His Dark Materials / Pullman / BBC1

[Dave2002]

IMO, the HDM trilogy in book form is streets ahead of the NT show and even more so the BBC version.

That may not, in itself, be a strong recommendation for the book trilogy. Should I take it to be?

[doversoul1]

That may not, in itself, be a strong recommendation for the book trilogy. Should I take it to be?

The trilogy is after all written for children. Unless you like ’that sort of things’, I don’t think you’ll be missing anything if you don’t read it. The daemons change their shapes only while their humans are children. Once you grow up, you are stuck with what is supposed to be your fixed soul. Incidentally, only witches can have birds for their daemons. Whether witches have the same sort of souls as humans is another matter.

[gradus]

Thanks for the decoding help, I find the narrative confusing and am only just sticking with it.

[DracoM]

Well, I've gone back to re-read 'Northern Lights' and am struck by several things:

1. The books are tighter, more focused on PEOPLE, inner lives than kit/decor/ tech.
2, We marvel at the TV visuals, but in so doing maybe forget that for Lyra et al, this is usual - like a train or bus passing, In the books, Pullman just puts in 'zeppelins' etc as normal. I like that casualness, because once I said to myself 'OK, this is the world she's in...' I just went with it.
3. I love the juxta-position of recognisable Oxford with such SF style addenda. TV does that very well IMO.
4. The change of Lyra from being overawed my Mrs C to loathing her is handled deftly and chillingly in the book, but the TV was ...well, difficult to see. TV Daemon scrap did far more. and the rather dropped the inner loathing / fear / suspicion Lyra develops.

Biggest challenges for the TV adaptation still lie ahead.

NB: IMO this trilogy is deffo not a 'book just for children'. It's a novel that explores a lot using a child as central character.

[doversoul1]

Well, I've gone back to re-read 'Northern Lights' and am struck by several things:

1. The books are tighter, more focused on PEOPLE, inner lives than kit/decor/ tech.
2, We marvel at the TV visuals, but in so doing maybe forget that for Lyra et al, this is usual - like a train or bus passing, In the books, Pullman just puts in 'zeppelins' etc as normal. I like that casualness, because once I said to myself 'OK, this is the world she's in...' I just went with it.
3. I love the juxta-position of recognisable Oxford with such SF style addenda. TV does that very well IMO.
4. The change of Lyra from being overawed my Mrs C to loathing her is handled deftly and chillingly in the book, but the TV was ...well, difficult to see. TV Daemon scrap did far more. and the rather dropped the inner loathing / fear / suspicion Lyra develops.

Biggest challenges for the TV adaptation still lie ahead.

NB: IMO this trilogy is deffo not a 'book just for children'. It's a novel that explores a lot using a child as central character.

This is a book definitely written for children but is very cleverly packed with bits that please and excite adults with a central character that never makes adult readers, especially old-ish male readers feel uncomfortable. Quite opposite to that poor Susan who was not allowed to enter the land of Aslan at the end of Narnia stories because she began to show the signs of being female. Also, most characters and a lot of SF bits are easily recognisable by the adult readers who watched early TV cartoons and read SF books back in the 60s. Especially, Mrs C.. She can be a twin sister of Cruella de Vil (Pullman is really not good at creating female characters. You can almost sense his embarrassment)

Still it’s a whacking good read. When I first read it/them, I read it through the night and remembered in the morning that I’d forgotten to bring in the washing. Luckily it was a warm summer night. Although by halfway through the third book, I was more or less reading it just to finish it.

[Richard Barrett]

I just watched the first episode (second to follow tomorrow) with my daughter, to whom as I mentioned before I read all the books when she was a lot younger. She liked the Golden Compass film too and watched it many times, but we agreed that the TV version is better for being able to take more time over things and not simplify them so much. I didn't like the way the opening credits were so obviously based on those of GoT but I guess that's a fairly minor point. Since first reading the books I've found it interesting how Pullman creates his myths around the philosophical implications of contemporary physics in a comparable way to C S Lewis creating his myths around those of Christian tradition, both in the process inviting (but not forcing) their young readers to think more deeply about many things. Comparing HDM with the Harry Potter series (of which I ran aground partway through the first book, though daughter and I watched most of the films) show as far as I'm concerned how sophisticated and original the former is, and how clichéd and parochial the latter. If I were seeing the HDM series as say a 12 year old now, I'm sure it would be affecting me deeply (and sending me off to read the books). I'm sure it's hyped to the skies back in the old country but luckily I don't have to see all that.

