Dark materials just keep getting darker this week, as HBO released a new trailer for the upcoming second season of its Philip Pullman adaptation series, His Dark Materials. Building off footage that the show first showed off at Comic-Con, the new His Dark Materials teaser dives even deeper into the underlying “witches vs. fascists” running battle that underpins much of the show’s conflicts, showing the religious fascists of the Magisterium facing off against a mysterious coven.
Also, there are Dementors now.
Okay, okay: They’re actually called Spectres, and they’re a major, extra-spooky part of the last two-thirds of Pullman’s series of novels. In any case, in addition to these ghostly menaces, we also get to see plenty more of Dafne Keen’s Lyra and Amir Wilson’s Will—to say nothing of a very particular blade that’s destined to end up in the latter’s waiting hand.
His Dark Materials returns to HBO in November.
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Very much looking forward to seeing the rest of this story covered by people who aren’t terrified of pissing off fascists, like with the Golden Compass movie.
I’m still so sour about the movie, but this has helped a lot. At the time I hung out with a lot of terrifyingly conservative evangelicals and even *they* were miffed by the changes to the books.
There’s no love to lose between Evangelicals and the Catholic Church.It sucks, because we had the goddamn perfect Lee Scorseby in Sam Elliot, and now we’re stuck with Annoying Broadway Theatre Kid Hamilton Whatshisface.
But the Magisterium is the Catholic Church run by Evangelicals. In Lyra’s universe John Calvin became the Pope and then eliminated the rank entirely, and generally integrated Evangelical teachings into the new church’s theology.
Yes, and I was replying to the fact that, in this universe, the Evangelicals – Boze’s friends – do not like the Catholics, who were the ones who fucked with the movie.
Sam Elliott was perfect and they should have simply recast him.
Yeah, I didn’t even get most of what the movie was about – except Sam Elliott had a flying ship, which was cool and which he looked right at home at the helm of. Oh, and Ian McKellan voicing Iorek Byrnison, while looking kind of like a much bigger version of our huge, largely white, dopey male cat….Only thing the movie did better than the series was Lee Scoresby – I like Lin-Manuel Miranda, but he’s no Texan Adventurer! Is Sam Elliott really that expensive? He hadn’t even been nominated for an Oscar when the first season came out.OTOH, absolutely replace Nicole Kidman with Ruth Wilson! She at least captures the weird mix of maternal love, driving ambition and sadism that seems at the core of Mrs. Coulter’s being – Kidman was a nasty ice queen you could see coming from the horizon. For an actress best known for playing a serial killer, Wilson did a marvelous job of making Mrs. Coulter as sympathetic as she is awful.
It’s a pity that much of this series is mediocre given this opportunity to tell the story in its completion: Thorne’s scripts are repetitive and slow, McAvoy is strangely uncharismatic and overly emotive, Keen’s performance is lacking in range (that moment she discovered her relationship with Coulter was totally unconvincing) and the visuals are lacklustre. Didn’t anyone realise that Hooper’s affected, claustrophobic-thing was a poor style guide for a fantasy story? It’s not all bad: Ruth Wilson makes the most of a highly developed Coulter, Amir Wilson seemed to have nailed the character of Will in his brief appearance and Lewin Lloyd was not only fantastic as Roger but he might have been an improvement from the book.
Can’t forget the absolute godawful but oh-so-trendy casting of Lin Manuel as Scoresby. Because nothing says “Grizzled Texan” like an over-exfoliated New York theatre kid. He’s honestly the reason I stopped watching – they should’ve shoveled money at Brolin or Harrelson until they said yes.
Much wrong in the series and your take on LM-M is the cherry on top. 100% miscast.
It’s like “We get it; you wanted to lock in the oh-so-lucrative Broadsheet Theee-ate-er Columnist, and Twitterati Cultural Gatekeeper crowds – hashtaghamilton” but I’m struggling to think who would be a worse choice. Maybe James Corden?
I’m shuddering with a loud & noticeable “ugghhhh”
Hell, either Danny McBride or David Koechner woulda been better …
Dennis Quaid. Hell, I’d have taken even Randy Quaid. Matthew McConaughey. One of the Wilsons. Mike Judge.It’s like they purposely choose someone who is in every way – including geographically – away from Texas. Of course, they don’t have to be from Texas. That’s just a starting point, a logical one, but any goddamn actor. ANY. ONE.
It’s definitely a Corden-level choice. Say what you will about the movie but Sam Elliot was pretty perfectly cast, and about the only thing he has in common with Miranda is they’re both actors. Overall the casting hasn’t been great outside Coulter. I like Macavoy a lot in other stuff but even he seems miscast.
