IdleRich
IdleRich
OK, so they've adapted this book into a film and changed the title in the process. When I first heard that they were going to make a film of this I was quite interested, given all the furore in the US about Harry Potter I thought that this would stir up a real hornets' nest. As far as I could work out the religious right got their knickers in a twist about Harry Potter because it featured magic (ie witchcraft), what were they going to do about a film which actually identifies the creator (God) as evil and in which the heroes actively try to kill him?
However
However
To my mind, they will indeed be castrating it if they totally change what it's about ( it's also interesting that even in that piece (from Wikipedia) they merely describe a rejection of organized religion, which to my mind is still a dilution - as far as I can remember from reading the books, they go much further than that), really what's the point of adapting a book if the film can't even touch the subject matter of the book? They want the name (and the sales of course) but they don't want the actual book. I think it's a new low in terms of the film-makers having their cake and eating it. It's also a triumph for the censorship of the religious right who have effectively managed to rip the heart out of the story without even having done anything. I think it's total cowardice and a really sorry episode all round."Several key themes of the novels, the rejection of organized religion and the abuse of power in a fictionalized Catholic Church, are to be diluted in the adaptation. Director Weitz said "in the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church gone wildly astray from its roots" but that the organization portrayed in his film would not directly match that of Pullman's books. Instead, the Magisterium will represent all dogmatic organizations. Weitz said that New Line Cinema had feared the story's anti-religious themes would make the film financially unviable in the US, and so religion and God will not be referenced directly. Attempting to reassure fans of the novels, Weitz said that religion would instead appear in euphemistic terms, yet the decision has been attacked by some fans, anti-censorship groups, and the National Secular Society (of which Pullman is an honorary associate), which said "they are taking the heart out of it, losing the point of it, castrating it", "this is part of a long-term problem over freedom of speech."