The Golden Compass (Blu-ray) ---- 4/29/08
 

Just got my screener copy of The Golden Compass....

http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2084/goldenhr0.jpg

Includes slipcover (first for Newline!). Really nice, shiny gold slip cover. All special features are in HD (on disc 2), and includes visual commentary (I assume Profile 1.1/2.0 only but have yet to watch it).

If anyone is interested I will post impressions of it or post a link to my review which should be coming on Saturday (if the mods allow it of course). I plan on watching this baby tonight!

This would be a definite purchase for me if it included the rumored original cut. As is, I'm going to, try, to hold off until a future release as it really plays like an incomplete and rushed version.

Glad I ordered through columbia house during the big sale. Got 4 free criterions with it too. Looks very nice.

Hairspray had a slipcover, Gizmo. Did you skip that one? :)

Oops, it did! It was more clear though, like Transformers, right?

Yeah, much of it was clear, with a different image over the cover (kind of like the Swimming with Sharks SE DVD).

Wow! This movie was awesome! I hope we get the sequels...

As per PQ wise...pretty damn good.

Hopefully now we'll be able to see all those Oscar winning special effects hiding behind the SFX that were visible in the theater.

"Now you, too, can own the movie that helped to bring the end of a major motion picture studio!"

:lol:

Heaven's Gate on Blu-ray? ;)

:lol:

Yeah, bummer the sequel will never get made (slim chance). Apparently the second book is much better.

I may blind buy this one, not sure yet. I do hope that we'll start getting New Line catalog titles soon. 1 title every 2 months just isn't cutting it.

As I said in another thread for this title in DVD Talk, this film made quite a chunk of change abroad and no one should write off a sequel until they see how much money it makes on home video. Personally I like the first book the best, but I'd certainly like to see the whole His Dark Materials trilogy made especially considering how much of a cliffhanger they left this first movie with...

I'm gonna DL the audio books later...really enjoyed the film.
Tough film to review though.

While I disagree with you about the movie — I liked it and you hated it — I will agree with you that giving it the special effects Oscar was absurd. But, then, Oscars have long been rather random at times and I pay them little attention.

Nevertheless, I have had The Golden Compass - BD pre-ordered since February, not that I can watch it since I don't have a player yet.

So, please don't rain on the parade of those (few?) of us who actually enjoyed the movie. I try to refrain from commenting on the movies that others, including you, hyperventilate about but don't interest me. Though I freely admit that I am the antithesis of a cinephile.

And as many have pointed out in other threads...

...New Line/Warners saw virtually NONE of that overseas money, due to selling off the foreign rights.

Unless they can cut a new deal for the sequels, they'll probably never get made.

I bought a Blu-Ray player for the first time two weeks ago because of this film. Seriously. I can't wait to see it in BD. Waiting for it to come out, I've purchased about 25 highly PQ rated films. So I'm very very happy with this investment.

I purposefully did not engage in a discussion of the quality of the film as a whole, but I'm still ticked about Transformers losing that VFX Oscar.

So did they give away those foreign rights? That's the only way they would have seen "virtually none" of that money.

They obviously made some money from those rights, even if they vastly undersold them. And now that the film has grossed more than $370 million worldwide don't you think they'd keep the foreign rights for the second and third films (I assume those haven't already been sold off)? And of course money hasn't even started coming in from DVD sales. And there's money from VOD, pay channels, eventually cable and network TV etc.

And now that there's a built in audience that will want to see the sequels I expect they will make more than the first film, particularly if they can improve on them (which should certainly be possible as the first was, as almost anyone will attest, even those of us who liked it more than disliked it, far from as great as it could have been).

It seems to me that the Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass have a great potential to be goldmines and they'd be nuts not to make them.

Agree. They just need to try and figure out how to market the other two films in America to avoid any further religious backlash. And cater to more of a family market. Newline definitely dropped the ball on this one. Big time.

I still have no clue how they're going to get around this problem; religion is a huge theme of the series and nearly impossible to work around without seriously altering the intent of the story.

