(no subject)
Having finally got off my ass and done what I promised, here's a portion of my GoF review (cut into sections to prevent your eyes glazing over. Next bit will be up...um, soon, I hope!)
Generally, I enjoyed this film. I tend to prefer the even numbered books and movies to the odd, and it was certainly an improvement on POA - the directing style was less obtrusive, with brighter lighting/colouring (I’m such a plebe, rewatching it now I kept thinking ‘Hey, I remember this scene from such icons as…’); the characters were more IC, the acting was better, and I personally find the plot more enjoyable to watch as a film - POA is probably structurally stronger, but doesn’t work so well when adapted (ooh, we’re going back in time to relive the same scene we just played out. Again!)
My main interests in the movies have always been:
1) whether or not the characters are more or less three-dimensional than the book. In some cases, it's unavoidable. I got in trouble in various parts of Dahl fandom for saying this, but just the casting of a human being means that a certain amount of flat/cartoonish characters are going to appear more 'realistic' and believable as existing in their own fictional universe, rather than the sense you can sometimes get that when the leads aren't present, everyone goes back into their plot box; or, an unfortunate tendency with the Potterverse, although it's by no means the only one, when it becomes obvious that a large cast of characters have been written by the same mind, having similiar motivations, reactions and reasoning, despite their supposedly disparate personalities. And
2) seeing whether the film-makers will play out the nastier aspects of the series.
As I've mentioned before, I find it fascinating to see how much things like the pig's tail hexing, the ferret bouncing scene, Buckbeak, the train hexings, Hermione imprisoning Rita, the Ton Tongue Toffee... are either altered to shift the culpability of the victims or else cut entirely.
I would pretty much see it as indication that the good guys in HP's actions lack enough justification as written, to have a cinema audience, which by default is going to be expecting a much more literal level - someone's nose being hexed off, for example, is going to come off as more disturbing when seeing it onscreen than reading about it in a book - rooting for them. Of course, this could be a purposeful choice by Rowling - she uses the tactic right in GoF - but either way, it's interesting.
I anticipate more changes for OotP and HBP, especially the Quidditch Pitch fight, the SNEAK hex, the train hexings and Sectumsempra.)
It also appears to me that while the film versions are sort of 'improved' or arguably Sue'ified versions of canon; the book characters are written as having their cake and eating it, being flawed and thus arguably more 'human' and well-written (although it really depends - a flaw that never negatively impacts the person who has it is hardly a flaw.) but also getting away with all their more aggressive actions while the author slams down people outside Harry's circle behaving similiarly. JKR's versions could be more complex, or they could just be more sophisticated Sues.
Anyway, there's a bunch of minor changes here, most of which shorten an unnecessarily long and flabby plot, but still ZOMG LUDO BAGMAN WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF CANON!11!
No Dursleys - it’s almost like the moviemakers couldn’t find a way to make a boy choking to death funny.
And no Percy, either. I guess there’s a limit to how annoying you could make him without making him Hermione.
* Frank - could have been cut, to be honest. There’s enough ghosts at the end, Harry’s dream doesn’t need him, and since there’s no Little Hangleton mentions, he’s pretty extraneous. Plus there’s no mention of the only interesting thing about him - that he had a hard war! (Heh, the recap community I’m in became obsessed with Book!Frank while rereading GoF. To quote viciousmongoose ‘I wish he'd survived and formed his own elite Muggle espionage crew who could garden and spy on wizards, eventually learning how to snatch and break their wands. And at the climax of the series, they would make Mr Weasley regret his patronising airs.’ Viva Bryce!)
* Nagini is pronounced with a hard g - Na - Gee - ni, rather than Nah - jeannie (to almost rhyme with Na - ginny, now that I think about it. COINCIDENCE?) like I imagined it.
* Peter Pettigrew comes off much more malevolent in the films than in the books (although to be fair, this choice of Kloves/Spall seems to have been made in POA where he seemed less weak in comparison even then.) It’s a shame, because Tim Spall’s a talented guy, he seems to understand the character fairly well from interviews and I would think he’d have the chops to pull off how snivelling and pathetic, but also oddly compelling Wormtail is; but instead he’s kind of more cookie-cutter entry-level evil.
I was also sad they cut a scene/clip of him stroking Voldie’s blanket, since the dynamic between Voldemort and him is so blackly comic in GoF.
* Crouch Jr. appears. At first I found David Tennant in GoF hot like apparently the rest of fandom, but slowly he began to annoy me with his hamminess (although a lot of this could be the character changes to Crouch Jr. I’ve only seen one episode of Dr. Who, so I really can’t judge properly, but to be honest, I think it’s him that sucks.)
I think it was his badass leather coat that won me over. (Seriously, the ‘baddies’ in the movies have some lovely clothes, which always strikes me as a tad more realistic - they care more - than in JKR’s world, where of course her heroes have to be superior not just in morals - ha! - but also superficial stuff like sports abilities, looks and dress sense.)
I certainly have no beef about him being in the movie plot from the beginning, though - he does nothing OOC and it’s simpler, which are the two standards I have for alterations.
* Hermione enters. She’s frankly kind of a shrew in this film - I guess because there’s no SPEW for her to release her energies onto, but then she was totally unaffected by the pressure on her in POA (apart from to channel even more ‘girl power’ *vomits*) so I guess it all evens out. Plus, she’s pretty motherly in GoF. I found her to be much more likeable than in POA, but then I prefered her in HBP to OotP, so it could just be that either I find Hermione more tolerable when she’s in small doses and sidelined, or else she’s more human fussing over boys and rivalries than Avenging Herself Upon the Wicked and whining about Hagrid.
* Ron’s horrified as Hermione approaches his bed to wake him up.
