New Trailer on IGN confirms Ian McKellen as voice of Iorek
Posted on by Merlyn

IGN has posted a teaser of the new trailer. It confirms that Ian McKellen is now voicing Iorek, replacing Nonso Anozie, as rumours suggested. The trailer also includes new footage of Lee Scoresby, Serafina Pekkala, and the spyflies. View the teaser trailer.

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22 Responses to New Trailer on IGN confirms Ian McKellen as voice of Iorek

  1. Jay says:

    They haven’t posted the whole thing! It cuts off at :41 whether I download it or watch the embedded trailer.

  2. Ashe says:

    I think it’s only a preview of the full length trailer we’ll see tomorrow…but I could be wrong.

  3. aklebury says:

    I think it’s only a teaser, and we won’t get the full thing for another day or so

  4. Jay says:

    That’s just silly. Oh, well.:)

  5. seanie says:

    sigh… not liking the voice much…

  6. Jamie Sutherland says:

    i cant view it cos i’m at work… what’s ian mckellen’s voice like for iorek? I’m gutted that this has been confirmed. Everything’s going wrong. 🙁

  7. Roy says:

    I don’t like the voice either… Ian McKellen is awesome, but not for Iorek 🙁 I wonder if the other rumours are true. The rumour that they cut out the last part off the movie. That Lyra won’t meet Lord Asriel at the end and we won’t see the stairway. That would suck so much… I would still go and see the movie, but certainly not for 3-4 times, like I always do with great movies I’m really excited about. Please New Line, don’t ruin the greatest trilogy of all time!

  8. willi says:

    Please new line, you have to redirect this. It-s a bad, bad, bad option, that will kill this movie. A little respect for the fan, Pullman and Lyra-s world.

  9. willi says:

    I won-t see the movie if this is trueª

  10. Luis says:

    Guys, I must admit:
    McKellen is far better than what I expected. I even prefer his dub rather than Nonzo´s. But one tiny thing annoyed me GREATLY: they´ve changed Iorek in the Trolesund scene -he´s bizarre (and he was SO cute already in the previous trailers!).

    But that´s just a snippet.
    Some hours and then we´re going to see if it seems to head to disaster or not.

  11. willi says:

    It-s disaster, the trailer will look good, definetely, but they have cut the ending, no Coulter=Asriel kiss, no Roger death, no svalvard(my favourite part). One year following this production and less than 2 months before the realasing they annaunce this…I wont see this movie in theatres. Definetely

  12. herpo says:

    Guys!!Do we know for SURE they they changed the ending????The only thing we know is that a visual effects technician said that it has been significantly altered…that does not mean a thing,right?If they have just cut scenes off,then this does not affect the visula effects technicians.I personally think that they made the ending a little bit less cruel or more cinematic(having Lyra actually walk on the bridge).But there haven’t been re-shoots or something like that and if you think about it the Asriel-Coulter kiss is something heavily advertised,as well as the ending sequence.They wouldn’t cut them.After all there would not be an ending…Please if someone heard for sure that they changed the ending in that manner mentioned by will above,then please post your source,so I can see for myself.But don’t be so pesimistic..you hear of a rumor and suddenly everything is wrong.Well it isn’t,everything looks great guys!

  13. Jamie Sutherland says:

    A source? You only need to see the message Chris Weitz himself wrote on http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org (sorry to plug the rival fan site on here!! :-s)

  14. John [2] says:

    ohhhhhhhhhhh nooooooooooooooooooo

    raaaaaaaaar ioreks spposed t ahve a deep, cultured, indifferent voice …
    for some reason ian mckellen just doesnt fit, and im forever going to be reminded of magneto in xmen !!

    raaar a do not like it !! IAN MCKELLEN NEEDS TO BE LORD BOREAL DAMNIT !!
    x

  15. Blain says:

    “she’s in possession of the golden compass”… what the hell??? i mean, i expected some of the religious elements to go, but re-naming the alethometer completely is stupid! it’s the title of the book here in the US, but damn, it’s like the just don’t care about the movie at all. and mckellen is better than i expected but i wish he would actually appear in the film and not just as a voice-over.

  16. Homer says:

    Told ya so… in the comments here:
    http://www.bridgetothestars.net/news/ian-mckellen-voicing-iorek/

    That message from Chris Weitz is what’s usually referred to as ‘damage control’. The decision certainly wasn’t his. He’s not had much of a say on the film in months. Sadly I don’t think the new ending is better than the old in any way, shape or form. It just doesn’t make much sense.

