OotP
So. Movie seen. It's late, and I have work tomorrow, but what the hell, have a reaction post.
First and foremost, I feel it my duty as a Remus fangirl to say: where the fuck was Remus during all this? (Well, quite possibly cuddling with Sirius, but, y'know.) Actually, I should rephrase: where the fuck was the Order of the bloody Phoenix during all this? Where have all the cool adults run off to? I miss them.
In fairness, the major theme of the movie seemed to be the kids being all We Are The Important Generation Now, Suckers, So Neener. So I guess it made sense that it was all about how the kids are stepping up into adult roles, and not so many adults (other than, y'know, Umbridge) in evidence. But still. As someone who finds the First War generation more interesting than the current one, I was a little sad.
Regardless, the movie was pretty good. It streamlined the book like whoa, and if they lost some good bits (coughRemuscough), they also lost a lot of the useless baggage that dragged the book down, and that was nice. In particular, I like the way they did the Harry/Cho romance -- they downplayed it a fair bit, but Cho came off more sympathetically than in the book, in which she kinda got on my nerves. The fact that a grinning photo of Cedric was watching them snog kinda creeped me out, but overall it was cute and sweet and ultimately unimportant -- which, as those two never had much in common beyond mutual attraction, worked very well for me. Having Cho be the betrayer was also interesting; at first, it confused and annoyed me, but once Snape did the Veritaserum exposition, I was totally okay with it. Especially because it provided a nice neat way to end that non-relationship without, um, crying-over-Cedric-type drama.
Imelda Staunton is AMAZING as Umbridge. Evanna Lynch is the perfect Luna. Bellatrix was everything she should be and more, OMG so creepy awesome. Neville is made of awesome. Grawp was surprisingly adorable, and I'm really okay with how far that diverges from book!canon. All the other actors were as good as one might expect. Dan Radcliffe improves in leaps and bounds from one movie to the next, and is disturbingly fit. And so on.
The twins still win at life, although not quite as much as in the book, but again, streamlining. Remus and Sirius are totally fucking offscreen (I mean, really, almost every time Harry comes into Grimmauld Place, we see a shot of Remus and Sirius hanging out veryclosetogether before Sirius comes over to talk to his godson). I quite like Tonks, and am sad she got so little screen time. Ginny is totally in love with Harry, and it is cute. Also, she kicks a fair bit of ass in the D.A. meetings, so yay for establishing her as being capable of awesomeness before HBP. Also, she is getting pretty cute herself, which I hadn't thought that actress capable of, so that's cool too. (In case it wasn't clear, while I may not be a Ginny biggest fan, I am also not a Ginny Basher. I think she's cute, although tragically fifteen in HBP.)
Snape rocks. No one is surprised. The infamous pensieve scene does not, in fact, involve a pensieve in the movie, which might explain why it is so tragically brief and choppy. I mourned deeply the lack of Marauders. No one is surprised.
Okay, here we go: I wish to god I had been spoiled beforehand for the manner of Sirius's death in this movie. Because then I would've known what to expect, and I would not have lost my Crying Moment, and spent the rest of the movie incredibly pissed off about this. Because the archway and the Veil looked perfect, and I was getting all choked up in advance, and then Sirius punched Malfoy in the face, and I was all I LOVE YOU SIRIUS OH GOD YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE, and Bellatrix pointed her wand at him, and I was about to become all emotional -- and then my Crying Moment was fucking interrupted, because I spent the five seconds of Sirius's death not going all OMG SIRIUS NOOO but rather HOLD ON A TIC, SHE DID NOT JUST SAY WHAT I THINK SHE SAID.
I am not usually a canon Nazi. But Sirius was not killed by an Avada Kedavra. Except, apparently, in this version.
I can understand why they made this change. I'm sure JKR is well and truly sick of explaining to people that no, Sirius is not coming back, and yes, falling through Veil = death. I realize that the movie people don't want their casual viewers totally confused about whether or not Sirius is actually dead, and making it an Avada Kedavra sure clears that up. But -- oh, my god, it pissed the hell out of me. I will get over this. I will. But it really ruined the rest of the film for me, and that's unfortunate, because the rest of the film was good, and did not deserve to be ruined by a minor divergence from canon. I dunno. I'm just...really attached to Sirius, and this was not how he died. Not to mention, the film streamlined out all the Sirius-wasting-away-in-the-house-he-hated bits, which kind of takes away all meaning from his death -- that maybe it's not such a bad thing, that he didn't have a place in the world anymore, that at least he went out dueling, in a moment when he was more alive than he'd had a chance to be in fourteen years. And also, of course, the tragedy inherent in all that, that he never did have a chance to be free and happy. And...oh, god, Sirius. Well, this is why we have the books, I suppose. To fill in what the movies left out.
But still, worth seeing. There are some other fantastic bits I haven't mentioned -- like the whole look and feel of the Ministry, and the Department of Mysteries (which changes a lot from the book, incidentally, but I liked it rather a lot anyway), and the D.A. meetings are really fantastic, and everything about Sirius's death apart from the Avada Kedavra bit is practically perfect (oh, Remus; oh, Harry), and how Radcliffe transforms the Capslock Of Rage into something dark and poignant and believable...yeah. Good movie. Nowhere near perfect movie, but no one's expecting that, right?
