Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Ollivander- John Hurt (RIP 2017)
Luna Lovegood- Evanna Lynch
Matthew Lewis- Neville Longbottom
Albus Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
[newcomers]
Aberforth Dumbledore- Ciarán Hinds
Helena Ravenclaw- Kelly Macdonald
Again... so many actors... I hope I got all of the most notable characters in this movie.
Oscar Nominations:
Best Make-Up
Best Visual Effects
Best Art Direction
Write-up:
The Start of an Unfortunate Trend
Well, finally coming to the end of all these movies... it's been a long time coming.
I mentioned in my post on the last part that I'd only read through the book maybe three times ever... and my mom refuses to watch the first part unless there's a promise to watch this movie in the immediate future, whether it's within a week or the same day. (No joke- there was one time we watched the movies back to back with a brief intermission in the middle)
Although they could have easily turned the last Harry Potter book into one movie (nothing really happens for much of it...), it was ultimately good that they split this into two movies. It's conducive to the plot and the characters. Emphasizing how impossible it was to find the Horcruxes to destroy and ultimately beat the villain of the whole franchise, Voldemort.
Unfortunately, this kicked off a really annoying trend in Hollywood... splitting the final installment EVERY YA film series into two movies.
Breaking Dawn (Twilight) could have probably have been handled in one movie, but ultimately, it worked out that it was split into two movies.
But with the Hunger Games... bleck... I really liked the first two books in the series, but I didn't like Mockingjay at all. Part 1 was kinda like part 1 of the Deathly Hallows... very little happened... Katniss did propaganda videos and they rescued Peeta, but Peeta is now a mindless killing machine. At least things happened in the second part... but I just wasn't a fan. It could have been done in one movie easily...
And the whole Divergent series got hi-jacked, doing what was nothing short of a money grab that failed miserably. It got compared to The Hunger Games a lot when the two franchises are completely different and by this point, apparently there was a lot of "fatigue" involving YA adaptations. In other words, they tried to split the last book of a trilogy into two movies and the first movie did so badly in the box office that they never did a part two... then they were going to do it as a TV movie and all of the main actors said they weren't doing it... I don't know if it's still happening, but why bother without the main cast? No Shailene Woodley, no Theo James, not even Miles Tiller wants anything to do with it anymore.
I mean, the book was a really disappointing ending. Confusing and I died inside as I was reading it. So maybe that was all for the best....
At least 50 Shades Freed didn't get split into 2 movies... but I don't think anyone wanted any more of those movies than were necessary. (Although that technically wasn't an Young Adult book series... and neither is the Avengers series, Infinity War being the first of two parts).
Adaptation
Because I'd only read this book maybe three times, I can't say too much on how well it was adapted. But from what I remembered from the book, they nailed it.
one final SPOILER ALERT... if you read the books, you'd already know this, but so you're warned..
There was one part of the book that really confused me and seeing it on the big screen really helped explain it. There was this hunt for the Horcruxes, items where Voldemort stashed pieces of his soul. It goes back to the big question about the series ever since the prophecy was revealed in The Order of the Phoenix- "Neither can live while the other survives"... meaning Harry or Voldemort dies at the end of the series. And I thought for sure that Harry would live and things would be fine. But then Voldemort uses the Killing Curse on Harry and Harry dies... and then he's actually still alive. Reading the book in this part was so confusing: how could Harry get killed but still live...
Dumbledore more or less explained that Harry was the final Horcrux Voldemort never intended to make. Killing people rips away part of your soul, so when Voledmort killed Harry's parents, part of his soul was ripped from him and somehow attached itself to Harry. And the killing curse killed *it* instead of Harry himself.
That's about as out there as "of course, this is happening inside your head, Harry, but why should that mean it isn't real?"
Harry lives in the end, so there's nothing to really question. But it was pretty cool how they did that part of the movie.
As a film, it was really well paced. The first couple of times I watched it, the movie went so fast. The first part is getting another Horcrux, which happens to be the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange- explaining why she was extra mean in the previous movie when she thought that they had been in her vault. So they break into the Gringotts with the help of Griphook the Goblin... and of course stuff happens and it's not as easy as it seems at first.
But the bulk of the movie is spent in Hogwarts- as it should be- trying to find the final Horcruxes. And all the Death Eaters and Voldemort are there. It's a very intense situation, how much the school had changed since they moved in and Snape is the new Headmaster.
In fact, the pacing of the movie makes it feel like all of this is happening in real life. Particularly the scenes in Hogwarts- it feels like it's within a single night and that gives it a different feel than the movies before it. I can't quite put it into words, but it gives the movie a cool vibe I really like. Makes things seem more real and serious- as if they weren't already, taking everything into account.
Character Appreciation
Another thing I liked about this movie was that they show us more about our favorite characters that we hadn't gotten to see.
It wasn't in the book, but McGonagal does an epic spell to help protect the school from the impending invasion of the Death Eaters and almost bursting with pride, face all aglow, she says "I've always wanted to use that spell."
But there is one notable thing in this movie and the book in general... a point that has been often discussed and debated for the duration of the series. Whether or not we can trust Snape. My mom had said for years that he's being made out to be the bad guy, but he really isn't. I thought for sure the fact Snape killed Dumbledore and left the school with the Death Eaters at the end of the Half-Blood Prince was all the proof we needed.
Apparently, she was right this whole time... and I had to admit it.
Plain and simple: the story arc with Snape, his entire life and what ultimately happens to him... that was the biggest motivation for me to watch through the movies and read through the books again, almost as soon as the last movie came out. Not the fact that the whole thing was over and there was nothing left to do (except wait for the last Twilight movie, I think at that time)... I wanted to read through the books and see the movies again purely to watch Snape and reanalyze all of his actions with his motivations finally clear.
The short version: Snape was in love with Harry's mom and he knew her before they went to Hogwarts. And he hated Harry's dad because they ended up together and also because his dad and his friends bullied him all the time. He was working with Voldemort, a former Death Eater, but he turned spy for the Order of the Phoenix when he discovered the Potters were going to be killed. And in the memory of Harry's mom, Snape watched over Harry. Which wasn't the easiest thing because he saw too much of his father in him. But in the end, he was redeemed.
[I'm sorry, I know I said that was the short version... but I just couldn't manage that]
Probably the coolest part was learning that J.K. Rowling actually told Alan Rickman what was going to happen with his character and he acted accordingly. The fact he brought that much to the character... just wow...
On a smaller scale, it was kinda cool that Neville and Luna got to go above and beyond. I think J.K. Rowling also told Matthew Lewis that big things were in store for Neville. Luna has this reputation for being a little extraordinary, thinking in different ways and she says a lot of things that aren't taken completely seriously. Not only is she right about who to ask about the last Horcrux, but she demands that Harry listen to her and damn- does he take notice.
Also- Helena Ravenclaw, aka the Grey Lady aka daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, the founder of the Ravenclaw house... she's played by the actress who did the voice of Meirida in "Brave"... I just found that out and that blew my mind.
...I'm trying to think if there were any storylines within this movie that I missed before addressing something that wasn't done justice.
The movie ends with Harry and his friends sending their kids to Hogwarts. While I understand why the kids were named what they were... I just thought it was kinda lame. Harry naming two of his kids after his parents... Once Upon a Time did something similiar, where Snow White and Prince Charming named their second child after Neal, Emma's boyfriend who did something that ultimately saved Storybrooke (for the third time, I think, by that point)... and Zelena named her baby Robin after Robin Hood... give me a break :roll: the homage is nice, but it makes it seem like the writers really weren't that creative.
And Harry naming another after two Headmasters of Hogwarts... dude... if this wasn't Hogwarts and his dad wasn't The Boy Who Lived and defeated Voldemort, his kid would have gotten beat up so bad for having such a silly sounding name.
One thing I didn't like about the movie... there were a lot of casualities... that goes without saying... but all of the significant deaths of good guys in the movie were shown in a montage with really sad music on the top.
Fred Weasley dies and we briefly see that.
Lavender Brown, I think, was attacked by Fenrir Greyback.
Then there's Lupin and Tonks... I think I said this in a previous post... I do not get how they were a couple or why they were a couple. It did not make sense.
And there was a storyline in this book that was almost completely overlooked... Lupin and Tonks were having a baby and Lupin was very uneasy about it. It was at the point where he visited Harry, Ron and Hermione at Grimmauld Place and asked to come with them to find the Horcruxes and Harry told him he had to be with Tonks and (paraphrasing here) stop being such a wuss about it. He was nervous about it because he's a werewolf and he was afraid that gene would be passed forward.
Anyway, both of them are killed in the Battle of Hogwarts and Harry only mentions they had a son in passing, telling this to Lupin's ghost that came out of the Resurrection Stone- oh yeah, the stone was what was inside of the Golden Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's Will. If anything is to be learned from the Harry Potter world, all of the legends are true. Including the legend of the Deathly Hallows.
I don't know why, but it just annoyed me how that storyline was never really addressed in the movie. Almost like the movie was meant to be a companion piece to the books rather than an adaptation of it... but it wasn't like they got everything right all the time. My posts have addressed this.
It's a minor detail... but another change in the movie... there's a scene where Harry goes into the Room of Requirement to find another Horcrux and he's found out by Draco Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. And Crabbe triggers a curse that not only burns down the room, but leads to his death.
Well, because the actor that played Crabbe got in trouble because he caught smoking marijuana and he was fired from the movies, instead of recasting him, they just gave this role to Goyle. I know it's very minor, but it still kinda bugs me that they made that change.
Going back to the positives... it's nice that the Malfoys do get a little repreive. They aren't the nicest people, but Voldemort really put them through hell. And because Harry has the decency (Ron might call it idiocy, considering they almost died doing so) of saving Draco, Narcissa Malfoy lied to Voldemort about Harry being alive. And the Malfoys, once reunited, discretely sneak into the back before all hell breaks loose upon the discovery that Harry's still alive. Like with Snape, the audience was predisposed (hope I'm using that right) to dislike Draco Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy based on the actions they did in the movies. But with Narcissa Malfoy, we saw so little of her in the movies. The first time was in the Half-Blood Prince where she asks Snape to make the Unbreakable Vow to watch over Draco. And only a few things since then... but we see that even though her family is full of Death Eaters and she's one herself, she's a mom underneath all that and that's ultimately the motivation of her character. She couldn't have been any more different from her sister, Bellatrix Lestrange.
By the way, her death scene... maybe even more satisfying than Voldemort's death despite the fact we waited the whole series for it to happen... if anything, I found it anti-climatic.
And there wasn't even a celebration scene at the end of the movie... after EIGHT movies, I at least expected something like Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. There weren't even any fireworks.
There was also a moment in the book where Harry used the Elder Wand to repair his old wand with the Phoenix tailfeather that broke in Godric's Hollow... unless he did it offscreen...
I know these things are a bit out of order from the headings, but I'm making this up as I go... as I often do.
...
And that's all of the Harry Potter movies...all that's left is to look forward to the next Fantastic Beasts movie... and based on the trailers, it looks like it's a lot of ground to cover.
Showing posts with label Rupert Grint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rupert Grint. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2018
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)- 2010
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Mad-Eye Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Fleur DeLaCoeur- Cleménce Poésy
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Stanton
[newcomers]
Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeor- Bill Nighy
Bill Weasley- Domnhall Gleeson (in case you didn't make the connection, fun fact- he's Mad Eye's son IRL... he'd also since shown up in the Star Wars movies as an Empire commander who gets made fun of a lot by the other characters, good and bad)
Xenophilius Lovegood- Rhys Ifans
Mundungus Fletcher- Andy Linden
Yaxley- Peter Mullan
...it's really hard trying to figure out who I should and shouldn't include... there's so many people in this movie, but few with really big roles.
Notable Nominations:
Art Direction and Visual Effects
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Wow, my last post from this series was in 2016... I don't think I'd seen any of the movies except maybe the Chamber of Secrets and Fantastic Beasts since then. I think it's also the first time I'd seen any of the movies since we actually went to Harry Potter in Universal Studios. That was one tremendous nerdgasm, just seeing all this stuff from the movies. Hogsmeade Village and Diagon Alley as well as so many tourists in costume and robes. It's almost like it's Comic-Con there every day and it is awesome. (Also, very expensive). We went through Hogwarts Castle and were unknowingly whisked off to a ride where we had to escape the castle. Our feet were dangling and we were thrown forward and backwards and the visuals varied between actual set design and a movie where we zipped through the Quidditch pitch and around the castle. My mom keeps saying she loved it, but it half scared the crap out of me and my sister. I literally blinked my way through the times we were moving because a) it was a little too much of a rush and b) it was kinda terrifying and I thought maybe I'd throw up a couple times. But the times we were still or laying on our backs, just looking at the scenery around us. We saw spiders, dementors and the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon and its breath were AWESOME. The spiders and dementors... :shudder: both creepy. At least with the dementor, I tried to think happy thoughts because that's how you defeat them. Yep, I'm a true Potter head :P
We also ate true British cuisine at the Hogsmeade Pub and had Butterbeer... so good! We also saw some girls dressed like they went to Madame Maxime's Academy of Magic. As for souvenirs, I got a T-shirt, a Ravenclaw scarf (cuz I like blue... although I may have fit into that house... I took the quiz at Pottermore and it actually put me in Slytherin... in my defense, so was Merlin and he wasn't a bad wizard), and a time-turner. And the cashier was great, saying for me not to use the time-turner to take more money out of my band account. He was totally in character and it was awesome.
Oh and we also saw Grimmauld Place on the street... which brings me back to this movie. The film does spend some time there, but seeing it again after having been there last October... oh man, that was great.
Now for the actual movie...
It was a 2-part movie and this is part one. For Harry Potter, this was definitely justified because both halves revolve around two different settings. Part One is basically Harry, Ron and Hermione on the run, trying to figure out how to find Horcruxes (objects that contain pieces of Voldemort's soul) and destroy them. And Part Two is essentially "the Battle of Hogwarts." Where they decided to split the two movies couldn't have been more perfect.
Spoilers Ahead...Read the Books!
