minds into an occult context where–through their imagination–they experience life from his atheist/occult perspective.”

“Occult” means secret or hidden or beyond human comprehension. That’s quite the compliment to Pullman’s imagination, I suppose.

If readers cannot discern truth from fiction, then they shouldn’t be reading novels; for the reader mature enough to understand that when they are handed a novel, they are being handed a work of fiction… Well, it may be worth it to read & see The Golden Compass; I’ll be seeing it tomorrow!

In closing, I just want to point out that if we as Christians have enough time to sit around and criticize fictional realities, something is wrong. There’s plenty in our own reality that we need to engage, redeem, fix, clean up, love, correct, rebuke, and intercede for. Quite honestly, there is far too much to do than to tilt at windmills.

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Popularity: 17%

  1. Shameless plug: If you live in Richmond, Connersville, Indianapolis, Rushville, Shelbyville, Glenwood, Brookville, or any other Indiana town in the area, isn’t it about time you had your picture taken? [↩]
  2. Or would that be better as “cultural separatism”? [↩]
  3. Okay, your presentation of the Gospel may of necessity be a bit more serious, but when I wrote that sentence, I was picturing talking to a child in a way that would be clearly misunderstood… [↩]
  4. Though apparently it is debatable whether anything more takes place; at best, such an explanation should not be regarded as canon to the story line, I would think, as it isn’t directly mentioned. A kiss is mentioned, and it can be left at that. [↩]

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