His Dark Materials / Pullman / BBC1

[doversoul1]

True, but (and I need to check how Pullman introduces them) the concept of a daemon (for example) is surely easier to explain in words (not spoken by a character) than just visually to a 'fresh' audience?
Not much different from giving a place and year in The name of the rose (which I think we got)?

This is exactly what ferneyhoughgeliebte points out up-thread (#6) of turning a written narrative into a visual form.

In the books, daemons are physically inseparable from their humans but Pullman managed to get away without working it through, since in a written narrative, they can only be mentioned as required in the narrative. From the couple of photos I saw, there were no sign of any animals in either. If you take the original setting seriously, you have to create a society where everybody takes his/her animal everywhere and if the animal happens to be a dolphin, you can never go away from the sea (this is actually mentioned in one of the books). Or what happens if your daemon turns out to be a bagger? Can you only become a night porter?

A quick explanation solves all the bother as the viewers are less likely to mull over the matter.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

True, but (and I need to check how Pullman introduces them) the concept of a daemon (for example) is surely easier to explain in words (not spoken by a character) than just visually to a 'fresh' audience?

Indeed - and I have no idea how I would have presented this information to an audience (either on telly, or with an "assembly adaptation" with the primary school kids I used to work with). But then, I'm not a professional TV adapter, and I do feel that they could have come up with something better than I could have done in between marking 30 pieces of Maths classwork and getting my coat on to do playground duty - something that reflected in Telly terms how Pullman uses the written word to insinuate the information into the readers' imaginations.

I enjoyed the episode more than did 8thOb, but this detail made a really bad impression on fussy old me, right at the very start.

[DracoM]

I am rather surprised that Lyra in this production is 16. Or have I got it wrong? The absolute point of the story when the book came out was that the heroine was prepubescent thus not self conscious and most importantly innocent*. The prime condition of her quest was that she must not to know the purpose of her journey. I suppose all this really does not fit in the current trend of a great girl warrior who knows exactly what she is getting at.

* a nicer way of saying ignorant

Totally agree.

Am a serious Pullman fan.
But need convincing about this adaptation.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

dovers - the characters' daemons were shown throughout the episode - possibly CGI additions, so they couldn't be included in the photographs?

Lyra's (which kept changing, of course) seemed to be a variation on a ferret - which probably accounted for her keenness to go with her father to "the North".

[Pulcinella]

....should be on at1700hrs not 2000hrs....Lyra too too old and formed [generally]....LOTS of money spent on it [hope they get it back]....couldn't hear some character esp Daemons.... brief scenes without gravity....I will not stick with it [codswallop and all that] so nswitched off early....[watched end of UK spending billions on Big bloody boat]

Stick with it!
The Times review says:
However, be assured that episode two, set in London, is a corker.....

[Pulcinella]

Totally agree.

Am a serious Pullman fan.
But need convincing about this adaptation.

Wandering off topic: I wonder what they will make of the Chaos Walking trilogy?

[Keraulophone]

...episode two, set in London...

Shucks, to my mind the best thing about episode one was New College, Oxford.

[Pulcinella]

Shucks, to my mind the best thing about episode one was New College, Oxford.

I liked the airship departure point being in Christ Church meadow.
The New College setting struck me as wrong.
For me, Jordan College (supposedly meant to be on Turl Street, if memory serves) is smaller and more intimate than some of what we saw last night suggested.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm looking forward to watching this series. I read the entire trilogy aloud to my daughter over a period of some months of bedtime stories when she was 10/11. I thought the Golden Compass film was attractive but obviously there was no way the anti-clerical aspect wasn't going to be suppressed for the US market, and this would have become more of a problem in the second and third movies if there'd been any attempt to make them.

[Bryn]

Unlike the Golden Compass vitiation of Pulman's work, this production had him as a producer. Jack Thornes's adaptation for television is introduced here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/entries/076f9bc4-c8e5-4e15-a7fa-f586a8878e9c

[vinteuil]

I liked the airship departure point being in Christ Church meadow.
The New College setting struck me as wrong.
For me, Jordan College (supposedly meant to be on Turl Street, if memory serves) is smaller and more intimate than some of what we saw last night suggested.

wiki tells us :

"Exeter College is the basis for the fictional Jordan College in Philip Pullman's novel trilogy His Dark Materials. The 2007 film version of the first novel, The Golden Compass (originally Northern Lights), used the college for location filming. The final episode of Inspector Morse, The Remorseful Day, was filmed in the college chapel and Front Quadrangle, where Morse has a heart attack."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exeter_College,_Oxford

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alumni_of_Exeter_College,_Oxford

Philip Pullman was, after all, an Exeter College man.

[ ... writes an Exeter College man.]








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[johncorrigan]

I hadn't realised that the Daemons tended to be the opposite sex to their character - didn't occur to me. Only found it out when I watched the Pullman 'Imagine' which they showed again on 4 last night. Enjoyable. I find myself liking Pullman when I see or hear him interviewed.

[Constantbee]

Talking animals? Ah sweeeeet Bound to be a crowd pleaser, as long a they avoid exploring the preditor-prey relationship The first review I read berated BBC for the £50 million budget involved, caused, it was alleged by the high cost of the CGI (the computer generated imagery used to create the animal characters), controversial at a time of rising TV licence fees etc, etc. In fact it’s a joint production by companies New Line Cinema and Bad Wolf for the BBC, and US based HBO, as the BBC can’t afford to produce dramas like this on its own. Concerns about the implications of joint ventures like these where the BBC is a minor player were raised by former BBC Director General Mark Thompson in a Royal Television Society lecture last month. Details here if you’re interested:

https://rts.org.uk/article/mark-thompsons-steve-hewlett-memorial-lecture-speech

Give the snow leopard a BAFTA Great news for the WWF project.

[subcontrabass]

They've given the series the title of the trilogy, rather than just Northern Lights, so perhaps all three books are being adapted

The programme website says that it is the trilogy that has been adapted, so that does suggest all three books. Additionally I note that a scene from the second series was being filmed in Bristol last month.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Talking animals?

No - none of those. C'bee.