Last weekend we saw The Golden Compass with V&R. It was good to see the realization of the book details on the big screen. The characters were nicely portrayed, but the story was not told as well. My most obvious complaint was the missing last chapter, but there were other details that I was looking forward to seeing, such as the chase scenes with Lyra meeting a nice stranger, and stealing a boat from the gypsies. I missed most the sordid demonstration of that Grumman guy's head in a block of ice, since I was rather curious about it when I read the book. I liked the book so much that I felt that the storytelling in the movie was rather choppy and sloppy. They left out a lot of good stuff. They should have some sort of narration to transition between scenes better. The fighting scenes were rather kewl, and the shots of the panserborne bears were great (although I thought Iorek could have run faster in the external crosscountry shots). I enjoyed the vibration force of the bear...