To be honest, Rupert Grint plays as if Ron genuinely doesn’t fancy Hermione in this film (I’ve never really been invested in R/Hr one way or another to note whether this is an opinion I’d hold in the previous films.), at least, in my view; but that’s not an interpretation I’m opposed to. I did think it was pretty adorable that there was some interview with him where he sort of earnestly and unconsciously explaining how the whole Yule Ball scene was about his jealousy over Hermione getting to go to the Ball with Krum, even though he's Ron's hero. Any/all heterosexuality just seemed to have passed him by.
* Dan’s actually much improved in this film - it helps that the plot of GoF is centred around an ensemble rather than insular like POA (and OotP - dum, dum, DUM!) and he gets to do a bit of jokey stuff, which seems to be his strength, especially as opposed to his Dramatic acting. Not too hot a beginning for him, though, as he writhes like an epileptic from a bad dream, especially since Harry’s glasses are off, so he looks more ‘Dan’.
* Heh. Of course the only appearance from Molly is a mention that she’s cooking.
* Arthur’s wearing socks and sandals, cutely. All he needs now is a knotted handkerchief and he’s the classic British Tourist.
* Cedric’s in a tree, like Draco later on and Morfin in HBP. Those crazy Purebloods! (Actually, someone explained that he’s there to spot the Portkey, apparently, which made me feel rather foolish, but I kinda like the randomness. Sometimes a guy just needs to sit in a tree.)
* Ginny and Hermione smiling at each other re: Cedric is a nice moment. Naturally their bonding has to be based around guys, but it’s still neat to see them expressing physical attraction (and not just as a reaction to a man’s, or as a ploy to make another jealous) about a guy that isn’t their Soulmate.
* There’s a random introduction of Amos (who looks like a character straight out of Wind in the Willows) to Harry where he’s honoured to meet The Boy Who Lives, presumably (since we already know Amos’ name, and if it were for politeness sake, he’d want to meet Hermione too, surely?) shorthand for ‘This guy has shown the proper respect and awe over our hero = he’s a good guy, and we can feel sympathetic when his son dies’.
* Also a decent moment is Cedric, Amos and Arthur floating down vs. the Trio’s clumsiness - it makes it clear Cedric is older, and so a stronger competitor. (It’s very similar to the start of the Second Task, when the other three Champions dive into the lake gracefully, whereas Harry falls in - the kind of thing Rowling would automatically not think to include, as it makes Harry look foolish, but actually creates more sympathy for him than her way of doing so, which is just to have random characters exposit how he’s the underdog.)
* Cedric, however is much less of a ‘rival’ than in the books, where we’re privy to Harry’s jealous thoughts about him - this could more strongly assert his goodness. Or Harry’s in not being as jealous. It’s almost like the two have swopped their places from canon, so Harry’s the sanctified one, and Cedric the one who’s more flawed but who’s inexplicably viewed as perfect anyway. (The two standout examples seemed to be when Harry approaches him, Cedric’s friends taunt Harry about the Potter Stinks badges, and Cedric smirks at them, before telling Harry that he’s asked them not to wear said badges, which comes off as two-faced; and the random part where he’s gleefully laughing over the ferret bouncing - call me a Draco fangirl if you like, but I’d think Mr. Team Spirit and Fair Play would be a little less keen to get his yucks at a younger student being physically punished by a teacher; especially since there’s no interaction between Slytherin and Hufflepuff in the films at all, never mind a personal reason for bitterness. And there’s no need for it - Cedric’s hardly in need of extra time in this scene, and it’s such a short shot, it could easily have gone to a random Gryffindor like Seamus or Dean.
He’s also much more competitive in the Maze, but I felt that humanised him considerably, and was preferable to the book, which I’ll go into later.)
Of course, to Harry, Movie!Cedric is even more likeable than his saintly book counterpart, having never beaten Harry at anything, which perhaps explains the hand he accepts up from Cedric, which Book!Harry’s pride would have prevented, even if he’d done something as unlikely as falling down. (So Cedric gets The Handshake? Burn!)
* There’s really not a good place to mention this, so I’ll just put it here, prompted by the friendly ‘See you later, Cedric!’ from one of the Twins, but Fred and George really are two of the most fanonised characters in these films. There’s stiff competition, to be sure (even excepting all the characters who come off worse than in the books - and you thought such a task impossible!) just from their own family, leaving alone more dramatic examples like Harry and Hermione; but really, in four films, there’s not been more than a hint of the nastiness they seemingly can’t disguise for more than a sentence in the books.
* Harry’s awed ‘I love magic!’ makes me laugh imagining sistermagpie’s no doubt disgusted reaction ("Ooh, what delightful magic! This is my 'wonderous' face.") Plus I know it’s a small point and all, but O RLY? I mean, I know it comes and goes as the plot requires, but I really don’t think Harry is randomly grateful every day for the small and amazing new gifts magic can bring. Like Hermione, he seems totally assimilated to the WW and his own self-image as a wizard and TBWL rather than Harry the Muggle.
* Hee, I love how tackily decorated the Weasley’s tent is, like the Gryffindor common room; and how the Twins totally ignore Arthur reprimanding them.
* Since Arthur in the films is a nicer, slightly less corrupt version of canon, the Weasleys do not have The Speshul seats with the Minister he got taking bribes. Hilariously, this has proved no barrier to the set designer, so their seats have perfect views of the action, whereas the Malfoys are with Fudge hidden behind a bunch of piping. WTF? You’re the Minister, man, you don’t have to stand for that!
* I kinda love Jason Isaacs. He’s picked the whole ‘Lucius is a shitty dad’ thing (this time poking Draco in the stomach with his cane for boasting about sitting in the Minister’s box) and dammit he’s sticking to it. And YOU aren’t gonna change his mind! Heh. Anyway, he and Draco (!) look very dapper, Draco in a black suit (several people weep - zomg Muggle clothes! As if it’s kept straight in the books for two paragraphs running. Isn’t Riddle wearing a suit in HBP at one point?) and wearing the ghetto fabulous snake ring he had on in POA.