Adaptation
For starters, I'll say that I think I'd read this book three times EVER. Once was when we first got it... I remember that my mom and dad were off to Vegas July 2007. Sometime when they were away, I watched Under the Cherry Moon for the first time (and my sister walked in a couple of times and said there was too much kissing in the movie... and Prince isn't the best on-screen kisser, I don't think anyway). And when they came back, my mom came with the book. She bought it at the airport and was reading it on the plane, as was another passenger and they briefly talked about being fans and such.
I remember my experience reading the book and how we took turns with it. The first hundred or so pages was agonizing because nothing was happening. So when this movie was split up, I initially thought that a lot of this book could have been shrunk down to fit into one movie. But after seeing the end result, I'm happy with how they did it.
As for transferring the book to the actual movie, most of it was done well. I wish they kept the scene where Harry and his cousin Dudley have their final goodbyes because it was kinda of a big moment in the book. A bit of a payoff after all those years where Dudley and his friends bullied him.
The story kept pace pretty well and they montaged a lot of stuff that should have been montaged in the actual book, lol. We watched it last night and I felt like the movie zipped by really fast. It's 2 hours and 13 minutes and it really didn't drag. Maybe because I spent half of the movie noticing little things I hadn't before or that I was actively questioning stuff. You know, nerding out.
For the most part, I think the story followed the book really well and not much was changed too much where I could complain about it.
One new thing I noticed was at Malfoy Manor at the beginning. Voldemort is practically having a Council of Evil dinner party and they're discussing finding/killing Harry when he's being shuttled to a safe house. At the table, there were a couple of characters I didn't pay much attention to until now. This was this guy Yaxley that nearly catches up with Harry and his friends when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and I thought it was weird that Hermione knew his name, but I had no idea who he was or why he was after them. Seeing him at this dinner party, I totally get the connection. And the guy that Voldemort says spoke "like a true politician"- he becomes the new Minister of Magic.
Oh yeah... Rufus Scrimgeour is the new Minister of Magic that was elected after Fudge had to resign at the end of the Order of the Phoenix. He was elected in the 6th book and actually meets Harry where he tries to get him to help the Minister renew their image or mend relations with him after they spent the previous book tarnishing his image. Harry, of course, declines and lets him have it. In this movie, we're meeting him for the first time. A little nit-pick, I know, but I thought it was a little too much when we start the movie with him giving a speech and the camera is staring at his eyes... a little TOO close there, Mr. Director!
He shows up at the Weasley House to read Dumbledore's Will (I remember how this was one of the first three scenes we got to see before the movie came out) and bequeaths three random objects to the three main characters and ultimately says "I don't know what you plan to do, but you can't do this alone"... then next we hear about him, he gets killed by Death Eaters and the Ministry has fallen...
The movie starts on a bit of a sad note because Hermione wipes her parents' memories of her. I remember watching through this YouTube series, Cinema Sins, where they nitpick movies endlessly. Half of their Harry Potter nitpicks were things that were EXPLAINED IN THE BOOKS so I thought they were completely stupid. The other half is Deus Ex Machina, a literary device where things are conveniently placed in the books because they explain/resolve things later in the plot. One example is in Chamber of Secrets where Herbology happens to be teaching everyone about Mandrakes the same year Mudbloods are getting petrified and juice made from them is the cure. It's something that does happen a lot in the Harry Potter books, but so what... so as much as I like watching Cinema Sins, the guy behind it sounds like an ignorant jerk... I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure cuz I'd watched a bunch of these videos.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make... he got one thing right... when Hermione wipes her parents' memories, she also erases her picture from all the picture frames. His comment was "won't Hermione's parents think it's strange they have a lot of blank picture frames in their house"... I get why she did it. Cuz if the Death Eaters find them and who they are, they'd probably torture them with the Cruciatus Curse and drive them incurably insane.
We do get a little story process when Harry and the other two stay at Grimmauld Place and learn who R.A.B. is. He left a note inside the locket Harry and Dumbledore retrieved in the previous movie, saying the locket is a fake and he plans to destroy the real Horcrux. Having inherited Grimmauld Place and Kreaker the house-elf from Sirius, Harry's able to compel Kreaker to tell him where the locket is. Mundungus Fletcher barely has any screen time, but we at least give him hell for running away when the Death Eaters attack the Order when they're transferring Harry to the safe house. It's because he ran that Mad-Eye Moody got killed.
But wouldn't you know it- the Ministry person he sold the locket was OUR Undesirable #1, former Professor Umbridge. I can understand why J.K. Rowling brought her back (she was disgraced and fired after her actions in the 5th book) in this book because who else to be in charge of the Muggle Registry... someone who thinks she knows better than everyone else and passive-aggressively tells muggle-borns that they can't be witches or wizards because they have no magic blood. Voldemort has always preferred purebloods above all others, but his policies really do hit home when we see all the propaganda the Ministry is sending out.
I could talk more on politics and who Umbridge reminds me of, but I've got better things to do.
While the movie is pretty dang serious through most of it, it's nice to have some of the Weasleys as comic relief. George gets injured the night of Harry's transfer and he comes up with the perfect line to make the seriousness of it go away. And later Ron has a couple of funny lines as well. That kinda makes up for the fact he turns into a jerk halfway through the movie and leaves because (shock horror) Harry has no idea how to find or destroy the Horcruxes. I thought Ron was a bit of a jerk in the Goblet of Fire after Harry is chosen to be in the Triwizard tournament, but this was over the top. But I guess if someone had to leave, he would... it also brings up a good talking point that the fandom had talked about for years. About why Harry and Hermione didn't end up together because they seem to be a good fit. I think J.K. Rowling came out and said she wanted to put Harry and Hermione together as well, but doing so would have taken Ron out of the picture entirely. Although looking at the actual quote where she says Ron/Hermione was "wish fulfillment"... I don't quite understand what she means by that. The article I read tried to explain that, but never gets anywhere.
But Ron has had issues for years being in the shadow of all his brothers as well as the great Harry Potter, so it makes sense that this would come to a head here of all places. There was a scene in the movie that was new and it was a nice addition. Hermione is depressed when Ron leaves and Harry tries to cheer her up by dancing with her to something on the radio.
My favorite scene of the whole movie is in Godric's Hollow where Harry wants to see where his parents are buried and it's where Bathilda Bagshot lives. She apparently was interviewed by Rita Skeeter for a new book (a smear piece on Dumbledore and his private life... she's still at, unfortunately... in the 4th book, Hermione does inevitably catch up with her and threatens to out her as an illegal Animagus if she doesn't stop with the swear pieces... it was left out of the movies, but considering this storyline, it kinda makes sense that it was left out). Anyway, Harry thinks it might be another lead towards a Horcrux.
Just the moment where it's snowing on Christmas Eve and Harry and Hermione are looking over the Potters' headstone... it was really solemn and sweet and sad all at the same time.
The way Ron ultimately comes back, maybe there were too many coincidences thrown together to make it work, but I honestly don't care. But him talking about this little ball of light that comes out of the Deluminator, goes into his heart and takes him to where Harry and Hermione are... I vaguely remember at the Oscars that they made fun, trying to make it sound like he's singing about this little ball of light. They did that with other movies too, but that one always stuck with me LOL
Another great scene is where they see Luna's dad about this symbol sees in her Beedle the Bard book (another thing from Dumbledore's will) and at the Peverell grave in Godric's Hollow. Three guesses what the symbol is... it's in the title...
Anyway, Hermione reads this story about the Three Brothers, which is about the Deathly Hallows. They choose to animate it. Not only is it a compelling story and Hermione is a great reader... but just the way it is animated... I got so sucked in that I was enchanted for the rest of the movie. It's REALLY well done. No doubt that's the reason this movie was nominated for two Oscars... beat by Inception and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
The remainder of the movie is pretty dramatic, though...
Harry and the others get caught by Snatchers (who work with the Ministry to round up Muggleborns with winds) and taken to the Malfoys because despite a stinging jinx Hermione uses on him, they believe Harry is with them.
Harry and Ron are thrown in the basement and Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione, thinking they stole the sword of Gryffindor from her Gringotts Vault. According to IMDB, a lot of it was cut out because it would have pushed for a more mature rating. It was that bad. And it also says that after the scene was shot, Helena Bonham Carter is extremely apologetic to Emma Watson. The screaming and her expression afterwards really sells it. (She'd carved "mudblood" into her arm).
Throughout the books, Dobby the House-Elf made several appearances since Harry freed in the Chamber of the Secrets. But in the movies, all of the moments where he helped further the plot (giving Harry the gillyweed for the 2nd task at the Triwizard tournament and locating the Room of Requirement for Dumbledore's Army to meet) were given to Neville. I don't disagree with giving Neville more screen time to do something other than getting jinxed... but I just thought it was lazy on their part cuz they didn't want to spend time on that animation.
Dobby finally returns and of course it's for the last time... that's the really unfortunate part. Although it is nice he actually saves Harry's life and he actually needs him to (in the Chamber of Secrets, he kept trying to get Harry kicked out of Hogwarts because he overhears from the Malfoys something terrible will happen)... it's a minor nitpick, but I hate that his animation is completely different from the previous movie. I don't know, I just really like continuity with how characters look. When I go into the Twilight movies, I'll REALLY have a field day with that.
A few more funny things from this particular viewing...
The moment where Harry says in the Ministry of Magic (he and Hermione are disguised as employees using Polyjuice Potion) that if they don't find Umbridge in an hour, they'll come back another day... and a second later she shows up at the elevator, I screamed :P it's been so long since I'd seen it I totally forgot it was that moment. Plus, I really don't like her. Major ick factor.
I also noticed that the number 7 came up a lot in the series... just a random observation. My mom asked me how many Harrys there were when the Order was getting him to the safe house and half of his friends took Polyjuice potions to become decoys. (So funny when Fred and George said "look, we're identical"... their voices coming out of Daniel Radcliffe kinda reminded me of Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings, cuz Harry is a lot shorter than they are and just their accents. Plus they're all comic relief characters). I somehow remembered the chapter said there was 7, but I said it was called "the seven Harrys"... it was called the "seven Potters"... close enough, I say.
Plus there are 7 Horcruxes and 7 Weasley siblings (also, I know he didn't really have a part to play in the story, but it kinda sucks we never got to meet Charlie Weasley, Ron's brother who studies dragons in Romania) and I remembered just now that Harry's Quidditch uniform has the #7 on it. Oh, and there are 7 players on a Quidditch team.
I know it's not the most original number to use everywhere (Prince has SEVERAL songs that mention the number 7... including one just called "7"), but I just thought that was a fun/funny observation.
Wow, my Harry nerdom really does show in these posts :P
Also two things I noticed were recurring themes in this movie... but they were only referred to once in the second movie and that was when they were actually useful... the shard of the mirror Sirius had given Harry and Harry had used to it to call for help and got Dobby (he finds out who was actually behind it in the next movie) and there's the Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's will. It shows up throughout the movie, flying around and he sees the words "I open at the close" on it. But by the time it shows up in the last movie, you completely forget that he has it... I just find that a little odd. But that's what happens when you have two separate movies.
Unless of course you play them back to back... which we did once before... the reason it took so long to do this was because my mom refuses to watch this movie unless we see the second half soon afterwards, whether it's hours or days...
so now it's time to watch the last Harry Potter movie and put an end to all this... sadly, but it must be done.
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Alexandre Desplat
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Mad-Eye Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Fleur DeLaCoeur- Cleménce Poésy
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Stanton
[newcomers]
Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeor- Bill Nighy
Bill Weasley- Domnhall Gleeson (in case you didn't make the connection, fun fact- he's Mad Eye's son IRL... he'd also since shown up in the Star Wars movies as an Empire commander who gets made fun of a lot by the other characters, good and bad)
Xenophilius Lovegood- Rhys Ifans
Mundungus Fletcher- Andy Linden
Yaxley- Peter Mullan
...it's really hard trying to figure out who I should and shouldn't include... there's so many people in this movie, but few with really big roles.
Notable Nominations:
Art Direction and Visual Effects
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Wow, my last post from this series was in 2016... I don't think I'd seen any of the movies except maybe the Chamber of Secrets and Fantastic Beasts since then. I think it's also the first time I'd seen any of the movies since we actually went to Harry Potter in Universal Studios. That was one tremendous nerdgasm, just seeing all this stuff from the movies. Hogsmeade Village and Diagon Alley as well as so many tourists in costume and robes. It's almost like it's Comic-Con there every day and it is awesome. (Also, very expensive). We went through Hogwarts Castle and were unknowingly whisked off to a ride where we had to escape the castle. Our feet were dangling and we were thrown forward and backwards and the visuals varied between actual set design and a movie where we zipped through the Quidditch pitch and around the castle. My mom keeps saying she loved it, but it half scared the crap out of me and my sister. I literally blinked my way through the times we were moving because a) it was a little too much of a rush and b) it was kinda terrifying and I thought maybe I'd throw up a couple times. But the times we were still or laying on our backs, just looking at the scenery around us. We saw spiders, dementors and the Hungarian Horntail. The dragon and its breath were AWESOME. The spiders and dementors... :shudder: both creepy. At least with the dementor, I tried to think happy thoughts because that's how you defeat them. Yep, I'm a true Potter head :P
We also ate true British cuisine at the Hogsmeade Pub and had Butterbeer... so good! We also saw some girls dressed like they went to Madame Maxime's Academy of Magic. As for souvenirs, I got a T-shirt, a Ravenclaw scarf (cuz I like blue... although I may have fit into that house... I took the quiz at Pottermore and it actually put me in Slytherin... in my defense, so was Merlin and he wasn't a bad wizard), and a time-turner. And the cashier was great, saying for me not to use the time-turner to take more money out of my band account. He was totally in character and it was awesome.
Oh and we also saw Grimmauld Place on the street... which brings me back to this movie. The film does spend some time there, but seeing it again after having been there last October... oh man, that was great.
Now for the actual movie...
It was a 2-part movie and this is part one. For Harry Potter, this was definitely justified because both halves revolve around two different settings. Part One is basically Harry, Ron and Hermione on the run, trying to figure out how to find Horcruxes (objects that contain pieces of Voldemort's soul) and destroy them. And Part Two is essentially "the Battle of Hogwarts." Where they decided to split the two movies couldn't have been more perfect.