I'm all in for this release, though. Glad to hear it looks good in HD.

Guess I'll just have to boycott this release... :)

Oscar has a history of giving this award to the best movie of the nominees, rather than the one that actually had the best effects. If going by that standard, they gave the award to the right picture. :)

They already sold them off - the foreign deal covered the two potential sequels as well. That's why I suggested Warners needed to cut a new deal. Something they MAY be able to do if they can say that the former deal is no longer valid (since, essentially New Line no longer exists).

By that measure, the pickings were pretty slim in this category. As poor a movie as Transformers is, I would probably still put it ahead of Golden Compass by some small margin. (The Pirates movie was just unwatchable.)

I don't doubt you but I've been looking around and I can't confirm what you said. Do you have a source? I found this:

http://www.bridgetothestars.net/news...omment-page-2/

So if New Line was covered for 70%-80% of the budget, they will make money on the film even without foreign profits. And if the foreign payments to them covered 60% of the budget, does the deal you are talking about mean that New Line/Warner would get nothing up front to finance the second and third films or is up front money for those also part of the deal? It makes no sense that New Line would take the up front money for the first film but have to totally finance the sequels while still having no foreign box office rights. I would think that if there is a deal that covers all three films that the same foreign investors would have the same funding deals for the production of the other two films.

But I don't know what the deal is so could you please provide a link which explains it?

Can't wait until next Tuesday when CH ships out my copy of this and my free copy of Beowulf HD-DVD. I never had the chance to see it in the theater but it seems like the majority enjoyed it.

I tried to read your post three times, but each time my vision got blurry and I doubled over in pain. ;)

Seriously though, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.

....Anyway, the movie looks amazing. No grain and very clear scenes. Love those Ice Bears!

No grain, but also little detail. New Line hit this one with DNR.

The bears were by far the worst part of the movie. They looked on the level of those old Coke commercials, and the big stupid cartoon bear fight just went on forever.

And what did they do to Ian McKellan's voice to make him sound exactly like Patrick Stewart? :)

I have heard others mention DNR...but it seemed ok to me :shrug:

The Ice Bear fight was like 2 minutes! A freaking cool the entire time.

Agree to disagree. When a supposedly 'live action' movie has all of the live actors step out of the frame to watch cartoon characters fight each other in a completely animated environment for what feels like hours, I'm overwhelmed by the feeling of, "Who the hell cares?"

It reminded me of the Gungans vs. Droids battle at the end of The Phantom Menace. Blech.

Well, if you think Transformers and/or At World's End (two movies I could barely SIT through) were more entertaining than The Golden Compass, that's your perogative. I obviously disagree. :)

Here's a recent Variety article that mentions the sequel deal with foreign distributors and the problem it poses for Warners:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...ompass+sequels

Thanks. Interesting that this deal was not made just for the Pullman films but for many New Line films.

They made what turned out to be a bad deal for them. I hope they make the sequels which can still make them money although not nearly as much as they could have made.

It occurs to me that Warner has some leverage here. It looks like it's up to them whether the films get made at all. Since the films would obviously be very profitable for the foreign distributors, Warner could say, look, if you want these films made let's make a new deal that would be good for all of us. Otherwise we won't make the films and you'll get nothing.

i thought the same thing. heh.

anyway the 7.1 soundtrack was amazing.

although the music may have been a bit too overbearing/loud.

anyone think all the foreign accents may have hurt the box office in the states?

You mean like the accents hurt the box office of the Harry Potter movies in the USA?

It was much discussed in the thread in the Movies forum, but I think the main problem was that the Pullman's "His Dark Materials" books are little known or read in the US so there wasn't a large built-in base of fans. Others will say that the movie wasn't very good so it had poor word-of-mouth. And still others will say that the religious boycott had an impact.

Take your pick.

i thought of harry potter, just thought i'd toss it out there.
didn't expect it to hold much water.

Between Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia, audiences have pretty much come to expect British accents in their fantasy epics.