* I thought it might be kind of interesting if Ginny had some kind of reaction to Lucius here, but I guess even pre-Sueification and the film medium meaning she’s unavoidably more three-dimensional than her canon counterpart, we don’t want her getting too much more interesting than in the book. It’ll just lead to disappointment that she was murdered and replaced sometime in between GoF and OotP.
* Sweetly, the Weasley group are all wearing twat hats, while Arthur’s wrapped in a flag. Cedric remains aloof and inscrutable as to his preferences, but Ron and Harry are wearing red for Bulgaria, whereas the girls and the Twins are in green for Ireland (it’s a nice choice, rather than the book, where of course no-one considers not rooting for Ireland, being British, even if Krum is the superior player.)
* Hilariously, there’s the beginning of the game and a shot of Krum, then a cut to the aftermath. For some inexplicable reason, though, people missed it, apparently. I guess maybe because it was the one Quidditch game in canon where the outcome wasn’t immediately clear, since Gryffindor weren’t entered.
* Ron, who seems a little drunk, is openly crushing on Krum and his athletic artist(ry), cutely. Ginny teases him by saying she thinks he’s ‘in looove’. Notice how Ginny is more IC now (teasing her brother and cheering at the QWC) we know the ‘true’ shallows depths of her personality than in the book of GoF (the secret Quidditch star is shocked at injuries and falls asleep discussing the game?), but also still likeable. Watch and learn, JKR. (Seriously, it’s so pathetic that for all Rowling’s ‘People get confused with the movies’, film!Ginny is about ten times more interesting and believable than canon, and she’s only in about five scenes.)
The Twins sing a song about Ron and Viktor, which inexplicably, everyone knows, including Harry, from whom mockery of another guy’s possible homosexuality frankly seems a bit rich.
* As the Weasley group flee, you can see that one twin has a protective arm around Ginny - cute!
* The Deatheaters costumes sure are subtle! It must have taken the costume designer as long as thirty seconds to think of giving them KKK-esque hoods. (To be fair, I think they might have those in the book, too. In which case, bravo Rowling! You haven’t shown such deft political satire since the naming of the Inquisitorial Squad.)
They’re not hurting Muggles or showing people’s underwear, though - maybe because that’s already been played out for comedy value by Harry in POA? - so it’s hard to see why all the panic, but then, that was hard to understand the Moral Outrage in the book, too, considering it was from the group who mere pages before were laughing hysterically at the big fat Muggle who can’t fight back and probably thinks he’s going to die from their ‘prank’.
* Arthur instructs everyone to go back to the Portkey. Is there a reason why the Portkey can’t just be kept in someone’s suitcase or something? I know it’s supposed to be shared by the people at a location (let’s hope Amos and Cedric independently decided to leave the campground at the same time as the Weasleys!) but it seems awfully poor security to leave your one way home left in a field miles away and hope it’s still there after a few days.
* There’s some dodgy blocking as Harry is separated from the group, then knocked out - like no-one would notice Famous Harry Potter on the ground, never mind not miss him for long enough that when he wakes up, the place is deserted.
* Aw, I tell a lie, Ron sounds really worried that Harry was gone!
* The Trio duck, with Harry and Hermione clutching each other.
I actually dislike R/Hr and H/Hr with equal measures (I’ll be tactful here and cast a veil over my feelings about H/G, since my opinion is mainly composed of expletives.) As far as I’m concerned, Harry and Hermione’s friendship is unhealthy enough (not that his with Ron is much of an improvement) without giving her another reason to prioritise him, and Ron/Hermione, while not offending me on a visceral level, just seems to be a horrible choice for both of them, especially post HBP.
But really, besides the obvious Awkward Anvils like their shaking hands at the end of CoS, Movie!R/Hr is not strong, especially compared to H/Hr. I like Grint best of the Trio actors, but chemistry with other actors doesn’t seem to be his strong point, and Ron as the ‘sidekick’ is a character that really requires that, unlike Harry or Hermione.
Whereas Radcliffe and Watson’s are similar actors, style and personality wise (a little stilted, sometimes overly dramatic, posh accents.) I don’t know whether they have a stronger bond IRL, but that’s the vibe they give off.
It affects the characterization a little - to be honest, Dan comes off as the gay best friend a little, with a… politeness? Sincerity? Naivety? that Harry lacks, being a tad more ‘bloke-ish’ (Ron being the ‘thing he’d miss most’, not Hermione) and insensitive in canon, boy-stalking and fawning over handsomeness aside. And both Harry and Hermione are much more ‘touchy’ (and weepy) than in canon (it’s sort of like Kloves and Rowling channel the worse of either gender. Rowling has the macho Harry who almost never expresses emotion, where all the girls in canon are brutal, bad-ass defenders of their menfolk, who see each other as competition; whereas Kloves plays up Hermione as Pansy Parkinson, in pink, hanging onto all the boys. Just two different kinds of sexism.) which I suppose assists the little ‘which way will this go?’ vibe that Rowling also seemed to purposely exploit, anvils aside.
* I like Arthur specifically protecting Ron. It’s an improving contrast to canon, where most people’s reasons for liking/disliking people has so far been limited to 'How do they treat Harry?' rather than to more personal ties - for instance, Molly is far more reactive to slurs against Harry than against her own children, and he’s included in her boggart nighmare.
I just see it as far more believable that in an emergency situation, a parent’s instinctive reaction would be to protect their own child.
* Trigger gives one of his few lines the weirdest reading ever. I can’t even describe it, just watch.
* Arthur reminds Barty that the Trio are ‘just kids’. (I kinda miss the part in the book where Crouch Sr. points out how unlikely it is that he or Harry would use the Dark Arts, considering that they both end up practising their Unforgiveables.)
