The Golden Compass

[milosh]

I saw the movie, and frankly I thought it sucked. I happen to be a Christian(though not part of any organized structure) and I didn't find it at all offensive... it just sucked. If it was attacking anything it was Catholicism. By the way... let's pigeon hole everyone based on a word they define themselves by! Atheists go in the "Mommy didn't love me and tricked me about Santa Claus. Man can know everything through science even though time and time again we find we're drastically incorrect!" pigeon hole, Agnostics go in the "Uhhh... the beginning of the universe? I'm just waiting for Saturday so I can get drunk." pigeon hole, and Christians go in the "Support the Republic party! Let the priests rape my children while I shake on the floor and speak in tongues! Let's secretly hide all kinds of conspiracies about History!" pigeon hole. I know this is true because I've met all three of these people! Let's not make sweeping generalizations.

[Shia' Tan]

I read the books (His Dark Materials) and they are very, very good, very well written and engaging. The first time i read them (several years ago) i noticed nothing anti-religios. I just recently re-read them, this time paying more attention to the deeper themes. There is definatly an anti-organized religion them underlying the books (mostly the 3rd book), but its not blatant and dosnt try to convince you of anything. Mostly its just an exelent story, and it really didnt offend me (I am christian also).

 

So @ X-terania,

 

Read them, they are exelent

 

I havnt seen the movie yet, but i really want to

[all_shall_perish]

I also just completed reading the trilogy and was very impressed with all three books. Now that I've read through the whole thing I think the critics are really missing the point. The books, if they preach anything at all, are really driving towards the idea of free thought and free will. Now, that's not to say that these books don't contain some harsh criticisms themselves pertaining to religion, but it's mostly against the sort of churches that would advise against say...you reading a set of books because they viewed them to be heresy.

 

As some previous members have stated, I am well aware that all Christians/Catholics, or anyone else claiming to be part of some form of organized religion, do not fit the psycho critic oh-my-god-this-is-evil-burn-it nut jobs description.

 

It was also said previously that children are more than willing to absorb knowledge without second thought at young ages merely because an adult, or in this case a book, said so. The target audience of the book appears to be teenagers/young adults so I think that whole "propaganda" factor of the books loses its potency when you actually look at the age group that should be reading the books.

 

All in all I don't think the movie did that much justice towards the first book (as usual with the whole book to movie deal though). The books however are worth reading and I don't think religious folks will find them to be outright offensive as people are making it all out to be.

Edited January 10, 2008 by all_shall_perish

[SeVeR]

I've seen it, and thought it was a really awful movie. The ending just made me want to throw up. It's like "here are the relevent plot-ties we need to add to the end of this film, so sit through it and try to feel emotional about this very touching ending". The only advertisements for this movie involved showing the armored bears, and i can see why. What else was marginally interesting?

 

Atheists go in the "Mommy didn't love me and tricked me about Santa Claus. Man can know everything through science even though time and time again we find we're drastically incorrect!"

It may be a pigeon hole, but that last part sounds like an opinion of yours. It seems you don't understand what science is. If science wasn't incorrect all of the time, then it wouldn't be science. Science is about proving it's own theories wrong in order to come to more probable conclusions. So the "even though" bit in your statement should really be an "and".... And quite frankly, it becomes a rather nice pigeon hole to be in.

 

Personally, i'm an agnostic.

[milosh]

Yes, I'm sure you can tell(or seriously hope you can tell) that each of those words were saturated in sarcasm. Personally, I'm all for science... how can anyone rationally not be? What I'm against is people who listen to "the experts" without some further investigation and are quick to accept theories as irrefutable fact. A lot of claimed believers in science don't in reality act all that scientific about their beliefs. However, my original post wasn't an attack on any of the three groups I mentioned, but the fourth fictional group I was referencing... people who make large blanket statements.

[Aileron]

Tolkein was inspired by Old English works like Beowulf and King Arther. Aragorn was probably based upon King Arther in that he was a king returning to unite his country, wielding a sword much like Excalibur (Tolkein didn't like to use "magic equipment" as much as in modern RPGs, so the swords wielded by Aragorn and Frodo were so because they were important plot devices.) Gollum was like Grendel, a monster living in darkness with simultaneous fear and jealously of the light, which emerges to cause problems, though it doesn't quite seem fair to simply just run him through with a blade. As for the Ring itself, it was probably inspired by the opera "The Ring of Nibelblum" (not Old English, but...), which featured a ring which would give the wielder great power at the cost of eventual misfortune.