First and foremost, I feel it my duty as a Remus fangirl to say: where the fuck was Remus during all this? (Well, quite possibly cuddling with Sirius, but, y'know.) Actually, I should rephrase: where the fuck was the Order of the bloody Phoenix during all this? Where have all the cool adults run off to? I miss them.
In fairness, the major theme of the movie seemed to be the kids being all We Are The Important Generation Now, Suckers, So Neener. So I guess it made sense that it was all about how the kids are stepping up into adult roles, and not so many adults (other than, y'know, Umbridge) in evidence. But still. As someone who finds the First War generation more interesting than the current one, I was a little sad.
Regardless, the movie was pretty good. It streamlined the book like whoa, and if they lost some good bits (coughRemuscough), they also lost a lot of the useless baggage that dragged the book down, and that was nice. In particular, I like the way they did the Harry/Cho romance -- they downplayed it a fair bit, but Cho came off more sympathetically than in the book, in which she kinda got on my nerves. The fact that a grinning photo of Cedric was watching them snog kinda creeped me out, but overall it was cute and sweet and ultimately unimportant -- which, as those two never had much in common beyond mutual attraction, worked very well for me. Having Cho be the betrayer was also interesting; at first, it confused and annoyed me, but once Snape did the Veritaserum exposition, I was totally okay with it. Especially because it provided a nice neat way to end that non-relationship without, um, crying-over-Cedric-type drama.
Imelda Staunton is AMAZING as Umbridge. Evanna Lynch is the perfect Luna. Bellatrix was everything she should be and more, OMG so creepy awesome. Neville is made of awesome. Grawp was surprisingly adorable, and I'm really okay with how far that diverges from book!canon. All the other actors were as good as one might expect. Dan Radcliffe improves in leaps and bounds from one movie to the next, and is disturbingly fit. And so on.
The twins still win at life, although not quite as much as in the book, but again, streamlining. Remus and Sirius are totally fucking offscreen (I mean, really, almost every time Harry comes into Grimmauld Place, we see a shot of Remus and Sirius hanging out veryclosetogether before Sirius comes over to talk to his godson). I quite like Tonks, and am sad she got so little screen time. Ginny is totally in love with Harry, and it is cute. Also, she kicks a fair bit of ass in the D.A. meetings, so yay for establishing her as being capable of awesomeness before HBP. Also, she is getting pretty cute herself, which I hadn't thought that actress capable of, so that's cool too. (In case it wasn't clear, while I may not be a Ginny biggest fan, I am also not a Ginny Basher. I think she's cute, although tragically fifteen in HBP.)
Snape rocks. No one is surprised. The infamous pensieve scene does not, in fact, involve a pensieve in the movie, which might explain why it is so tragically brief and choppy. I mourned deeply the lack of Marauders. No one is surprised.
Okay, here we go: I wish to god I had been spoiled beforehand for the manner of Sirius's death in this movie. Because then I would've known what to expect, and I would not have lost my Crying Moment, and spent the rest of the movie incredibly pissed off about this. Because the archway and the Veil looked perfect, and I was getting all choked up in advance, and then Sirius punched Malfoy in the face, and I was all I LOVE YOU SIRIUS OH GOD YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE, and Bellatrix pointed her wand at him, and I was about to become all emotional -- and then my Crying Moment was fucking interrupted, because I spent the five seconds of Sirius's death not going all OMG SIRIUS NOOO but rather HOLD ON A TIC, SHE DID NOT JUST SAY WHAT I THINK SHE SAID.
I am not usually a canon Nazi. But Sirius was not killed by an Avada Kedavra. Except, apparently, in this version.
I can understand why they made this change. I'm sure JKR is well and truly sick of explaining to people that no, Sirius is not coming back, and yes, falling through Veil = death. I realize that the movie people don't want their casual viewers totally confused about whether or not Sirius is actually dead, and making it an Avada Kedavra sure clears that up. But -- oh, my god, it pissed the hell out of me. I will get over this. I will. But it really ruined the rest of the film for me, and that's unfortunate, because the rest of the film was good, and did not deserve to be ruined by a minor divergence from canon. I dunno. I'm just...really attached to Sirius, and this was not how he died. Not to mention, the film streamlined out all the Sirius-wasting-away-in-the-house-he-hated bits, which kind of takes away all meaning from his death -- that maybe it's not such a bad thing, that he didn't have a place in the world anymore, that at least he went out dueling, in a moment when he was more alive than he'd had a chance to be in fourteen years. And also, of course, the tragedy inherent in all that, that he never did have a chance to be free and happy. And...oh, god, Sirius. Well, this is why we have the books, I suppose. To fill in what the movies left out.
But still, worth seeing. There are some other fantastic bits I haven't mentioned -- like the whole look and feel of the Ministry, and the Department of Mysteries (which changes a lot from the book, incidentally, but I liked it rather a lot anyway), and the D.A. meetings are really fantastic, and everything about Sirius's death apart from the Avada Kedavra bit is practically perfect (oh, Remus; oh, Harry), and how Radcliffe transforms the Capslock Of Rage into something dark and poignant and believable...yeah. Good movie. Nowhere near perfect movie, but no one's expecting that, right?