Build a movie plot around this: what is inside the bag? The alethiometer.
Answer:
Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) is (ostensibly) 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: Freddie Highmore) -- 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.Lyra overhears an interview between the Master of Jordan College (Jack Shepherd) and Fra Pavel (Simon McBurney), 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 (Daniel Craig); Asriel wants to study a mysterious substance called Dust that seems to enter 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 Lyra emerges from her hiding place to stop him from drinking it: she dashes the glass to the floor where it shatters. Lord Asriel sends her 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 meet Lyra, boys and girls have been disappearing, snatched off the streets. The children call the kidnappers Gobblers. Lyra and her friend Roger (Ben Walker) promise one another that if either is caught, the other will come to the...