Lolua and Big Brother go to the movies

[Big Brother]

Lolua and I went to see "The Golden Compass" at the cinema on Sunday of opening weekend. The movie was...visually stunning, with perfect casting, but still was a crushing disappointment because of how badly they mangled the plot and setting of the original book. I for one doubt a sequel will be forthcoming, as I can't imagine how the heck they can make a sequel that bears even a passing resemblance to the second book, "The Subtle Knife", yet is consistent with the first movie.

Anyways, being the enormous geeks that we are, Lolua and I decided to go to the movie in costume. I went as Lord Asriel (since I already had the scuzzy goatee and access to appropriate clothing). Here are the two images I used as inspiration:

Note the vest, shirt, goatee, and tie.

Note the furry snow goggles.

Lolua decided to go as Serafina Pekkala, whose name we have apparently been consistently mispronouncing. Lolua had the dark hair, the feminine allure, and some cloaks and dresses that were somewhat witchy. We even had an appropriate bow and arrow handy. Here's the image we used for inspiration:


We also decided to let a couple of Lolua's stuffed animals in on the fun. In addition to a stuffed cheetah named Bright Eyes who had faded enough with age to be pale enough to pass for a snow leopard (and who thus could play Lord Asriel's daemon Stelmarie), we decided to create a Goose costume for her stuffed chicken, Scrambles. We even brought in her stuffed penguin Baleful Bill, reasoning (in a way that seemed to make sense at the time) that, if they have armored polar bears in the Arctic, why not armored penguins in the Antarctic?


Here are Bill and Scrambles, without their costumes:


Here's Bill as a Panserpinguin: His helmet is the bowl of a serving spoon that rather conveniently and coincidentally broke the day before I started working on the costumes. Waste not, want not. The armored carapace is simply a sheet of aluminum foil, cunningly folded, stapled, and torn to make flipper holes. The chin strap is a scrap of cloth with a staple seam running down it that was left over from making Scrambles' goose-neck hood. More on that later.


Side View of Bill as a Panserpinguin:


Close-up on Bill's face and helmet as a Panserpinguin. I really like how the stub of the stem of the serving spoon looks like a noseguard. Sorry, beakguard.


Scrambles as Kaisa, the snow-goose daemon of Serafina Pekkala (a daemon who didn't appear in the movie, unfortunately, but who is rather important in the book). Bill as a Panserpinguin. Bright Eyes as Stelmarie.

Scrambles' Kaisa costume was made from an old undershirt that was being used as a rag. I cut a large section out of the side of the shirt, stapled it back into a sort of goose-neck shape, cut arm, beak, and eye holes (eye holes not visible in this shot, unfortunately), stuffed the rest of the undershirt and the handle of the broken serving spoon that also furnished Bill's helmet (as a stiffening spine) into the neck, and put it on Scrambles. Then I drew on eyes, cut a slit to hold the cut-and-taped corner of a padded shipping envelope used as a beak, and made a wizard hat out of another old rag to put on the head to disguise the fact that my sewing skills are not quite up to making the head actually head-shaped. I'd originally used a sort of babushka made from yet another rag for this purpose, but Lolua reminded me that Kaisa is male, so I made a wizard hat instead.

Next post, we'll see how the human costumes turned out.

[Big Brother]

Here's me as Lord Asriel. My hand is resting on my walking stick. I didn't have any ski poles handy, but I got the impression from the book that Lord Asriel is the kind of guy who'd own a nice walking stick. And that's the Subtle Knife in my other hand, from the sequel books. It's actually a leftover prop made for a play Lolua was in (actually wrote, directed, and played a minor supporting role in) back in junior high. No, we never throw anything away. And no, we didn't actually bring the knife to the movie theater, but yes we did bring everything else in this thread to the movie theater. We got a couple of odd looks, two adults carrying around multiple stuffed animals, one a penguin apparently dressed as a baked potato. Our day is not complete until we terrify a complete stranger.


Me as Lord Asriel actually wearing the snow goggles plus a winter coat. Sorry I didn't have a more leathery one. The day we went to the theater, it was rather disturbingly cold, there was snow and ice everywhere, and generally was the perfect atmosphere for going to a movie about snow-swept tundra.


Lord Asriel in coat with Stelmarie under my arm.



Close-ups of the Snow Goggles props. Lolua refers to these as the "Fluffy Goggles". So Fluffy! Anyways. I bought a cheap Santa hat at a dollar store, and cannibalized the fur trim from around the bottom edge of the hat. I cut it to shape and glued it to the rims an old pair of very dilapidated chemistry-lab safety goggles that we had lying around for use while weedwhacking. I also glued the sawed-off necks of a couple of oversize Vitamin C pill bottles to the lenses. The glue I used was ordinary carpenters' (wood) glue, since that's what I had handy that I could actually find. It worked okay, although one of the inset lenses fell off right before we left and I had to hastily re-glue it back in place. I also painted these round inset lenses and the remaining exposed portions of the goggle faceplate with a mixture of gold and bronze acrylic fabric paint left over from making our costumes for the last Harry Potter movie we went to. That made the goggles look metallic rather than transparent plastic. Lolua kept the round furry tassel from the top of the cannibalized Santa hat, and calls it her Baby Tribble.

[Big Brother]

Here's Lolua as Serafina Pekkala, with Scrambles as Kaisa. The bow is just a fallen branch from one of our Catalpa trees that I picked up from the backyard, strung with a bit of spare 18-gauge speaker wire. The arrow is a Sumac twig picked up on the way out the door en route to the movie theater (we've got an arrow, but it is a real arrow, and hence a tad dangerous to be walking around in public with).


Serafina Pekkala with her spray of Cloud Pine for flying. Actually it's a branch from an evergreen tree in the yard of someone in our neighborhood. No, I didn't cut it off the tree, they pruned it off and left it lying there on the ground beneath the tree, I merely snuck into their yard and made off with it afterwards. The witches in the movie did not seem to carry Pine branches when flying, which actually makes visual sense. I was never quite clear how someone could carry a pine branch, a bow, a quiver of arrows, and still have hands free to actually fire the bow and arrows, much less tow ropes connected to a trailing hydrogen balloon. .


Serafina Pekkala demonstrating how witches ride pine branches. Apparently it's Harry Potter-style.


Serafina Pekkala doing her best Legolas impression. And accidentally strangling Kaisa. And that's the closest you'll ever come to a picture of Lolua choking the chicken.


Serafina Pekkala, Lord Asriel, and their Daemons. Note that Lord Asriel is, for once, not wearing a digital watch, even if they are a pretty neat idea.