Movie and Television Reviews

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The large computer generated battle in the trailer portends Lord of the Rings derivative cliche', but The Golden Compass looks fantastic and could very well be a great movie.

Like TGC, The Chronicles of Narnia climaxes in one of those CG showcases. In addition, both movies have child leads, are set in a fantastic alternate reality that snuggles against our own, and are based on a children's book series that allegorizes an ultimate philosophy (Christianity for TCON and atheism for TGC). The producers of TGC hope that their movie mirrors TCON in another way: TCON pulled in an unGodly amount of money. At least part of TCON's success had to do with churches and peripherally pro-Christian institutions (talk radio) encouraging its members to view the movie. Parents entered the movie confident that they'd get two hours of "positive values."

How will TGC' underlying anti-religion affect it's box office? Most people either won't know about it or won't care, but the controversy will have a negative effect on ticket sales.

First, non-nominal believers won't take their children to see the movie. From what I've heard, the film-makers snipped TGC's overt anti-religious bits (offended tens upon tens of American atheists) For many religious people, however, the film's mere association with the source material is enough to sway their ticket-purchasing decision. Religious parents don't want their kids coming home from the movie and asking them for the box set of Phillip Pullman's “His Dark Materials” series.

Can secularists overcome the loss of religious Americans? Unlikely. All declared secular people, atheist and agnostic, in the United States number 20,000,000 (about eight per cent). Atheists also tend to lack much TGC's target demographic, children.

Finally, for those secularists that do have children, I don't see them using TGC as a teaching moment like Christians did with TCON. I'm inclined to think that most secular parents would feel something inherently wrong in explicitly teaching their six-year-old the dispiriting lesson that life is metaphysically worthless.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Widescreen Edition)

The Chronicles of Narnia Boxed Set

His Dark Materials Trilogy (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) (His Dark Materials) by Philip Pullman