From the Editor's Desk: Wouldn't it be Great ...

Three loud cheers!

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Everything keeps referring to the movie as "a kids movie" and I just noticed it's PG-13. I'm confused.

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I'm with you, Erik! I'll be seeing the film when it opens (I can't get to the sneak preview though I'd love to!).

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I'm with you Erik!

Kyp, I haven't really see the movie being marketed too much towards kids either, aside from at the bookstores. The only tv ads I see are usually for shows like Family Guy, and Bones and such for the older kids and adults.

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Why is this such a big deal. It's just a Nicole Kiddman flick. We all know there is no god if she can still make a movie. BA-DA-DING!

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Oh, NOW I get it. You have to take your kids to a fantasy film about armored bears and witches, and men who sacrifice children to open holes in the sky, to teach them about "the world." And here the Christian parents I know are keeping their kids ignorant of the world by teaching them to raise money for the poor and visit people in nursing homes and maybe read some classic literature in their leisure time. Silly parents.

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As opposed to your reality that teaches kids that every species of animal on earth was within walking distance of Noah's house? Who are you to mock fantasy? And then to make the idiotic fabrication that Christians somehow hold a monopoly on volunteerism and community outreach? These arguments may go over well in your house of head-nodders, but here it just makes you look like a head trauma victim.

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Great article. Totally agree.

BTW, I'm a semi-fan of the books and look VERY forward to the movie. The books were fun fantasy but all the crap about organized religion, god, sin, little kids doing the nasty...well I didn't much give a damn about Pullman's agenda, just as I didn't care about Matt Ruff's agenda in Sewer, Gas and Electric or Ayn Rand's agenda in her books. I am an atheist and I don't give a damn if a book espouse Christianity or despises it. I do care if a book is heavy-handed and forcing its agenda down my throat...Pullman committed this sin in spades with the third book.

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Erik, I agree with your main point, BUT....

I saw the film last night and have to disagree heavily
with your comment that this is "a kid's film".

There were some kids in the audience (6-10) who were
visibly shaken by the intensity of some of the action
sequences... especially during the bear fight. And the
climatic battle was equally violent and intense. I don't
really give a rat**ck about religion bashing, but New Line should be careful not to downplay the harrowing nature of the scares in this movie. That will kill word of mouth much faster than any supposed slam of the Catholic church.

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Gina, you seem like an intelligent person, and I therefore don't
really understand what your beef with this movie seems to be. You
always have something really negative to say about it. I'm genuinely
curious and not trying to be antagonistic here, but have you read the
books? I personally found them anti-religious but deeply and
profoundly spiritual. I'm curious what your interpretation is of the
books if you have read them. I would encourage reading them, but
please know that I am not trying to push my opinion on you by
suggesting that.

I think what Erik was saying is that maybe parents should be more
open to letting their children experience a wide variety of ideas,
rather than limiting them to only one way of viewing the world. If a
child continually learns more about the world around him or her
through challenging philosophical and spiritual works like the His
Dark Materials trilogy, that child will be challenged to think in new
ways and reflect upon what he or she believes, and I'm sure we can all
agree that those are *good* things to encourage in a growing mind.

Of course, that is all a parent's prerogative until their children
have grown too old to control.

In addition, to be fair, Christians aren't the only people in the
world who visit people in nursing homes, raise money for the poor,
and read classic literature. :)

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This is ridiculous. Who cares if some Christians are offended by a movie, Isn't it their right to not see it? From my point of view, its you, the small minded people offended that someone exercised their right to choose that is disturbing. You're all hypocrites, you'll complain about the lack of parental guidance when adults take kids to an R rated film or something inappropriate. Now when the parents are actually making decisions about what their kids should watch, they're the bad guys.

No one is going to watch this movie and become an atheist as a result. The real issue is that some people may not want their young children exposed to the messages and themes of a movie if they believe it’s inappropriate. Arguing the existence of God is not something someone under 13 (maybe older?) is going to really comprehend. Trying to force an alternative belief system on a kid is going to do more harm than good, it'll be that child's choice of what to believe in when he is ready to make that decision. It seems to me that everyone is really upset that there are Christians raising their children to be Christians!

I feel bad for the fans of the books because the lack of a faithful adaptation (no pun intended) It's bullshit that Hollywood feels the need to water down the source material to please people who aren't going to like it anyways. Finally, Erik, did you happen to see the final scene of that South Park episode? I think Stone and Parker made it clear they support people believing in whatever religion if it makes them happy and it doesn’t hurt others. Erik, as the mormon kid said in the end: "suck my balls"

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Sophie, I thank you for your polite tone. Yes, I've read the books, and written a magazine article about them.

