The first official picture of the actress playing Lyra in the film version of Northern Lights has been released by the film makers.
Alongside 12-year-old Dakota Blue Richards, from Sussex, is the evil Mrs Coulter played by Nicole Kidman.
Dakota won the part of Lyra after going to an open casting held in Cambridge earlier this year.
Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy of fantasy novels, said on his official Web site that Sam Elliott has been cast in The Golden Compass, the upcoming film version of the first book. "The film of The Golden Compass is progressing very well," Pullman wrote. "I spent yesterday at the studios in Shepperton [near London], meeting some of the cast, including Sam Elliott, who's playing Lee Scoresby."
Pullman added: "Sam's resemblance to the Lee in my mind is just astonishing. His Lee has all the presence, the experience, the battered integrity, the humor and the courage of the aeronaut who first walked into my story 13 years ago. I can't imagine a better cast, and the sets and costumes are just astounding."
Pullman went on to describe in detail the scene the filmmakers shot, as well as sets and soundstages. "In short, I think it's going to be—at the very least—spectacular," he said. "But there's a long way to go yet. I'll visit the set again and report on what I see."
Newcomer Dakota Blue Richards stars in The Golden Compass in the lead role of Lyra Belacqua. The New Line production is being shot in the United Kingdom, with Oscar-nominated writer/director Chris Weitz (About a Boy) at the helm.
The film of The Golden Compass is progressing very well. I spent yesterday at the studios in Shepperton, meeting some of the cast, including Sam Elliott, who's playing Lee Scoresby. Sam's resemblance to the Lee in my mind is just astonishing. His Lee has all the presence, the experience, the battered integrity, the humour, and the courage of the aeronaut who first walked into my story thirteen years ago. I can`t imagine a better cast, and the sets and costumes are just astounding. They were filming the scene where Lyra approaches Iorek Byrnison at the gyptian camp and asks him to take her to the village near the lake, because the alethiometer has told her that there`s something she needs to see there. Dakota had to speak to the empty air, because Iorek, of course, is being constructed pixel by pixel in a computer somewhere; but his voice is provided by Nonso Anozie, and a better bear you`d have to go a long way to find.
The set was constructed inside a vast sound stage, a building bigger than many aircraft hangars, and going all the way around the inside walls, from floor to distant ceiling, there was a truly enormous canvas painted with an Arctic panorama of icy mountains under a dark sky. The gyptian encampment was set up among great blocks of ice and snowdrifts - very convincing snow it was too - the tents and the firelight looking wonderfully real.
I saw the scene that had been filmed the previous day: Iorek at Trollesund charging out of the house having regained his armour, and Lyra ordering him not to kill anyone, and Lee stepping in to prevent mayhem. When you see all the several takes of the same scene, and then see many more from different angles, you really get the sense of how films are made in tiny pieces, like making each stone in a mosaic separately.
And you see how much of the work is going to be done later at the editing stage, just as it is with a novel.
Later I visited the Trollesund set. It`s unbelievably real. You`d swear these grimy battered houses had stood there for a hundred years or more; and then you walk round the back and see the raw new unpainted wood behind, the props holding it up, the weights holding it down.
And I haven't even mentioned the costumes. I can`t go on speaking in superlatives, but it all looks better than I would have thought possible.
In short, I think it`s going to be - at the very least - spectacular.
But there`s a long way to go yet. I'll visit the set again, and report on what I see.
I know that people are curious to see the stars, and especially to see Dakota. You will, but not yet. It will all be worth the wait.
And now, back to ''The Book of Dust''.
Philip Pullman
, and don't get me started on his sanctimonious sniping at Tolkien and Lewis 
- but that's not to say I won't go to see this.
(Probably not, but the thought amuses me.)
Because I think it's a simplistic judgement, that's why. You could just as easily make the Church in Pullman's trilogy represent the worst excesses of atheistic communism, and why not? If Pullman is simply using the Church in his stories as shorthand for ANY brutal tyrannous system, then fine. I guess a lot of his readers take precisely that view ... you can interpret it how you like.baby tuckoo wrote:Tell me, Pearly, what more anyone needs to know to conclude that the established Church is/was Teh Axis of EvOL? It's far from a rash conclusion drawn from air.
You mean that sex won't save the world?JewelSong wrote:By the time I got to the end of the third book, I was both bored and disgusted. Pullman had a great premise going and (IMHO) he ruined it with his own personal agendas. Not just his thing against the Church, but his idea that somehow sex would save the world. Not just sex, but supremely underage sex. He amazingly has Lyra age a few years in the third book, so it won't be too, too out there.
and have every intention of seeing the film. 
yesAlatar wrote:But how will you ever know without reading it? Strikes me as far worse than Pullmans posturing. He at least has read Tolkien and is making an informed opinion. You are dismissing his work based on his personality.
Alatar the Magnificent. 
