What!? WHAT!?! WHERE'S THE ENDING?!?! AHHHHH!

It's like waiting with dreadful anticipation for "I am your father, Luke!" and instead they roll the credits! WHAT!?! How can they cut that out?! AHHHHH! That final event is the springboard that drives the next two books! How can you leave it out?

Michelle (who hasn't read the books and doesn't know what the fuss is about) suggested that maybe they wanted to save something for the next movie. Hmmmm. Perhaps. The next two books don't have nearly as much action. They could put it in the beginning of the next movie, but then there won't be any time for it seep in, to ferment, to leave the audience as haunted as Lyra is. Maybe it will work, but there's a large jump in context from the end of The Golden Compass to the beginning of The Subtle Knife. It's fine when you're starting a new book or new movie, but to start with a big climactic event and then jump off to tell another story, that's going to be very awkward.

In general, I thought they did very good, though they missed a few beats. I always though Lyra's world was a less technological, but hey, it looked cool. The daemons were well done. Pan was cool, and well voiced. Iorek kicked ass. Lee Scoresby was spot in. (I love Hester. She gets a bit part in the book, and an even smaller part in the movie, but she's still cool.) I thought they handled the alethiometer well. I had no idea how they would be able to convey Lyra's ability to commune with it, but the way they showed it was well done. The Gyptian king was excellent. They actually did manage to show Lyra's ability to bluster and boss the other kids around and be a little ruffian playing with the Gyptian kids.

On the other hand, the gyptians were introduced a little abruptly, though I don't know how that could have been fixed. The scene in the house by the frozen lake - I had forgotten about that. They did a good job leading up to it - showing Pan afraid. But, they should have had the audience in tears. I mean, I was almost in tears, anticipating - clutching a little bit of frozen fish to his heart, but they didn't pull it off. They should have pulled out all the stops - that should have hit you in the gut, left you in tears, but it didn't. They missed a beat there; they missed a chance.

They should have included the line about the ice bears not being able to be fooled. It would have made Lyra's story about being a daemon, and the deception during the fight between Iorek and Ragnar all the more juicy. I really didn't think they were going to show Iorek knocking Ragnar's jaw off! (Yet they skipped the ending?!?! AHHHH!) More details about Ragnar's fru-fru armor would have been fun, but I understand that they couldn't fit that in.

There wasn't any pulling by the daamons, by Pan. I wanted to see that. I also though it would be another good place to highlight the attachment between a person and their daemon.

The dying of the daemons is visually impresive, though I think it was a bit more gut wrenching in the book. Maybe that was only when there was time for it to be. It certainly made the battle more understandable. Even though the action was dark, you knew when someone was killed!

The scene where Lyra and Pan are almost cut apart was well done. THAT was emotional.

I don't remember Mrs. Coulter fighting with her daemon in the book. The way it's portrayed in the movie, I interpret as her being seriously internally conflicted, almost crazy! I don't remeber that from the book. She seems to self posessed to have that much internal turmoil.

Another small thing. As I recall, the daemons are a person's spirit, not their soul. It never was terribly clear, but in The Amber Spyglass, only the soul could go to the underworld, the spirit (the daemons) could not follow. So, your deamon is your spirit, not your soul.

Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that they ever referred to the Magesterium as the Church. Other than saying "heresy", the Magesterium and the Authority could be any kind of oppressive regime. Maybe that's how they're going to squeak by without getting Christians completely up in arms. I'm not sure how they're going to show Metatron and the other angels. Maybe they won't call them angels.

Anyway, the movie was very good but the missing ending is still freaking me out.