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Just think, if this series had been penned some 15 years earlier, we might have already witnessed the movie - with creatures supplied by Jim Henson's Puppet Workshop. A collective shudder is in order here it seems..
As we all know, His Dark Materials has very clearly defined religious and philosophical 'beliefs' which have already caused controversy in the relatively (compared to film) small book world. Book-burners have been at it and religious groups throughout the world have condemned them as 'works of Satan'. This break into the mainstream will mean New Line are going to have a religious minefield to pick their way through and they might just find the going too tough. Will we see a compromise on some of the more controversial aspects of the series? Not to mention the difficulties involved in combining big action, heady religious messages and physics all in the context of a kid's movie - what angle will New Line Cinemas take and what audience will they aim for? The diverse fan base of HDM makes this particularly difficult.
The complexity, budget and film making prowess required to make His Dark Materials work as a movie is quite staggering, even more so than Lord of the Rings it could be ventured. We all know that if these films go right, they could quite simply be the greatest movies ever. Whether New Line Cinemas are up to the challenge, we will see.
Those two aspects mentioned there are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to HDM. On the page the author's imagination can flow freely and anything is possible. When it comes to film however, the task of making something look, act realistically and fit in to a real world is much greater. Here we shall take a look at the different approaches which could be taken for the arious elements in the His Dark Materials series.
Dæmons
Dæmons are so simple on paper, yet they represent a monumental challenge on the big screen. For
far shots and short sequences, real animals would be best here. There are mountains to overcome
though if they were to be used the whole time. Filming crowd scenes with the subsequent multitude
of creatures would be nigh on impossible, even with the best trained animals. Getting an animal
to either remain still or make eye contact is notoriously difficult and would present problems in
small, dialogue scenes.
This leads inevitably to the use of CGI. Certainly crowd scenes could be pulled off this way, but would they look realistic too close up? Shape shifting is another area which can only be done through CGI and (though tricky) shouldn't be too much of a problem for the clever boys at New Line.
No, the crunch material comes with talking. In the books (search as much as you like) there is no reference as to how the dæmons actually vocalise. Do their lips move, does the voice emanate from them...you see the problem. I for one would find the dæmon looking at someone and the voice projecting (ala Homeward Bound) quite corny and very Disney-like. Unfortunately, the lip/movement process is just as unsatisfying and it's always disturbing to see animals posturing so. But perhaps this is simply being harsh. Philip Pullman may even detail this in The Book of Dust Whatever the case, those plucky film producers have got a mammoth task ahead of them to make dæmons convincing.
Armoured Bears
There are a number of different options open here to bring our Panserbjørne to the big screen.
First we have the obligatory man in a suit, second the puppet/model - not what you may be thinking -
and third our friend CGI again.
The man in the suit could handle, with a little help from CGI, long-distance shots and scenes with a lot of bears marching about. The model would be no string puppet, but rather the incredibly detailed models which can be produced and could deal with things like hands and possibly heads too. CGI would be used for everything in-between. The remarkable success of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers means that the Panserbjørne could possibly even be totally computer generated. Certainly the climatic final fight of Iorek vs. Iofur (which in itself will probably make or break the movie) will have to be done through CGI, unless New Line find some way to get past existing bear fighting laws.
Witches, Zeppelins, Gallivespians, Mulefas..
Slightly more traditional fare here; each of these represent their own individual challenge but they are nowhere near as tough as the
previous two. The most difficult here are probably the mulefa with their unique blend of horse
and motorcycle. However, all of these are well within the usual range of top film CGI - they
could even use real zeppelins, which would be very awesome indeed. As long as they make sure to skimp the
hydrogen and use helium, that is.
The Harry Potter films are quite simply nothing more than a selection of scenes from the books brought to life. Can you think of anything new in the films that haven’t been in the books? This shall be callled the literal approach. Lord of the Rings however, is a very different beast from the books it is based upon. There have been some fairly substantial changes in the actual events (Tom Bombadil the scouring of the Shire..) and even the style is pretty altered. This shall be called the spirit approach.
