Catholic League attacks film version of "The Golden Compass"

From their press release:


“THE GOLDEN COMPASS” SPARKS PROTEST


Catholic League president Bill Donohue discussed the league’s reaction to the upcoming movie, “The Golden Compass”:

“New Line Cinema and Scholastic Entertainment have paired to produce ‘The Golden Compass,’ a children’s fantasy that is based on the first book of a trilogy by militant English atheist Philip Pullman. The trilogy, His Dark Materials, was written to promote atheism and denigrate Christianity, especially Roman Catholicism. The target audience is children and adolescents. Each book becomes progressively more aggressive in its denigration of Christianity and promotion of atheism: The Subtle Knife is more provocative than The Golden Compass and The Amber Spyglass is the most in-your-face assault on Christian sensibilities of the three volumes.

“Atheism for kids. That is what Philip Pullman sells. It is his hope that ‘The Golden Compass,’ which stars Nicole Kidman and opens December 7, will entice parents to buy his trilogy as a Christmas gift. It is our hope that the film fails to meet box office expectations and that his books attract few buyers. We are doing much more than hoping—we are conducting a nationwide two-month protest of Pullman’s work and the film. To that end, we have prepared a booklet, ‘The Golden Compass: Agenda Unmasked,’ that tears the mask off the movie.

<snip>

http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1342

What next, burning at the stake?

Book burning comes first. Then the Inquisition. THEN burning at the stake.

Honestly, everyone's in such a hurry to get to the good part, these days!

or a heretic bound upon a pile of burning faggots.:sarcasm: for those who don't understand the play on words.

Now what?

:rofl:

Kinda like putting places "off limits" for GI's.

I hadn't planned on going to see this one (I started to read the first book for grad school but never finished it), but if the CL is protesting against it, you can bet my ass will be there.

Any movie that upsets the catholic bible-thumpers is ok with me :-)

:woohoo:

Like the Blue Goose in Balboa Panama. :evilgrin:

The locals had armed guards to keep out the Shore Patrol.

Bill Donohoe is fascist who just needs to STFU!

The first book/film is set in an alternate universe. It escapes most criticism by positing its antagonist religion as being like nothing on earth. But in the second book it shifts to our universe and our earth and casts the Church as the antagonist. And in the third book... well the hero kills god as an act of mercy. Yeah... they are gonna go ape over this series.

If so, they're quite right that it's hostile to Christianity. It's also a really good book, although frankly I'll be surprised if the film is any good.

...The Golden Compass, while the UK one is called Northern Lights. Golden Compass sits better with the titles of the other two books (Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass), in my opinion.

I loved the Dark Materials trilogy. Some of the best fantasy written in recent memory. Trust the Catholic League to make a fool of itself once again.

trilogy and it's more than hostile to Christianity- it's a body blow. Pullman is a brilliant guy- Oxford prof, and won the Whitbread for the trilogy.

Assholes.

"Golden Compass" is one of my all time favorite books--we even named our doggie after the main character :)

They detested the books, which are by the way, nothing short of remarkable. They're beautifully written and contain extraordinary idea. There's a reason Pullman won the prestigious Whitbread prize for the trilogy.

In the final book, The Amber spyglass, God is killed, millions of souls are released from a sort of Bardo state to join the energy of the Universe, and the hero and heroine, 15 and 13 respectively, make love.

The movie will undoubtedly be dumbed down, but they know that the books contain some riveting and dangerous ideas.

I highly recommend reading them.

Which is why it's so good :)

Might be my favorite trilogy ever, even.

these books. I got "The Golden Compass" to read to my son when he was about 8, and it drove us crazy how long it took for Pullman to write the subsequent two volumes.

It's actually one of my favorite works of fiction- and boy have I read widely.

If I read it, it *has* to been very good.

I think a great way to introduce this book is to read Paradise Lost before and THEN read Golden Compass.

After reading the first volume, I went back and reread Paradise Lost, and then read it again after finishing the last volume.

had never heard of, that I now will order from NetFlix when it's availbable.

The film will have to cut a lot of the heart out of them. (but you're right that they're stupid)

n/t

YEARS.
One of the reasons I picked 'em up! :)

You know, if you had kept your mouth shut, no one would have ever known except a few atheists. :)

I didn't even know this movie was coming out. Now I'll be there on opening weekend.

Thanks, Catholic League!! You always point me in the direction of great films!

Just thought I would point that out.

a representative of catholics/christians/whatever at large. If "good catholics" or others don't like that that approach is so successful, perhaps they should stop disowning him- or rather, trying to- and start actually doing something to make him shut his piehole.

The efforts toward that last aren't all that visible.

But like so many things, actually shutting someone down enters a harder degree of difficulty, especially in terms of speech.

He sure does show a lot of bigotry against atheists in his statements.

to insure its success

Bill Donohue is protecting his job..selfish bastid he is...

Anything that Donohue hates, I know that I'll love. Will be ordering these books from Amazon today. Thanks for the suggestion, you Xtian asshole.

Atheists, such as myself, have had it with the Xtian stranglehold on our species. It's high time for a social evolution, of which religion I hope will be "selected out" of existence.

J

are popping open champagne. Not only is a protest/boycott a wonderful way to bring in viewers who don't like Donohue, it's also a great free publicity event. The more he stomps his feet and whines, the more exposure for the film. Which, by the way, looks spectacular -- of course, I say that about anything with Daniel Craig (I-Candy).

But I tell you this, if I were, I would be screaming bloody murder about this ass wipe representing me in the national media...