The Golden Compass

This seems to be the controversial movie of the year. I have not seen the movie but have read many reviews. It seems that you can read reviews, that based on the belief of the reviewer, can lead you to thinking the movie is just fantasy or a movie with spiritual undertones. One of the best reviews I have read comes from ASSIST News Services written by Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE.

While most commentators are focusing on the atheism and paganism in the book, the movie has been slightly toned down so that the more troubling elements are the person of the heroine herself and some of the movie’s themes. Children learn their scripts of behavior from movies and entertainment. The more intelligent the child is the more likely they will encode the behavior. The role model heroine for children in this movie is the heroine, Lyra. Lyra is immediately established as pugnacious, willful, rebellious, law-breaking, and deceitful. A witch tells Lyra that she is the fulfillment of a prophecy about a girl messiah who will overthrow authority, especially the Magisterium, a thinly cloaked reference to the Catholic Church...

Thus, the more one thinks about the world of “The Golden Compass,” the more one realizes how upside down and inside out it is. Do parents really want their children hate them, rebel against them and want to kill them?...

Finally, the world portrayed in “The Golden Compass”, the book and the movie, is a mean and vicious world. It is too violent and too cruel for children and will plant hateful scripts of behavior in the minds of susceptible youths...

There are great movies in the theater right now, like “Bella,” “August Rush” and Disney’s delightful comedy “Enchanted,” and there are great movies for rent and sale. Our suggestion is avoid “The Golden Compass” if you don’t want to turn your children into spoiled brats who want to kill their parents like Lyra.

To see the complete article in addition to these selections click on: http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07120028.htm