Thankfully Arthur, not being in fandom, spares us the extended remix of how some teenagers have hormones (teenagers like Marietta and Draco were naturally born legally accountable for their many crimes) and sometimes they do bad shit, but that’s just what any normal person would do, and at the same time because they’ve got a lot to be upset about, and anyway, it makes them more human.
* I’m sure Dan’s just going for confusion here, but to be honest, his protestations about not knowing the guy casting Morsmordre sound like deliberate lies. Odd choice. I smirked at the ‘A man…’ ‘Who?’ line, though.
* Cute details on the train: Ron’s reading a book, and the lunchlady has a plastic rat and spider on her hat.
* I love the way Ron’s envy over money, a book-long subplot, is condensed into two lines. (Harry offers to get his sweets, Ron just puts back the extra ones.) I’m not kidding, it cracks me up every time I see it.
* Cho appears, and since she’s as cute as a bug in a rug (and dressed in the unholy pink!), Harry instantly falls in love with her. There’s no groundwork laid, since Movie!Cho doesn’t play Quidditch and wasn’t in POA, but to be honest, since her character’s just going to get demolished in OOTP, the script writers might as well start from a fresh slate; and she’s still kind and pretty, like in the books.
* You know, everyone notes how Emma Watson acts with her eyebrows, but I can’t say I’ve noticed them myself. Everytime she’s onscreen, I’m already transfixed by her over-emphasising every word. And here, rather cruelly, by her wrinkled forehead. Someone please explain to me why she and Tom Felton have the lines of people twice their age? Oh well, all in the service of one’s Craft!
* I like it when Harry oh so subtly scratches his scar, Hermione’s all ZOMG IS YOUR SCAR HURTING and he says no in a faux innocent tone. Then she tells him to write Sirius and he does it immediately, like the only thing stopping him was that he hadn’t thought of it. Bravo!
To be honest, if it wasn’t Teh Sacrilege, I’d suggest cutting Oldman/Sirius out of GoF entirely - his big cave scene went for being too exposition-heavy, his letter is a voice-over, and his one appearance is a) flamey and b) kind of pointless - he really only mentions that DEs are always DEs, which is untrue, and that Crouch sent his own son to Azkaban, which we see later on.
* Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive in their carriage and ship respectively - there was a cute Cho/Cedric reaction shot apparently cut here, but you can see Ernie, Roger Davies standing with Neville, and Ginny rather appropriately with the Colin Creevey a-like, Dennis. Hilariously, there’s twiddly music for Beauxbatons, then a dramatic score for Durmstrang.
* Dumbledore garbles about how the Tournament is ‘not for the faint of heart’. Ha! Does he want his Gryffindors to die? (Actually, I think lilith_morgana and I were nurturing a theory that Movie!Dumbledore or possible Michael Gambon himself just really hates Harry’s guts.)
He also ominously notes that once entered, the champion ‘stands alone’. In Harry’s case, except for the help of Moody, Hagrid, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Myrtle, and Cedric.
Then there’s the awful ‘eternal glory’ line - um, who won the last one?
* Snape and Karkaroff have a Shared Moment, after Igor makes Severus jealous by hugging Dumbledore, which does sort of encourage Dumbledore’s ‘criminally naïve’ reputation.
Karkaroff’s wearing the Russian Hat of Racism previously modelled by Draco, Lucius and Fudge, and a white coat that I want to steal.
* Kloves and Newell, clearly threatened by Rowling’s popularity and the possibility of unkind comparisons, include one of her trademarks here, sexism.
For a refreshing change, it’s the classic male to female ‘Women are just sex objects’ rather than the more complex female to female ‘Women hate each other, dedicate themselves to serving their chosen male avatar, and range between the sanctified Love Interests and the sexually aggressive ugly bitches.’
There’s a charming shot of the ‘lovely ladies’ (no ‘proud daughters’ like Durmstrang’s manly men and their ‘proud sons’. But then, daughters never inspire much maternal devotion in canon, either.) of Beauxbatons’ asses, as they ‘ah’ orgasmically and release flowers into the air.
* The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students come off much better than in the book, where the tone describing them seemed to verge on the racist at times, it was so scathing; and by extension, so do the Hogwarts students; although all the champions’ screentime is cut down considerably. Fleur is less snobby, although a tad more ‘girly’; and while Krum is presented as more stupid than in canon, there’s no mention of Durmstrang’s pureblood policy (which to be frank, is a relief, since it forestalls the incredibly cringeworthy ‘He says he likes it here much more!’ line, the awful parts from the end chapter where the Durmstrang students are looking frightened of being chastised by the almighty Dumbledore, and Krum noting Cedric’s heroism in being kind to them, even though they’re inferior foreigners.)
I liked an interview I saw with the actress playing Fleur, where she was saying how the character was pretty much the British stereotype of a French girl.
* Ron’s just a big bucket of hormones in this movie, macking on Krum, Fleur, later Cedric, Hermione… It’s cute, and it’s nice to see Rupert Grint given more to do than just look terrified.
* Hagrid and Maxime instantly bond - aw, people of the same race will automatically like each other! (Although to be fair, there’s no 'Everyone who dislikes or questions Hagrid is now a racist, since it turns out he's half-giant' plotline in the film. *sheds a tiny crystalline tear for this loss*)
Flitwick calls Hagrid an ‘idiot’, winning my love and admiration forever. (Yeah, I’m easy, what of it?)
* Dumbledore pointing out that the Tournament is ‘extremely dangerous’ thrills the twins. Ironically, we never see the Twins doing anything particularly heroic - all their fights are when they outnumber the opponent, and usually against younger, smaller students also. I kinda wish one had gotten in, just to see them separated and shitting themselves: ‘What do you mean my fists and hilarious poo jokes are useless against a dragon?!’
