The Golden Compass: Are You Serious?
December 9, 2007 · By Shane Edwards
The Christians are in an uproar, so you know it must be good, right?
People have asked me, well in advance of the premiere of “The Golden Compass” what all the fuss is about. The Hollywood hype-machine certainly was working overtime to make this a blockbuster. When I took my kids to the “Bee Movie” the trailer for “The Golden Compass” was 3 times the length of any other trailer on the movie – in fact it may have been the longest I have ever seen.
While the Christian community has been screaming “blasphemy!”, Hollywood, the cast, the writer and the directors have tried to frame the movie as “thought-provoking” and “encourages people to think for themselves”, while framing the bad guys very thinly as the Catholic church, and child-abusers to boot.
Me? I don’t know. I’m inclined to let things stand on their own merits for the most part. I admit, I haven’t seen the movie, but I do look at reviewers’ thoughts beyond “Focus on the Family“, thank you very much.
But here’s what I know. In Canada.com’s review of the movie (not exactly a pawn of the religious right), we read,
Mrs. Coulter [Nicole Kidman's character] may be rich, beautiful and obsessed by children, but she’s not nice.
She hurts children by stripping them of their daemons — animal spirits that walk alongside all humans, keep us company and speak the truth in our hearts.
The daemons are the best part of Golden Compass because they’re easily understood symbols of goodness and purity — unless you’re talking about the golden monkey on Coulter’s arm, who looks like a leftover from the Wicked Witch of the West’s flying simian army.
First: timely, the main bad guy is a woman with the last name of Coulter. Coincidence?
Second: a main prop of the movie is that all children have a bestial spirit called a “daemon” who speaks TRUTH to them? And the bad guys are trying to separate the children from their “daemon”?
You’ve got to be kidding! It does not take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. Western culture, even post-Christian culture recognizes the concepts of spirits and demons. The traditional viewpoint is that generally, it is a bad thing to encounter, or regularly associate with demons. The traditional viewpoint is also that demons, if they tell the truth at all, it is only to manipulate us into evil. To base an entire movie (or trilogy) plot around the premise that spirit demons are good and all children should listen to them as “truth”?
Whether or not you are a Christian, that should scare the crap out of you. I do not want my kids watching a movie that teaches them to listen to spirits, because they tell the truth. Nosirree.
Ask any parent – most kids’ first inclination is to do wrong anyway. Who wants to endorse that? The point of being a parent is you want your children to learn how to behave from you, not from some spirit guide in their head.
The point of being a parent is you want your children to learn how to behave from you, not from some spirit guide in their head.
And this differs from listening to “God” or some other unknowable, unprovable spirit being how?
You are aware the film is based on a book, right? Hollywood’s only fault is making the film from the book, it wasn’t their content. They dumbed it down a lot too, I tell you, Christians would hate the book far, far more than the film.
“The traditional viewpoint…” – this is the problem, buddy. The traditional viewpoint used to be that witches should be burned at the stake, that the world was flat, that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. Is it so horrible when something challenges your world-view? Must you be so close-minded as to butcher a film you haven’t seen based on the names of its characters and plot elements?
Perhaps, one day, you’ll come up with a half-decent reason the film is bad. I have seen it, it sucks in comparison to the book, but the book is far more blasphemous than the film. I hope they make the sequels to complete the trilogy – they’ll drive you insane with their “blasphemy”.
I know for a fact that the Narina franchise is trying to brain wash children into renaming their teddy-bears “Jesus” (Hey-Zeus).
HA!
Actually, I can see how linear-thinking literalists would have trouble with this film. It always surprises me there’s not more from them about the Harry Potter series.
Although all contain positive messages, it’s just these particular myths fly in the face of the myth they take to be REAL.
Happy holidays!
P.S. – I love the conspiracy theory of the longest-trailer ever…. pure gold!
[...] is a rare thing to find a movie that unites both critics (43% on the tomatometer) and movie-goers. A particularly perceptive [...]
The final onslaught is on, the destruction of Christianity, not that it was ever practiced properly anyways. The satanists that run hollywood cannot blatantly ever tell the truth about their hidden agendas.
Sorry, Shane,
Looking at a review of this book from 2000 (on Amazon.com), I see that the “bad guy” was named Mrs. Coulter even then. Sheer happenstance in his case.
Grog said, “[a]nd this differs from listening to “God†or some other unknowable, unprovable spirit being how?”
All religions, save one, have a common element that promotes fairness and empathy: the golden rule. Does the movie suggest that these animal spirits follow such a rule? If not, then that is how it differs.
John M Reynolds
“All religions, save one, have a common element that promotes fairness and empathy: the golden rule.”
Interesting. We so rarely see that “fairness” ever practices and “empathy” only slightly more. Religion is a crock.
KC, I assume you mean practiced instead of practices. The way most people practice religion — for example, Christmas and Easter only for Christians — is indeed a crock. That damn free will keeps getting in the way. I was simply trying to show Grog that there is a difference between those that actually practice religion and the idea of listening to daemons/animal spirits. Did you see the movie? Did the daemons follow the golden rule?
John M Reynolds
Hello,
Christians protest everything,Golden Compass,Harry Potter, Lord of The Rings and the jews even protested ‘The Passion’.
Curious enough that if a ‘non christian’ heals someone or performs an amazing and beneficial act they are labeled ‘evil Satnist’s’ and put to the torch. However if a Christian does the very same act they will most likely be elevated to Sainthood. Remember, these Christians are the cult that brought you the inquisiton, witch burning and war without end. They are generally headed up by the most degenerate of people, from plain deviant whore-mongers to homo-sexual child predators. They practice their black art in a protected, tax free environment and seldom if ever receive punishment for their horrendous acts. The amazing thing is that people still offer up their sons and daughters to these hideous ‘Men of God.’ Lord Voldermort lives and prospers at the head of some of the most powerful churches on the Earth.
My greatest fear of hell is that when I arrive it will be full of Christians.
The concept of a Daemon or guiding spirit is a Greek concept that can be found in Plato’s Symposium written sometime after 385 BCE.
After Alexander the Great had conquered, the new cosmopolitan center of the world became Alexandria, in Egypt (which he named after himself). Many Jews moved there, learned Greek and out of that came Hellenistic Judaism, a great mixing of Jewish and Platonic / Greek (or “Pagan”) ideas. Many Jews learned to speak fluent Greek. A few hundred years later, the New Testament was written in Greek and not Hebrew.
The idea of a Daemon guiding spirit is not inherently evil, but could be either one. In some sense it could compared to the idea of an angel, of which Christians say there are good and bad ones. In the golden compass the Daemon’s are like guardian angels.
The greek word Daemon eventually, during early Christianity, became the word Demon.
A Daemon in the Golden compass is not a Demon (although that of some characters can be evil if the character is), but more like a guardian angel at least for every character when young.
As a former Christian, I can understand where your coming from, but the bottom line is, Christians, as was the case for me, need to learn more about the history of their religion.
shut up!!! its FICTION!!!!! and its a very good movie!