Things like this really leave a sour taste in my mouth... what can they be so scared of... if their congregations are as strong in their faith as they say.
What do ya'll think about this....
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Christian groups are up in arms here over a new
children's film starring Nicole Kidman and based on an award-winning
novel by British author Philip Pullman, accusing it of being anti-
religious.
"The Golden Compass" which opens here Friday is the film version
of "The Northern Lights," the first book in Pullman's "Dark
Materials" fantasy trilogy aimed at teenage readers.
The books by confirmed agnostic Pullman trace the fate of a young
girl, Lyra, as she becomes drawn into an apocalyptic battle of good
against evil, meeting a host of strange characters along the way
including a polar bear, voiced in the film by Ian McKellan.
Evil in Pullman's books is represented by the church, called the
Magisterium, whose acolytes kidnap orphans across England to subject
them to horrible experiments in the frozen northern wastelands.
"The Northern Lights" won Pullman the 1995 Carnegie Medal for
children's fiction in Britain, and the final volume in his
trilogy, "The Amber Spyglass" was the first ever children's novel to
be awarded the prestigious British Whitbread Book of the Year award
in 2002.
With its 180-million-dollar big budget movie, New Line studios is
hoping to repeat the box-office success of its "Lord of the Rings"
series.
And it aims to tap into the young audiences of cinema-goers who
flocked to the five "Harry Potter" films making them big earners for
Warner Bros.
But already "The Golden Compass" is whipping up the same controversy
which saw the "Harry Potter" series based on the novels by British
author J. K Rowling, accused by some on the religious right of
promoting witchcraft.
The author's attack on organized religion has been toned down for the
film, in a bid to attract as wide as audience as possible, something
director Chris Weitz has acknowledged.
"In the books the Magisterium is a version of the Catholic Church
gone wildly astray from its roots," Weitz wrote in the British Daily
Telegraph.
But "if that's what you want in the film, you'll be disappointed," he
warned.
However, the sanitized version of Pullman's book has failed to
appease the Catholic League, which gathers some 350,000 members, and
which has already been sending out leaflets denouncing the film.
"The Catholic League wants Christians to stay away from this movie
precisely because it knows that the film is bait for the books," said
president William Donohue.
"Unsuspecting parents who take their children to see the movie may be
impelled to buy the three books as a Christmas present. And no parent
who wants to bring their children up in the faith will want any part
of these books," he added.
The League already took on the movie world in 2006 to denounce the
blockbuster "The Da Vinci Code" and its central tenant that Jesus
Christ had a child by Mary Magdalene whose descendants still survive today.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops however has been more nuanced
in its approach warning in a review of "The Golden Compass" of
its "anti-clerical subtext, standard genre occult elements, character
born out of wedlock, a whiskey-guzzling bear."
But it adds that "taken purely on its own cinematic terms, (it) can
be viewed as an exciting adventure story with a traditional struggle
between good and evil, and a generalized rejection of
authoritarianism."
"The Golden Compass" will be released in some 3,000 cinemas and only
60 have so far refused to screen it, according to the industry daily
Variety.
"It's this undisguised anti-religious theme that has numerous groups
in a lather, but perhaps more of an issue for some ... will be the
film's lack of exciting uplift and the almost unrelievedly nasty
treatment of the young characters by a host of aggressively
unpleasant elders," Variety added.
You know I think this this movies going to be really good. But one does get tired of the main stream religions rattling there sabers every time they see something that challenges there paradise. BB Andrew
Andrew07:26 PM CST