* Everyone boos at Crouch explaining about the age limit. Because they’re proved their maturity by panicking at lightening, and the noted booing.
* There’s a random cut to Ginny (she apparently aged two years between POA and GoF, and joined the fourth-years. Perhaps she had a Time Turner, too? We shall never know.) when the Goblet is revealed, talking to the Patil twins. No, Ginny, avoid the pitfalls of female friendship! Before you know it, you’ll be giggling, wearing pink, and forgoing your five year plan to land a man!
* Harry gets a clunky line of foreshadowing about having a feeling that Moody’s not drinking just pumpkin juice. Oh, Harry, you’re so jaded! Cheer up, maybe Moody’s a loveable alcoholic like Hagrid?
* Aw, there’s a shot of Fleur sitting next to Cho at the Ravenclaw table, with Gabrielle and Roger Davies on either side of them. Team Ravenclaw!
* For the set detail junkies among you, there’s a dragon shaped pipe that looks like Falkor from the Never Ending Story.
* The chapter ends with Karkaroff entering the Great Hall at night to get to the cup, apparently purely so the audience suspects him of tampering with it.
Or maybe being from Eastern Europe, he’s covetous of such awesome riches as a glass cup. (Isn’t there a great line in the book about how the Durmstrang students are awed at the gold plates that Hogwarts so modestly uses? Non Western countries just eat with their fingers!)
Generally, I enjoyed this film. I tend to prefer the even numbered books and movies to the odd, and it was certainly an improvement on POA - the directing style was less obtrusive, with brighter lighting/colouring (I’m such a plebe, rewatching it now I kept thinking ‘Hey, I remember this scene from such icons as…’); the characters were more IC, the acting was better, and I personally find the plot more enjoyable to watch as a film - POA is probably structurally stronger, but doesn’t work so well when adapted (ooh, we’re going back in time to relive the same scene we just played out. Again!)
My main interests in the movies have always been:
1) whether or not the characters are more or less three-dimensional than the book. In some cases, it's unavoidable. I got in trouble in various parts of Dahl fandom for saying this, but just the casting of a human being means that a certain amount of flat/cartoonish characters are going to appear more 'realistic' and believable as existing in their own fictional universe, rather than the sense you can sometimes get that when the leads aren't present, everyone goes back into their plot box; or, an unfortunate tendency with the Potterverse, although it's by no means the only one, when it becomes obvious that a large cast of characters have been written by the same mind, having similiar motivations, reactions and reasoning, despite their supposedly disparate personalities. And
2) seeing whether the film-makers will play out the nastier aspects of the series.
As I've mentioned before, I find it fascinating to see how much things like the pig's tail hexing, the ferret bouncing scene, Buckbeak, the train hexings, Hermione imprisoning Rita, the Ton Tongue Toffee... are either altered to shift the culpability of the victims or else cut entirely.
I would pretty much see it as indication that the good guys in HP's actions lack enough justification as written, to have a cinema audience, which by default is going to be expecting a much more literal level - someone's nose being hexed off, for example, is going to come off as more disturbing when seeing it onscreen than reading about it in a book - rooting for them. Of course, this could be a purposeful choice by Rowling - she uses the tactic right in GoF - but either way, it's interesting.
I anticipate more changes for OotP and HBP, especially the Quidditch Pitch fight, the SNEAK hex, the train hexings and Sectumsempra.)
It also appears to me that while the film versions are sort of 'improved' or arguably Sue'ified versions of canon; the book characters are written as having their cake and eating it, being flawed and thus arguably more 'human' and well-written (although it really depends - a flaw that never negatively impacts the person who has it is hardly a flaw.) but also getting away with all their more aggressive actions while the author slams down people outside Harry's circle behaving similiarly. JKR's versions could be more complex, or they could just be more sophisticated Sues.
Anyway, there's a bunch of minor changes here, most of which shorten an unnecessarily long and flabby plot, but still ZOMG LUDO BAGMAN WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF CANON!11!
No Dursleys - it’s almost like the moviemakers couldn’t find a way to make a boy choking to death funny.
And no Percy, either. I guess there’s a limit to how annoying you could make him without making him Hermione.
* Frank - could have been cut, to be honest. There’s enough ghosts at the end, Harry’s dream doesn’t need him, and since there’s no Little Hangleton mentions, he’s pretty extraneous. Plus there’s no mention of the only interesting thing about him - that he had a hard war! (Heh, the recap community I’m in became obsessed with Book!Frank while rereading GoF. To quote viciousmongoose ‘I wish he'd survived and formed his own elite Muggle espionage crew who could garden and spy on wizards, eventually learning how to snatch and break their wands. And at the climax of the series, they would make Mr Weasley regret his patronising airs.’ Viva Bryce!)
* Nagini is pronounced with a hard g - Na - Gee - ni, rather than Nah - jeannie (to almost rhyme with Na - ginny, now that I think about it. COINCIDENCE?) like I imagined it.
* Peter Pettigrew comes off much more malevolent in the films than in the books (although to be fair, this choice of Kloves/Spall seems to have been made in POA where he seemed less weak in comparison even then.) It’s a shame, because Tim Spall’s a talented guy, he seems to understand the character fairly well from interviews and I would think he’d have the chops to pull off how snivelling and pathetic, but also oddly compelling Wormtail is; but instead he’s kind of more cookie-cutter entry-level evil.
I was also sad they cut a scene/clip of him stroking Voldie’s blanket, since the dynamic between Voldemort and him is so blackly comic in GoF.
* Crouch Jr. appears. At first I found David Tennant in GoF hot like apparently the rest of fandom, but slowly he began to annoy me with his hamminess (although a lot of this could be the character changes to Crouch Jr. I’ve only seen one episode of Dr. Who, so I really can’t judge properly, but to be honest, I think it’s him that sucks.)
