Manny, Sid and Diego's Adventures of The Golden Compass

Manny, Sid and Diego's Adventures of The Golden Compass is a 2018 Australian-British fantasy adventure film written and directed by Darren Aronofsky. It is the eleventh installment in the Sonic Cinematic Universe, The film stars Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Naomi Watts, Raffee Cassidy, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Debicki, Joel Kinnaman, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Allison Williams, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Elisabeth Moss, Adam DeVine, Keke Palmer, Dafne Kaan, Jessie J, Nick Offerman, Stephanie Beatriz, Max Greenfield and Michael Stuhlberg. Principal photography took place during December 2017 in London, Norway, Switzerland and Dublin. but for one of the characters Farder Coram, British actor Ed Westwick originally portrayed the character originally as a supporting character after filmed his scenes, until two sexual assault allegations were leveled against Westwick and the supporting role ended up major and recast with Australian actor Joel Edgerton. Scenes with Joel Edgerton were shot two weeks before the film 2018's release date.
==Plot==
Lyra Belacqua (Raffee Cassidy) is an orphan living at Jordan College in the Oxford of an alternate universe. In Lyra's world, every person is accompanied by a daemon, a physical representation of their soul in animal form. Because she is young, Lyra's daemon, Pantalaimon (voice: Jim Sturgess) -- Pan, for short -- can change his shape to appear as any animal he chooses. He most often appears as an ermine, or at need a moth or a cat. Adults' daemons settle in to one shape and don't change, and then she is accompanied by The Herd (Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Dafne Kaan, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Adam DeVine, Keke Palmer, Jessie J, Nick Offerman, Stephanie Beatriz and Max Greenfield). The Herd and Lyra overhears an interview between the Master of Jordan College (David Thewlis) and Fra Pavel (Michael Stuhlberg), a representative of the powerful and sinister religious body called the Magisterium. They're discussing an expedition to the far north planned by Lyra's uncle, Lord Asriel (Joel Kinnaman); Asriel wants to study a mysterious substance called Dust that seems to enter The Herd and Lyra's world from parallel universes. Fra Pavel pressures the Master to withhold his support from Lord Asriel's expedition. The Master refuses, so, when left alone in the room, Fra Pavel poisons a decanter of Tokay wine that has been decanted specially for Lord Asriel. Lord Asriel soon arrives (accompanied by his daemon, a snow leopard), and pours himself a glass of the poisoned Tokay, but Aisling emerges from The Herd and Lyra's hiding place to stop him from drinking it: she dashes the glass to the floor where it shatters. Lord Asriel sends them back to eavesdrop on the meeting that is about to begin. The Master and fellows of Jordan College, plus Fra Pavel, convene to hear about Lord Asriel's proposed expedition and research on Dust, which they agree to fund. Asriel is sure that Dust is connected with a means to get from one universe to other parallel universes. Pavel tells Asriel that talk of Dust is heresy. Even before we see The Herd and Lyra, boys and girls have been disappearing, snatched off the streets. The children call the kidnappers Gobblers. The Herd, Lyra and Lyra's friend Roger (Milo Parker) promise one another that if either is caught, the other will come to the rescue. That night, while The Herd and Lyra are at dinner being introduced to Mrs. Coulter (Elizabeth Debicki), Roger and another friend, Billy Costa (Aiden Longworth), are taken by the Gobblers. At the dinner, The Herd and Lyra are seated immediately across the table from the Master when Mrs. Coulter arrives, accompanied by her daemon, a golden monkey, Vincent (voiced by Chris Evans). The Master and all the scholars are evidently in awe of her. Mrs. Coulter takes a seat right next to The Herd and Lyra, in which Lyra is most impressed with her new acquaintance and agrees eagerly when Mrs. Coulter says she is also planning a trip to the far north, and proposes that The Herd and Lyra come along as their assistants. The Master is evidently forced (by Mrs. Coulter's influence in high places) to agree. In the morning, just before The Herd and Lyra's departure, the Master comes to Lyra's little upper room in college and gives them a strange golden instrument called an alethiometer, or "golden compass". He tells them that it is capable of telling the truth, but he can't tell them much about how it works. He admonishes them to keep the alethiometer to themselves and above all not to let Mrs. Coulter know that she has it. The Herd and Lyra spends some time in Mrs. Coulter's company, going to expensive shops to be bought new clothes for Lyra and restaurants to dine with Mrs. Coulter's "managers". As they leave, A mysterious woman (Naomi Watts) and her daemon (voiced by Tom Hardy) who is the same as Pantalaimon sees them leaving. After that, The Herd and Lyra keeps the alethiometer with them in a shoulder bag. One day Mrs. Coulter orders them to