When co-producers BBC and HBO released the first teaser trailer for their upcoming adaptation of the His Dark Materials book trilogy this past weekend, author Philip Pullman shared it with a simple message on Twitter: "Let me try again."

This statement is an acknowledgment of how the last attempt at a major cinematic adaptation of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Chris Weitz's 2007 film based on the first book, The Golden Compass, did not succeed as hoped. His Dark Materials is one of if not the most thematically ambitious young adult fantasy series ever written, and New Line Cinema thought the series could be its next Lord of the Rings-level cinematic phenomenon. Instead, the film landed with a thud and adaptations of the second and third books, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, were never completed.

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The new TV series should at the very least get through The Subtle Knife. The Golden Compass is being adapted into the first eight-episode season, and the show is already renewed for a second season. Unless something goes terribly wrong, we're almost certainly going to see a complete adaptation of the trilogy. We might even get the prequel book, La Belle Sauvage, adapted at some point if the show is a big enough hit. Without the length and content limitations imposed by the blockbuster movie format, the odds are good this will not only be a complete adaptation, but a far superior one to New Line's attempt.

The failure of the Golden Compass movie was frustrating because so many elements were in place for a great movie. In fact, there's fair reason to speculate that, until the last minute, it was a great movie, or at least a solidly good one. This was a case of a movie being ruined in the editing room by a studio scared to take risks. Forget about begging Warner Bros. for the non-existent "Snyder cut" of Justice League. Someone should ask them for the "Chris Weitz cut" of The Golden Compass.

Weitz is a true fan of the books, and set out to make the best adaptation possible. The first draft of his screenplay is online and it's worth the read. Clocking in at 185 pages, it's an impressively faithful adaptation (with the exception of one major issue, which we'll discuss later) that importantly establishes character relationships and world-building without the need to rush through bland exposition dumps. This first draft would naturally go through rewrites, slimming it down to a more manageable 156 pages, but the intention for most of production was to keep to this general sense of the story.

NEXT PAGE: His Dark Materials Needs to Get Its Ending Right

The movie's casting can't be faulted. Dakota Blue Richards was a great find for Lyra. Nicole Kidman was so stunning as Mrs. Coulter that Philip Pullman retconned aspects of the character's description in La Belle Sauvage to be closer to the movie interpretation. Sam Elliot was a perfect, if underutilized, Lee Scoresby. The jury's out on Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, given most of his dramatic scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Fortunately, the TV series' cast seems primed to at least match if not exceed this quality of casting, with Logan's Daphne Keen as Lyra, Luther's Ruth Wilson as Coulter, Lin-Manuel Miranda as Scoresby and James McAvoy as Asriel.

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The movie's production value was similarly impressive. This might be the area where the TV version has the most to live up to. The daemons and armored bears were as stunning CGI creations as money could buy in 2007, earning the film an Oscar for its visual effects. The steampunk-esque set design stood out from other fantasy films and earned another Oscar nomination for art direction. With BBC and HBO co-producing the TV version, we're unsure where the effects work on this new version will land on the scale of Doctor Who-level cheapness to Game of Thrones jaw-dropping. The teaser hid the daemons and all effects elements, presumably because they're still in the works.

The one big downside to Weitz's original script is his need to be extremely cautious regarding the books' criticism of organized religion. Whereas the villains in the book are explicitly working on behalf of an alternate universe Christian church, in the script (and final film) their organization is referred to more vaguely as "the Magisterium." The strong anti-authoritarian bent remains, and there are enough allusions to spiritual matters to work in the context of a Golden Compass adaptation. This method of adaptation would prove difficult for the later books in the trilogy, which directly turn into a Paradise Lost-inspired deconstruction of the Adam and Eve story. Weitz's hope was that if the first movie succeeded, he'd have more freedom to go controversial with the sequels.

HBO, unlike four-quadrant Hollywood family blockbusters, thrives on controversy. Philip Pullman's "atheist response to Narnia" looks downright tame on the same network that airs Game of Thrones and Real Time With Bill Maher. The tone of the teaser trailer feels darker than the movie version, and it'd be a shock if any of the edgier aspects of the books get sanded down. If anything, we might have reason to worry about it being made too edgy, as HBO hasn't really made much for the young adult market and might wish the show to be more straight up "adult."

Even with the religious issues reduced to subtext, Chris Weitz's cut of The Golden Compass was deemed too dark by New Line. The big issue for the studio was the ending. Without going into spoilers, we can say the book of The Golden Compass does not end on a happy note. That ending, along with a number of other scenes, were cut to push the film to under two hours. The completed ending was to be pushed to the beginning of a proposed Subtle Knife movie. That sequel never came about because the rushed, structureless final cut of The Golden Compass got mixed to negative reviews and ended up bombing domestically, unable to work up the goodwill to overcome all its controversy.

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Two hours were not enough to tell The Golden Compass' story properly. Eight hours should be plenty of time for the first season of the His Dark Materials TV series to faithfully tell the story, maybe even expand upon it in meaningful ways. We can't wait to see The Golden Compass done well, and to see the even wilder stories of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass brought to life. Where the big screen failed, the small screen may succeed.