Spoilers Ahead...Read the Books!
Adaptation
For starters, I'll say that I think I'd read this book three times EVER. Once was when we first got it... I remember that my mom and dad were off to Vegas July 2007. Sometime when they were away, I watched Under the Cherry Moon for the first time (and my sister walked in a couple of times and said there was too much kissing in the movie... and Prince isn't the best on-screen kisser, I don't think anyway). And when they came back, my mom came with the book. She bought it at the airport and was reading it on the plane, as was another passenger and they briefly talked about being fans and such.
I remember my experience reading the book and how we took turns with it. The first hundred or so pages was agonizing because nothing was happening. So when this movie was split up, I initially thought that a lot of this book could have been shrunk down to fit into one movie. But after seeing the end result, I'm happy with how they did it.
As for transferring the book to the actual movie, most of it was done well. I wish they kept the scene where Harry and his cousin Dudley have their final goodbyes because it was kinda of a big moment in the book. A bit of a payoff after all those years where Dudley and his friends bullied him.
The story kept pace pretty well and they montaged a lot of stuff that should have been montaged in the actual book, lol. We watched it last night and I felt like the movie zipped by really fast. It's 2 hours and 13 minutes and it really didn't drag. Maybe because I spent half of the movie noticing little things I hadn't before or that I was actively questioning stuff. You know, nerding out.
For the most part, I think the story followed the book really well and not much was changed too much where I could complain about it.
One new thing I noticed was at Malfoy Manor at the beginning. Voldemort is practically having a Council of Evil dinner party and they're discussing finding/killing Harry when he's being shuttled to a safe house. At the table, there were a couple of characters I didn't pay much attention to until now. This was this guy Yaxley that nearly catches up with Harry and his friends when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and I thought it was weird that Hermione knew his name, but I had no idea who he was or why he was after them. Seeing him at this dinner party, I totally get the connection. And the guy that Voldemort says spoke "like a true politician"- he becomes the new Minister of Magic.
Oh yeah... Rufus Scrimgeour is the new Minister of Magic that was elected after Fudge had to resign at the end of the Order of the Phoenix. He was elected in the 6th book and actually meets Harry where he tries to get him to help the Minister renew their image or mend relations with him after they spent the previous book tarnishing his image. Harry, of course, declines and lets him have it. In this movie, we're meeting him for the first time. A little nit-pick, I know, but I thought it was a little too much when we start the movie with him giving a speech and the camera is staring at his eyes... a little TOO close there, Mr. Director!
He shows up at the Weasley House to read Dumbledore's Will (I remember how this was one of the first three scenes we got to see before the movie came out) and bequeaths three random objects to the three main characters and ultimately says "I don't know what you plan to do, but you can't do this alone"... then next we hear about him, he gets killed by Death Eaters and the Ministry has fallen...
The movie starts on a bit of a sad note because Hermione wipes her parents' memories of her. I remember watching through this YouTube series, Cinema Sins, where they nitpick movies endlessly. Half of their Harry Potter nitpicks were things that were EXPLAINED IN THE BOOKS so I thought they were completely stupid. The other half is Deus Ex Machina, a literary device where things are conveniently placed in the books because they explain/resolve things later in the plot. One example is in Chamber of Secrets where Herbology happens to be teaching everyone about Mandrakes the same year Mudbloods are getting petrified and juice made from them is the cure. It's something that does happen a lot in the Harry Potter books, but so what... so as much as I like watching Cinema Sins, the guy behind it sounds like an ignorant jerk... I guess you could call it a guilty pleasure cuz I'd watched a bunch of these videos.
Anyway, the point I wanted to make... he got one thing right... when Hermione wipes her parents' memories, she also erases her picture from all the picture frames. His comment was "won't Hermione's parents think it's strange they have a lot of blank picture frames in their house"... I get why she did it. Cuz if the Death Eaters find them and who they are, they'd probably torture them with the Cruciatus Curse and drive them incurably insane.
We do get a little story process when Harry and the other two stay at Grimmauld Place and learn who R.A.B. is. He left a note inside the locket Harry and Dumbledore retrieved in the previous movie, saying the locket is a fake and he plans to destroy the real Horcrux. Having inherited Grimmauld Place and Kreaker the house-elf from Sirius, Harry's able to compel Kreaker to tell him where the locket is. Mundungus Fletcher barely has any screen time, but we at least give him hell for running away when the Death Eaters attack the Order when they're transferring Harry to the safe house. It's because he ran that Mad-Eye Moody got killed.
But wouldn't you know it- the Ministry person he sold the locket was OUR Undesirable #1, former Professor Umbridge. I can understand why J.K. Rowling brought her back (she was disgraced and fired after her actions in the 5th book) in this book because who else to be in charge of the Muggle Registry... someone who thinks she knows better than everyone else and passive-aggressively tells muggle-borns that they can't be witches or wizards because they have no magic blood. Voldemort has always preferred purebloods above all others, but his policies really do hit home when we see all the propaganda the Ministry is sending out.
I could talk more on politics and who Umbridge reminds me of, but I've got better things to do.
While the movie is pretty dang serious through most of it, it's nice to have some of the Weasleys as comic relief. George gets injured the night of Harry's transfer and he comes up with the perfect line to make the seriousness of it go away. And later Ron has a couple of funny lines as well. That kinda makes up for the fact he turns into a jerk halfway through the movie and leaves because (shock horror) Harry has no idea how to find or destroy the Horcruxes. I thought Ron was a bit of a jerk in the Goblet of Fire after Harry is chosen to be in the Triwizard tournament, but this was over the top. But I guess if someone had to leave, he would... it also brings up a good talking point that the fandom had talked about for years. About why Harry and Hermione didn't end up together because they seem to be a good fit. I think J.K. Rowling came out and said she wanted to put Harry and Hermione together as well, but doing so would have taken Ron out of the picture entirely. Although looking at the actual quote where she says Ron/Hermione was "wish fulfillment"... I don't quite understand what she means by that. The article I read tried to explain that, but never gets anywhere.
But Ron has had issues for years being in the shadow of all his brothers as well as the great Harry Potter, so it makes sense that this would come to a head here of all places. There was a scene in the movie that was new and it was a nice addition. Hermione is depressed when Ron leaves and Harry tries to cheer her up by dancing with her to something on the radio.
My favorite scene of the whole movie is in Godric's Hollow where Harry wants to see where his parents are buried and it's where Bathilda Bagshot lives. She apparently was interviewed by Rita Skeeter for a new book (a smear piece on Dumbledore and his private life... she's still at, unfortunately... in the 4th book, Hermione does inevitably catch up with her and threatens to out her as an illegal Animagus if she doesn't stop with the swear pieces... it was left out of the movies, but considering this storyline, it kinda makes sense that it was left out). Anyway, Harry thinks it might be another lead towards a Horcrux.
Just the moment where it's snowing on Christmas Eve and Harry and Hermione are looking over the Potters' headstone... it was really solemn and sweet and sad all at the same time.
The way Ron ultimately comes back, maybe there were too many coincidences thrown together to make it work, but I honestly don't care. But him talking about this little ball of light that comes out of the Deluminator, goes into his heart and takes him to where Harry and Hermione are... I vaguely remember at the Oscars that they made fun, trying to make it sound like he's singing about this little ball of light. They did that with other movies too, but that one always stuck with me LOL
Another great scene is where they see Luna's dad about this symbol sees in her Beedle the Bard book (another thing from Dumbledore's will) and at the Peverell grave in Godric's Hollow. Three guesses what the symbol is... it's in the title...
Anyway, Hermione reads this story about the Three Brothers, which is about the Deathly Hallows. They choose to animate it. Not only is it a compelling story and Hermione is a great reader... but just the way it is animated... I got so sucked in that I was enchanted for the rest of the movie. It's REALLY well done. No doubt that's the reason this movie was nominated for two Oscars... beat by Inception and Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
The remainder of the movie is pretty dramatic, though...
Harry and the others get caught by Snatchers (who work with the Ministry to round up Muggleborns with winds) and taken to the Malfoys because despite a stinging jinx Hermione uses on him, they believe Harry is with them.
Harry and Ron are thrown in the basement and Bellatrix Lestrange tortures Hermione, thinking they stole the sword of Gryffindor from her Gringotts Vault. According to IMDB, a lot of it was cut out because it would have pushed for a more mature rating. It was that bad. And it also says that after the scene was shot, Helena Bonham Carter is extremely apologetic to Emma Watson. The screaming and her expression afterwards really sells it. (She'd carved "mudblood" into her arm).
Throughout the books, Dobby the House-Elf made several appearances since Harry freed in the Chamber of the Secrets. But in the movies, all of the moments where he helped further the plot (giving Harry the gillyweed for the 2nd task at the Triwizard tournament and locating the Room of Requirement for Dumbledore's Army to meet) were given to Neville. I don't disagree with giving Neville more screen time to do something other than getting jinxed... but I just thought it was lazy on their part cuz they didn't want to spend time on that animation.
Dobby finally returns and of course it's for the last time... that's the really unfortunate part. Although it is nice he actually saves Harry's life and he actually needs him to (in the Chamber of Secrets, he kept trying to get Harry kicked out of Hogwarts because he overhears from the Malfoys something terrible will happen)... it's a minor nitpick, but I hate that his animation is completely different from the previous movie. I don't know, I just really like continuity with how characters look. When I go into the Twilight movies, I'll REALLY have a field day with that.
A few more funny things from this particular viewing...
The moment where Harry says in the Ministry of Magic (he and Hermione are disguised as employees using Polyjuice Potion) that if they don't find Umbridge in an hour, they'll come back another day... and a second later she shows up at the elevator, I screamed :P it's been so long since I'd seen it I totally forgot it was that moment. Plus, I really don't like her. Major ick factor.
I also noticed that the number 7 came up a lot in the series... just a random observation. My mom asked me how many Harrys there were when the Order was getting him to the safe house and half of his friends took Polyjuice potions to become decoys. (So funny when Fred and George said "look, we're identical"... their voices coming out of Daniel Radcliffe kinda reminded me of Merry and Pippin from Lord of the Rings, cuz Harry is a lot shorter than they are and just their accents. Plus they're all comic relief characters). I somehow remembered the chapter said there was 7, but I said it was called "the seven Harrys"... it was called the "seven Potters"... close enough, I say.
Plus there are 7 Horcruxes and 7 Weasley siblings (also, I know he didn't really have a part to play in the story, but it kinda sucks we never got to meet Charlie Weasley, Ron's brother who studies dragons in Romania) and I remembered just now that Harry's Quidditch uniform has the #7 on it. Oh, and there are 7 players on a Quidditch team.
I know it's not the most original number to use everywhere (Prince has SEVERAL songs that mention the number 7... including one just called "7"), but I just thought that was a fun/funny observation.
Wow, my Harry nerdom really does show in these posts :P
Also two things I noticed were recurring themes in this movie... but they were only referred to once in the second movie and that was when they were actually useful... the shard of the mirror Sirius had given Harry and Harry had used to it to call for help and got Dobby (he finds out who was actually behind it in the next movie) and there's the Snitch Harry got from Dumbledore's will. It shows up throughout the movie, flying around and he sees the words "I open at the close" on it. But by the time it shows up in the last movie, you completely forget that he has it... I just find that a little odd. But that's what happens when you have two separate movies.
Unless of course you play them back to back... which we did once before... the reason it took so long to do this was because my mom refuses to watch this movie unless we see the second half soon afterwards, whether it's hours or days...
so now it's time to watch the last Harry Potter movie and put an end to all this... sadly, but it must be done.
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2008)
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Nicholas Hooper
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Ginny Weasley- Bonnie Wright
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Lupin- David Thewlis
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
[newcomers]
Horace Slughorn- Jim Broadbent
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Lavender Brown- Jessie Cave
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Looking over my previous entry, which I wrote about in January... oh man, 2016 needs to end soon... too many great people have died since David Bowie and Alan Rickman... some of old age, so I don't feel nearly as bad about them.
Just please, no one else... Prince was the deepest cut of all, but at least when I listen to him, I can trick my mind into believing he's still alive. His spirit certainly is.
Anyway... onto the movie...
For starters...
By the time the movie came out, I'd only read the book once and it wasn't as fresh in my head. Meaning that I didn't pick the movie apart and say how they skipped a certain scene from the book or reinterpreted some things. If there were any changes, they made sense and the overall story pretty much stayed the same.
If you read my "Order of the Phoenix" post, this might be a bit of a reprieve. Although there are one or two scenes I could nit-pick at. More on that later...
Firstly, there was a mighty big spoiler about this book that has worked its way into pop culture. And by that, I mean it was referenced on "Big Bang Theory." Leonard runs off to Penny's apartment because Sheldon spoiled the main event in the Half-Blood Prince. Then again, Leonard waited until that particular time to start reading the books...
I'm not sure if there's any truth to this rumor, but I heard there was a midnight book release where people were still waiting in line and someone who got their book ahead of them ran down the line and shouted the spoiler.
Seriously, this turn of events was like the major spoiler of Games of Thrones...
By the way, I will be mentioning it further down the line. If not in this entry, then in the 2nd Deathly Hallows post.
The StorySpoilers ahead... read the books!!
The wizarding world has now accepted the fact Voldermort is back from the dead. And it's just a matter of time before the world crumbles apart. The only things keeping things generally stable is that fact Harry Potter and Dumbledore are alive. Because of Harry, there is hope. And because of Dumbledore, Hogwarts is still a safe haven.
We begin our journey with Harry when Dumbledore takes him a trip. His mission: convince a former Hogwarts professor to return. Horace Slughorn is reluctant at first, but because he gravitates towards exceptionally talented students. He even has a shelf of photographs of students he had that later became famous or have connections to famous wizards and witches.
It later becomes clear that Harry is to get close to Slughorn because he has something valuable for Dumbledore's plan to put an end to Voldermort.
On the other side of things, Snape meets with Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy, wife of the now-disgraced Lucius Malfoy and Draco Malfoy's mom.
Draco has been assigned a particular difficult, potentially dangerous task, and Narcisssa asks him to protect him. And he agrees to make this Unbreakable Vow.
