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‘The Golden Compass’: Part of the Deleted Ending Appears Online

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.

‘The Golden Compass’: Part of the Deleted Ending Appears Online