Here's my main complaint. I realize the books are fiction, but as most readers of fiction are aware -- in fact, as Erik implied -- you can very easily make any statement you want about the real world in fiction. Pullman does that deliberately, by his own statement, with religion. He mixes truths with half-truths with outright lies about the church (and the common rebuttal "He doesn't say 'Christianity,' he only says 'the Magisterium'!" doesn't hold water. In the third book, he does indeed mention Christianity and Jesus by name).

If Pullman were setting up a situation in which Christianity were at least given a fair shake and allowed to be seen as it is, that would be one thing, but he doesn't. He sets up a straw man to knock down. And I think the books -- especially "The Amber Spyglass" -- suffer for it. I would go into detail but I'd better not start spouting spoilers all over the place.

Of course Pullman has the right to make any kind of statement he wants, and I'm not here to deny him his right. But by the same token, parents also have the right to decide not to take their kids to his movie.

And here's a secondary complaint. Many of Pullman's characters are just as bad as, if not worse than, the Magisterium they're fighting. (I hope I'm spelling that right; I don't have the books in front of me at the moment.) Lord Asriel -- I'm going to HAVE to use a spoiler here, sorry -- hates the church for killing children, so he fights it by -- killing children?? Pullman's great God-fighting hero is a fraud, a child-murderer, and a hypocrite, and he's never called on it. I wish someone would explain that one to me, because I can't make sense of it.

One more thing. What I was writing about before was not actually the films, but Erik's contention that those who wouldn't take their kids to see them were shielding them from "the world." My argument, Mike, was not that Christians have a monopoly on charity. It was that there are different ways to learn about "the world" besides going to a particular film, and many Christians choose to teach their kids in those ways, and so such a characterization was not fair to them.

And as for Noah's Ark, not choosing to see a particular fantasy film doesn't necessarily eliminate all belief in the supernatural.

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First you say that it would be great... "if people stopped bitching about The Golden Compass and, instead, waited to go see the actual movie," and then proceed to complain about Christians being against the movie. What do you want? More "bitching" or less?

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Everyone seems to get rude and angry that anyone would oppose this movie!
Sure you can say it's a free market, but don't act like the parents are retarded for wanting to protect their children and the beliefs of the family.
If you knew a thing about the Christian religion, you'd understand why a parent wouldn't want their child that they love so much to stray from believing.
The author of the books said in a 2003 interview said, "my books are about killing GOD".
I've seen the ads all over cartoon network probably 50 times at least today. This movie is aim directly at children so for anyone to say it is not is blind. Then I turn on my xbox and there is another "Golden Compass" advertisement. A majority of the online community on xbox live is under the age of 18.
Also, Nicole Kidman is starring in this movie and is a very committed Christian. The movie was 'watered down' and had most of the anti-christian parts removed so it is not the movie itself that parents are entirely worried about.
Christian in parents are mostly worried about the fact that if their children enjoy the movie - they may want to read the books... just like the Harry Potter series.
Then they would be exposed to the anti-religion and anti-church theme.
I mean in the third book, they do "kill GOD".
So for anyone to say that Christians are over reacting... you should really try to put yourself in their shoes.

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well, I was raised in a Christian household and dated a born again Christian girl for 8 years. I know far too much about Christians. I also attended a Catholic High School - Jesuit. Funny thing, the Jesuits wouldn't bat an eye at a movie or book where someone kills god. but then again, the Jesuits of the 20th Century are educated; they're not threatened by concepts, ideas, or anything that runs counter to their religion. They would look at Pullman's ideas and see what he was attempting to say.

They didn't kill the Christian ideal of a god in Amber Spyglass. Not even close. The characters killed off an old, feeble being who had designed a universe he couldn't control. The god of Pullman's book is an interpretation of what a god could be; just as most Christians carry a concept of a god that's involved, loving, paternalistic and listens. Do you see how Pullman's book should not be a threat to any person who has faith in their god? There's nothing similar about the two ideas of god. And they're both ideas - ideas aren't bad or dangerous.

The Golden Compas also has action ads running in constant rotation on ESPN and during football games. The ads emphasize the bears, the swords/guns and fight sequences, totally ignoring the main character. So does this mean the movie is aimed at middle aged men who like things that go boom? No. The advertising on those channels is directed to attract the audience demo common to that channel. Good grief, stop thinking there are black helicopters after Christians. Uh-oh, my wife has animal planet on and she just saw a Golden Compass ad with a focus on the bears!

Your argument totally flies out the window with your 1980s view of video games. Newsflash, video game systems and games are purchased by adults. Yeah, welcome to 2007. Xbox 360 is marketed to adults. If you want the full history, you gotta go back to the PSX (original playstation). Sony bucked the trends of the 90s by aiming their game system at adult (people with money). They stormed the market but actually only expanded it as Nintendo and Sega were focused on children and teens. By the release of the PS2 gaming had grown to over a 10 billion a year industry and it was all thanks to Sony's decision to target a market that was untapped - adults. Microsoft saw this and moved in with the Xbox. Today the Xbox 360 and PS3 are stills squarely aimed at adults - the people with discretionary funds - while the Wii has broadened Nintendo's reach into all age groups (much to their delight). Gaming is not for children and to indicate so is ignorant beyond belief.