While with his friends in Diagon Alley, Harry follows Draco Malfoy to a store in Knockturn Alley called Borgin & Burkes. Based on what he witnesses, he believes that Malfoy has become a Death Eater, one of Voldermort's circle of followers.
Eventually, we get to Hogwarts where a lot is going on. Slughorn is the new potions teacher. Harry is finally doing well in potions class thanks to a used potions book said to be property of "the half-blood Prince" and Snape finally gets his chance to be Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Ron gets a position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and a new girlfriend. Hermione also comes to grips with her own feelings about Ron and Harry is doing the same regarding Ginny Weasley.
At the same time, Harry has regular meetings with Dumbledore where they go into Voldermort's past to learn more about him. And thanks to a memory they recover from Slughorn, they learn about Horcruxes--a object a person uses to hide a piece of their soul, which allows them immortality.
Throughout, we also have a number of incidents where Dumbledore was the intended target, but other students wind up getting hurt instead.
HighlightsFor starters, Jim Broadbent is a great addition to the cast as Slughorn. I didn't remember liking this character quite as much in the book. The whole thing about him "collecting" students as if he could take credit for their achievements because he taught them... seemed a bit egotistical to me. At least in the movie, he can have a good sense of humor about things, but also heart in the times that really mattered.
My favorite scene has to be when Harry takes the Felix Felicius (basically a "liquid luck" potion) to talk to Slughorn and he seems to be high on some odd sort of adrenaline. Lots of great comedic lines. But also when Slughorn finally levels it with Harry, it was a great emotional scene and it harkens back to when Harry's parents were killed. Not just Harry embracing his destiny, but more background information.
Draco Malfoy gets a lot of great character development. It seems in the beginning that he was just a pompous bully from a rich family. But he gets more dimension and Tom Felton does a great job bringing that out of him.
Harry, while he was right to be suspicious, you have to admit he goes too far at one point. And I can't help but wonder (as I'm sure a lot of people have)- how the hell did he not get expelled for what he did to Malfoy? Especially since Snape catches him afterwards...The chemistry between the young actors and actresses really shined here. They've gotten so close after spending years working together, you'd think this was just another normal day. The Ron and Hermione relationship really gets tested here, particularly how Hermione feels about Ron.
To his credit, though, Rupert Grint does have a few great comedic moments in the movie. First, I believe, was a scene added for the movie. Harry and Ron were goofing off during a free period where they would have had Potions. Professor McGonagall, in her own dry humor way, breaks up the party. At the end, she adds "take Mr. Weasley with you, he looks far too happy over there."
Then later Ron is crippled by a love potion originally intended for Harry. The sheer goofiness is worth all the laughs. But this being a Harry Potter film, things do have to get serious.
While the climax isn't as substantial as it was in the book, the tension brought in by the 3rd act.... it's catastrophic. The bad guys get the upper hand in the situation and everyone can feel the devastation of it.
The build-up of Harry and Dumbledore's "lessons" on defeating Voldemort leads up to finding a Horcrux. and it's easily one of the most troubling, scariest scenes in all of the movies. Neither of the two goes completely unscathed.
On a final positive note, it's great to see Quidditch back in the Harry Potter movies. We got short-changed at the Quidditch cup and absolutely no Quidditch in the 5th movie (where Harry, Fred and George get banned for beating up Malfoy... at least I think they beat him up, it's been a while since I read the book).
Ron finally gets his time to shine and it happens thanks to a little white lie from Harry.
Lowlights
While there aren't a lot of lowlights in this movie, considering it's based on a great book, there's always going to be nitpicks.
First of all, Harry's first scene makes no sense. He meets a waitress at a restaurant, she's into him and Dumbledore shows up to whisk Harry away for their mission.
In the book, there are a great scene where Dumbledore finally tells off the Dursleys for their mistreatment of Harry. All this movie scene does is kill time and set up the fact Harry is a teenage interested in girls.
I also never really got Harry and Ginny becoming an item. It just felt so random to me... about as random as how Harry and Cho were broken up in the last movie. I would have been fine if Harry never wound up with anybody. At least Ron and Hermione made sense.
Also: Snape finally gets to become Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and we don't see him teach a single class? Talk about a rip-off. All that build-up through the course of the films for nothing. I can't even remember in the book if we had a scene with him teaching.
I could nitpick on Luna finding Harry on the train after Malfoy cursed him... in the book, it was Tonks, who was there to help guard the castle after the last attacks from Death Eaters. She and Lupin become an item in this book, something that was barely touched on in the movie. But for me that was another random coupling... just didn't make sense.
I could live without the "Battle of Hogwarts" scene that led to a couple deaths and Bill Weasley (Ron's oldest brother) becoming a werewolf.
But I can't understand the scene where The Burrow is attacked. It wasn't in the book and really served no purpose other than for Harry and Ginny to have a good battle scene together. The result was the Weasley house being cast into flames... yet the house was perfectly fine in the next movie. To me, it just felt like they decided they needed an extra action scene. And the explanation I found of them needing to bring the fight to Harry to make it more real... sorry, don't buy it.The Elephant in the Room...
Snape killing Dumbledore... that was maybe the biggest blow in the entire series. I wasn't upset about Sirius because I didn't really get to know him until the movies. But this was a guy you thought was invincible. The only wizard Voldemort ever feared. It was one of those things that didn't make sense because you thought he'd always be around. But if we wanted things to get REALLY real for Harry, that was the one thing that made the most sense.
As for Snape being the one doing it... my reaction was "I KNEW IT"... all this time, Snape was meant to be the bad guy. Everyone said how Dumbledore trusted him and therefore we should, but there's just that feeling there where all the pieces only added up one way. Between that scene and the earlier one where he makes the Unbreakable Vow and explains (in the book anyway... I'm sure in the movie if they had the time, they could have done that whole chapter through flashbacks) all the moments he could have killed Harry and why he didn't.
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Nicholas Hooper
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Ginny Weasley- Bonnie Wright
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Lupin- David Thewlis
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
[newcomers]
Horace Slughorn- Jim Broadbent
Narcissa Malfoy- Helen McCrory
Lavender Brown- Jessie Cave
Write-up:
Opening Comments
Looking over my previous entry, which I wrote about in January... oh man, 2016 needs to end soon... too many great people have died since David Bowie and Alan Rickman... some of old age, so I don't feel nearly as bad about them.
Just please, no one else... Prince was the deepest cut of all, but at least when I listen to him, I can trick my mind into believing he's still alive. His spirit certainly is.
Anyway... onto the movie...
For starters...
By the time the movie came out, I'd only read the book once and it wasn't as fresh in my head. Meaning that I didn't pick the movie apart and say how they skipped a certain scene from the book or reinterpreted some things. If there were any changes, they made sense and the overall story pretty much stayed the same.
If you read my "Order of the Phoenix" post, this might be a bit of a reprieve. Although there are one or two scenes I could nit-pick at. More on that later...
Firstly, there was a mighty big spoiler about this book that has worked its way into pop culture. And by that, I mean it was referenced on "Big Bang Theory." Leonard runs off to Penny's apartment because Sheldon spoiled the main event in the Half-Blood Prince. Then again, Leonard waited until that particular time to start reading the books...
I'm not sure if there's any truth to this rumor, but I heard there was a midnight book release where people were still waiting in line and someone who got their book ahead of them ran down the line and shouted the spoiler.
Seriously, this turn of events was like the major spoiler of Games of Thrones...
By the way, I will be mentioning it further down the line. If not in this entry, then in the 2nd Deathly Hallows post.
The StorySpoilers ahead... read the books!!
The wizarding world has now accepted the fact Voldermort is back from the dead. And it's just a matter of time before the world crumbles apart. The only things keeping things generally stable is that fact Harry Potter and Dumbledore are alive. Because of Harry, there is hope. And because of Dumbledore, Hogwarts is still a safe haven.
We begin our journey with Harry when Dumbledore takes him a trip. His mission: convince a former Hogwarts professor to return. Horace Slughorn is reluctant at first, but because he gravitates towards exceptionally talented students. He even has a shelf of photographs of students he had that later became famous or have connections to famous wizards and witches.
It later becomes clear that Harry is to get close to Slughorn because he has something valuable for Dumbledore's plan to put an end to Voldermort.
On the other side of things, Snape meets with Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy, wife of the now-disgraced Lucius Malfoy and Draco Malfoy's mom.
Draco has been assigned a particular difficult, potentially dangerous task, and Narcisssa asks him to protect him. And he agrees to make this Unbreakable Vow.
While with his friends in Diagon Alley, Harry follows Draco Malfoy to a store in Knockturn Alley called Borgin & Burkes. Based on what he witnesses, he believes that Malfoy has become a Death Eater, one of Voldermort's circle of followers.
Eventually, we get to Hogwarts where a lot is going on. Slughorn is the new potions teacher. Harry is finally doing well in potions class thanks to a used potions book said to be property of "the half-blood Prince" and Snape finally gets his chance to be Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Ron gets a position on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and a new girlfriend. Hermione also comes to grips with her own feelings about Ron and Harry is doing the same regarding Ginny Weasley.
At the same time, Harry has regular meetings with Dumbledore where they go into Voldermort's past to learn more about him. And thanks to a memory they recover from Slughorn, they learn about Horcruxes--a object a person uses to hide a piece of their soul, which allows them immortality.
Throughout, we also have a number of incidents where Dumbledore was the intended target, but other students wind up getting hurt instead.
HighlightsFor starters, Jim Broadbent is a great addition to the cast as Slughorn. I didn't remember liking this character quite as much in the book. The whole thing about him "collecting" students as if he could take credit for their achievements because he taught them... seemed a bit egotistical to me. At least in the movie, he can have a good sense of humor about things, but also heart in the times that really mattered.
My favorite scene has to be when Harry takes the Felix Felicius (basically a "liquid luck" potion) to talk to Slughorn and he seems to be high on some odd sort of adrenaline. Lots of great comedic lines. But also when Slughorn finally levels it with Harry, it was a great emotional scene and it harkens back to when Harry's parents were killed. Not just Harry embracing his destiny, but more background information.
Draco Malfoy gets a lot of great character development. It seems in the beginning that he was just a pompous bully from a rich family. But he gets more dimension and Tom Felton does a great job bringing that out of him.
Harry, while he was right to be suspicious, you have to admit he goes too far at one point. And I can't help but wonder (as I'm sure a lot of people have)- how the hell did he not get expelled for what he did to Malfoy? Especially since Snape catches him afterwards...The chemistry between the young actors and actresses really shined here. They've gotten so close after spending years working together, you'd think this was just another normal day. The Ron and Hermione relationship really gets tested here, particularly how Hermione feels about Ron.
To his credit, though, Rupert Grint does have a few great comedic moments in the movie. First, I believe, was a scene added for the movie. Harry and Ron were goofing off during a free period where they would have had Potions. Professor McGonagall, in her own dry humor way, breaks up the party. At the end, she adds "take Mr. Weasley with you, he looks far too happy over there."
Then later Ron is crippled by a love potion originally intended for Harry. The sheer goofiness is worth all the laughs. But this being a Harry Potter film, things do have to get serious.
While the climax isn't as substantial as it was in the book, the tension brought in by the 3rd act.... it's catastrophic. The bad guys get the upper hand in the situation and everyone can feel the devastation of it.
The build-up of Harry and Dumbledore's "lessons" on defeating Voldemort leads up to finding a Horcrux. and it's easily one of the most troubling, scariest scenes in all of the movies. Neither of the two goes completely unscathed.
On a final positive note, it's great to see Quidditch back in the Harry Potter movies. We got short-changed at the Quidditch cup and absolutely no Quidditch in the 5th movie (where Harry, Fred and George get banned for beating up Malfoy... at least I think they beat him up, it's been a while since I read the book).
Ron finally gets his time to shine and it happens thanks to a little white lie from Harry.
Lowlights
While there aren't a lot of lowlights in this movie, considering it's based on a great book, there's always going to be nitpicks.
First of all, Harry's first scene makes no sense. He meets a waitress at a restaurant, she's into him and Dumbledore shows up to whisk Harry away for their mission.
In the book, there are a great scene where Dumbledore finally tells off the Dursleys for their mistreatment of Harry. All this movie scene does is kill time and set up the fact Harry is a teenage interested in girls.
I also never really got Harry and Ginny becoming an item. It just felt so random to me... about as random as how Harry and Cho were broken up in the last movie. I would have been fine if Harry never wound up with anybody. At least Ron and Hermione made sense.
Also: Snape finally gets to become Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and we don't see him teach a single class? Talk about a rip-off. All that build-up through the course of the films for nothing. I can't even remember in the book if we had a scene with him teaching.
I could nitpick on Luna finding Harry on the train after Malfoy cursed him... in the book, it was Tonks, who was there to help guard the castle after the last attacks from Death Eaters. She and Lupin become an item in this book, something that was barely touched on in the movie. But for me that was another random coupling... just didn't make sense.
I could live without the "Battle of Hogwarts" scene that led to a couple deaths and Bill Weasley (Ron's oldest brother) becoming a werewolf.
But I can't understand the scene where The Burrow is attacked. It wasn't in the book and really served no purpose other than for Harry and Ginny to have a good battle scene together. The result was the Weasley house being cast into flames... yet the house was perfectly fine in the next movie. To me, it just felt like they decided they needed an extra action scene. And the explanation I found of them needing to bring the fight to Harry to make it more real... sorry, don't buy it.The Elephant in the Room...
BIG SPOILER ahead
Snape killing Dumbledore... that was maybe the biggest blow in the entire series. I wasn't upset about Sirius because I didn't really get to know him until the movies. But this was a guy you thought was invincible. The only wizard Voldemort ever feared. It was one of those things that didn't make sense because you thought he'd always be around. But if we wanted things to get REALLY real for Harry, that was the one thing that made the most sense.
As for Snape being the one doing it... my reaction was "I KNEW IT"... all this time, Snape was meant to be the bad guy. Everyone said how Dumbledore trusted him and therefore we should, but there's just that feeling there where all the pieces only added up one way. Between that scene and the earlier one where he makes the Unbreakable Vow and explains (in the book anyway... I'm sure in the movie if they had the time, they could have done that whole chapter through flashbacks) all the moments he could have killed Harry and why he didn't.
