God "cut out" of adaption

[El Capitano Gatisto]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl...1393306,00.html

If you can't be arsed reading the article, basically all references to the Church or God are being excised from the film adaption of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy for marketing reasons.

New Line Cinema are concerned that the book's storyline, which involves a corrupt and brutal Church in an alternate version of earth and a revolution against God, will piss off religious nutcases all over the USA and thus hurt the film's money-making potential.

Balls, I say. This trilogy is fantastic, mainly because it's a kid's book which deals with such lofty concepts without dumbing them down. I read all 3 books as they came out when I was growing up, and they blew me away like no other novels have, really.

I'm all for attempts at screen adaptions and a little licence with the storyline, but frankly succumbing to the mere idea of pressure from religious shitheads disgusts me.

Thing is, they probably have a point in terms of the criticism it may garner, considering what the fundamentalists have said about Harry Potter, despite it being quite a tame and childish book, whilst "His Dark Materials" books are genuinely robust in criticism of organised religion.

It's a pity then that such a wonderful comment on religious oppression has ultimately been neutered before it can be delivered to an even wider international audience.

I can literally pinpoint these books as something which opened my mind that bit wider and got me thinking about concepts of existence and religion, more than anything else. It'll be such a pity if this ends up fucked up, because all those morons who hail the Matrix's sloppy and pitiful attempts at religious symbolism would have their mind's blown by this work.