The Golden Compass is coming to theaters in just a few months. While the trailers have been pretty impressive, one of the aspects we really haven’t seen of the story is how they are handling the character’s daemons: animal companions every human in the world of The Golden Compass possesses. Now a brief featurette has appeared on Yahoo! Movies revealing the approach toward the characters and showing some footage of them in action.
The best news of the featurette is the recognition that the daemons aren’t pets. It would be far too easy to treat the animal characters as just that, and author Phillip Pullman clearly didn’t intend for that to be the case. Fortunately it’s clear everyone from the actors to the special effects team acknowledged that when they designed the picture.
Instead you have everyone from Sam Elliott to Daniel Craig discussing the value of daemons and how they are used in the story. I think it’s great to see Freddie Highmore, who voices the primary character Lyra’s daemon. For one I just like the actor, but for two by putting a boy voice with her companion, they are really exploring some interesting notions about the relationship between a human and their daemon. Meanwhile, Nicole Kidman discusses the importance of actors and pantomime lessons in a CG-effects movie.
Don’t just take my word for how interesting this featurette is, however. Click to view “Redefining Daemons” at Yahoo! Movies and see for yourself.
