Did anyone else ever read those The Dark is Rising books? And if so, are you as utterly revolted by this as I am?

Dear god, that looks horrible. I can only hope that they won't butcher The Golden Compass as badly as they're butchering this.

I did read the Dark is Rising, but was too young to understand it at the time.

And yeah, they friggin' better do a better job on Northern Lights, this is just...generic.

EDIT: And why is it "the seeker"? It sure wasn't called that when I read it. Why must people insist on randomly renaming this stuff!? It wasn't called the Golden Compass before either!!

The American version is called The Golden Compass. It's a better name, too, since it fits with the naming scheme of the other two books.

I loved those books, although the ones about Will were better than the first two about the Drew kids (and then the later ones involved both at the same time, so it was all good.)

The Dark Is Rising is the name of the sequence and the second book. None of them are named The Seeker. I will of course be obligated to watch this movie anyway, but just the fact that he spends so much time with awake people makes me really leery.

That looks bad. Why butcher good books so today's kids will think it's "hip"? It was fine as is.
Please let the Golden Compass be good. I'm going to be really mad if that's bad too.

I can't wait for The Golden Compass to come out! Though, I pictured someone more... menacing than Nichole Kidman, but hey, I'm not the Director/Producer/Whoever the heck hires the actors.

And that's The Golden Compass called over in Europe?

Nicole Kidman works for me. I always saw someone who wasn't menacing or evil looking.

It's called the Northern Lights in Europe

Well... her personality doesn't fit it, anyway... But whatever.

And I can see how The Northern Lights works... But yeah, with the two other books being titled about an inanimate object, I can see how The Golden Compass works.

The Dark is Rising was one of those books people tried to press on me too young, and I never read past like the first three pages. Guess I should go look at it again.

The Golden Compass, on the other hand, was amazing.

I think Peter Jackson should retain all rights to childhood literary classics. Then we'd see some awesomeness.

I didn't watch the trailer yet, but just from the pic on that page it looks horrid, like they're going to try some flashy magic :censor: which is about as far from the spirit of the books as you can possibly get.

Normally in fantasy books I like to see a lot of magic, with eventual exposition about how/why it works on a fundamental or mechanical level, but the DiR sequence is one of the few settings that I didn't mind the subtle, low key magic and I truly think that doing it otherwise would have destroyed the books.

On the other hand, Prince Caspian should be a good movie.

Psh. I am so annoyed that they are doing them out of order. Even if I liked The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, it does not come first in the series!

I agree that this movie looks absolutely awful. I saw the poster after seeing Sunshine and was pretty excited about it (since the Dark Is Rising was one of my favorite childhood series), but after watching the trailer I was thoroughly disappointed. It looks like they've tried to modernize the books (and I've read there are serious plot revisions as well), and I predict a disaster.

Don't judge a movie by its preview. A lot of movies are really good, but really poorly marketed.

If you're not familiar with the history of the books, they were written/published out of sequential order. It looks like they're making the movies in the same order that the books were published (think Star Wars here) so they'll be
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Silver Chair (tied with Nephew for my favorite in the series)
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician's Nephew
and The Last Battle.
I assume you're familiar with the reading/sequential order.

No, I know about the difference in order, but its silly for the filmmakers to go by production date rather than timeline. It causes problems with actors and chronology and everything else when you don't do things in order. Think Star Wars here Episodes I-III are what you get when you make movies out of order.

Um.. I can honestly say I've never heard of those books.. but I'm looking for a good read (if it is one..?).

Anyone want to tell me what they are about (roughly) and the author?

@Shadow: If you mean the Dark Is Rising, then yes. They're good books. I personally thought that the first book (Over Sea, Under Stone) dragged on a bit, but the rest of them were spectacular. Especially the last two. It's a fairly standard "The evil is coming and the forces of good must stop it" plot, but the writing style is excellent. It has a lot of Arthurian mythos woven into it.

I'd recommend starting with the Dark Is Rising, and then Over Sea. After that you can progress in order (Greenwitch, Grey King, Silver On The Tree).

@SAW: I see what you're saying. I was just pointing out that it wasn't technically out of order. It really does make more sense to do it this way, though. Edmund and Lucy are older in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and will have aged sufficiently to match. Eustace is in Dawn Treader and then Silver Chair. I don't think Jill appears again afterwards. Everyone is is the Last Battle, but they're supposed to be older for that one anyway.

All of the recurring characters are put sequentially in filming order. Horse and His Boy and Magician's Nephew don't have characters that appear in any other books besides the Last Battle.-