HIS DARK MATERIALS, SEASON THREE: THE AMBERSPYGLASS Official Thread!

Background on the special effects.

More preview info.

when does it debut? still on HBO?

There was a HDM panel at NY Comic Con and the internet has a scattering of videos from the convention. This is the largest chunk. James McAvoy has a white streak in his hair looking very Richard Maddenesque and with his hardcore Scots accent.

So they pack all the rest of the book franchise in the final season?

As a fan of the books, I have not liked the show at all. Ruth Wilson is the only reason I've kept watching.

R5 Only the original trilogy, giving each book a season.

The trailer is finally here! The season begins December 5 with two episodes a week culminating on December 26. This looks fantastic, with the potential to even out do the book as the events off page and described about Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter battling will be depicted in the series.

I don't remember the books very well, read them years ago. But I do recall I found the final ones disappointing.

I saw His Dark Materials at the National in London, must have been 15 years ago. Two parts on successive evenings which lasted 7 hours seems to me. Lyra was played by an adult actress who was the spitting image of Renee Zellwegger. The National - always woke even back then - did colorblind casting. While Lesley Manville played Mrs. Coulter (she was excellent, evil as hell), they cast David Harewood (who is a very dark-skinned black man) as Lord Asriel. So when the big plot denouement occurs that Lord Asriel isn't just the guardian but the biological father of Lyra, a muffled titter ran through the audience with some mumbling "I don't think so". Took you totally out of the play. Rank stupidity.

The Amber Spyglass was actually highly awarded, more than the first two, including not only being the Whitbread Children’s Book award winner that year, but also Book of the Year, the first time a children’s book won it.

His Dark Material is pretty much wonderful, but I didn’t much like either of the two books thus far published in the followup series.

[quote]HIS DARK MATERIALS

Hmmm, tell me more.

Why it’s been a great adaptation.

Are they doing a book a season?

Are they adding a lot of stuff - is it a good adaptation?

Yes, each season has been a different book, although they did pull Will into season one a bit to set up for season two. It’s been ver faithful, PP is an executive director. Though somehow Lee Scorsby does show up in season three, I’m guessing as a ghost???

Yeah, I liked the first or so of the third book, but the whole series wrote a ton of checks the last half of book three just couldn't cash. It really lost focus, meandered, and even major revelations (like the death of god) was just underwhelming, happening in passing, and didn't seem to matter.

It was all extremely anti-religion/anti-church, and I wonder if that's really going to translate into the final product.

I think the gay angels were really a fuck you to the church, too.

The books are viciously anti-Catholic. Good.

Full trailer and poster released.

Just finished season one in preparation to watch the first two before the launch of the third.

Loved the books and was really looking forward to this series. However, I was disappointed with the first few episodes, and found it had, like many BBC adaptations these days, a kind of dismal and joyless tone. Does it improve as it goes on? Is it worth giving it another go?

His dark materials…

Does this refer to men with foreskin? 😋

Considering Pullman’s books tackle imposed theocracy, the treatment of heretics, the oppression of women based on their sex and experiments on children it’s been quite a spectacle watching Pullman transition into a full blown TRA enforcing gender ideology on others.

I have not read the books, but the show seems to have a sort of perverse joy to kill off characters by the end of each season. Pulling at my heart strings.

I wonder if they add an extra episode this season for the one they had to cancel because of COVID-19 lockdown procedures? It was supposed to focus on Lord Asriel and what he was up to since entering the rift in season one.

I honestly didn't like the last book or books. The first ones were brilliant.

The final book in the trilogy was a mess. The first half was good, but the second half was ... unable to cash the checks written by all the came before it, and it just sorta ended with 'meh'.

He's written some prequel books and they are totally meh.

Final trailer! Ugh, dead LMM, they are milking it for all it’s worth, do they think he’ll draw American audiences in for sone reason? His line reading is just so flat, I think he’s an incredibly talented creator, but an atrocious performer.

Haven’t heard about these books or about Pullman in years (a blessing, by the sounds).

Read the books as an atheistic angsty young preteen, and while I enjoyed them and felt very smart for reading them, admittedly much of it went over my head, and much of it also bored and confused me. Looking back, I’m not sure they were consistently good and accomplished works, though they certainly were ambitious and unique and rich in lore. Would I give them to my own hypothetical children? Probably not before a long list of other YA classics.

^further, I remember being 12 or 13 and finding titillation in the scene of Lyra & Will having a tweenaged fumble after sharing some fruit in a kind of parodic Garden of Eden scene. Now I’m adult, I know I’d find it cringe and rather creepy, not to mention contrary to Pullman’s aim for his story. Hopefully it’s not included in the series, it feels gratuitous.

Just hours away for us in the US for the first two episodes of Season 3 The Amber Spyglass!

The Gay angel’s kiss felt like a “Fuck You” to Disney, and on top of it they’re an interracial couple to really push the bigots over the edge. Bravo!

[quote] I don't remember the books very well,

I don't remember the series very well. This is the one with hot air balloons and talking animals? Harry Potter's School for Girls?

I saw the first two eps of S3 & am pleased.I found S1 to be somewhat tedious, but felt the second season was much better. This one starts off with quite a bang. I actually said “Oh shit” out loud when the knife thing happens.

How on earth did this bore get a third season? Despite multiple attempts to mount it, NO ONE CARES about His Dark Materials. Just bury it and be done with it.

This season is superb. Can't wait for next Monday's finale. Ruth Wilson's acting should get an Emmy. She's devastating as Mrs. Coulter. Hated Coulter from the books and Nicole Kidman's meagre performance in the movie. Wilson makes Coulter brilliantly complex and sympathetic. Asriel really comes off as an asshole though. Good perf from James McAvoy.

The daemon concept is heartwrenching. Wish I had a daemon.