 

 

As for the boycot, society does need methods to stop radical speech from developing. Ultimately every person on Earth has an opinion, but it takes an intelligent person to state an intelligent opinion, and there needs to be a force seperating the idiot opinions from the intelligent opinions. In a Free Speech society, that force is the Freedom to Deny a Forum, or more simply put, the Freedom to Not Listen. This Freedom is as important as speech - infact it is the same, as the fault occurs when one person monopolizes all of the forums upon which speech is given.

 

Boycotting is not censoring. Infact, it is the opposite of censoring. It is the way in which the masses can make their point upon the forum masters.

 

For example, most people here would probably consider North Korea a dictatorship. As an example, PyungJung Ill has previously made a movie in that country. The movie generally sucked, but it was successfull because people had to watch the movie and couldn't boycott it. The small number of film critics in that country gave it high marks, probably because they were an arm of Pyungjung's organization, though any elitist organization has the potential to "run away" from the opinions of the masses, so it is enitrely possible for them to give the movie high marks anyway. Thus, if North Korea had any electricity, and PyungJung Ill had the free time, there would be no force stopping PyungJung Ill from creating an entire series of crappy movies.

 

Another example is those crappy cable channels that come with bundled packages. While customers have the choice of which channels they watch, they have to either buy none or pay for all of them. Thus, the channels which nobody watches have a guarenteed, defacto unboycottable, forum, and thus they are free to get crappier, and crappier, and crappier.

 

Overall, without boycotting, the media would become a group of elitist jerks, out of touch with the people they show their media to, aka "the customers", who would just generate their own opinion and between all of them, prop their opinion up with sufficient self-promotion. It actually sounds to me that we actually need more boycotting of the crap that comes out of Hollywood.

 

 

As for the Golden compass its bland, trite, and not novel. It features mostly flat charaters and done-before villians. The biggest name actress in the movie is there because she received a recommendation from people whom she recommended a few years ago, who recommended her before that in return for her recommendation for them, and so on, in a process that started sometime in the 1970s. Overall, it never was a movie worth spending two hours of your life watching to begin with. Now add that it insults a very large portion of the customer base.

 

It deserved to be boycotted. People need to learn that when people want to boycott something, its usually because its crap.

 

Anti-boycotters (people who buy a product specifically because someone told them not to) are a factor. However, their reward is crap. In this case, the reward is sitting through a crappy movie, and getting two hours older. I'd wager the population of anti-boycotters is small as humans tend to learn from their mistakes.

[all_shall_perish]

I'm not so sure that the media themselves actually boycott anything outside of not talking about something. I think the media simply reports on organizations that are claiming to be boycotting.

 

Tolkein was inspired by Old English works like Beowulf and King Arther. Aragorn was probably based upon King Arther in that he was a king returning to unite his country, wielding a sword much like Excalibur (Tolkein didn't like to use "magic equipment" as much as in modern RPGs, so the swords wielded by Aragorn and Frodo were so because they were important plot devices.) Gollum was like Grendel, a monster living in darkness with simultaneous fear and jealously of the light, which emerges to cause problems, though it doesn't quite seem fair to simply just run him through with a blade. As for the Ring itself, it was probably inspired by the opera "The Ring of Nibelblum" (not Old English, but...), which featured a ring which would give the wielder great power at the cost of eventual misfortune.

 

I'm also not sure what you're trying to achieve here. If this is in reference to previous discussion about Tolkien: Tolkien was blatantly, and admittedly, heavily influenced by Christianity. Despite his popularity, Tolkien is scorned by many authors of his type for his over use of religious topics and allegory.

 

Indeed boycotting is a form of speech as it is a form of protest. I don't think I can really agree that boycotting something implies that the item or act being boycotted is "crap" as you put it. Boycotting is typically viewed as an extreme and that is to be performed, typically, by extremist. And, typically, extremist have no idea what they are talking about.

 

Boycotting is not censoring. Infact, it is the opposite of censoring. It is the way in which the masses can make their point upon the forum masters.