    Oh well, it’s probably to late to change back now.

  17. Energy says:

    Well congratulations newline… the first trailer had me a bit worried. Then the 5 minute preview came out and it convinced me that this idea would work.

    40 seconds of this trailer and it’s already undone the 5 minutes work of the preview.

    First of the main thing… Iroek. I love Ian McKellen, but there are better parts for him in this series. The voice for Iroek was working. In this trailer it is not. The voice sounds more commanding and doesn’t feel right with the charcter.

    Secondly… and a big WHY, why use the alternate ‘she has the golden compass’??? Look a lot of your audience are going to be fans of the book, and it will just wind them up that you can’t use the real names. As soon as ifour rankinsons name changed I got worried, this take now makes me think that this film will go to the narnia route. Instead of a film that can be enjoyed by all ages we’re going to end up with a kids film. The story can be enjoyed on so many levels and it currently seems like you’re hell bent on destroying them.

    One thing I have to comend you on tho is the computer work. People dig out the old trailers and compare the scenes of the 5 min preview to the new trailer trailer (intentional).
    Here’s a comparison shot.
    http://www.lpfuse.co.uk/web_images/hdm_001.jpg (5 min preview)
    http://www.lpfuse.co.uk/web_images/hdm_002.jpg (trailer 2)
    More moody, more happening, in context with the fire behind… and deamons!

    Shame the rest of the trailer aint filling me with confidence. New Line get it fixed.

  18. trespass says:

    “Damage control” completely!!!
    I was actually thinking about the ending: where it’s revealed that Asriel is not that much one of “the good guys”, Roger being used to “open the gate”, the argument between Marisa and Asriel, the idea that Dust is actually good and that “we were still thinking the way they we’re thinking beacuse they were grown-ups(…)”, etc… I don’t know, it’s one of the most important parts in the story (if not *the most*), and it’s a hell of a twist ending, as well as lot of information to assimilate at once (“moviewise”).
    Perhaps pedestrian viewers would be put off by it, like “I spend 2 and a half hours watching this movie and it turns out Dan Craig is “evil”??!! I’ve been duped!!”. Most moviegoers seems to have a tendency to like “pure good vs. pure evil” stories (something that HDM certainly isn’t) and therefore, don’t like the ones that have “complex round morals” and stuff. And bad word of mouth can do great damage to a blockbuster.
    Ending the movie with a more “clean” cliffhanger was probably the safest way to go for NLC. We’re talking about a very complex book, which means that for it to become acessible as a vacation blockbuster, a lot has to go down. But we already knew that, didn’t we…

  19. trespass says:

    …and Malcom McDowell needs to be Lord Boreal…

  20. Debbie says:

    I’m actually really disappointed with this change of voice, the voice they had before sounded perfect, I’m a huge Ian McKellen fan but his voice just is not right for Iorek. I can understand that they wanted McKellen’s name attached to the project rather than an unknown, and I know there will probably be bit of vocal manipulation, but they will still want his voice to be recognisable and his voice is just not right, even after hearing it in the teaser. It would have been great to have McKellen on board in another role, but this is seriously disappointing.

    As for the change to the ending, Oh dear God, not again. I have just been crushed with disappointment over how another studio has butchered another beloved book (The Dark Is Rising) and now this! Why fix what isn’t broken?! The ending of Northern lights is the perfect ending for a film! I also don’t get how they can possibly just slot this onto the beginning of The Subtle Knife, with all that happens at the beginning of that book anyway, add this and there will be so much going on at the start of the movie it will leave everyone reeling and struggling to catch up! Please, please, please New Line, don’t mess this up!

  21. Luis says:

    Dung…
    It´s done. What I still hope is that New Line will have the sense to make something acceptable out of this mess. If the work is coherent -and with a decent ending- then I´ll have nothing to complain (it´s their role to think cinematographically and finnancially).

    Then, I will wait for The Subtle Knife with a certain sarcasm (Wanna see the guys get out of that tightspot!)

  22. Kinders says:

    RE: Weitz’s comment on cutting the ending:

    It would seem pretty naive to me to suggest that because the first film in a trilogy is the first film in a trilogy, it needn’t have a sensible narrative and a tidy ending.

    But Northern Lights is primarily about the Gobblers and the rescue of the children that they’ve abducted. When that’s been achieved, there is a satisfactory ending.

    The concern is entirely with the fact that TSK is going to have a really clumsy opening.