Meanwhile, my mom reads it and still believes that it's way too easy to assume Snape is the bad guy and there has to be an explanation.
I'll go into this more in the final entry on this film series... but by the end of it, obviously, only one of us is going to be right about him.
I'll go into this more in the final entry on this film series... but by the end of it, obviously, only one of us is going to be right about him.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Director: David Yates
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Michael Goldenberg (screenplay)
Composer: Nicholas Hooper
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Professor Trelawney- Emma Thompson
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Cho Chang- Katie Leung
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
Lucius Malfoy- Jason Isaacs
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Ex-Auror Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Lupin- David Thewlis
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
[newcomers]
Mrs. Figg- Kathryn Hunter
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Staunton
Nymphadora Tonks- Natalia Tena
Kingsley Shacklebolt- George Harris
Luna Lovegood- Evanna Lynch
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Write-up:
First things first...
RIP Alan Rickman :(
When the news first broke, I was really hoping it'd be one of those Internet hoaxes because it just seemed too soon. Also, we just lost David Bowie a couple days before that. 2016 is not getting off to a good start.
He doesn't quite as significant a role in this film (compared to the 1st, 3rd and 8th films in the series).
Someone on YouTube posted a compilation of his greatest highlights as Snape through the films- a couple of times, I got a little choked up.
I'd also seen/enjoyed him in "Love Actually" and "Die Hard."
However little screentime he has, he does impact the plot and lead to a couple laughs. We also get a little more of his back story, which makes things in Harry's story arc kinda interesting. At least in the books where they went further into it...
The Main Story
When we last left Harry, he saw Cedric Diggory get killed and the return of Voldemort. Unbeknownst to him, the wizarding world hadn't responded the way he would have hoped.
The Minister of Magic is in complete denial, insisting "all is well" and has used his influence over the press to smear Dumbledore and brand Harry a liar.
To make matters worse, the new DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts) professor is from the Ministry of Magic... and she's been endowed with executive power that eventually turns Hogwarts into Harry's personal version of Hell- so to speak.
Meanwhile, Voldemort is after something and the titular secret group "The Order of the Phoneix" [originally created 14 years ago by Dumbledore] is trying to figure out what. And through a series of dreams and nightmares, Harry is likely to reach that conclusion before they do.
Book-to-movie Adaptation- A Box Full of Nitpicks
Tread Lightly: MANY Spoilers are Lurking Ahead
Just as fair warning, this post could go on for a while. The book is roughly 870 pages long and the movie is 2 hours and 19 minutes of footage. There's a lot to discuss...
Even though the subject matter hits a LOT of unpleasant patches, it's my favorite book in the series. Harry's going through a very interesting chapter in his life, what with puberty, his first girlfriend, but without sugarcoating, probably the suckiest part of his life up to this point aside from his parents being murdered when he was a baby. I found the OWLS preparations and examinations enjoyable. Some great Quidditch matches. And even when things seem their bleakest, it was inspiring to hear so many people rallying around him.
We also get to meet some cool new characters and learn a lot about the ones who already know and love/hate/love-to-hate.
I'd mentioned on a couple other entries how I can appreciate some books being streamlined for their film adaptations. And sometimes certain cuts need to be made because certain themes don't need to be beat repeatedly into our skulls...
Some parts of the adaption process I can respect and even accept... but with the wealth of material in this particular book, that can't be the case here.
It's been nearly 10 years since this movie came out... and I am STILL pissed about the fact the longest book got compressed and smooshed into what would be the shortest movie in the series. "The Deathly Hallows" had MUCH less happening and it got split into two movies. It being the final book in the series, I don't know if even that is a good enough reason for me. Sorry :(
I could literally go through this movie with my own commentary, saying what could/have been said. Even going through the deleted scenes on the DVD, none of the scenes from the book I was looking most forward to were ever shot. And other scenes that were never fully realized. They were just left hanging and only people who read the books know all the details that followed.
I'll just go through a list of bullet points... and for the record, I've read the book maybe 5 times since it came out. The last time was in 2012. But Harry Potter is one of my favorite book series, so therefore I absorbed an insane amount of detail. Many Potterheads would second that.
Other Lowlights plus some Highlights
If you're still with me at this point, I applaud you.
My mom groaned that the actress playing Umbridge didn't look like she did in the books. There was a description that she had a "frog-face" and she thought they'd CGI a frog-face over her.
If you ask me, Imelda Staunton is annoying and creepy enough without the CGI. (I didn't like her much in "Freedom Writers" either- where she played a very similar character, but with a lot less authority.
One of my aunts called her the scariest character in the entire series, even scarier than Voldemort himself. At least he was a "merciful lord." Umbridge had this insane God-complex where she felt like she had to change everything at Hogwarts. It was borderline-1984 territory.
And actually, given the state of the world and our country right now, I found some of the pretenses of the movie terrifying this time around. The idea of an important leader discrediting a threat to national security and pretending nothing is wrong. Then with all everything at Hogwarts, it was like she sucked all the fun out of it.
Even worse, in the books, she had all the owls inspected before they could deliver mail. Hedwig got injured in one of these interceptions. She was also watching all the Floo networks. I'm not sure if it was particularly geared towards Harry or not, but the students weren't allowed any contact with the outside world.
:shudder:
But enough about Umbridge and her fetish for kitty plates and pink everything... it's not a perfect adaptation, but there was plenty about it that was done well.
Starting with the casting.
Admittedly, I thought Luna was a little bit of a weirdo when I was reading the book the first time. But when she had her first line of dialogue on the big screen, I was immediately won over. She'd since become one of my favorite characters in the series. She always speaks her mind and is never afraid of that. She's also a great introduction at this point with Harry feeling like even more of an outcast thanks to the Daily Prophet slandering him & Dumbledore.
I must have missed the description in the book where JK Rowling noted how young Tonks was because when I saw her on screen, I was in complete disbelief.
But what I did remember very clearly was her unique talent where she can change her appearance at will. "Metamorphmagus" is what it's called. In the movie, she changes her hair color from purple to orange when she got angry (word to the wise: don't call her by her first name) in one scene and in another, she was changing the appearance of her nose and mouth for show.
She deserved a little more screentime just because she was such a fun character. Although she wasn't quite as fun to be around after this particular book/movie.
And of course Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange... her character is basically a psychopath armed with a wand. I found her extremely intimidating in the books. Then to see her on screen, I think it was my first time seeing Helena Bonham Carter act... she is scary good at her job.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was also a good strong character. And he had a good line in the movie that made the theater audience laugh- "You may not like him, Minister, but you can't deny... Dumbledore's got style."I think it was a line that was originally said by someone else in the book, but George Harris's delivery of said line made all the difference ;)
On another note, I didn't know what to think of the Thestrals when I first read the book. I think the mere idea of them spooked me, but it was cool hearing how they are actually gentle despite their appearance. And seeing them in the flesh in the movie... well done, CGI department!
Final comment
When the book came out, there was word on the street that they were going to kill off a major character. The first major character killed off in the series.
Before that, we just had a DADA professor gone bad, Scabbers (who didn't die, but returned to his human life serving Voldemort) and Cedric Diggory (who we didn't get to know all THAT well. We just knew him as the Hufflepuff seeker and Hogwart's first-announced Triwizard Champion- also the golden boy who did everything right and stole the heart of Harry's first crush).
I didn't really fall in love with Sirius Black as a character until the movies... and I didn't really know who Gary Oldman was before these movies. Heck, I got the third movie and was dumbfounded to find out he wasn't even the bad guy... clearly I must have read the Prisoner of Azkaban WRONG or I didn't read it in full previous to the movie.
But after getting to spend more time with him (and being pretty much ripped off in the 4th movie when all we got was a disfigured face coming out of a fireplace-- good of them to improve that animation in this movie in the one scene we saw it in film)... him getting killed REALLY sucked.
The worst of it was that Harry finally had someone he'd be able to live with instead of his terrible aunt and uncle... and he got completely screwed out of that... I mean, I know life isn't fair, but C'MON!!
The only thing that made the grief easier was the fact Bellatrix Lestrange used the Avada Kedavra curse on him in the movie... in the book, she just wrote he got hit by a spell and got sucked into this veiled archway in the middle of the Department of Mysteries.
There's no way to survive that Unforgivable Curse, but I'm still incensed at that bloody archway. What was the point of its existence? Why did it have to be RIGHT THERE? Even on Pottermore, JK Rowling still hasn't explained WTF it even is and where the souls go that get sucked into it. Ultimately, it felt like a very cheap way to forever mark Harry as an orphan. Bellatrix killing Sirius with simply the Killing Curse would have been enough.
...if you're still with me, congratulations.
I sincerely hope I didn't forget to mention anything...
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Michael Goldenberg (screenplay)
Composer: Nicholas Hooper
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman (RIP 2016)
Professor Trelawney- Emma Thompson
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Cho Chang- Katie Leung
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
Lucius Malfoy- Jason Isaacs
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Ex-Auror Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Lupin- David Thewlis
Mrs. Weasley- Julie Walters
Mr. Weasley- Mark Williams
[newcomers]
Mrs. Figg- Kathryn Hunter
Dolores Umbridge- Imelda Staunton
Nymphadora Tonks- Natalia Tena
Kingsley Shacklebolt- George Harris
Luna Lovegood- Evanna Lynch
Bellatrix Lestrange- Helena Bonham Carter
Write-up:
First things first...
RIP Alan Rickman :(
When the news first broke, I was really hoping it'd be one of those Internet hoaxes because it just seemed too soon. Also, we just lost David Bowie a couple days before that. 2016 is not getting off to a good start.
He doesn't quite as significant a role in this film (compared to the 1st, 3rd and 8th films in the series).
Someone on YouTube posted a compilation of his greatest highlights as Snape through the films- a couple of times, I got a little choked up.
I'd also seen/enjoyed him in "Love Actually" and "Die Hard."
However little screentime he has, he does impact the plot and lead to a couple laughs. We also get a little more of his back story, which makes things in Harry's story arc kinda interesting. At least in the books where they went further into it...
The Main Story
When we last left Harry, he saw Cedric Diggory get killed and the return of Voldemort. Unbeknownst to him, the wizarding world hadn't responded the way he would have hoped.
The Minister of Magic is in complete denial, insisting "all is well" and has used his influence over the press to smear Dumbledore and brand Harry a liar.
To make matters worse, the new DADA (Defense Against the Dark Arts) professor is from the Ministry of Magic... and she's been endowed with executive power that eventually turns Hogwarts into Harry's personal version of Hell- so to speak.
Meanwhile, Voldemort is after something and the titular secret group "The Order of the Phoneix" [originally created 14 years ago by Dumbledore] is trying to figure out what. And through a series of dreams and nightmares, Harry is likely to reach that conclusion before they do.
Book-to-movie Adaptation- A Box Full of Nitpicks
Tread Lightly: MANY Spoilers are Lurking Ahead
Just as fair warning, this post could go on for a while. The book is roughly 870 pages long and the movie is 2 hours and 19 minutes of footage. There's a lot to discuss...
Even though the subject matter hits a LOT of unpleasant patches, it's my favorite book in the series. Harry's going through a very interesting chapter in his life, what with puberty, his first girlfriend, but without sugarcoating, probably the suckiest part of his life up to this point aside from his parents being murdered when he was a baby. I found the OWLS preparations and examinations enjoyable. Some great Quidditch matches. And even when things seem their bleakest, it was inspiring to hear so many people rallying around him.
We also get to meet some cool new characters and learn a lot about the ones who already know and love/hate/love-to-hate.
I'd mentioned on a couple other entries how I can appreciate some books being streamlined for their film adaptations. And sometimes certain cuts need to be made because certain themes don't need to be beat repeatedly into our skulls...
Some parts of the adaption process I can respect and even accept... but with the wealth of material in this particular book, that can't be the case here.
It's been nearly 10 years since this movie came out... and I am STILL pissed about the fact the longest book got compressed and smooshed into what would be the shortest movie in the series. "The Deathly Hallows" had MUCH less happening and it got split into two movies. It being the final book in the series, I don't know if even that is a good enough reason for me. Sorry :(
I could literally go through this movie with my own commentary, saying what could/have been said. Even going through the deleted scenes on the DVD, none of the scenes from the book I was looking most forward to were ever shot. And other scenes that were never fully realized. They were just left hanging and only people who read the books know all the details that followed.
I'll just go through a list of bullet points... and for the record, I've read the book maybe 5 times since it came out. The last time was in 2012. But Harry Potter is one of my favorite book series, so therefore I absorbed an insane amount of detail. Many Potterheads would second that.
- [okay, not related to the main topic] They changed the look of the dementors between this movie and their first appearance in the 3rd movie... and I do not like the change
- [another small nit-pick] there were too many montages to show passage of time... this time could have been used given to the chapters that were cut from the movie
- [another change] They cast a Borzoi as Sirius's Animagus dog. In the 3rd movie, he was a mutt that, most likely, was a CGI rendering. However brief the scene was, the lack of continuity threw me.
- There's a scene where Harry dreams/hallucinates seeing Voldemort dressed in a suit on Platform 9 3/4- I realize the nightmares are a thematic element of the movie, but I consider it time wasted. Especially cuz it makes no sense. Almost like a Big-Lipped Alligator moment (google it!)
- Percy Weasley is seen, but not heard in the three scenes he has in this movie. Not that he was particularly missed. But his occupation under the Minister of Magic drove a wedge between him and his family. There was a scene where he wrote a letter to Ron, calling their parents traitors, telling him to sever ties with Harry and it's "not too late" to come to the "right" side. While there were plenty of scenes of Ron supporting Harry in this movie already, that was an interesting scene to watch.
