This is a somewhat fun comparison between The Golden Compass and the Holy Bible, which, at a minimum, tries to put into perspective the anti-Golden Compass rhetoric out there ( which is even going around Mormon / LDS wards and email lists). I imagine that you could do a similar thing with the Book of Mormon — if you really wanted to (Laban anyone?).
Perhaps the idea is…THIS IS FICTION!!! Enjoy it!!! (The Golden Compass, I mean)
FWIW, my wife was 2/3 of the way through the book without even considering any parallels to religion — until she was told about them by me/the SL Trib (and she’s not a dummy…I assure you).
In my mind, this makes the protests against the movie potentially quite counter-productive for religious folk.
I was actually looking forward to the movie, as I’m irrepressibly drawn towards controversy. The reviews have been less than stellar, however, so maybe I’ll see it on a plane sometime. I’ll probably read the books eventually though.
As for protesting, I don’t care about the (anti?)religious themes. Rather, the director’s confession that he took out the religious themes from the first movie in order to have commercial success, with the idea of putting them back in for the sequels. Lame.
Whoa that last sentence was ungrammatical. : ) I meant to say “…for the sequels, is lame.”
I felt pretty stupid when I heard the whole fuss about religion and The Golden Compass– I read the whole trilogy as it came out, and didn’t figure out it was a tract for atheism– just thought it was fun.
Come to think of it, I never understood rock song lyrics when I was in high school either, till the seminary teacher explained all the bad stuff. :)
For anyone considering seeing this film, don’t bother, special effects cannot make up for bad storytelling. Save your money and see “I am Legend” or “Atonement” instead.