(no subject)
Don't read this if you haven't seen HP4.
My friend Jessica posted this on her livejournal, and I very much feel the same way. It is dmiller_32780 (whoever that is), and his (her?) opinion of the shortcomings of the new Harry Potter.
"HP4 is under the influence of the Imperius Curse
by dmiller_32780 (movies profile) Nov 18, 2005
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a movie under the influence of the Imperius Curse, mouthing a spattering of lines from the book without emotion, with no sense of purpose.
Scenes fly by, stripped of depth or meaningful dialog. No single scene is given thorough treatment, and no scene is particularly memorable. The most inspired set is the field for the Quidditch World Cup, but the director abruptly cuts out of the scene before the game begins. It is then that we know that dark and difficult times lie ahead - two and a half hours worth. There is a hurried, stripped-down feel to the film. Everyone speaks their lines in double-time. There is no time to act. Even the score, an essential, haunting, other-worldly component of the first three movies, goes from andante to allegro.
The first three installments transported the audience to a magical world, a world of grandeur and awe, a world where goblins run banks, books bite, chocolate frogs hop away from hungry boys and giants fly motorcycles. The magic is gone. This most recent movie transforms into the setting of a contemporary high school, with teachers slapping students on the back of the head or throwing chalk at them when they are inattentive. They seem to have forgotten they have wands.
Dumbledore is simply a frazzled principle, Snape is a bully fitting the phys-ed teacher stereotype, and McGonagall is just another Miss Priss. Of the students, Hermoine suffers most in translation, going from a good-hearted, independent, and very useful know-it-all to a budding bimbo who simpers about her relationship with Krum being merely physical. Krum and Hermoine’s time in the library is replaced by the exchange of a few leering looks.
This movie leans heavily on the previous films. The audience is conditioned to know that Fred and George provide comic relief. Giggles begin before they finish their lines. We must be counted on to recall that the Hogwarts Castle is an enchanted school of magic, for there is no moving staircase or password-plying portraits. There is only a single classroom scene.
The movie is dependent upon viewers who have read the book. There is no Winky, no Dobby, no fat lady, no maurader’s map, no blast-ended skrewts, no goblins, no sphinx, no dementors. There is no Ludo Bagman, no Bertha Jorkins, no Percy, no Mrs. Crouch, no Mrs. Weasley, no Ms. Trelawney, no beetle Skeeter, and no Sirius Black in either body.
For anyone who has read the book, the list of exclusions above will sound startling. Can the story be told without these characters? Can the movie have mystery, drama, continuity without them? Can we make sense of the actions of the characters that remain? The answer to all of these questions is “no”.
Scraps of unfinished storylines litter the screen. A character is found dead in the forest with no cause of death and no murderer. In the closing scenes Dumbledore delivers a monologue about overcoming prejudice. The camera pauses on the half-giant Madame Maxime, but the scene is meaningless because there was no inflammatory news story about giants as there was in the book.
The Imperius Curse, the curse most crucial to the fourth book, manifests itself in the movie as Morse Code-like eye twitches in one victim and cataracts in another. In both cases, the unenlightened moviegoer would not know that Imperio was the curse that inflicted them, who had cursed them, or why they had been cursed.
For all that is missing from the movie, there are odd inclusions; inconsequential scenes (Mad Eye Moody asking Neville if he’d like some tea), incomplete subplots (Harry’s infatuation with Cho Chang), and curious additions (Neville relishing in the ball).
Too much of what is in the movie is sloppily, unfeeling, out of character. Patiently paternal and unflappable Dumbledore screams an unfounded accusation at Harry. There is no emotion in Cho crying over Cedric, or Barty Crouch’s “I have no son.” When Dumbledore uses the name of he who should not be named, students don’t shudder. The moviemakers are careless about maintaining the proper scale of Hagrid. He looks hairy and heavy, but it is not clear that he is a giant. Voldemort flits around like a ballet troupe’s take on Dracula, his abbreviated dialog mouthed as quickly as rap, dancing to his own song with an amputated nose. He is disturbing, but not in the way intended.
This is more than a drop-off from the first three films. This movie fell off a cliff. It will be a difficult task to rebuild characters from the names, and to reassemble a story from the wreckage."