Yeah, I’m trying to think of who else is…memorable. Roger was all right, I suppose, as is Lyra. McAvoy – forgot he was in this. Coulter’s great; watching her try to teach Lyra how to use her sexuality (pre-teen sexuality, for fuck’s sake – insert your own Catholic Church joke here) was insanely creepy and dark. Also, Anne-Marie Duff is absolutely, truly wonderful as Ma Costa – the perfect foil to Coulter.But you’re right about Elliott. By the-god-who-gets-murdered, he’s was absolutely pitch perfect – Texan, grizzled, but wise and warm. And Kathy Bates as Hester was genius, too. The movie had such a perfect cast, too – Kidman’s never been more evil and manipulative. Craig as the brusque, but conflicted, Asriel was perfect too. This all really hurts. His Dark Materials is an amazing series of absolutely wonderful books, with brilliant themes and characters, and deserves so much more. For an expensive production from two of the biggest TV production companies on the planet – HBO and the BBC – that spans two continents, the series feel decidedly half-arsed. Stuntcasting an polyurethane-varnished New York Theatre kid. Lack of direction – as Andrew said, the scripts are awfully repetitive. The two or three eps I watched were basically “We have to find Roger!” over and over and over again, without anyone going anywhere.I read the books for Youth & Children’s writing at university – specifically, we were only meant to read Norther Lights (or The Golden Compass as it’s called in the US), but it was such an enchanting, gorgeous book I tracked down the other two to read. They’re not perfect – the ending is a bit wishy-washy (I was hoping they’d replace the church dogma and fear with rationality and enlightenment, not some 90s new-age spiritualism.I regret not reading them when I was in school; I remember seeing The Subtle Knife on my school library’s shelf for years, and never picking it up. But I was a boy in the Australian school system, and that had thoroughly warned me off reading anything aimed at children. Fuck you, Nick Earls, you bland-arse peddler of nutless, gutless pap, and you projector-screen dullard boy protagonists. The books deserve so much more, and so much better.
I came to them pretty late too, think the only reason I didnt bother when I was at school was some kinda immature contrarianism. A lot of people didn’t like Craig as Asriel but in retrospect its a better choice. I think my perfect casting would be Tim Dalton, but he’s probably far too old now. I heard he did play him in a stage version a couple of decades ago, that’s something I’d like to have seen. Still, there are actors with that kind of energy I’m sure, Macavoy’s X-men counterpart Michael Fassbender comes to mind. I don’t believe Macavoy as someone charismatic and calculating enough to unite a multiverse of diverse factions.My biggest worry is the fact they filmed the first two seasons back-to-back. Most TV shows improve after the first season as writers settle into the work and respond to feedback and criticism, but there’s little chance of that happening with something that was produced before the first season aired. Hopefully they at least took into account the criticism of season during the editing process, otherwise I worry this season will suffer the same problems as the first.
Same here. Even if he wasn’t so over exposed rn it’s just such dreadful casting.
The Audition room, HBO:CASTING DIRECTOR: “OK, like, wow- Mr Miranda- Lin-Manuel? Can I call you Lin-Manuel? Lin? Gosh- you know, I’ve seen Hamilton, wow, five times. I stood in line for EIGHT HOURS to get tickets the first time! And…and I can’t believe that you answered our call and said yes! Now, I know you’re just gonna nail the role, but the suits upstairs, they want to at least, y’know – I can’t believe they’re making the guy who the BEST. MUSICAL. EVAAAAAAAAA-A-A-A-A! do this, but they want us to do an audition. Just a formality.”LMM: “Look, no problem.”CD: “OK, you’re playing a guy call Lee Scoresby, he’s like a pilot or something. And…go!”LMM (perky Broadway Musical Voice): “Hello, I’m Lee Scoresby.”CD: “OK, wow, excellent. But – and sorry! Oh my god, I’m your biggest fan, can’t believe I have to do this, but Scoresby is from Texas.”LMM (perky Broadway Musical Voice again): “Hello, I’m Lee Scoresby…y’all?”CD: “OH MY GOD THAT WAS PERFECT CASE CLOSE TELL EVERYONE ELSE AUDITIONING TO GO HOME- j/k! There is no one else!”Him mugging his way through that barfight was just awful. It’s clear he’d never done any stage fighting before, and they didn’t train him, but approached it like being in the chorus line for Newsies.
The look of the movie with the feel of the show would have made a great series.Still excited for this though.
the movie really was cast perfectly, but the story lends itself to serial format. it’s a shame when it finally came around the casting isn’t great and it seems to be midbudget programming.
so… is god getting tossed into a well at the end of this or what?
Right? Are we going to do gay angels and bicycle deer and two 14 year olds having a sexual awakening on prime time? Oh and are they going to make Lord Boreal a low key pedophile like he is in the book? I’m 100% up for it but prepared to be kind of disappointed when it’s inevitably watered down.
It ends with Lee Scoresby performing a rousing major-key song-and-dance rendition of “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” from Jesus Christ Superstar, featuring an entire chorus of soulless children and tap-dancing panserbjørn.
After the first series criticism did they go into and CHI in more Daemons for the cast?