The opinion around here seems to be that it is our duty to buy the DVD to convince New Line into making The other two films. Northern Lights has always been my favourite part of the trilogy anyway, but furthermore I don't understand the logic of wanting more films in this dreadful vein. I have rewatched the film (coughyoutubecough) and it has reinforced the opinion that I was beginning to forget that this really is a very bad film. Visually pretty but as shallow as a puddle, it barely held my attention outside the cinema environment.
I would probably buy a direvtor's cut (insofar as I can afford to buy anything) but again I seem to disagree with popular opinion on Chris Weitz: most people seem to hold him blameless and imagine his personal cut of the material to be the great lost movie...
To me Weitz's script has flashes of excellence or insight but his direction is consistantly inept. As part of the course we've have five or six workshops on film language and already any one of my classmates could provide more masterful direction than this guy. At best he dully does things by the book - at worst he seems to have barely read and half-understood that book (that is the metaphorical rulebook, and not Northern Lights
). The film seems to regard the story's fantastical creations as chores that must be dealt with and he seems to want to tell the story inspite of all the good bits and good characters rather than because of them. A lot of the beautiful work done by Rhythm and Hues on the daemons is wasted as Weitz fails to make any interesting use of a concept that should be an absolute gift to a filmmaker.
Yes, there was an appalling last-minute hack job on the editing and some panicked recasts (another reason for not owning the DVD is that I cannot stand to listen to Ian McKellan's miscast, phoned-in performance again) but there was a lot wrong with the film to start with. I personally hope they never make the sequels. That way we can consign this version to a footnote in the HDM history books and wait for someone competent to take on the trilogy.