Finally, any parent that is worried about their child reading books needs a massive slap in the head. Parents should read the book and let their kids read it too, ideally opening a dialog about ideas/concepts presented in Pullman's silly series. Good parents want their kids to question, wonder, challenge because that creates critically thinking adults. The Jesuits at my high school spent an entire semester on eastern religions - we read important Taoist, Buddist, Hindu and Islamic works. Another semester focused on the Torah. It was a catholic high school but Jesuits believe that it's of utmost important to create critical thinkers. Critical thinkers are problem solvers; nobody has ever sad they learned something or had a conversation that presented new ideas.

I feel sorry for any child raised in a household that doesn't allow for discussion of new/differing ideas...

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No, you missed my whole point. Please go read what I wrote before again and then this.

A parent should be concerned about what their children are reading. I personally don't believe that the movie itself would cause any confusion to a child since most of the religious undertones were removed, but reading these books where any god is killed, (regardless to which god it is) and children are being sacrificed into the sky may not be the best reading material for a child. The book has several church bashing parts (regardless to which church), and as Gina mentioned - in the third book both Jesus and Christianity is mentioned. So yes, a religious parent might raise an eyebrow.

Did I say all books were bad? No. So how you could even come up with that statement blows my mind. That was completely twisted from what I had said. You're basically implying that it is alright for children to read ANY book then. Personally, I hope my kids one day will read Dr. Seuss instead of the Anarchy Cookbook. So any parent that is worried about their child reading books does not need a massive slap in the head. They should be worried about potentially confusing, and maybe even harmful books. It very well could make a child question life itself, which at that age can be very, very confusing. A parent NEEDS to be informed with what their children are reading, listening to, watching and looking up on the Internet.

Parents are just trying to protect their children. I don't see why that's so bad. Today I see so many spoiled, rude and disrespectful children. Why? Because in short - parents don't "have the time" or really want to take the time. They instead turn on the TV, buy them a laptop and let them be as long as they are quiet. And what is the result?

So yes, I applaud all those concerned parents. At least it shows that they care.

And wow, oh my gosh - you say my argument totally flies out the window about video games? All I simply said was a majority of the xbox online community are kids under 18... which it is. And let me clearify that I'm not saying adults don't play video games (adults are 80% of my friends list) before you go and say that that's what I'm implying. But believe me sir, I know all too well about video games considering I am a 19 year old gamer. Maybe the Xbox 360 was aimed for adults at some level, but I play it almost daily and I can tell you who the majority of the online community is. Yes, of course the consoles are purchased by adults... obviously, but they are purchased by adults for their children quiet often. I work in a game store and parents come in there all the time to buy for their kids, especialy now for the holiday season. So don't you dare call me ignorant. I play with 12 year olds constantly on the 360. Have you seen Viva Pinata? Please tell me that game was not intended for 40 year old's to play (if it was, what is the world coming to). The Xbox 360 is a very versatile console. It was made for ALL ages to be able to play regardless - hence the family settings, E rated video games and the option to download episodes of Sponge Bob and other cartoons onto the hard drive. So yeah - welcome to 2007 where hundreds of thousands kids play video games.

Overall, no matter what console it is - unless the child has a large source of cash flow - they are not going to be able to buy any console out there today. The Wii, which as you say is broadened the reach for all age groups, with its price tag (even though much lower than the other competitors)cannot really be bought by anyone that doesn't have a job ;yet the games pretty much speak for themselves. I'd say generally most of the Wii games were made for children.

So for you to one second say that the Wii has "broadened Nintendo's reach into all age groups" then turn around to say that gaming is not for children is a bit... confusing to say the least. You try come off as so informed about video games, but it only made me laugh.

The fact that the trailer is shown on ESPN doesn't prove much. Adults will see the trailer and think, "I'll take my kids to go see that". It's obviously coming off as a "family movie". How many single couples do you think are going to really buy tickets for it?

And for the record, I agree with you completely on the subject of children being challenged! Children should be open to all options and be let them be aware of other idea's and religions... but maybe not expose them to something that would question their faith when they are 10. That is a decision that will completely impact the rest of their life. Everyone can and should make that decision when they are older - when its the proper age to; so that they can fully understand it entirely.

It's common knowledge that children are heavily effected by the media. Children are SO impressionable when they are young. So I completely understand where a parent would be coming from if they thought this movie might be inappropriate. By no means am I saying that the movie should be removed from theater or that Pullman had no right to write these books because he has every right to. But I am saying that a parent has the right to be concerned about what their children are reading and watching without being criticized.

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