Season 3 of His Dark Materials has begun.
And the first two episodes reminded me of all the reasons I love this series. And the reasons I sometimes don’t.
As always, the show does a good job at adapting Philip Pullman’s world and its complex values, while providing some great imagery and powerful performances. But… once again the pacing is all over the place and the editing does not allow the content to reach its proper levels of epicness.
So with that, I have already strarted my editing process in order to create the final piece of this collection. And I think I have an idea on how the film is going to open. So here is a first draft of the first 8 minutes:
SPOILERS
- Kingdom of Heaven
The film starts with a “history lesson” for the Kingdom of Heaven, same as Episode 1 does, only with an amber filter on top instead of green… for obvious reasons.- Will’s quest and the Angels
I put together a montage of scenes of Will searching for Lyra in multiple worlds with ‘Play the Serpent’ from the original soundtrack that leads to him meeting with the Angels. I removed Will asking the old lady about Lyra and I added some footage of Baruch searching for Asriel, presuming he was lookng for him thus making their first encounter less abrupt.- Lyra’s Dream
Cut to Lyra’s dream about Roger in the Land of the Dead from Episode 2 and back to her sleeping in the chapel and the reveal of her location from Episode 1.- His Dark Materials intro with ‘The Amber Spyglass’ sutitle.
I realize that this opening is very similar to my ‘Subtle Knife’ opening, but it feels right at this point.
https://vimeo.com/779294194
password: edit
This project has been very close to my heart from the beginning and I put a lot of care on these films and that’s what I am planning to do with this one too.
That being said, once Season 3 is over, I am going to release an updated version of each film in order to complete this collection with a uniform style both on an aesthetic point of view and storywise.
I hope there are some fans of the show here, so that we can discuss the progress of this project.
I am always open to feedback and suggestions.