 

Boycotting isn't censorship in the larger majority of instances, however in the instance of religion it is censorship. Boycotting does achieve a point, that much cannot be denied, but that point doesn't change the fact that they are telling their followers, and everyone else, that the books shouldn't be read due to their content. As a generalization, when the churches do something of this sort, the followers of those churches will heedlessly obey them, and sometimes out of fear.

 

It features mostly flat charaters and done-before villians.

Considering the trilogy was not a character study, I wouldn't expect anymore than "mostly flat characters." And if you over generalize it's very easy to label just about any sort of literature as "trite" seeing as the author was most likely influenced by previous works. Imagine that. Although it may not be entirely unique, it is still a unique and interesting take on something old. Fortunately for us, topics are not banned from being written about ever again after their original conception. Give me an audience that labels a piece of literature as non-novel and I'll tell you that audience lacks the ability to notice the important differences in the story.

Edited January 10, 2008 by all_shall_perish

[Aileron]

I think that's what's closest to the point here: I say Tolkein was influenced by Old English literature and gave examples. You say he was based in Christianity, and pointed out that a lot of people like you made that !@#$%^&*ertation.

 

Telling the same lie 1000 times doesn't make it a truth.

 

 

Okay, no literature is 100% purely made from scratch. Authors have inspiration. There are varying degrees of inspired vs. created though. The lack of total purism doesn't mean everything is at the same level.

 

 

Also, you seem to misunderstand how the Church functions. The Church is headquartered in Vatican City. If official directions are to be given, they generally come from the Vatican, and usually its the Pope or atleast a senior Cardinal who gives them. Those directions then filter down the system to the Bishops and Priests. The Church's opinion on abortion is for instance official.

 

This group is a bunch of people who happen to be Christian and just don't like the movie. I'd call it a bottom-up movement, except that's not quite true because it isn't moving up. This isn't the Church telling people what to do, because the clergy have nothing to do with it. Its a group of layman executing their right to free speech.

 

So are you arguing that members of an organized religion should be denied their right to free speech?

 

 

As for the offense, its really complicated. To an idiot, a lie told 1000 times becomes a truth. The lack of creativity in some authors has caused sort of families of bad guys, each from different works, but which are the same in essence. In this case, the family used is the "Klingon" family. Essentially all members of this family are fanatical warrior or hunter societies who confuse bullying with honor, favor melee weapons, and usually have some sort of invisibility thing. Members of this family are: From Star Trek: Klingons, Gem'Hadar, and some "H" species on Voyager I can't remember the name of, the race from the Predator movies, from Star Wars books, the Mandalorians, from Halo: Covenant Elites, from Starcraft: Protoss, from Stargate: Jaffa, the Ori's lackeys, and to a lesser extent the Wraith. There are a lot more members of the "Klingon" family, and generally the more obscure the media, the less creativity in the author, and the more the child villians fit into the family.

 

If you'll note, the more recent additions to this family are getting increasingly religious, and prone to being manipulated by either false gods or false clergy. The Golden Comp!@#$%^&* is one of the examples of the "Klingon" family moving into the fantasy genre, which has happened before but were in really obscure fantasies. The point is that the lack of creativity from the authors is causing the 1000 lies effect, where people who are really stupid view many different members of this family in many different fictional works, notice a pattern, and begin to apply that pattern to their opinions regarding the real world.

 

Essentially, the opinion the Golden Comp!@#$%^&* offers is "The Church is just like the Klingon Empire". Those of us on the other end of this debate can't really argue against that point because it is simply to stupid and illogical to attack with a logical counter-arguement. Our choices are to either say "No, we're not" 1001 times until it is reverse !@#$%^&*erted, or to dismiss the author as a non-creative idiot and ignore the work by not buying any movie tickets.

[all_shall_perish]

I think that's what's closest to the point here: I say Tolkein was influenced by Old English literature and gave examples. You say he was based in Christianity, and pointed out that a lot of people like you made that !@#$%^&*ertation.

 

I'm quite certain that he was influenced by old English literature; but he was also influenced by his God. This is so obvious that even Wikipedia makes reference to one of his quotes concerning the subject of religion in his writing:

 

Tolkien once described The Lord of the Rings to his friend, the English Jesuit Father Robert Murray, as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work, unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."