- No Qudditch! Gryffindor won two Quidditch cups (in Harry's 3rd and 5th years) and we never got to see them in any of the movies. Considering this is the biggest sporting event at Hogwarts, that's kinda depressing :/
Plus, there was a big to-do about the Gryffindor team. Umbridge disbands all student clubs in a decree and all the Quidditch captains had to reapply to reform. Slytherin got reinstated first out of favoritism. Fred, George and Harry later got banned for getting into a fight with Slytherin and their brooms were confiscated. [Fred & George took them back in their grand exit] - No mention of Harry doing a tell-all article with underground paper The Quibbler... I don't particularly miss that part of the story, but it would have been funny to see students hiding them behind their textbooks (like they do in other genres with comic books and playboys) after Umbridge banned them
- [sequencing issue] Harry has a nightmare where he witnesses Mr. Weasley being attacked. Dumbledore deduces that Voldemort has been trying to penetrate Harry's mind to control him so he asks Snape to teach Occlumency... but did they have to schedule the first lesson immediately after Harry has this nightmare? The book depicting him having night sweats and violently vomiting before Ron and McGonagall took him to Dumbledore. With that in mind, I felt like it asked too much of Harry at that immediate second.
- The trivia explains this in saying the production department didn't want to spend extra time building a new set... but I miss the scene where Harry, Hermonine and the Weasleys visit Arthur Weasley at St. Mungo's hospital. It gave us a Gilderoy Lockhart cameo as well as members of Neville's family. The movie may be rated PG13, but it might have been too much for the younger Harry Potter fans to see Neville's parents- who were driven insane by an Unforgiveable Curse.
We do get to hear about Neville's parents from Neville in a later scene, so that element wasn't completely lost. - My favorite chapter of the book was "Career Advice"- where all the 5th years have a meeting with the head of their house and discuss their futures. Harry expresses his desire to McGonagall to become an Auror. Of course, with Umbridge having her sticky fingers in all the pies, she had to be present for this scene. This eventually explodes into a HUGE fight between Umbridge and McGonagall that ends with McGonagall saying she'll do everything in her power to help Harry get the grades he needs to achieve his desire.
There is one fight between the two wills in the movie... but it isn't nearly as satisfying- it's just a launching point for our first montage :roll: on the plus side, they didn't tack on Harry's fight with Hermonine on top of this (she went to McGonagall about Umbridge's punishment for Harry against his wishes- it also led to him getting a week's worth of punishments) - The worst transgression this movie made-- how it treated Harry and Cho's relationship. There was all this build-up and anticipation to Harry's first kiss. But they had maybe 10 seconds of screen time as an official couple. There's a scene where Harry takes her to a date in Hogsmeade for Valentine's Day and he kept saying how he had to meet Hermione about some Dumbledore's Army business. They have a huge fight because Cho thinks he and Hermione are more than friends and Cedric also comes up a couple times.
In the movie, they break up because Cho outed Dumbledore's Army to Umbridge. And we hear nothing from her after that. In the book, the tattletale was a friend of hers. I can understand the decision to have Neville fulfill plot points Dobbie carried out in the books. But was it really that much trouble to cast another student just for this one role? Every time I see that scene, it just annoys me to no end that the new screenwriter ruined any chance Harry and Cho could have had any good screen time as a couple - In Harry's 2nd Occlumency lesson, he sees into Snape's head and finds out that his dad bullied him when they were students. This scene comes and goes and nothing is said about it afterwards. It just leads to Harry having another run-in with Umbridge where she says naughty children deserve to be punished... for such a skinny sandwich of a movie, it is WAY too overstuffed with Umbridge scenes.
Meanwhile, we could gotten a bonus scene with Lupin & Sirius reassuring Harry via Floo Powder conference that they were all stupid kids and Snape didn't deserve to be treated the way Harry's dad James did.
Lupin was seen a number of times with barely any dialogue and Sirius only got one scene in the previous movie... he could use all the extra screentime he can get, especially with this being his last movie - There's one scene of OWL examinations and it's pre-empted by Fred & George's great escape... there were some great scenes in the book and we didn't get to see any of them. The "escape" scene immediately segued into the next part of the plot-- the Sirius non-rescue mission. Great for pacing of the plot, but it would have been cool to see a montage of Dumbledore's Army fly through their DADA OWL exams.
- They never reveal in the movie who sent the dementors after Harry... it was Umbridge! She even admits it to him when she realizes Harry and Hermione trick her into following them into the dark forest... I know she does eventually get manhandled by Hagrid's half-brother Gwarp and carried away by irritable centaurs, but revealing that particular truth would have made for a HUGE moment. Instead, that's just a thread left hanging and never addressed again
- HARRY ISN'T ANGRY ENOUGH IN THE MOVIE...
seriously, JK Rowling didn't commit that writers' taboo for nothing... Harry has a couple of moments of fury in the movie, but they're in small spurts. They're never in the scenes that have any significant impact on the plot. Like where Umbridge says he's a liar in her class-- a lot of yelling. But the scene where I felt like it was really needed... when Dumbledore calls Harry into his office after the Department of Mysteries escapade and explains why he kept his distance from Harry that whole year. Harry flipped out on him so hard and Dumbledore just took all the criticism and the onslaught without saying a word.
It might have been too much drama after the entirety of the scene before it, but it was a release that Harry desperately needed-- especially after Sirius died.
Other Lowlights plus some Highlights
If you're still with me at this point, I applaud you.
My mom groaned that the actress playing Umbridge didn't look like she did in the books. There was a description that she had a "frog-face" and she thought they'd CGI a frog-face over her.
If you ask me, Imelda Staunton is annoying and creepy enough without the CGI. (I didn't like her much in "Freedom Writers" either- where she played a very similar character, but with a lot less authority.
One of my aunts called her the scariest character in the entire series, even scarier than Voldemort himself. At least he was a "merciful lord." Umbridge had this insane God-complex where she felt like she had to change everything at Hogwarts. It was borderline-1984 territory.
And actually, given the state of the world and our country right now, I found some of the pretenses of the movie terrifying this time around. The idea of an important leader discrediting a threat to national security and pretending nothing is wrong. Then with all everything at Hogwarts, it was like she sucked all the fun out of it.
Even worse, in the books, she had all the owls inspected before they could deliver mail. Hedwig got injured in one of these interceptions. She was also watching all the Floo networks. I'm not sure if it was particularly geared towards Harry or not, but the students weren't allowed any contact with the outside world.
:shudder:
But enough about Umbridge and her fetish for kitty plates and pink everything... it's not a perfect adaptation, but there was plenty about it that was done well.
Starting with the casting.
Admittedly, I thought Luna was a little bit of a weirdo when I was reading the book the first time. But when she had her first line of dialogue on the big screen, I was immediately won over. She'd since become one of my favorite characters in the series. She always speaks her mind and is never afraid of that. She's also a great introduction at this point with Harry feeling like even more of an outcast thanks to the Daily Prophet slandering him & Dumbledore.
I must have missed the description in the book where JK Rowling noted how young Tonks was because when I saw her on screen, I was in complete disbelief.
But what I did remember very clearly was her unique talent where she can change her appearance at will. "Metamorphmagus" is what it's called. In the movie, she changes her hair color from purple to orange when she got angry (word to the wise: don't call her by her first name) in one scene and in another, she was changing the appearance of her nose and mouth for show.
She deserved a little more screentime just because she was such a fun character. Although she wasn't quite as fun to be around after this particular book/movie.
And of course Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange... her character is basically a psychopath armed with a wand. I found her extremely intimidating in the books. Then to see her on screen, I think it was my first time seeing Helena Bonham Carter act... she is scary good at her job.
Kingsley Shacklebolt was also a good strong character. And he had a good line in the movie that made the theater audience laugh- "You may not like him, Minister, but you can't deny... Dumbledore's got style."I think it was a line that was originally said by someone else in the book, but George Harris's delivery of said line made all the difference ;)
On another note, I didn't know what to think of the Thestrals when I first read the book. I think the mere idea of them spooked me, but it was cool hearing how they are actually gentle despite their appearance. And seeing them in the flesh in the movie... well done, CGI department!
Final comment
When the book came out, there was word on the street that they were going to kill off a major character. The first major character killed off in the series.
Before that, we just had a DADA professor gone bad, Scabbers (who didn't die, but returned to his human life serving Voldemort) and Cedric Diggory (who we didn't get to know all THAT well. We just knew him as the Hufflepuff seeker and Hogwart's first-announced Triwizard Champion- also the golden boy who did everything right and stole the heart of Harry's first crush).
I didn't really fall in love with Sirius Black as a character until the movies... and I didn't really know who Gary Oldman was before these movies. Heck, I got the third movie and was dumbfounded to find out he wasn't even the bad guy... clearly I must have read the Prisoner of Azkaban WRONG or I didn't read it in full previous to the movie.
But after getting to spend more time with him (and being pretty much ripped off in the 4th movie when all we got was a disfigured face coming out of a fireplace-- good of them to improve that animation in this movie in the one scene we saw it in film)... him getting killed REALLY sucked.
The worst of it was that Harry finally had someone he'd be able to live with instead of his terrible aunt and uncle... and he got completely screwed out of that... I mean, I know life isn't fair, but C'MON!!
The only thing that made the grief easier was the fact Bellatrix Lestrange used the Avada Kedavra curse on him in the movie... in the book, she just wrote he got hit by a spell and got sucked into this veiled archway in the middle of the Department of Mysteries.
There's no way to survive that Unforgivable Curse, but I'm still incensed at that bloody archway. What was the point of its existence? Why did it have to be RIGHT THERE? Even on Pottermore, JK Rowling still hasn't explained WTF it even is and where the souls go that get sucked into it. Ultimately, it felt like a very cheap way to forever mark Harry as an orphan. Bellatrix killing Sirius with simply the Killing Curse would have been enough.
...if you're still with me, congratulations.
I sincerely hope I didn't forget to mention anything...
Saturday, October 3, 2015
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire (2005)
Director: Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral")
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: Patrick Doyle
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger- Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Neville Longbottom- Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Wormtail- Timothy Spall
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
Lucius Malfoy- Jason Isaacs
[The Triwizard Champions]
Cedric Diggory- Robert Pattinson
Fleur Delacour- Clémence Poésy
Victor Krum- Stanislav Ivanevski
[other newcomers]
Ex-Auror/DADA Professor Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody- Brendan Gleeson
Madame Maxime of Beaubaxtons- Frances De La Tour
Igor Karkoroff of Durmstrang- Predrag Bjelac
Barty Crouch Jr.- David Tennet (Whovians will recognize him as the 10th Dr. Who)
Cho Chang- Katie Leung
Rita Skeeter- Miranda Richardson
Voldemort- Ralph Fiennes
Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Art Direction
Write-up:
Opening Remarks
I don't have much memory of my reaction to the book the first time. I just remembered that they'd have the Triwizard tournament, which would involve one student from each of the three magical schools in Europe... and it was a relief that Harry wouldn't be involved in this for once because he wasn't 17.
...then he was in fact chosen and I seriously was thinking "oh you gotta be kidding me"... I thought it was ridiculous. Like EVERYTHING seems to happen to Harry whether he wants it to or not.
The other big thing I remember [SPOILER ALERT] I wasn't torn up about Cedric Diggory being killed when I read the book. Mainly because I didn't really get to know him all that well and I thought it was unfortunate how it worked out.
Movie-Goer Remarks
The first thing we noticed before the movie premiered was that it'd be rated PG13 because this would be the arrival of our main villain. We finally get to see Voldemort in the flesh of his own body.
Cinematically, it was AMAZING. The three tasks for the Tournament read differently to me in the book. (For whatever reason, I pictured all the dragons being on the field at the same time, chained and the champions had to run past them to get their egg). I thought that maybe the mermaids in the 2nd task would put up more of a fight, but they just stood by and made sure each person rescued only one "treasure." And the third task, while it lacked all the creatures (dementors, blast-ended skewts, sphinxes) in the maze, the overall look of it was scary enough where the creatures would add too much.
This was definitely a book made to be turned into a movie because I didn't grasp the visuals when I read the book the first time.
I remember when the first trailer premiered, which had the chaos at the Quidditch World Cup and Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys running to get out of harm's way. It was even more unsettling because the clip didn't run smoothly with our Internet connection at the time.
Then of course the graveyard scene with Voldemort appearing the first time was scary enough to warrant that PG13 rating. I was somewhat disappointed that he didn't have glowing red eyes like I pictured reading the books, but over time, it did make sense to me. It was emotional when his and Harry's wands connected and his parents reappeared... afterwards, seeing the Mirror of Erised scene in the first movie was even more heart wrenching to watch.
I'm racking my brain to remember whether I temporarily forgot Cedric would be killed... or if I cried out when he got killed... or if I started crying afterwards when his father finds out that he dies.
No matter how it came about, I was a wreck for a couple minutes after that scene. They just had to pick such a cute actor to play Cedric... and it wouldn't be the first time Robert Pattinson made me cry in a movie theater.
A little on Robert PattinsonOmg, he was so cute... when I first heard he was cast as Edward Cullen, I cheered. Mainly because I already knew who he was :P I was shocked that so few people made the connection he was in a Harry Potter movie...as shocking as it is that there are still people who don't like the books or the movies.
But anyway... I do have my nitpicks about him as Edward Cullen. He played the role well, but I hate his American accent. With certain lines, it made hard for me to get into the character :P
I had since gone to the movies twice to see him. One time he dies at the end... which spoiled a movie I really enjoyed...
Last year on 9/11, I watched "New Moon" because unlike "Remember Me" (apart from the tragic ending that happens on 9/11/01, I really liked a lot) he survives it.
"Water for Elephants" was okay... I didn't really like it as much as the Twilight series... he doesn't die at the end, but it's another American accent.
Ironically, in "Bel Ami" he played such a terrible person that I actually wished he had been killed off.
Book-to-Movie
I thought the adaptation was really well done. Visually, it was stunning. Both with the Triwizard tournament tasks and the Yule Ball. That was a pretty amazing moment that was otherwise marred by Ron being a complete jackass and another of his legendary fights with Hermione.
Yeah, between the book and the movie, Ron was pretty unpleasant to be around. I'm sure it was a given that at some point jealousy would rear its ugly head... but did it have to be at something where Harry didn't do deliberately?
We revisit the jealousy in the Deathly Hallows, but it arises for the right reasons... I won't go into it because that's another movie entirely.
You could argue that its teenage hormones that are making Ron not think clearly, thinking that Harry put his name in the Goblet of Fire because he seeks attention, and also overreacting about Hermione going to the Yule Ball with Victor Krum.
