His Dark Materials Is Not The Golden Compass’s Follow-Up Hollywood
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Even though His Dark Materials on HBO is not a sequel to The Golden Compass from 2007, it may seem familiar to viewers of that film. It may now be decided whether or not the HBO series did a decent job adapting the original books as His Dark Materials enters its final season. HBO’s His Dark Materials continues to strive to follow Lyra’s book tale with a nearly exact reproduction, despite the fact that the book has changed since season 1 of the show. However, this might have misled readers who believed that it had already been told in The Golden Compass and who believed that His Dark Materials was a sequel.
The 2007 film The Golden Compass tells the tale of Lyra and her daemon in a fanciful setting where magical animals could communicate with and form bonds with the people who lived there. The Golden Compass featured characters like Lorde Asriel, Mrs. Coulter, and her daemon in addition to Dakota Blue Richards’ portrayal of Lyra. The films The Golden Compass and His Dark Materials are often mistaken for one another because of this.
The Golden Compass movie is based on the same books as His Dark Materials.
The His Dark Materials fantasy trilogy by Philip Pullman is adapted for television by HBO. The trilogy consisting of Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (1998) is together referred to as His Dark Materials (2000). The Golden Compass, the first novel in the His Dark Materials series, was released in North America. The Golden Compass, a film directed by Chris Weitz and starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, was a 2007 adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel His Dark Materials. The Golden Compass, directed by Weitz, only concentrated on the events in the first novel, as the title would imply.
On the other hand, HBO’s His Dark Materials series was an entirely distinct endeavour that aimed to cover the full His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. It was simpler for HBO’s His Dark Materials to cover the complete trilogy as a television programme. In actuality, the three His Dark Materials books were divided into three seasons of the HBO series His Dark Materials. The first season of His Dark Materials focused on Northern Lights/The Golden Compass; the second season’s adaptation was The Subtle Knife; and the third and current season of the show is focused on The Amber Spyglass.
The Golden Compass features Lyra carrying the golden compass while facing a massive polar bear wearing golden armour.
The $180 million budget for the film The Golden Compass was a large sum for a 2007 production. A sequel was not approved because The Golden Compass only brought in $372 million at the box office, which was less than 2.5 times the original budget. Due to this, the Golden Compass movie never received any follow-ups focusing on the remaining two books in Philip Pullman’s trilogy. Given that The Golden Compass from 2007 was the only His Dark Materials adaptation for 12 years before HBO’s His Dark Materials season 1 debuted in 2019, this explains why viewers have been confused about the two versions.
His Dark Materials on HBO does a much better job of encapsulating the spirit of the books than the 2007 The Golden Compass film did. The Golden Compass was intended to be a blockbuster, with large action sequences and a focused plot to support its $180 million budget. Because of this, parts of The Golden Compass, like the discussion of religion in His Dark Materials, were eliminated. The only season of His Dark Materials that can be directly compared to The Golden Compass is season 1, although overall, the HBO series starring Dafne Keen did a superior job of interpreting Lyra’s story.
HBO airs brand-new episodes of His Dark Materials season 3 every Monday.