stop wearing the shoulder bag, and when the Herd and Lyra shows reluctance Mrs. Coulter has her daemon Vincent, half strangle Pantalaimon. The Herd and runs to their room, now hating Mrs. Coulter, hides the alethiometer, then goes to explore Mrs. Coulter's private study. In a waste paper bin Pan finds papers which show that Mrs. Coulter is deeply involved with an arm of the Magisterium called the General Oblation Board (the Gobblers!); that the General Oblation Board is using children to investigate something called intercision; and that Billy Costa and Roger the kitchen boy are on a list of boys who have been taken. Immediately after discovering this, A mysterious woman and her daemon opens the window and shouts to them "Leave with me now!" but The Herd and Lyra catches Mrs. Coulter's daemon Vincent trying to steal the alethiometer. Pan changes into a bird, grabs it back, and Manny breaks the window and run with the mysterious woman. They're pursued and caught by Gobblers, then rescued by fierce but friendly Gyptians, who have been watching over The Herd and Lyra at the mysterious woman's help. One of their rescuers is Ma Costa (Laura Fraser), Billy's mother. The Herd and Lyra travels with the Gyptians and becomes acquainted with John Faa (Arnold Schwarzenegger), lord of the Gyptians, and his advisor Farder Coram (Joel Edgerton). They learn how to ask the alethiometer questions and how to interpret its responses. They also meets Serafina Pekkala (Allison Williams), queen of the witches, who tells The Herd and Lyra that they are part of a team concerning the fate of the another world; that the missing children are being held at Bolvangar in Norroway; and that The Herd and Lyra will find help in Trollesund, a town on the coast of Norroway. Meanwhile, Mrs. Coulter has dispatched a pair of mechanical spy flies to locate The Herd and Lyra. When the spy flies find the Gyptian ship, Farder Coram captures one and seals it up in a tin, explaining that its sting contains a sleeping potion. The other escapes, though it's not clear that it does Mrs. Coulter any good. When they arrive in Trollesund, The Herd and Lyra meets a Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby (Jason Clarke), who offers to help them -- but first he wants to get a friend out of a jam. The friend is Iorek Byrnison (voice: David Harbour), one of the great Panserbjørne -- armored ice bears -- of Svalbard. Iorek, exiled from his home after losing a fight, is a virtual prisoner in Trollesund; the townspeople got him drunk and stole his armor, which he cherishes the way humans cherish their daemons. Now, alcoholic and despairing, he works as a mechanic and metalsmith in exchange for whiskey. Consulting the alethiometer, The Herd and Lyra learns that Iorek Byrnison was heir to the throne of Svalbard until he was betrayed and defeated by Ragnar (voice: Djimon Hounsou), the current king. They also learn where the armor is hidden and tells Iorek, who promises in return to help them find the missing children. Lee Scoresby, a mysterious woman and the Gyptians dissuade the soldiers who try to stop the re-armored bear, and The Herd, Lyra and their allies march into the interior toward Bolvangar. When they camp for the night, The Herd and Lyra puzzles over something the alethiometer is telling them and seeks out Iorek Byrnison. They ask him to take her to a valley nearby, where they find Billy Costa, weak and anguished because he's been separated from his daemon. This, The Herd and Lyra realizes, is what intercision means; it's a fate so horrible The Herd, Lyra and her daemon Pan can hardly bear to think about it. Iorek Byrnison, The Herd and Lyra take Billy back to the Gyptians' camp, which is immediately set upon by the ferocious Samoyed people who live in that area. They capture The Herd and Lyra and takes them to Svalbard as an offering to the armored bears. Recalling that Mrs. Coulter told them King Ragnar longs to have a daemon of his own, The Herd and Lyra asks Pan to hide and introduces themselves to Ragnar as Iorek Byrnison's daemons. As she hoped, Ragnar becomes furiously jealous. The Herd and Lyra tells him that if he can defeat Iorek in single combat, they will become Ragnar's daemons. Ragnar agrees to fight Iorek Byrnison, and Iorek gallops up on cue, intending to rescue Lyra. When Lyra explains what she's arranged, apologetic and frightened because after running all that way Iorek seems in no shape to fight, Iorek surprises them with his enthusiasm. He wants nothing more from life than a chance to fight Ragnar, and dubs them The Herd and Lyra for their skillful manipulation of the usurper-king. Iorek fights Ragnar and kills him by feigning an injury, then hitting Ragnar so hard his jaw flies off. This victory wins back Iorek Byrnison's rightful place as king of the ice bears, but he leaves his kingdom to complete his obligation to The Herd and Lyra. He takes them most of the way to the experimental station at Bolvangar where the children are being held and a mysterious woman is there with her daemon, but has to leave her to learn the mysterious woman's backstory and go for help when the bridge over a crevasse breaks, leaving Iorek on the wrong side.