[DracoM]

Pullman is insistent - Lyra has BLONDE hair.
So many, many other details are wrong. tiny, but wrong. Just got dizzying after a while.
And why are we never getting the names apart from the gyptians? There are literally hundreds of characters in each series, and we get almost no names.

Not sure I can go on with the BBC version. So much is omitted, comers cut, material short-changed.
Yes, I KNOW - huge, huge books, huge material in them, and the BBC has frankly bitten off more than it can chew. All I hope is that it will drive people to READ the books, and immerse themselves in stuff there away from spectacle, CGI, and, incidentally, some truly awful acting.

The trilogy in the books is way, way past what we are getting on BBC, it is total masterpiece, I love and am in awe of all the books in it.

Of this BBC version, I am not.

[teamsaint]

Pullman is insistent - Lyra has BLONDE hair.
So many, many other details are wrong. tiny, but wrong. Just got dizzying after a while.
And why are we never getting the names apart from the gyptians? There are literally hundreds of characters in each series, and we get almost no names.

Not sure I can go on with the BBC version. So much is omitted, comers cut, material short-changed.
Yes, I KNOW - huge, huge books, huge material in them, and the BBC has frankly bitten off more than it can chew. All I hope is that it will drive people to READ the books, and immerse themselves in stuff there away from spectacle, CGI, and, incidentally, some truly awful acting.

The trilogy in the books is way, way past what we are getting on BBC, it is total masterpiece, I love and am in awe of all the books in it.

Of this BBC version, I am not.

I’ve never had much confidence that great books will turn into great on screen drama. There are exceptions of course, but to capture the complexity of a great novel on screen is surely the devils own job.
And conversely, no doubt many great films have been created from mediocre written material via a great script writer.

[Bryn]

Pullman is insistent - Lyra has BLONDE hair. . . .

Since Pullman was/is closely involved with this BBC production, perhaps the tense you use is in error.

[Richard Barrett]

I’ve never had much confidence that great books will turn into great on screen drama.

Of course it's a different medium with a different character - the "greatness" of the book isn't related directly to that of the TV series or film or play or opera or whatever. Given that, I don't much see the point in nitpicking about how accurate the "translation" is. I read the books several years ago and I'm not sure I'm going to read them again. I like the look of the TV series (much more than that of the film) and the story is unfolding at a pace that isn't too superficial on the one hand, or bogged down in minutiae on the other. No doubt it isn't the final word on translating these books into this kind of form.

[johncorrigan]

I read the books several years ago and I'm not sure I'm going to read them again. I like the look of the TV series (much more than that of the film) and the story is unfolding at a pace that isn't too superficial on the one hand, or bogged down in minutiae on the other.

Pretty much with you on this, Richard. I'm really enjoying the series. Thought last night's episode was quite chilling and tense - good to see Ann Marie Duff...haven't seen her on the telly for ages.

[DracoM]

OK, I give in. I'm 'nitpicking', and I d not want to bore Forumistas with thinking too precisely upon the event[s].
Will not post about the TV adaptation again.

[DracoM]

Well, I'm glad I;m reading the book again, because tonight's episode veered materially from the book's events / relationships etc. Real worry.

[Bryn]

Well, I'm glad I;m reading the book again, because tonight's episode veered materially from the book's events / relationships etc. Real worry.

It's a television drama series based on the books, with the books' author as one of its executive producers, not a mere transcription of the books. Anyone used to the various versions of H2G2 would surely have no problem with that. Let's not descend into the not-picking that was and remains rampant regarding dramatisations on film of works by JRRT.

[DracoM]

I'm not 'nit-picking', but reacting to fairly serious changes to the ORDER of events - thus the book's architecture - and some seriously important scenes that have been inserted that simply do not happen in the book at all.
e.g. Iofur Raknison's palace in the book is an elaborate edifice, NOT a series of cave corridors.