I think it was his badass leather coat that won me over. (Seriously, the ‘baddies’ in the movies have some lovely clothes, which always strikes me as a tad more realistic - they care more - than in JKR’s world, where of course her heroes have to be superior not just in morals - ha! - but also superficial stuff like sports abilities, looks and dress sense.)
I certainly have no beef about him being in the movie plot from the beginning, though - he does nothing OOC and it’s simpler, which are the two standards I have for alterations.
* Hermione enters. She’s frankly kind of a shrew in this film - I guess because there’s no SPEW for her to release her energies onto, but then she was totally unaffected by the pressure on her in POA (apart from to channel even more ‘girl power’ *vomits*) so I guess it all evens out. Plus, she’s pretty motherly in GoF. I found her to be much more likeable than in POA, but then I prefered her in HBP to OotP, so it could just be that either I find Hermione more tolerable when she’s in small doses and sidelined, or else she’s more human fussing over boys and rivalries than Avenging Herself Upon the Wicked and whining about Hagrid.
* Ron’s horrified as Hermione approaches his bed to wake him up.
To be honest, Rupert Grint plays as if Ron genuinely doesn’t fancy Hermione in this film (I’ve never really been invested in R/Hr one way or another to note whether this is an opinion I’d hold in the previous films.), at least, in my view; but that’s not an interpretation I’m opposed to. I did think it was pretty adorable that there was some interview with him where he sort of earnestly and unconsciously explaining how the whole Yule Ball scene was about his jealousy over Hermione getting to go to the Ball with Krum, even though he's Ron's hero. Any/all heterosexuality just seemed to have passed him by.
* Dan’s actually much improved in this film - it helps that the plot of GoF is centred around an ensemble rather than insular like POA (and OotP - dum, dum, DUM!) and he gets to do a bit of jokey stuff, which seems to be his strength, especially as opposed to his Dramatic acting. Not too hot a beginning for him, though, as he writhes like an epileptic from a bad dream, especially since Harry’s glasses are off, so he looks more ‘Dan’.
* Heh. Of course the only appearance from Molly is a mention that she’s cooking.
* Arthur’s wearing socks and sandals, cutely. All he needs now is a knotted handkerchief and he’s the classic British Tourist.
* Cedric’s in a tree, like Draco later on and Morfin in HBP. Those crazy Purebloods! (Actually, someone explained that he’s there to spot the Portkey, apparently, which made me feel rather foolish, but I kinda like the randomness. Sometimes a guy just needs to sit in a tree.)
* Ginny and Hermione smiling at each other re: Cedric is a nice moment. Naturally their bonding has to be based around guys, but it’s still neat to see them expressing physical attraction (and not just as a reaction to a man’s, or as a ploy to make another jealous) about a guy that isn’t their Soulmate.
* There’s a random introduction of Amos (who looks like a character straight out of Wind in the Willows) to Harry where he’s honoured to meet The Boy Who Lives, presumably (since we already know Amos’ name, and if it were for politeness sake, he’d want to meet Hermione too, surely?) shorthand for ‘This guy has shown the proper respect and awe over our hero = he’s a good guy, and we can feel sympathetic when his son dies’.
* Also a decent moment is Cedric, Amos and Arthur floating down vs. the Trio’s clumsiness - it makes it clear Cedric is older, and so a stronger competitor. (It’s very similar to the start of the Second Task, when the other three Champions dive into the lake gracefully, whereas Harry falls in - the kind of thing Rowling would automatically not think to include, as it makes Harry look foolish, but actually creates more sympathy for him than her way of doing so, which is just to have random characters exposit how he’s the underdog.)
* Cedric, however is much less of a ‘rival’ than in the books, where we’re privy to Harry’s jealous thoughts about him - this could more strongly assert his goodness. Or Harry’s in not being as jealous. It’s almost like the two have swopped their places from canon, so Harry’s the sanctified one, and Cedric the one who’s more flawed but who’s inexplicably viewed as perfect anyway. (The two standout examples seemed to be when Harry approaches him, Cedric’s friends taunt Harry about the Potter Stinks badges, and Cedric smirks at them, before telling Harry that he’s asked them not to wear said badges, which comes off as two-faced; and the random part where he’s gleefully laughing over the ferret bouncing - call me a Draco fangirl if you like, but I’d think Mr. Team Spirit and Fair Play would be a little less keen to get his yucks at a younger student being physically punished by a teacher; especially since there’s no interaction between Slytherin and Hufflepuff in the films at all, never mind a personal reason for bitterness. And there’s no need for it - Cedric’s hardly in need of extra time in this scene, and it’s such a short shot, it could easily have gone to a random Gryffindor like Seamus or Dean.
He’s also much more competitive in the Maze, but I felt that humanised him considerably, and was preferable to the book, which I’ll go into later.)
Of course, to Harry, Movie!Cedric is even more likeable than his saintly book counterpart, having never beaten Harry at anything, which perhaps explains the hand he accepts up from Cedric, which Book!Harry’s pride would have prevented, even if he’d done something as unlikely as falling down. (So Cedric gets The Handshake? Burn!)
* There’s really not a good place to mention this, so I’ll just put it here, prompted by the friendly ‘See you later, Cedric!’ from one of the Twins, but Fred and George really are two of the most fanonised characters in these films. There’s stiff competition, to be sure (even excepting all the characters who come off worse than in the books - and you thought such a task impossible!) just from their own family, leaving alone more dramatic examples like Harry and Hermione; but really, in four films, there’s not been more than a hint of the nastiness they seemingly can’t disguise for more than a sentence in the books.