 

Also, you seem to misunderstand how the Church functions. The Church is headquartered in Vatican City. If official directions are to be given, they generally come from the Vatican, and usually its the Pope or atleast a senior Cardinal who gives them. Those directions then filter down the system to the Bishops and Priests. The Church's opinion on abortion is for instance official.

 

When I make reference to the church I mean the governing body of any organized religion. I'm not out to get any particular religion, only all of them.

 

So are you arguing that members of an organized religion should be denied their right to free speech?

 

I'm not implying that anyone should be denied their right to free speech. If the head of a church wants to stand up and say "I think these movies and books are evil and bad for children" then by all means let him do that. But they aren't just stopping at that, they are passing out propaganda and TELLING those followers that those books and movies are evil. These church followers look up to those leaders and will follow what they are being told without second guessing. These church leaders are using their position and power as leverage to brainwash the very people they lead.

 

Esentially, the opinion the Golden Comp!@#$%^&* offers is "The Church is just like the Klingon Empire".

 

I was thinking something more along the lines of Paradise Lost with a twist since that really seems to be more spot on than your random Star Trek tangent.

Edited January 11, 2008 by all_shall_perish

[Aileron]

My random Star Trek tangent was intentionally designed to point out how absurd this all is. The point is that the shear number of fictional literature out there has created certain myths about the Church. For instance, there seems to be a widespread belief that the Church censors any media they disagree with, when in reality they have neither the ability nor the inclination.

 

Back when the DeVinci Code was coming out, people were labasting the Church for censoring the movie, when we didn't! There was no proclamation from Rome branding it as evil, nor any comments from Priest how you would go to !@#$%^&* if you watched that movie, and a fewer number of protesters than were provided by Albino Society. Still, in the fictional minds of the people who read Paradise Lost too much, the Church is an organization which censors dissident opinions, so they anticipated the event and called the foul without it actually happening.

 

Its almost the same thing here. Again, the clergy simply just don't care. The Vatican probably hasn't even heard of this movie, and the local priests couldn't care less. The people running this operation have no authority at all. Additionally, the concept isn't "this movie is evil", it is more like "If this author can do nothing but insult us and our beliefs, why should we give them our money?". Again though, athiests read too much Paridise Lost, and assume that the imaginary Censor Train is coming, so they in turn assume this group as authority, backing from Rome, and is ruling their congregations with overwhelming fear as to what would happen in the afterlife.

 

The truth of the matter is that the Church just doesn't care about movies. We have enough on our plate with poverty, world hunger, and abortion that we don't care what small minds think. Nor could the Church cause a boycott if they wanted to. Priests give homelies, but the people in the parish do what they want to do regardless. The Priest can't use the "You will go to !@#$%^&* if..." line in the real world, because it is understood by all that the Priest doesn't have a phone line directly to God eany moreso than anyone else.

 

 

The overall point that the myths caused by overwhelming repe!@#$%^&*ion in fictional works are creating problems, and as an example this topic was clouded by the myth that the Church censors everything that disagrees with them. Otherwise this would have been a one-page topic. The truth is that if a movie used racial slurs, they would be boycotted by minorities; if a movie played an Albino as the main villian, they would be boycotted by the Albino Society; and if a movie insults people of faith, they get boycotted by people of faith. There aren't any secret plots and no threats with a trip to !@#$%^&*. Its just a movie insulting potential customers and being denied their money. It's that simple.

 

Without the myth the only debate would have been whether or not these people are too sensitive, at which given how this is a relatively soft boycott and that the movie sucked anyway, I'd say they weren't over-reacting.

[all_shall_perish]

I think there's a lot of truth in what you say. If you write a book or produce a movie that targets a particular class or group as some form of villain, that group is going to be upset. I also agree that the boycott in practice is nearly useless as most of their boycotts are. The last time the Catholic League protested against a movie was when the Da Vinci Code opened and that ended up being the most popular movie in 2006.

 

I believe what I'm trying to get at is that I find extreme irony in the idea that the church is saying "don't buy these books because they are heresy." Meanwhile, the books are saying "don't let forms of authority tell you what to do, figure the truth out on your own."

 

Leave it to the Catholic League to blindly epitomize this sort of thing I suppose.