Speaking of Hermione... that big moment where she arrives at the Yule Ball in a dress.. that was done so well. When everyone saw it the first time, their jaws probably dropped.
I felt like that when I went to my Senior Prom. At least six people came up to me and said how amazing I looked. That's what I get for wearing jeans and t-shirts all the time :P the only thing that was missing was someone asking me to dance. I came by myself and that got me down 2-3 times. The worst was being trapped on the dance floor during the final song "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" when everyone else had someone and I didn't want to disturb anyone by pushing my way through to exit...
But I think I still had a better night than Hermione did... like she said, Ron "ruined everything."
Seeing Harry and Cho was great, some early sparks flying between them. She was cast really well.
Then there was "Mad-Eye" Moody... wow, he was great to see in the flesh. A little unnerving, but very fun to watch. A literal character.
There were lots of comedic moments and fun moments that weren't even in the book. There's a study hall or something where Ron and Harry talk about getting dates to the Yule Ball and Snape keeps smacking them around. And when they have dancing lessons and Ron is picked to dance with McGongall for a demonstration.
She had a couple funny moments in the movie- like when she berates "Mad-Eye" for turning Malfoy into a ferret.
"We never use transfiguration as a punishment. Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that."
"He might have mentioned it..."
In my previous HP entry
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2015/07/harry-potter-and-prisoner-of-azkaban.html
I mentioned how some of my classmates felt cheated by certain scenes getting cut. That didn't bother me so much...
It did bother me in this adaptation, though.
For starters, there was no Quidditch. They spent all this time building up to the Quidditch World Cup. The Weasleys, Harry and Hermione had to climb all these stairs, we see the entrance of the players... and there's no Quidditch match. It was so dramatic and built up so much... then nothing... it would have been the greatest Quidditch match EVER.
I realize that immediately following is the chaotic camp scene with the Death-Eaters and the movie was already 2.5 hours... but c'mon...
I can understand streamlining the plot to condense it to that duration... but I also felt they should have shown the Rita Skeeter story arc to the end... she was a bit of annoyance in the book, just like the illegal Animagus she turned out to be.
And the whole bit about Barty Crouch Jr. when he was revealed to be the "devil inside the wall" of Hogwarts... he said to Dumbledore, Harry, McGonagall and Snape that "he's back"... meaning Voldemort... yet we had the sheningians of the fifth book/movie where the Ministry of Magic (namely Minister Fudge) spent the entirety calling Harry and Dumbledore liars.
Going by the movies alone, this didn't make sense...
In the book, Snape not only finds out about Sirius being an Animagus and being innocent... but Fudge orders a Dementor's Kiss to seal Crouch's soul so he can't testify about Voldemort's return... why were we robbed of that moment?
My greatest grievance was that we only saw Sirius Black ONCE this entire movie. He appeared twice in the book. And the one time he shows up- it's using the Floo Network. They couldn't have done what they did in the 5th movie with the visual effect?! Unlike the dementors (more on that in the following HP entry), that was a visual effect that they improved. Here, he's just a face popping out of firewood and embers.
Voldemort is a character that has been built up so much through the books so all of us were excited about this. Reading about him in the book, I remember him being terrifying. The performance the actor gives is very commanding. He's more gentlemanly and proper than he came off while reading... but again, it's something that oddly worked. Ralph Fiennes put his own spin on it and owned it so you can imagine no one else in his place.
This last time seeing the movie was the first time I'd seen it since I saw him in "The Grand Budapest Hotel"... such a different role... and I had to talk myself into remembering that Voldemort is supposed to be intimidating and scary and by no means as comedic Ralph Fiennes was as M. Gustave.
As for the other Triwizard champions, Viktor Krum was definitely strong and intimidating. Like Hermonine says, he's "more of a physical being" so he doesn't have many lines. I can see what either of them sees in each other (especially with his homegrown Bulgarian accent).
Then Fleur DelaCoeur is gorgeous, but I feel like she got a little short-changed in this story. She doesn't do well in the 2nd task. Then in the 3rd... I get that the maze is freaky, but it always bothered me how she was so insecure moving through it... it's a very girly reaction and to me it feels like she's not strong enough to be a part of this with the guys.
There are a lot of strong girls at Hogwarts that probably would have done better (had they been of age to compete) and wouldn't have reinforced the stereotype that girls can't be strong as the guys. We have scenes where she's gorgeous and confident, but not while she's actively doing magic.
Whenever I get around to doing a write-up on the 5th movie...well, that'll be an interesting venture because I have some very strong opinions about that adaptation.
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Director: Alfonso Cuaron (OSCAR-winning director of "Gravity"- making this the only Harry Potter movie to have an Oscar-winning director, albeit several years after the fact)
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: John Williams (his final "Harry Potter" film)
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermonine Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
[newcomers]
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Professor Lupin- David Thewlis
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Peter Pettigrew- Timothy Spall
Professor Trelawney- Emma Thompson
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
"Aunt" Marge- Pam Ferris
Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Original Score- John Williams [lost to "Finding Neverland"]
OSCAR- Best Visual Effects [lost to "Spider-Man 2"]
Grammy- Best Score Soundtrack album- John Williams
[side-note: somehow I get the feeling Harry Potter got NO love from the Academy despite being nominated loads of times]
Write-up:
Opening Remarks
I still have a vague recollection of what it was like when this movie came out. We went to the mall and got there kinda early and were waiting around at the food court. It was the one Harry Potter movie that was released in June rather than its usual November "time slot." And it was the largest gap in film releases- Chamber of Secrets coming out November 2002 and Prisoner in June 2004.
Not surprisingly, this meant that the actors will have aged considerably between the two films and [despite our 3 year age difference] I developed a crush on Daniel Radcliffe that lasted a couple weeks after seeing the movie :P Maybe it was the maturity he'd gained in the past months or the fact his hair wasn't long and unruly (as it got in the succeeding film, "Goblet of Fire") or this movie having a particular juicy/personal story arc for Harry. What I knew for sure was that I drafted a bit of fanmail I never finished/sent and I bought a blue hoodie very similar to the one he wears in the latter portion of the film. (Except his didn't have an actual hood).
At the time, I was reading the book and I think I got as far as the scene at the lake where Harry, Hermonine and Sirius were overwhelmed by dementors and saved by a stag Patronus... except I came into the movie still believing Sirius Black was the villain...
I don't know how I could have missed that because I vaguely recollect reading the book a previous time and being lost in the time-turner sequence... or maybe that's my recollection of "The Deadly Hallows" and how they explained the killing curse NOT killing Harry.
Either way, that was the last time I came into a Harry Potter without fully reading the book first :P but it is fun coming across surprises in the movies. I still revel at the shock & awe of the Professor Quirrell revelation- one of the best twists I'd seen in any movie, although knowing about it now takes away from all that.
Of all the movies, it's probably my favorite as far as the storyline. Behind "Order of the Phoenix," it's my favorite of the books. But I admit that I had misgivings throughout this time around. Minor pet peeves here and there. Some of which I'd just made peace with by going into IMDB's FAQ section. Other had me convinced I'd seen one too many episodes of "Cinema Sins" on YouTube.
I can make due with the fact that we didn't see Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup. That was a nit-pick one of my classmates in 12th grade college-prep Calculus had about it.
Story
The Prisoner of Azkaban is Sirius Black and supposedly he'd escaped from the wizard world's equivalent of Alcatraz... but an Alcatraz in the middle of the treacherous North Sea and surrounded by soul-sucking dementors.
Harry Potter endures one of his worst experiences at the Dursleys, being reduced to his uncle's visiting sister's waiter and kept within earshot of her insults towards his deceased parents. The end result is another of his "magical accidents," which makes "Aunt" Marge float away like a balloon, and he runs away from home where he gets picked up by the Knight Bus- a service meant to transport stranded witches and wizards.
Leading up to his latest year at Hogwarts, Harry gets wind of Sirius Black's escape and is warned to be on alert as he is rumored to be the reason he escaped.
Meanwhile at Hogwarts, Harry spends his third year helping Hagrid after his disastrous debut as Care of Magical Creatures teacher, dealing with Grim [death omens] sightings and learning more about his parents and tackling dementors from the newest Defense Against Dark Arts professor- Remus Lupin.
Peeves and Nit-picks
Two nit-picky things that I went to check on: there are two characters randomly thrown into the movie that weren't mentioned in the book.
One of them had two lines of dialogue that delivered very specific information- explaining the Grim in Divination class and trying to catch Sirius Black is like trying to catch smoke. Rumor is that he was the one who won a contest to get cast in this movie.
The other was a random Slytherin crone of Draco Malfoy's. His presence was explained as a way to fill a void left by Goyle- the actor broke his arm and couldn't participate in a few scenes because of it. They did something similar in the Deathly Hallows when the actor who played Crabbe was fired for marijuana possession and his role in the story went to Goyle. But for whatever reason, Draco Malfoy has to have a minimum of two cronies with him at all times.
Other things that were bugging were merely transitions from one scene to the next. I realize the Whomping Willow was integral to the third act, but cutting away to it because you had no better way to transition... I don't know, it felt kinda lazy to me. Not that they don't do this in the other movies, but still...
Then there's the opening scene where Harry casts Lumos Maxima... the only purpose it had was showing us the movie title and giving Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon) a smidge more screen time. Aside from that, Hogwarts students aren't allowed to use magic at home, so that's a major factual error... and no one uses this spell in the entire movie.
Also, considering how Lucius Malfoy (Draco's father) is one of the governors of the school and he's so upset about him getting attacked by that hippogriff in Hagrid's class, why didn't he show up for Buckbeak's execution? [IMDB answered that for me: Jason Isaacs was unavailable to shoot the scene]
Just for the heck of it, I revisited Cinema Sins's YouTube video on this movie...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gWHuiCIGG0
I still don't quite see eye to eye with them on these so-called "errors." Most of what they complain about it is explained in the books. I gotta quote Hermonine from the first movie: "Honestly, don't youtwo read?"
I will give them the student choir that sings "Something Wicked This Way Comes"... I realize that was the director's idea, but to me it just felt very random. As did the fact Professor Flitwick looked completely different in this movie and its sequels than he did in the original.
And the fact Pavarti changed the boggart from a cobra into an even scarier clown... WTF is up with that?
Additional Commentary
including some spoilers...
I love the moments in these movies (as well as the books) where Harry gets to learn more about his parents. It gives us more back story and Harry gets more of a sense of who he is and what his parents were like.
Remus Lupin wasn't just the best DADA Hogwarts has had so far (although to be fair, we didn't really see Quirrell teach and Gilderoy Lockart was incompetent) where he had a more practical approach with teaching the students magic. He was also a friend of Harry's dad, James, when they were in school. However much time they had together, Lupin was like a father figure to Harry that really looked out for him.
Although it would have been nice if Harry found out in the movie who created the Marauder's Map... clearly Snape and Lupin recognized it, but Harry never got to find out from Lupin that the four "marauders" that created this map of Hogwarts and all its secret passages and tunnels were him, his dad and two other characters we meet later in the story.
I can understand them not including the Quidditch Cup match, but that bit of backstory would have been a cool addition. Just saying...
The antagonism between Snape and Lupin harkens back to their school days. Although Lupin's "secret" has an stigma that has plagued him from a young age and made friendship and relationships difficult for him to maintain. According to Pottermore, J.K. Rowling imagined Lupin's being a werewolf as the magical equivalent to having AIDS. Granted, being a werewolf is more deadly and harder to control.
Also interesting to note from Pottermore was that Lupin disapproved of James's bullying of Snape, but was afraid speaking his mind would cost him their friendship. It was simply part of his character that he never asked for too much, simply wanting to be included when his condition made life very lonely for him.
What wasn't covered as much in the book was additional Care of Magical Creatures classes, although it wouldn't have been as engaging to the audience. Hagrid started so big with the hippogriff, as impressive as it was (the CGI still enamors me), but after the incident with Draco Malfoy (who really did deserve to be attacked by Buckbeak after Hagrid explained how hippogriffs are EASILY OFFENDED and insulting them may be "the last time you ever do"), he lost confidence in himself and resorted to lessons on lesser/boring and/or unpleasant creatures like Blast-ended Skewts. [I believe the level of excitement of that would be dissecting worms with slight chance of small explosions].
My favorite scene is probably the Hogsmeade scene where Harry find out that Sirius Black betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, leading to their murder. One of the few instances where the movie far surpassed the book. In the book, Harry, Ron and Hermonine snuck into one of the pubs and overheard the revelation under the Invisibility Cloak. The chapter ended with Harry just being lost for words. In the movie, he's alone, rushes out of the pub and Ron and Hermonine come after him for answers.
Daniel Radcliffe doesn't often to get enough credit for his acting, but even though we can't see him [with the Cloak], hearing him cry in response to all this really pulled me into this scene. But maybe that's me being a sucker for a guy who's able to show that degree of emotion. The opposite sex is always so safeguarded about that stuff, to see otherwise in film or TV makes me respond to them more. (Ironically, when I'm crying, it's always awkward and when girls cry, it ranges from embarrassing to comical).
And knowing the truth about Sirius Black doesn't diminish this at all... mainly because the emotion is that tangible [okay, I'm done gushing about that :P] but also because Harry's parents were still betrayed... just by a different friend/marauder. (Heck, this book/movie could have been called Harry Potter and The Marauders... except that it might be mistaken for a movie about pirates, lol).
Apparently, the Potters went into hiding when Voldemort marked them as his next target and hiding included the Fidelius Charm. Only one person, the Secret-Keeper is given their location and only out of free will can he reveal it. Sirius Black was known to be this person. But what wasn't known before the events of this book/movie was that he passed the charm onto someone else and that person [who is possibly the world's biggest coward] betrayed them to Voldemort.
What I will say about this big reveal... I had a different reaction than I did with Professor Quirrell [amazing twist! okay, I'll stop]... first it was very confusing how Lupin was embracing him and it was revealed that they were friends so I was afraid Lupin was an additional villain.
