Mar 15 2025 104 mins 3
Take a hot air balloon ride up to Svalbard with Emma and Izze as they look into Philip Pullman’s The Golden _Compass and its 2007 adaptation of the same name. These two try to figure out the mysteries of Dust, what on Earth makes film crews completely rearrange a book’s plot beats, and the weird no-man’s-land between middle grade books and the era of YA.
Content warnings for _The Golden Compass include: child abuse, kidnapping, child death, animal cruelty, brainwashing, oppressive theocracy, very British racism, and graphic depictions of polar bear violence.
The articles Emma references in this episode can be found here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/movies/02mcgr.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://newsweek.com/director-confronts-some-dark-material-96599
https://ew.com/movies/2017/11/14/golden-compass-movie-why-didnt-it-work/
https://www.vulture.com/2007/12/golden_compass_scripts.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/movies/30comp.html?ex=1346126400&en=d3b0308eab7b0de2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&mtrref=en.wikipedia.org&gwh=B33C31BB2C0829CC17EAAF8F5CA4100F&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALL
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/the-golden-compass-movie-review-2007-adaptation
You can find Emma on twitter @ematsca and the show @UnselectPod. You can find Izze on bluesky and tumblr @lotsadeer. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and want to support them, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork. If you want to hear more from Izze, you can listen to seers shows Abbey Archives, Hope’s Hearth, and SCP Research Archives.
The music for this show was composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.co