When asked which is the better movie of these two, all but the most die-hard of Potter fans would go for the former. This is obviously because LotR is a far superior work of fiction and has a cut-above-the-rest production team, but also because it doesn’t try to film the books. Rather, it looks at what makes them fantastic books, thinks about it, breaks down the story into these key parts and then recreates the entire thing so that a truly great movie can emerge.
It cannot be said enough: what makes a good book does not necessarily make a good film – it rarely ever does. When producing a movie, you cannot be bound by something which has been created for an entirely different medium.
Let’s look at LotR again. Great books to be sure, but how many pages do you think the Battle of the Hornburg (Helm’s Deep) occupies in TTT? Well, it’s four. Out of a roughly 400 page book (and with a three hour movie) that would mean it would last just under, ooh, nine minutes in the finished film. What a fun movie that would be! Despite appearances, LotR (the book) isn’t about fight scenes. It never has been. Tolkein couldn’t write them very well and he had no interest in them (to be fair, probably why he couldn’t write them very well).
What makes the books great is the attention to detail, the maps, the dates, the history. It’s often been said of LotR, the world came first, the books second. Whilst it’s satisfying to immerse yourself in this rich world at your leisure with a book, few people would go to see the resultant ten-hour movie which lurched off every five minutes to tell you about how a particular plant began to grow in the Shire.
The LotR movies have been a runaway success because they are great movies, that’s easy to see. It has drawn punters in from outside the former Tolkein demographic and readership, a great feat for a fantasy series. Aside from fans of the books (and parents), Harry Potter has stuck firmly to its (admittedly massive) entrenched audience. It has no need to go outside, a huge profit base is already available there – and they wouldn’t dare to alienate the existing fanbase.
Bringing this into a more concerted focus on HDM , the appropriate thing for the producers to do (and what it is hoped New Line have already done) is sit down and think what makes the books so good? Why do we like them so much? (the second question perhaps not what the producers are thinking, but we can all hope). Here’s a suitable list:
On the face of it, all of those things could be readily translated into a great movie. The fantasy aspects would be top-notch on screen, they could get some great actors and actresses in and supply them with firm dialogue and the religion…oh dear. This could be a tricky one. It’s worth recapping what was said in the Some Thoughts section:
‘As we all know, His Dark Materials has very clearly defined religious and philosophical 'beliefs' which have already caused controversy in the relatively (compared to film) small book world. Book-burners have been hard at it and religious groups throughout the world have condemned them as 'works of Satan'. This break into the mainstream will mean New Line are going to have a religious minefield to pick their way through and they might just find the going too tough. Will we see a compromise on some of the more controversial aspects of the series? Not to mention the difficulties involved in combining big action, heady religious messages and physics all in the context of a kid's movie - what angle will NewLine Cinemas take and what audience will they aim for? The diverse fan base of HDM makes this particularly difficult.’
Once the key elements have been identified, the producers should feel free to reinterpret the story in their own way, the unique way available to film. Who cares if they decide to make Will blonde or Iorek a Scotsman? As fans, we have a pretty blinkered view of things. ‘Pullman’s work is magnificent and sacrosanct!’ we cry. ‘What on earth could you do to make it better?’ And of course, ‘If they change anything I will break Toby Emmerich’s legs!! / camp out on NewLine’s lawn!!’
In short, the producers may have to anger the Sraffies to make a great film. Sad, but true.
All the time we are imposing restrictions on the film makers, you mustn’t change this, you can’t change that. What do we really want from this project, really? Do we want a Potter-esque simple conversion of some of the books’ scenes onto screen? Or do we want a free-flowing, cinematic masterpiece that deals with profound philosophy wrapped around a great, world-spanning story? It is only right to finish with the words of Philip Pullman himself:
‘...film is not a writer's medium; at best the author of the original book will do no damage, but at worst he or she can actually spoil what might have been a good film by insisting on a too-literal interpretation of the words on the page...And there's another sobering consideration: it's not uncommon for bad books to make better films than good books.’
‘No one medium can supplant all the others: once a book has become a movie, the book doesn't become redundant; but each medium has its own strengths and weaknesses… Inevitably, film-makers for reasons of practicality are going to want to abridge the plots of the books in order to create their screenplays: and that can be hard on an author. But, whatever happens to the film, I can rest assured that the book will still be there in its entirety for people to read.’