Harry Potter

[cellio]

Dani and I went to see the fourth Harry Potter movie tonight after Shabbat. Eh. Not bad, not good -- just "eh".

I want to like the Harry Potter movies; I really do. I thought the first one was very well-done (good story and visually stunning), and the third recovered from the damage done in the second. And I don't dislike the current movie; I just had trouble seeing a lot of good in it. (Hmm. Is it possible that the Harry Potter movies suffer from Star-Trek-movie syndrome?)

I haven't read the book. I know it was something over 600 pages, so I assume they had to do a lot of cutting. Given that, I was surprised to find myself thinking, in a couple places, "they could have trimmed this scene to make room for something else". Harry's fight with his dragon was the most prominent of these; it was a fine scene, and it would have been an equally-fine scene shortened by two minutes.

I found the storytelling in this one somewhat lacking. Ok, am I to understand that Voldemort's followers needed some of Harry's blood to reconstitute the big V, so they planted an agent whose job was to rig things in this big international tourney that everyone would be paying attention to, so that Harry would touch the cup and be transported to the graveyard? You'd think there'd be easier ways to get a blood sample. So I assume that Harry's actual presence was required, but that didn't come through.

We saw that in rounds two and three people could withdraw from the tourney. Could they in the first round? Since Harry wasn't hot on this in the first place and never consented to compete, why didn't he just withdraw from each round at the first opportunity? I understand that the story needed him not to do so, but the question should have been addressed on-screen. Only in the second trial did we see that there are real, unfortunate consequences to withdrawing.

Is there no consideration at all for a contestant who didn't enter and doesn't satisfy the rules? They said this is a magical contract, but contracts are generally agreed upon, not imposed. This sounds more like a curse.

Speaking of curses, what did the second one in the class do? It was obviously unpleasant for the victim, but so would being shot with fireballs, and that spell isn't on the forbidden list.

I would like to thank the producers for not showing the Quiddich match. I understand that this was a big part of the book, but I've found the past Quiddich scenes to be mostly boring with brief moments of excitement.

I thought the dream sequences and Harry's look into Dumbledore's pool were well-done -- creepy and other-worldly but not egregiously so.

The previews were disappointing. Here's what I remember:

• Ice Age 2: seems to be mostly sight gags. (I didn't see the first one.)
• Monster House: the look was similar to The Incredibles; I didn't notice if it was the same people. I was kind of surprised to see Spielburg's name on this one.
• Happy Feet: Huh? Is this really two hours of animated penguins dancing?
• a Superman movie (I don't remember an actual title): I would be favorably inclined to a Superman movie, but the preview for this particular one kind of creeped me out. The Superman I remember was hastily put into a spaceship and shot off a dying planet in the hopes he would survive somewhere; that is not at all in keeping with a deep, booming voice that said, essentially, "I sent my only son to redeem this world".

Actually, the best thing I saw before the movie was the Coke commercial. (This also involved animated penguins, among other animals.)

Comments

[lensedqso.livejournal.com]

They turned what I consider the finest book in the series into the TriWizard Tournament video game. The storytelling - masterful in the book - is non-existent in the movie. Barty Crouch, Jr doesn't make sense because they cut most of what happened at the Quidditch tournament and most of his backstory. Also, that dragon chase they could have cut down? Not in the book at all (although it could be seen as an extension of what was in the book). The way they handled the dragons in the book was much, much cooler.

BTW, no one dropped out of the tournament, they just didn't complete specific tasks. You'll note all four contestants were in the final task.

My friend went with her husband who hasn't read the books and she spent most of the movie answering his whispered, confused questions and the rest of the evening post-movie explaining everything in more detail.

[cellio]

BTW, no one dropped out of the tournament, they just didn't complete specific tasks. You'll note all four contestants were in the final task.

Yes. Sorry I was unclear. What I meant was that if it's possible to withdraw from individual rounds, and Harry didn't want to do this anyway, what stopped him from withdrawing at the beginning of each round? Embarrassment? He's already, irrevocably near as I can tell, scorned by some classmates; how much worse could that get?

[jducoeur]

They turned what I consider the finest book in the series into the TriWizard Tournament video game.

Interesting -- whereas for me, I thought this was the weakest of the books and the strongest of the movies. I usually describe Goblet of Fire as a fine 500 page book that is, unfortunately, about 800 pages long.

While I keep expecting the house-elf plot to pay off sooner or later, I found it utterly interminable in the book, and was glad to see the SPEW plot cut. And in general, I thought the editing was reasonably good, turning a slow book into a reasonably taut movie.

Although, all that said, I'm not surprised that cellio missed a lot: there's a huge amount in that movie that really only makes full sense if you know the background and are catching the nuances, because it blows past so quickly...