what a shame.”

Then do. This article tells us nothing we didn’t already know, and what it does tell us, it says with a spin. Remain optimistic, see the movie, and don’t condemn it until you actually know what it’s like. Presumptions based on slanted journalism are completely out of place.

Back in the real world…

As I see it now, the NL sequels could go two ways. 1. The kiddies liked it, lets dumb down the next two to the same degree and we can’t miss! 2. TGC made us buckets of money, let’s say to hell with the whinging fundamentalist religeous minority, and make two films that show Hollywood can confound the critics and have some artistic integrity after all.

OK people, based on past experience, what’s the more likely?

I really wonder if any NL execs actually read HDM to the end, and thought, yes, we’re happy with showing the death of a god-figure, a war on heaven, the possibility of intimacy between children (depending how you read it), and (to many people) one hell of a downer of an ending.

They’re presumably smart enough to know what they would be getting themselves into, but you really do wonder.

An emasculated TGC may be a success, but given the poor box office of fantasy films of late (and TGC will be classed as that by many people who do not know the books) TGC may do no better. Retaining the religeous/philosophical aspects of the story may have garnered more controversy (read publicity) but we would surely have ended up with a richer, more memorable cinema experience.

As PP has said, they haven’t done anything to his books, they’re still there sitting on the shelf. Trouble is, after a film is made of a book, with good, bad or indifferent results, one’s perception of the book cannot help but be influenced by the movie. Usually not for the better.