My friend Jessica posted this on her livejournal, and I very much feel the same way. It is dmiller_32780 (whoever that is), and his (her?) opinion of the shortcomings of the new Harry Potter.
"HP4 is under the influence of the Imperius Curse
by dmiller_32780 (movies profile) Nov 18, 2005
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a movie under the influence of the Imperius Curse, mouthing a spattering of lines from the book without emotion, with no sense of purpose.
Scenes fly by, stripped of depth or meaningful dialog. No single scene is given thorough treatment, and no scene is particularly memorable. The most inspired set is the field for the Quidditch World Cup, but the director abruptly cuts out of the scene before the game begins. It is then that we know that dark and difficult times lie ahead - two and a half hours worth. There is a hurried, stripped-down feel to the film. Everyone speaks their lines in double-time. There is no time to act. Even the score, an essential, haunting, other-worldly component of the first three movies, goes from andante to allegro.
The first three installments transported the audience to a magical world, a world of grandeur and awe, a world where goblins run banks, books bite, chocolate frogs hop away from hungry boys and giants fly motorcycles. The magic is gone. This most recent movie transforms into the setting of a contemporary high school, with teachers slapping students on the back of the head or throwing chalk at them when they are inattentive. They seem to have forgotten they have wands.
Dumbledore is simply a frazzled principle, Snape is a bully fitting the phys-ed teacher stereotype, and McGonagall is just another Miss Priss. Of the students, Hermoine suffers most in translation, going from a good-hearted, independent, and very useful know-it-all to a budding bimbo who simpers about her relationship with Krum being merely physical. Krum and Hermoine’s time in the library is replaced by the exchange of a few leering looks.
This movie leans heavily on the previous films. The audience is conditioned to know that Fred and George provide comic relief. Giggles begin before they finish their lines. We must be counted on to recall that the Hogwarts Castle is an enchanted school of magic, for there is no moving staircase or password-plying portraits. There is only a single classroom scene.
The movie is dependent upon viewers who have read the book. There is no Winky, no Dobby, no fat lady, no maurader’s map, no blast-ended skrewts, no goblins, no sphinx, no dementors. There is no Ludo Bagman, no Bertha Jorkins, no Percy, no Mrs. Crouch, no Mrs. Weasley, no Ms. Trelawney, no beetle Skeeter, and no Sirius Black in either body.
For anyone who has read the book, the list of exclusions above will sound startling. Can the story be told without these characters? Can the movie have mystery, drama, continuity without them? Can we make sense of the actions of the characters that remain? The answer to all of these questions is “no”.
Scraps of unfinished storylines litter the screen. A character is found dead in the forest with no cause of death and no murderer. In the closing scenes Dumbledore delivers a monologue about overcoming prejudice. The camera pauses on the half-giant Madame Maxime, but the scene is meaningless because there was no inflammatory news story about giants as there was in the book.
The Imperius Curse, the curse most crucial to the fourth book, manifests itself in the movie as Morse Code-like eye twitches in one victim and cataracts in another. In both cases, the unenlightened moviegoer would not know that Imperio was the curse that inflicted them, who had cursed them, or why they had been cursed.
For all that is missing from the movie, there are odd inclusions; inconsequential scenes (Mad Eye Moody asking Neville if he’d like some tea), incomplete subplots (Harry’s infatuation with Cho Chang), and curious additions (Neville relishing in the ball).
Too much of what is in the movie is sloppily, unfeeling, out of character. Patiently paternal and unflappable Dumbledore screams an unfounded accusation at Harry. There is no emotion in Cho crying over Cedric, or Barty Crouch’s “I have no son.” When Dumbledore uses the name of he who should not be named, students don’t shudder. The moviemakers are careless about maintaining the proper scale of Hagrid. He looks hairy and heavy, but it is not clear that he is a giant. Voldemort flits around like a ballet troupe’s take on Dracula, his abbreviated dialog mouthed as quickly as rap, dancing to his own song with an amputated nose. He is disturbing, but not in the way intended.
This is more than a drop-off from the first three films. This movie fell off a cliff. It will be a difficult task to rebuild characters from the names, and to reassemble a story from the wreckage."