On the Golden Compass-
This is only a first reaction to what the author of the original books was up to. He apparently has a decidely anti-christian agenda. The church is portrayed as a sort of "sacred gestapo" that is experimenting on children. God is really a shriveled old man that lives in a crystal. The two protagonists in the book series meet and have sex and save the world (at the end of the third book apparently). The heirarchy of heaven and creation have a very GNOSTIC viewpoint (that is the earth and creation were made by that shriveled up creator "god" and the rest of it is under a sort of warfare mentality between different "angels", or demi-urges.)

That aside, New Line cinema is touting it as "from the same people that brought you Middle Earth". It turns out Phillip Pullman has little regard for Tolkien and even LESS regard for C. S. Lewis and Narnia. He considers the Narnia series "racist" and wrote the "His Dark Materials" series to counter it (this is the series that the "Golden Compass" movie was drawn from). The heroine even starts the adventure in a "wardrobe" closet!

Let me finish with what I read on one blog last night, "we had people worried about Harry Potter when J. K. Rowling was just out to make an engaging fantasy, this is the real one to worry about..." (paraphrased as best I remember it).

Its time for some serious fantasy writers (of the Christian sort) to take up their pens and start writing I think.