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  Good movie, saw it the other day as well.  Yup, loads of symbolism in there, relating to real issues going on right now.   

  My hunch is that we are going to go through a cycle of seeming chaos for a little while.  People and civilization in general is going to get quite a bit shookened up.  For some, or many, this will be quite challenging, for change is quite scary to many people.  But in the long term, we will see its the best thing that could have happened to us considering the current state of this dimension and many of its inhabitants. 

   Many will use these challenges and change positively, and make huge and importantly more collective spiritual leaps.  Yet, its still going to be a much more gradual process than many channelers out there have characterized it as. 

  Btw, the "ego" is not in the head, and nor is ego synonymous with the left brain aspect of self. "Head" and "Heart" are equally important, such as masculine and feminine are equally important.  The issue or problem always, always lies in the imbalance between same.   When they are completely balanced and merged, then does "reality" open up completely for a person. 

  If you haven't already, check out Bob Monroe's account of meeting "He/She" in his last book.   One of the first things that Bob notices about the radiation or emanation of this person, is that its completely and perfectly balanced between what he perceived and labeled as "masculine" and  "feminine", and this is why Bob ended up giving this person the temporary name of "He/She".  While He/She isn't physically androgynous, it is energetically androgynous.  (many "enlightened" E.T.'s are actually physically androgynous though). 

  Sometimes when we are over polarized to one, we either dismiss and belittle the other polarity (you see this often with and between men and women, and the common self righteous wars between same on both sides), OR sometimes (less often it seems) we over idealize the other polarity we don't have enough of, too much.   Some folks swing from one extreme to another, and rather constantly.   Some are more consistently imbalanced and over polarized to one over the other.   Few, so very few to date, hold and perfectly maintain that balance and merging.   Those who do, become like "He/She", deathless, ageless, and not limited at all by space/time vibratory patterns even while still partaking of same.   

  So eventually, Heart and Head merge, just as Yin-Yang, right brain and left brain, negative and positive can merge. 

  For some, they need to concentrate more on Head in this life.   For others, some need to concentrate more on Heart in this life.   It depends and is relative to the individual.  It sometimes changes from one to another for an individual even within the same physical life.   It seems like very generally speaking, many more men need to concentrate on Heart to achieve that perfect balance, and many more women on average need to concentrate on Head for same.
  But that is an over generalization really.   Plenty of women are imbalanced towards the masculine on the inner levels and vice versa with plenty of men.   I'm just speaking in  averages and tendencies.  Funny enough though, the archetypal "feminine" came before the masculine, but Source it seems was rather unfufilled in that purely feminine state of being.   Source then "masturbated" and became forever joyous in that masturbating.      Course, then masturbation eventually led to real love making, and the Planning Intelligence got the first and full taste of what its like to have sex with the Creator.   The Creator says, "bloody Heck, of course i'm good in bed!"  "Once you go Creator, you never get mo sated, Onhuh, Honey"

  Anyways, thanks for the above post and thread.   I totally get where you are coming from in your ponderings on this movie and how it relates to this critical, crisis, but opportunity filled cycle we now find ourselves in.

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Dunno, is it important though to you what evangelical Christians think or get upset about?  Good to have you around again B-dude.   I missed your melodramatic energy, and your unique sense of humor.   You are the Ding to Don's Dong.   

Greetings,

Reading these reviews and comments I was taken by the anti-authoritarian theme you discovered in your interpretations. In SE USA the reviews are all that the film threatens God Himself !  According to them, the author is an atheistic monster who has promised to kill God in the minds of children. (That's an almost direct quote.) Even 'alternative' newpapers that historically had an independent viewpoint have missed the greater ideas you report. OMGoodness!

Now I see the link, that the criticisms of the film in the US newspapers are surely promoted by business-bureacratic authority/power/status quo. I wondered how the churches had got word to the papers so fast. Anyway, the churches near us are far too busy building their 'drive-through Christmas' (direct quote) to be writing and influencing film reviewers. Truly, the film has been negatively blitzed in both news articles and reviews in what has to be a directed campaign.

