Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Thoughts after seeing the IMDB entry for The Golden Compass

... to be found here.

1. Good god, Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel?
2. On the other hand, his ears are nowhere as big as they used to look. Perhaps it's the beard?
3. Too bad he and Eva Green won't get it on again.
4. There aren't any publicity shots of Eva Green up on the site - I suppose she'll play a larger role in the later films of the trilogy.
5. OK, another child actress named Dakota? That's just weird. She's not young enough to have been named after Dakota Fanning, so what is up with that?
6. I happen to be in the middle of re-reading the trilogy at the moment, and I have to say that this new Dakota is not at all bad match for my mental picture of Lyra. Her hair looks appropriately messy, although I think she's supposed to be scrawnier. And what is that bright pink sweater-coat she has on? We're not in another world yet, people, calm down here.
7. I have relatively few thoughts on casting Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, partly because I find her the hardest character to get a firm grip on in terms of both physical description and personality. She's more or less only described as dark-haired, slender, and beautiful, with good fashion sense, and her character develops a fair amount, at least as far as I can remember. Well, not develops exactly, but we get some sense there's a person behind the monkey.
8. Hey, there's no golden monkey in any of those photos!
9. There are no daemons visible at all, even when characters are positioned such that it would be necessary to see them! Either they're all CGI and weren't added to the publicity stills, or they've done something funky to the concept.

6 comments:

Jane Dark said...

Check out the sizzle reel on AICN -- it made me a lot more convinced about Daniel Craig (who I was worried about, just because I really had no idea WHAT Lord Asriel ought to look like). Oh, and it has the daemons!

I fully concur with you re girls named Dakota.

kermitthefrog said...

Oh, interesting. I see what you mean about Daniel Craig. I really hope the soundtrack is better than that, though, since it was very Generic Children's Adventure Movie. Do I sound picky? I think I am being picky, and am not ashamed. :)

Anonymous said...

I think Dakota was a really popular name in the 90s. Actually, I had to know, so I looked it up...and this very interesting (but not very intuitive) site tells me there was a dramatic rise in Dakotas in the last decade. So there you have it. :)

kermitthefrog said...

I was trying to remember that exact site yesterday! I find it fun to play around on, actually. And yes, while Dakota is not quite the Madison of the 90s, it did mysteriously grow in popularity.

Jane Dark said...

I think you are DAMNED RIGHT to be picky, as generic children's soundtracks are the bane of my existence. I hope it's better than that, too.

I just looked around for a composer credit, but didn't see one -- so I'm not even sure who's doing it. Anyone you'd nominate, if you were making decisions?

kermitthefrog said...

I'm not very familiar with film composers... But I did like the music for Pan's Labyrinth, which actually won the Oscar this year for best score by Javier Navarrete (all this via IMDB, of course). It seems like he wouldn't shy away from using the music to emphasize the darker or just more serious aspects of the narrative.