Then when all the dust cleared, my reaction was either "Are you serious?!" or "Give me a break! He was GOOD this entire time?!" It was just kinda ridiculous... but maybe I should blame JK Rowling :P for making us believe "the least likely suspect" is the bad guy and the guy you thought was bad was good. But then I spent the entire series thinking Snape was evil and waited to see him reveal himself.... but more on that in future Harry Potter reviews.
It also kinda sucked how we got teased into believing Harry could finally get away from the Dursleys and live with Sirius (who happens to be his godfather) and ultimately all he gets is a signed permission slip to Hogsmeade (no invisibility cloak or Marauder's Map required).
Final Words
Of course I can't finish this without discussing the most obvious topic: the new casting of Dumbledore. [I think it was Robot Chicken that had a sketch with a black Dumbledore joking "I'm played by a different actor in every movie."]
I read the books with Richard Harris in my head as Dumbledore and even today, that remains true. I became more accepting of Michael Gambon through the course of the rest of the movies... but in many instances, I still don't feel that same connection. The whimsical nature of his dialogue remains through much of it, but that goes more to the script than the acting.
It's also kinda astounding Michael Gambon never read the books while filming and neither did the director (who saw neither of the movies). Considering the creep factor this movie has in places, he was definitely the right director for the job and I appreciate he wanted to cast it in his own style. The shrunken heads were a nice touch :P it certainly helped make the Knight Bus sequence funnier. It was also interesting how he had the three actors do an essay on their characters... if only my assignments in school were that cool.
The dementors were definitely scary in this movie... not as bad as the spiders in the previous movie, but they were scary. Even without Harry's specific weakness to them, I probably wouldn't have lasted a minute with them.
My assault on the adaptation of "Order of the Phoenix" will come at a later date, but as a preview, I HATE how they changed the look of the dementors. They were reduced to a cartoonish visual effect that would only give a Syfy Original movie a slight boost of realness.
And last: my second favorite scene is where the Weasley Twins give Harry the Marauder's Map. Other than a few quick witty lines, they had nothing to do in the previous films. Here, they got to work the magic of their chemistry ala twin clichés :P you know, how they finish each other's sentences. Sure, the dialogue reads like you're getting a task in an RPG video game, but I just enjoy it so much.
Writers: J.K. Rowling (novel), Steve Kloves (screenplay)
Composer: John Williams (his final "Harry Potter" film)
Cast:
[returning cast]
Harry Potter- Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley- Rupert Grint
Hermonine Granger- Emma Watson
Draco Malfoy- Tom Felton
Professor McGonagall- Maggie Smith
Professor Snape- Alan Rickman
Hagrid- Robbie Coltrane
[newcomers]
Fred and George Weasley- James and Oliver Phelps
Professor Dumbledore- Michael Gambon
Professor Lupin- David Thewlis
Sirius Black- Gary Oldman
Peter Pettigrew- Timothy Spall
Professor Trelawney- Emma Thompson
Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge- Robert Hardy
"Aunt" Marge- Pam Ferris
Notable Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Original Score- John Williams [lost to "Finding Neverland"]
OSCAR- Best Visual Effects [lost to "Spider-Man 2"]
Grammy- Best Score Soundtrack album- John Williams
[side-note: somehow I get the feeling Harry Potter got NO love from the Academy despite being nominated loads of times]
Write-up:
Opening Remarks
I still have a vague recollection of what it was like when this movie came out. We went to the mall and got there kinda early and were waiting around at the food court. It was the one Harry Potter movie that was released in June rather than its usual November "time slot." And it was the largest gap in film releases- Chamber of Secrets coming out November 2002 and Prisoner in June 2004.
Not surprisingly, this meant that the actors will have aged considerably between the two films and [despite our 3 year age difference] I developed a crush on Daniel Radcliffe that lasted a couple weeks after seeing the movie :P Maybe it was the maturity he'd gained in the past months or the fact his hair wasn't long and unruly (as it got in the succeeding film, "Goblet of Fire") or this movie having a particular juicy/personal story arc for Harry. What I knew for sure was that I drafted a bit of fanmail I never finished/sent and I bought a blue hoodie very similar to the one he wears in the latter portion of the film. (Except his didn't have an actual hood).
At the time, I was reading the book and I think I got as far as the scene at the lake where Harry, Hermonine and Sirius were overwhelmed by dementors and saved by a stag Patronus... except I came into the movie still believing Sirius Black was the villain...
I don't know how I could have missed that because I vaguely recollect reading the book a previous time and being lost in the time-turner sequence... or maybe that's my recollection of "The Deadly Hallows" and how they explained the killing curse NOT killing Harry.
Either way, that was the last time I came into a Harry Potter without fully reading the book first :P but it is fun coming across surprises in the movies. I still revel at the shock & awe of the Professor Quirrell revelation- one of the best twists I'd seen in any movie, although knowing about it now takes away from all that.
Of all the movies, it's probably my favorite as far as the storyline. Behind "Order of the Phoenix," it's my favorite of the books. But I admit that I had misgivings throughout this time around. Minor pet peeves here and there. Some of which I'd just made peace with by going into IMDB's FAQ section. Other had me convinced I'd seen one too many episodes of "Cinema Sins" on YouTube.
I can make due with the fact that we didn't see Gryffindor win the Quidditch Cup. That was a nit-pick one of my classmates in 12th grade college-prep Calculus had about it.
Story
The Prisoner of Azkaban is Sirius Black and supposedly he'd escaped from the wizard world's equivalent of Alcatraz... but an Alcatraz in the middle of the treacherous North Sea and surrounded by soul-sucking dementors.
Harry Potter endures one of his worst experiences at the Dursleys, being reduced to his uncle's visiting sister's waiter and kept within earshot of her insults towards his deceased parents. The end result is another of his "magical accidents," which makes "Aunt" Marge float away like a balloon, and he runs away from home where he gets picked up by the Knight Bus- a service meant to transport stranded witches and wizards.
Leading up to his latest year at Hogwarts, Harry gets wind of Sirius Black's escape and is warned to be on alert as he is rumored to be the reason he escaped.
Meanwhile at Hogwarts, Harry spends his third year helping Hagrid after his disastrous debut as Care of Magical Creatures teacher, dealing with Grim [death omens] sightings and learning more about his parents and tackling dementors from the newest Defense Against Dark Arts professor- Remus Lupin.
Peeves and Nit-picks
Two nit-picky things that I went to check on: there are two characters randomly thrown into the movie that weren't mentioned in the book.
One of them had two lines of dialogue that delivered very specific information- explaining the Grim in Divination class and trying to catch Sirius Black is like trying to catch smoke. Rumor is that he was the one who won a contest to get cast in this movie.
The other was a random Slytherin crone of Draco Malfoy's. His presence was explained as a way to fill a void left by Goyle- the actor broke his arm and couldn't participate in a few scenes because of it. They did something similar in the Deathly Hallows when the actor who played Crabbe was fired for marijuana possession and his role in the story went to Goyle. But for whatever reason, Draco Malfoy has to have a minimum of two cronies with him at all times.
Other things that were bugging were merely transitions from one scene to the next. I realize the Whomping Willow was integral to the third act, but cutting away to it because you had no better way to transition... I don't know, it felt kinda lazy to me. Not that they don't do this in the other movies, but still...
Then there's the opening scene where Harry casts Lumos Maxima... the only purpose it had was showing us the movie title and giving Richard Griffiths (Uncle Vernon) a smidge more screen time. Aside from that, Hogwarts students aren't allowed to use magic at home, so that's a major factual error... and no one uses this spell in the entire movie.
Also, considering how Lucius Malfoy (Draco's father) is one of the governors of the school and he's so upset about him getting attacked by that hippogriff in Hagrid's class, why didn't he show up for Buckbeak's execution? [IMDB answered that for me: Jason Isaacs was unavailable to shoot the scene]
Just for the heck of it, I revisited Cinema Sins's YouTube video on this movie...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gWHuiCIGG0
I still don't quite see eye to eye with them on these so-called "errors." Most of what they complain about it is explained in the books. I gotta quote Hermonine from the first movie: "Honestly, don't you
I will give them the student choir that sings "Something Wicked This Way Comes"... I realize that was the director's idea, but to me it just felt very random. As did the fact Professor Flitwick looked completely different in this movie and its sequels than he did in the original.
And the fact Pavarti changed the boggart from a cobra into an even scarier clown... WTF is up with that?
Additional Commentary
including some spoilers...
I love the moments in these movies (as well as the books) where Harry gets to learn more about his parents. It gives us more back story and Harry gets more of a sense of who he is and what his parents were like.
Remus Lupin wasn't just the best DADA Hogwarts has had so far (although to be fair, we didn't really see Quirrell teach and Gilderoy Lockart was incompetent) where he had a more practical approach with teaching the students magic. He was also a friend of Harry's dad, James, when they were in school. However much time they had together, Lupin was like a father figure to Harry that really looked out for him.
Although it would have been nice if Harry found out in the movie who created the Marauder's Map... clearly Snape and Lupin recognized it, but Harry never got to find out from Lupin that the four "marauders" that created this map of Hogwarts and all its secret passages and tunnels were him, his dad and two other characters we meet later in the story.
I can understand them not including the Quidditch Cup match, but that bit of backstory would have been a cool addition. Just saying...
The antagonism between Snape and Lupin harkens back to their school days. Although Lupin's "secret" has an stigma that has plagued him from a young age and made friendship and relationships difficult for him to maintain. According to Pottermore, J.K. Rowling imagined Lupin's being a werewolf as the magical equivalent to having AIDS. Granted, being a werewolf is more deadly and harder to control.
Also interesting to note from Pottermore was that Lupin disapproved of James's bullying of Snape, but was afraid speaking his mind would cost him their friendship. It was simply part of his character that he never asked for too much, simply wanting to be included when his condition made life very lonely for him.
What wasn't covered as much in the book was additional Care of Magical Creatures classes, although it wouldn't have been as engaging to the audience. Hagrid started so big with the hippogriff, as impressive as it was (the CGI still enamors me), but after the incident with Draco Malfoy (who really did deserve to be attacked by Buckbeak after Hagrid explained how hippogriffs are EASILY OFFENDED and insulting them may be "the last time you ever do"), he lost confidence in himself and resorted to lessons on lesser/boring and/or unpleasant creatures like Blast-ended Skewts. [I believe the level of excitement of that would be dissecting worms with slight chance of small explosions].
My favorite scene is probably the Hogsmeade scene where Harry find out that Sirius Black betrayed his parents' whereabouts to Voldemort, leading to their murder. One of the few instances where the movie far surpassed the book. In the book, Harry, Ron and Hermonine snuck into one of the pubs and overheard the revelation under the Invisibility Cloak. The chapter ended with Harry just being lost for words. In the movie, he's alone, rushes out of the pub and Ron and Hermonine come after him for answers.
Daniel Radcliffe doesn't often to get enough credit for his acting, but even though we can't see him [with the Cloak], hearing him cry in response to all this really pulled me into this scene. But maybe that's me being a sucker for a guy who's able to show that degree of emotion. The opposite sex is always so safeguarded about that stuff, to see otherwise in film or TV makes me respond to them more. (Ironically, when I'm crying, it's always awkward and when girls cry, it ranges from embarrassing to comical).
And knowing the truth about Sirius Black doesn't diminish this at all... mainly because the emotion is that tangible [okay, I'm done gushing about that :P] but also because Harry's parents were still betrayed... just by a different friend/marauder. (Heck, this book/movie could have been called Harry Potter and The Marauders... except that it might be mistaken for a movie about pirates, lol).
Apparently, the Potters went into hiding when Voldemort marked them as his next target and hiding included the Fidelius Charm. Only one person, the Secret-Keeper is given their location and only out of free will can he reveal it. Sirius Black was known to be this person. But what wasn't known before the events of this book/movie was that he passed the charm onto someone else and that person [who is possibly the world's biggest coward] betrayed them to Voldemort.
What I will say about this big reveal... I had a different reaction than I did with Professor Quirrell [amazing twist! okay, I'll stop]... first it was very confusing how Lupin was embracing him and it was revealed that they were friends so I was afraid Lupin was an additional villain.
Then when all the dust cleared, my reaction was either "Are you serious?!" or "Give me a break! He was GOOD this entire time?!" It was just kinda ridiculous... but maybe I should blame JK Rowling :P for making us believe "the least likely suspect" is the bad guy and the guy you thought was bad was good. But then I spent the entire series thinking Snape was evil and waited to see him reveal himself.... but more on that in future Harry Potter reviews.
It also kinda sucked how we got teased into believing Harry could finally get away from the Dursleys and live with Sirius (who happens to be his godfather) and ultimately all he gets is a signed permission slip to Hogsmeade (no invisibility cloak or Marauder's Map required).
Final Words
Of course I can't finish this without discussing the most obvious topic: the new casting of Dumbledore. [I think it was Robot Chicken that had a sketch with a black Dumbledore joking "I'm played by a different actor in every movie."]
I read the books with Richard Harris in my head as Dumbledore and even today, that remains true. I became more accepting of Michael Gambon through the course of the rest of the movies... but in many instances, I still don't feel that same connection. The whimsical nature of his dialogue remains through much of it, but that goes more to the script than the acting.
It's also kinda astounding Michael Gambon never read the books while filming and neither did the director (who saw neither of the movies). Considering the creep factor this movie has in places, he was definitely the right director for the job and I appreciate he wanted to cast it in his own style. The shrunken heads were a nice touch :P it certainly helped make the Knight Bus sequence funnier. It was also interesting how he had the three actors do an essay on their characters... if only my assignments in school were that cool.
The dementors were definitely scary in this movie... not as bad as the spiders in the previous movie, but they were scary. Even without Harry's specific weakness to them, I probably wouldn't have lasted a minute with them.
My assault on the adaptation of "Order of the Phoenix" will come at a later date, but as a preview, I HATE how they changed the look of the dementors. They were reduced to a cartoonish visual effect that would only give a Syfy Original movie a slight boost of realness.
And last: my second favorite scene is where the Weasley Twins give Harry the Marauder's Map. Other than a few quick witty lines, they had nothing to do in the previous films. Here, they got to work the magic of their chemistry ala twin clichés :P you know, how they finish each other's sentences. Sure, the dialogue reads like you're getting a task in an RPG video game, but I just enjoy it so much.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)