Before going inside, The mysterious woman reveals herself to be the older Lyra and her older daemon Pantalaimon, but from the future. Inside the experimental station, The Herd, Lyra and her older self from the future asks Roger to get the other children ready to escape. He shows them to a room where they will be alone with the alethiometer, but they have to hide under the table when the experimental station staff and Mrs. Coulter come in. After Mrs. Coulter leaves, Diego's foot slips, giving them away. But they are captured by the staff and she and Lyra are put into the intercision device, the machine used to separate children from their daemons. The Herd and Lyra from the future are tied up, The separation is almost complete when Mrs. Coulter, looking terrified, runs in and stops the procedure and unties the Herd and Lyra from the future. The Herd, Lyra (past/future) and Pan (past/future) wake up with their bond intact, and a distraught Mrs. Coulter assures them that they are safe and they will never get hurt. The Herd and Lyra (younger), shrinking from Mrs. Coulter, asks why they're separating children from their daemons. Mrs. Coulter explains that Dust (which she seems to equate with original sin) came into the world long ago when people first disobeyed the Authority (God). While children are immune from Dust, it contaminates adults through their daemons. The goal of the intercision research is to prevent people from ever being affected by Dust. (This explanation is a slightly more palatable version of the one given in an earlier scene, in which high officials of the Magisterium, disturbed about Jordan College's rebellious support of Lord Asriel, look forward to a future when intercision will mold a population that never questions the Magisterium's authority.) Mrs. Coulter says that intercision doesn't hurt -- "it's just a little cut." If intercision is such a good thing, Lyra counters, why did Mrs. Coulter stop the lab staff from doing it to Lyra and released The Herd and Lyra to them? Mrs. Coulter admits that the procedure isn't perfect yet. When she taking Lyra to the Horde of Darkness, Lyra (future) reveals to them that Mrs. Coulter she works for The Horde of Darkness and betray her and Lyra's uncle Lord Asriel is actually her father. Sid pretends to cooperate when Mrs. Coulter asks for the alethiometer for The Horde of Darkness, but gives her instead the tin holding the spy fly. The fly's sting knocks out Mrs Coulter and her daemon Vincent. The Herd and twos Lyra (younger/future) escapes and leads the children out into the snow, pausing only to sabotage the intercision device, which explodes in a very satisfying way. Outside the experimental station the children confront the guards, who attack them. Iorek Byrnison intervenes, but is nearly overcome before the arrival, at dramatic intervals, of Lee Scoresby, the witches led by Serafina Pekkala, and the Gyptians. There's a ferocious melee; whenever someone is killed, their daemon disintegrates in a swirl of Dust. The Herd, Lyra and the group win the battle. The Herd and Lyra (future) asks Lyra (younger) to come with her to the real world alongside with Iorek Byrnison and Lee Scoresby and will find Lord Asriel later, because he is in the real world and that they are preparing a battle in the real world. Roger insists on coming along to the real world.
==Trivia==
*When asked at a premiere of Manny, Sid and Diego's Adventures of The Golden Compass about having Ryan Gosling do this cameo, Aronofsky revealed that Gosling stayed on set just for a day after shooting wrapped to attend the wrap party and individually thank the film crew for having him on set to do this cameo.
===Recasting of Ed Westwick's supporting character===
*After his supporting scenes had completed filmed, the actor playing the part of Farder Coram (Ed Westwick) was accused of sexual assault by two women. In the wake of other sexual assault scandals in 2017, The allegations also resulted in BBC announced that Ordeal by Innocence (a show with Ed Westwick also attached in a supporting role) would not be broadcast until sexual assault allegations against Ed Westwick who appears in the show had been resolved. When two more women came forward to allege impropriety by Westwick, Darren Aronofsky re-shot Westwick's part with Joel Edgerton changing Farder Coram from supporting character to a minor character. Aronofsky explained that as Ridley Scott had already done something similar with All the Money in the World replacing Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer, they decided to re-shoot too as, as they described it, "hundreds and hundreds of hours of people's hard earned work would have been lost". Westwick has strenuously denied the allegations and had stated that nothing had been proven. twenty-five minutes of footage from 10 sense was shot over two weeks with Joel Edgerton. The other actors in the production were drafted in and whilst most made the time, (one production personality described them all as very busy actors), not all of them were on set together at the same time. Joel Edgerton praised the production staff in getting things organised so quickly.
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