Many fans of Philip Pullman’s books were annoyed upon watching New Line’s film of The Golden Compass that the movie ended on an upbeat, sequel-ready note, with Lyra and Roger imagining the great adventures lying before them. This seemed like a betrayal of the book’s spirit, since the novel ends (spoiler!) with an unwitting Lyra bringing Roger to her father, Lord Asriel, who kills the boy in order to open a door to another world. Those fans should take a look at this scene of Lyra and Roger arriving at Asriel’s, which appears in the Golden Compass video game — the makers of which, apparently, didn’t get the memo in time about the movie’s foreshortened ending. Seeing this scene makes us glad that the movie bowdlerized the book’s conclusion; given the wooden line readings and Daniel Craig’s un-Asrielian tenderness toward Lyra, it’s apparent it would have been as ham-handed and lame a treatment of the book as the rest of the movie was.