* Harry’s awed ‘I love magic!’ makes me laugh imagining sistermagpie’s no doubt disgusted reaction ("Ooh, what delightful magic! This is my 'wonderous' face.") Plus I know it’s a small point and all, but O RLY? I mean, I know it comes and goes as the plot requires, but I really don’t think Harry is randomly grateful every day for the small and amazing new gifts magic can bring. Like Hermione, he seems totally assimilated to the WW and his own self-image as a wizard and TBWL rather than Harry the Muggle.
* Hee, I love how tackily decorated the Weasley’s tent is, like the Gryffindor common room; and how the Twins totally ignore Arthur reprimanding them.
* Since Arthur in the films is a nicer, slightly less corrupt version of canon, the Weasleys do not have The Speshul seats with the Minister he got taking bribes. Hilariously, this has proved no barrier to the set designer, so their seats have perfect views of the action, whereas the Malfoys are with Fudge hidden behind a bunch of piping. WTF? You’re the Minister, man, you don’t have to stand for that!
* I kinda love Jason Isaacs. He’s picked the whole ‘Lucius is a shitty dad’ thing (this time poking Draco in the stomach with his cane for boasting about sitting in the Minister’s box) and dammit he’s sticking to it. And YOU aren’t gonna change his mind! Heh. Anyway, he and Draco (!) look very dapper, Draco in a black suit (several people weep - zomg Muggle clothes! As if it’s kept straight in the books for two paragraphs running. Isn’t Riddle wearing a suit in HBP at one point?) and wearing the ghetto fabulous snake ring he had on in POA.
* I thought it might be kind of interesting if Ginny had some kind of reaction to Lucius here, but I guess even pre-Sueification and the film medium meaning she’s unavoidably more three-dimensional than her canon counterpart, we don’t want her getting too much more interesting than in the book. It’ll just lead to disappointment that she was murdered and replaced sometime in between GoF and OotP.
* Sweetly, the Weasley group are all wearing twat hats, while Arthur’s wrapped in a flag. Cedric remains aloof and inscrutable as to his preferences, but Ron and Harry are wearing red for Bulgaria, whereas the girls and the Twins are in green for Ireland (it’s a nice choice, rather than the book, where of course no-one considers not rooting for Ireland, being British, even if Krum is the superior player.)
* Hilariously, there’s the beginning of the game and a shot of Krum, then a cut to the aftermath. For some inexplicable reason, though, people missed it, apparently. I guess maybe because it was the one Quidditch game in canon where the outcome wasn’t immediately clear, since Gryffindor weren’t entered.
* Ron, who seems a little drunk, is openly crushing on Krum and his athletic artist(ry), cutely. Ginny teases him by saying she thinks he’s ‘in looove’. Notice how Ginny is more IC now (teasing her brother and cheering at the QWC) we know the ‘true’ shallows depths of her personality than in the book of GoF (the secret Quidditch star is shocked at injuries and falls asleep discussing the game?), but also still likeable. Watch and learn, JKR. (Seriously, it’s so pathetic that for all Rowling’s ‘People get confused with the movies’, film!Ginny is about ten times more interesting and believable than canon, and she’s only in about five scenes.)
The Twins sing a song about Ron and Viktor, which inexplicably, everyone knows, including Harry, from whom mockery of another guy’s possible homosexuality frankly seems a bit rich.
* As the Weasley group flee, you can see that one twin has a protective arm around Ginny - cute!
* The Deatheaters costumes sure are subtle! It must have taken the costume designer as long as thirty seconds to think of giving them KKK-esque hoods. (To be fair, I think they might have those in the book, too. In which case, bravo Rowling! You haven’t shown such deft political satire since the naming of the Inquisitorial Squad.)
They’re not hurting Muggles or showing people’s underwear, though - maybe because that’s already been played out for comedy value by Harry in POA? - so it’s hard to see why all the panic, but then, that was hard to understand the Moral Outrage in the book, too, considering it was from the group who mere pages before were laughing hysterically at the big fat Muggle who can’t fight back and probably thinks he’s going to die from their ‘prank’.
* Arthur instructs everyone to go back to the Portkey. Is there a reason why the Portkey can’t just be kept in someone’s suitcase or something? I know it’s supposed to be shared by the people at a location (let’s hope Amos and Cedric independently decided to leave the campground at the same time as the Weasleys!) but it seems awfully poor security to leave your one way home left in a field miles away and hope it’s still there after a few days.
* There’s some dodgy blocking as Harry is separated from the group, then knocked out - like no-one would notice Famous Harry Potter on the ground, never mind not miss him for long enough that when he wakes up, the place is deserted.
* Aw, I tell a lie, Ron sounds really worried that Harry was gone!
* The Trio duck, with Harry and Hermione clutching each other.
I actually dislike R/Hr and H/Hr with equal measures (I’ll be tactful here and cast a veil over my feelings about H/G, since my opinion is mainly composed of expletives.) As far as I’m concerned, Harry and Hermione’s friendship is unhealthy enough (not that his with Ron is much of an improvement) without giving her another reason to prioritise him, and Ron/Hermione, while not offending me on a visceral level, just seems to be a horrible choice for both of them, especially post HBP.
But really, besides the obvious Awkward Anvils like their shaking hands at the end of CoS, Movie!R/Hr is not strong, especially compared to H/Hr. I like Grint best of the Trio actors, but chemistry with other actors doesn’t seem to be his strong point, and Ron as the ‘sidekick’ is a character that really requires that, unlike Harry or Hermione.
Whereas Radcliffe and Watson’s are similar actors, style and personality wise (a little stilted, sometimes overly dramatic, posh accents.) I don’t know whether they have a stronger bond IRL, but that’s the vibe they give off.
