If you haven’t seen it, the teaser trailer for this winter’s The Golden Compass is out. Bear with the LotR plug for its first few seconds.
Not a lot of daemon action in the clip, but it’s possible they’re going to be CG and the animation isn’t finished yet. Reading the book I always pictured them looking a little bit magical, maybe slightly transparent, but I think probably they’re just supposed to look like normal animals.
According to an interview done by The Guardian, director Chris Weitz is going to be downplaying some of the anti-religious themes, which doesn’t seem possible by the time you get to the third book, though I think in fact the books end up in a pretty strange place and maybe cutting some of the more out there themes isn’t so bad an idea. I like that he says he’s going to let the film speak for itself in the face of inevitable American criticism of its take on religion. I’m pretty sure though that there’s little chance the ending of the books will remain intact.