Fubar, the answer to your question, from MPOV, is that all aspects of US 'news' are regulated far more than I had feared.

Bets

This film is based on the first book of a trilogy by the British author Phillip Pullman, who is much admired in Britain, but not by evangelical Christians or traditional Catholics, I don't think...

In the books the evil magisterium is explicitly a church, and represents a god figure called the Authority (I think it is referred to as the church, more often than the Magisterium). In particular it resembles Roman Catholicism. The film makers deliberately played this down somewhat , and NIcole Kidman said she would not have wanted to be in an anti-catholic film,  even if the world "magisterium" itself, retained in the film, is one traditionally linked to the Catholic CHurch..

[wikipedia: Magisterium (from the Latin magister, "teacher") is a technical ecclesiastical term in the Roman Catholic Church referring to the teaching authority of the church. This authority is understood to be embodied in the episcopacy, which is the aggregation of the current bishops of the church, led by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope), who has authority over the bishops, individually and as a body, as well as over each and every Catholic directly. According to Catholic doctrine, the Magisterium is able to teach or interpret the truths of the Faith infallibly]

In one of the later books The Authority is seen as an evil dictator, who is not really the maker of the universe but usurped his position of authority - a kind of corrupted angel, now old and weak.  In this respect, the book is similar to what some Gnostics believed about the Old Testament God. I think Pullman is often seen as atheistic, and certainly he seems to dislike organized religion, but I am not aware about whether or not he personally espouses some broader, less dogmatic form of spirituality, or is purely a humanist, believing in human potential and goodness without holding supernatural beliefs (I think it may be more the latter - certainly I think he would stress his books are fiction and do not factually represent how he thinks the universe works). Either way, I agree the film, and books , can be said to have a broadly "spiritual" quality in their message of affirming human dignity and free thought etc against rigid authoritarianism

I was pleasantly surprised by the film, having read it was going to be ruined by efforts not to offend anyone

I haven't seen the film.(I am skipping many posts here as to not spoil it for me)
I just started reading the first book in that series.

Seems to be a enjoyable read anyways.
I haven't read a 'fun' book in a while.

I may suggest that if you are puting in 'Spoilers' to the movie to do so in the title of your posts or even go back and edit your posts with a 'Spoiler Tag' so people will not read them.

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It is A-OK.  I understand. (You are another one of The Best Here as well...)
A lot of us wait until the DVD comes out to see movies.
I spend enough on Comcast Cable with HD each month that I rarely go to theaters.
For one people ANNOY me in theaters.
At home I control the movie and if I want to take a break for a smoke or a Bio-Break I can pause. hehe!

I did see Beowulf at the theater.  That is a MUST in 3D.
Fantastic! 3D has come a long way since the cheap paper glasses.

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As I said, the basis of it is fighting against a repressive church-like body that thinks it has all the answers, so I guess many Christian churches potentially feel targeted, even though the Catholic church is most obviously referenced

Re the violence , I do think there are "just wars" - like fighting against Hitler, for example. But apart from that, fantasy books very often have battles and they are very often presented in rather black and white, good vs. evil plots - that's nothing new (see Lord of the Rings , for example).

Re. Pullman again, his wikipedia has this to say:

[he had said] "I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important. Such as that this life is immensely valuable. And that this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place, and we should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world"

Pullman has found support from [some] Christians, most notably Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. These groups and individuals contend that Pullman's negative portrayal of the "Church" in His Dark Materials amounts to an attack on dogmatism and the use of religion to oppress, not on Christianity itself. Dr. Williams has gone so far as to propose that His Dark Materials be taught as part of religious education in schools. Moreover, authors of works dedicated to critical appraisals of religious themes in his writing have described Pullman as a friendly and generous debating partner.

Other Christian writers, such as Kurt Bruner and Jim Ware, while finding his anti-Christian position troubling, "also uncover spiritual themes within the books, which, like shafts of light, break through an otherwise gloomy universe... In the end, the authors argue that Pullman offers an unwitting tribute to the God he intended to discredit