“His Dark Materials” Television Show? Bleh

http://variety.com/2015/tv/global/bbc-orders-philip-pullmans-his-dark-materials-1201632207

The BBC is producing a television version of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, which could be good, but its also disappointing in that it means at best the cinematic treatment this series deserves is postponed indefinitely.

I want to talk now about how much I hated the movie that came out in 2007. The filmmakers didn’t trust the audience or the material and New Line Cinemas must have really thought they could just half-ass their way to another Lord of the Rings moneymaker. They even brought in Sir Ian McKellen for a very unnecessary redubbing of the “ice bear” in the picture above.

Among the worst atrocities committed against this story:

• The book’s ending was filmed but then screen-tested out of the final cut because (spoiler alert?) it it was too big of a downer. After lopping off the final twenty minutes of the story, the film was then recut out of sequence to end with a cliche climactic battle and a false upbeat ending. Nevertheless, because it was so slapdash, the random “mission accomplished” speech force fed into the heroine’s mouth at the end of the film creates a bigger, more frustrating cliffhanger than the original ending would have.
• The “anti-Christian” message of the film was also excised and screen-tested out of the film. Even though the story was written as a fantasy-counterpoint to the dogma in “Paradise Lost”, the “Church” was reduced to a bogus, generic evil organization, still called the “Magisterium” but dumbing down the metaphor of the original story from “organized religious leaders often resemble fascists” to “fascists often resemble fascists.” A brave, bold statement…for turd faces.
• They changed the setting and scenery from the vague Victorian/steampunk vibe in the books to some generic fantasy-land garbage that was inspired by…nothing. The director was afraid to do something closer to the books because it had already been done by…”Van Helsing.”
• The movie itself was very awkwardly paced, and began with a stupid voiceoover explaining “the world” to the audience, The characters were introduced too rapidly and the story rushed to get from one set piece to the next without laying the connecting foundation to make any of it something the audience might care about. Overall, the book’s tone pitted the fiery and intrepid Lyra against some seriously dark and sinister forces, on all sides. Yet in the movie, her dark and brooding father (played by Daniel Craig) was re-envisioned as an Arctic Indiana Jones.

There is no reason to think the television show won’t be great. Although there is no cast or crew yet the BBC’s track record with fantasy/adventure material is pretty good. On the other hand, the expansive and dramatic nature of the story will be undermined by the television medium. And I worry about the awkward breakdown of a miniseries format; there are three clear stories to be told in “His Dark Materials”; the story is lengthy but tightly plotted, and I worry that a television series would disturb the flow of the narrative for excessive and confusing “world building”, which leads me to my last worry,

which is that future fantasy television dramas will take their cue from “Game of Thrones.” They should not. Even though I don’t think there’s any threat of crazy sex or violence in “His Dark Materials”, there may be the temptation for drawn out scenes and sub plots with side characters that don’t push anything forward. I’m tired of the whole “world building” concept, and I’m extremely unimpressed by any writer or storytellers ability to map out a fantasy land. Everyone and anyone can build their own “world”, and the more intricate and convoluted it becomes, the more it begs the question why more attention isn’t being paid to the actual world in which we live in. But a further critique of the idea of world building deserve its own post, someday sometime.

For now, I’ll just say that the magic and majesty of Pullman’s Universe is best served as seen through the eyes of its central protagonist, Lyra, trusting the audience to successfully immerse themselves into the world through the story, as opposed to sharing with us a copycat universe brick by tedious brick.