[Aileron]

You just don't get it, do you?

 

The Church hasn't used the word "heretic" for two hundred years. Neither movie was branded as evil, heresy, witchcraft, etc. There is no dichotomy of mixed messages. That behavior is a myth of perception.

 

When a priest gives a homily, it is either about three topics: the gospel reading of the day, abortion, and world hunger and/or poverty. Everything else just isn't worth worrying about. Evil is a dictator robbing the people around them out of house and home. Evil is somebody applying a pickaxe to a baby's head because the mother doesn't feel like closing her legs once in a while. We don't like to confuse evil with bad movie-making.

 

 

Let me make a hypothetical example: The movie National Treasure which aired sometime around the DeVinci code featured a map in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Supposing hypothetically a movie aired this year featuring the meaning of life written on the back of the Articles of the Confederation, and then another movie a few years from now featured a lost page to the Bill of Rights, another has evidence of George Washington extorting money on the back of the Cons!@#$%^&*ution, and a bunch of other movies all under the same lines.

 

People would watch all these movies, and eventually some people who spend more time watching movies that learning history would become convinced that our historical do!@#$%^&*ents have all sorts of things hidden all over them. In a normal society, these would be a bunch of middle-aged failures living out of their parent's basement detached from each other along with the rest of the world, but thanks to the internet these people could get together, form a group, and actually start to recruit other people and form protests.

 

And eventually the Smithsonian would probably get tired to break-in attempts, protesting, and generally being considered the arm of some vast conspiracy, and they would probably start asking Hollywood to pick another theme.

 

 

Thus, try to understand the Catholic position here. We don't consider the works 'evil'. However, what we are tired of is the fact that we can't get a word in edgewise without some idiot accusing us of being the arm of some vast millenia-old conspiracy involving Templars and Freemasons and heresy and censoring and crap. We could try to tell the idiots to grow up, but they won't listen to us because they jump to ridiculous conclusions.

 

 

As for boycotts making movies more successful, I really doubt it because movie makers have more methods of self-promotion than used car makers. The only fair way to judge a movie is money in verses money out. Judging by month or year only means the movie aired in a dull year. To that end I'd expect that both the DeVinci Code and the Golden Comp!@#$%^&* were huge investments that didn't pay out that much. I wouldn't really say the boycotts were effective as much as that both sucked, no one wanted to see them, and the boycotts had no effect positive or negative.

[all_shall_perish]

The Church hasn't used the word "heretic" for two hundred years. Neither movie was branded as evil, heresy, witchcraft, etc. There is no dichotomy of mixed messages. That behavior is a myth of perception.

 

Right, and the United States hasn't been in a "war" since WWII. Just because you change the name of it doesn't mean it's not the same thing.

 

Although I follow your point, the influence of motifs and common themes throughout movies and other forms of media has a very very small affect on people's views.

 

I wouldn't really say the boycotts were effective as much as that both sucked, no one wanted to see them,

They both were pretty gross but as for no one wanting to see them; the Da Vinci Code was the most watched movie in 2006.

 

I am also aware that catholics are no longer an archaic witch burning group of people, however...

 

http://www.catholicleague.org/catalyst.php...r&read=2322

That link leads to a pamphlet against Pullmans "atheist stealth campaign" and also has some nut job in a movie yelling about how Pullman is a terrible man teaching atheism to kids (oh my!)

In reality that's just one big section of Catholic propaganda and quite frankly, !@#$%^&*.

 

This is in the Catholic League's "About Us" section:

Motivated by the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment, the Catholic League works to safeguard both the religious freedom rights and the free speech rights of Catholics whenever and wherever they are threatened.

 

Great, the Catholic League is out to prevent slander and hatred against the Catholic church and only the Catholic church in the spirit of a do!@#$%^&*ent that says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

 

That means, the government feels you have a right to practice whatever religion (or no religion for that matter) you so please.

Somehow the Catholic League finds the ability to say this do!@#$%^&*ent was the inspiration behind their existence, meanwhile, they post do!@#$%^&*ents that contain nothing less than bigotry against atheists.

 

So what's the big deal with being an atheist? The Catholic League says "Oh my goodness they are teaching atheism!" so my response is "and?"

 

Yay for hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness!

Edited January 13, 2008 by all_shall_perish