God cut from Dark Materials film
The director and screenwriter of the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is to remove references to God and the church in the movie.
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“You have to recognise that it is a challenge in the climate of Bush’s America,”
Uh, right. And the same result wouldn’t have come about if Kerry were President. Sorry, I don’t buy it. Making a movie of this series of books (I want those hours of my life back, Pullman!) would be difficult under any circumstances, and the administration in the White House would be pretty low on the list of issues. First, despite Mr. Pullman’s statements to the contrary, this series of books is a stinging attack on the Church. Mr. Pullman obviously has some issues with the Church, and wrote about it. He’s not unique in that, and I hardly think he deserves to be held up as The Neo-oppressed.
The books themselves trade heavily in Church mysticism and elements of Gaia-based religions. Guess which one is always right and ends up solving the problems in the book? Making this movie is difficult because the themes are huge (religion as a war), the characters are complex to visualize (lots of CG) and the size of the audience is inversely related to how faithful you are to the story.
So, cheers to the BBC for biting on the beginning of what is sure to be a years-long PR campaign to make “His Dark Materials” a watered-down blockbuster version of what were mediocre books.
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