The movie had a treasure trove of information to work from. I had been wondering how they were going to convey the subtleties that I enjoyed so much in the book on film because I felt like they were nuances that would be hard to portray. In my opinion, in more instances than not, this proved true. Now, I'm a skeptic when it comes to translating lit. to film. In most instances, I feel like the genres cross over with little positive outcome, though there are some examples otherwise.

Here are the things I enjoyed: The visuals were wonderful, albeit Lyra's world was quite a bit more tech-savvy than I had imagined while reading. I thought that the animation of the daemons and polar bears turned out great, and I enjoyed the little touches they added to the daemons. I loved the casting, and thought that Dakota Blue Richards did a great job portraying Lyra's rebellious spirit, Nicole Kidman was wonderful, and Daniel Craig was as well, though he didn't get nearly enough screen time. I honestly don't remember much of the soundtrack, which either means that it wasn't distracting me, a good thing, or that it wasn't memorable. I'm planning to listen to it online later and decide what I think of it.

Here are the things I did not enjoy: The film was incredibly rushed. It was short, clocking in just at 2 hours by my watch, and it could have used a good 30 more minutes of pacing and development scenes added in. This may be a point that someone who hasn't read the books would disagree with; maybe the pacing would be wonderfully quick-paced and lack any unnecessary dawdling to a nonreader? But to me, there were so many key points in the books, moments that stood out to me as important (one early moment that comes to mind and would have offered wonderful foreshadowing is a conversation early on in Book 1 about Lyra's prophesied betrayal) that weren't even mentioned. Add to the 150 mph pacing the fact that the actual plotting of the action of the book was altered (for what reason, I still haven't figured out, as I can think of nothing positive that it added), and I feel like the character's actions in the movie were made to be illogical. And, my final verdict on ending the movie early and leaving the final three chapters to Movie #2: shouldn't have done it. The movie ends on a positive note, but also doesn't make you at all excited about what's to come. Not enough time has been spent developing the weight of the battle to come, the enormity of the conflicts Lyra is racing into, nor the moral ambiguity you're left with at the end of Book 1 regarding Lyra's father. According to reports I've read, New Line chose to do this despite director Chris Weisz' urge to keep true to the book, in order to foster a more positive ending, produce a more financially profitable film, and thus stay truer to the remaining two books. We'll see.

All in all, a good film, a much better read.

having Roger's death scene definitely would create a bigger and better cliffhanger type ending, and more anticipation for the next movie, because as is the movie more or less ended on a rather ho-hum point.

Just imagine getting to see the fight among the angels and witches and everything at the end of the third book!! It'd all be worth it to see that.