When I started looking into the various different adaptations of His Dark Materials that preceded the current TV series, I was interested in one specific part of one adaptation in particular: the much-derided 2007 feature film The Golden Compass, and its ending, which is probably the most notable thing about it apart from the fact that its box office performance played a big part in New Line Cinema getting merged into Warner Brothers. In the book, and indeed most adaptations, Lyra's friend Roger is killed when Lord Asriel severs him from his daemon in order to tear a hole in the Northern Lights that leads into another world... but whilst this sequence was filmed for the movie, it was cut during editing (various contradictory explanations seem to exist as to exactly why -- some sources say it was too depressing a note to end on, others claim that test audiences were confused and thought the meaning of the sequence was that Lyra had died and when she followed the opening into the other world she was actually ascending to Heaven). The stated intention was to open the sequel with it instead, but we all know how that turned out.