It affects the characterization a little - to be honest, Dan comes off as the gay best friend a little, with a… politeness? Sincerity? Naivety? that Harry lacks, being a tad more ‘bloke-ish’ (Ron being the ‘thing he’d miss most’, not Hermione) and insensitive in canon, boy-stalking and fawning over handsomeness aside. And both Harry and Hermione are much more ‘touchy’ (and weepy) than in canon (it’s sort of like Kloves and Rowling channel the worse of either gender. Rowling has the macho Harry who almost never expresses emotion, where all the girls in canon are brutal, bad-ass defenders of their menfolk, who see each other as competition; whereas Kloves plays up Hermione as Pansy Parkinson, in pink, hanging onto all the boys. Just two different kinds of sexism.) which I suppose assists the little ‘which way will this go?’ vibe that Rowling also seemed to purposely exploit, anvils aside.
* I like Arthur specifically protecting Ron. It’s an improving contrast to canon, where most people’s reasons for liking/disliking people has so far been limited to 'How do they treat Harry?' rather than to more personal ties - for instance, Molly is far more reactive to slurs against Harry than against her own children, and he’s included in her boggart nighmare.
I just see it as far more believable that in an emergency situation, a parent’s instinctive reaction would be to protect their own child.
* Trigger gives one of his few lines the weirdest reading ever. I can’t even describe it, just watch.
* Arthur reminds Barty that the Trio are ‘just kids’. (I kinda miss the part in the book where Crouch Sr. points out how unlikely it is that he or Harry would use the Dark Arts, considering that they both end up practising their Unforgiveables.)
Thankfully Arthur, not being in fandom, spares us the extended remix of how some teenagers have hormones (teenagers like Marietta and Draco were naturally born legally accountable for their many crimes) and sometimes they do bad shit, but that’s just what any normal person would do, and at the same time because they’ve got a lot to be upset about, and anyway, it makes them more human.
* I’m sure Dan’s just going for confusion here, but to be honest, his protestations about not knowing the guy casting Morsmordre sound like deliberate lies. Odd choice. I smirked at the ‘A man…’ ‘Who?’ line, though.
* Cute details on the train: Ron’s reading a book, and the lunchlady has a plastic rat and spider on her hat.
* I love the way Ron’s envy over money, a book-long subplot, is condensed into two lines. (Harry offers to get his sweets, Ron just puts back the extra ones.) I’m not kidding, it cracks me up every time I see it.
* Cho appears, and since she’s as cute as a bug in a rug (and dressed in the unholy pink!), Harry instantly falls in love with her. There’s no groundwork laid, since Movie!Cho doesn’t play Quidditch and wasn’t in POA, but to be honest, since her character’s just going to get demolished in OOTP, the script writers might as well start from a fresh slate; and she’s still kind and pretty, like in the books.
* You know, everyone notes how Emma Watson acts with her eyebrows, but I can’t say I’ve noticed them myself. Everytime she’s onscreen, I’m already transfixed by her over-emphasising every word. And here, rather cruelly, by her wrinkled forehead. Someone please explain to me why she and Tom Felton have the lines of people twice their age? Oh well, all in the service of one’s Craft!
* I like it when Harry oh so subtly scratches his scar, Hermione’s all ZOMG IS YOUR SCAR HURTING and he says no in a faux innocent tone. Then she tells him to write Sirius and he does it immediately, like the only thing stopping him was that he hadn’t thought of it. Bravo!
To be honest, if it wasn’t Teh Sacrilege, I’d suggest cutting Oldman/Sirius out of GoF entirely - his big cave scene went for being too exposition-heavy, his letter is a voice-over, and his one appearance is a) flamey and b) kind of pointless - he really only mentions that DEs are always DEs, which is untrue, and that Crouch sent his own son to Azkaban, which we see later on.
* Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive in their carriage and ship respectively - there was a cute Cho/Cedric reaction shot apparently cut here, but you can see Ernie, Roger Davies standing with Neville, and Ginny rather appropriately with the Colin Creevey a-like, Dennis. Hilariously, there’s twiddly music for Beauxbatons, then a dramatic score for Durmstrang.
* Dumbledore garbles about how the Tournament is ‘not for the faint of heart’. Ha! Does he want his Gryffindors to die? (Actually, I think lilith_morgana and I were nurturing a theory that Movie!Dumbledore or possible Michael Gambon himself just really hates Harry’s guts.)
He also ominously notes that once entered, the champion ‘stands alone’. In Harry’s case, except for the help of Moody, Hagrid, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Myrtle, and Cedric.
Then there’s the awful ‘eternal glory’ line - um, who won the last one?
* Snape and Karkaroff have a Shared Moment, after Igor makes Severus jealous by hugging Dumbledore, which does sort of encourage Dumbledore’s ‘criminally naïve’ reputation.
Karkaroff’s wearing the Russian Hat of Racism previously modelled by Draco, Lucius and Fudge, and a white coat that I want to steal.
* Kloves and Newell, clearly threatened by Rowling’s popularity and the possibility of unkind comparisons, include one of her trademarks here, sexism.
For a refreshing change, it’s the classic male to female ‘Women are just sex objects’ rather than the more complex female to female ‘Women hate each other, dedicate themselves to serving their chosen male avatar, and range between the sanctified Love Interests and the sexually aggressive ugly bitches.’
There’s a charming shot of the ‘lovely ladies’ (no ‘proud daughters’ like Durmstrang’s manly men and their ‘proud sons’. But then, daughters never inspire much maternal devotion in canon, either.) of Beauxbatons’ asses, as they ‘ah’ orgasmically and release flowers into the air.
* The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students come off much better than in the book, where the tone describing them seemed to verge on the racist at times, it was so scathing; and by extension, so do the Hogwarts students; although all the champions’ screentime is cut down considerably. Fleur is less snobby, although a tad more ‘girly’; and while Krum is presented as more stupid than in canon, there’s no mention of Durmstrang’s pureblood policy (which to be frank, is a relief, since it forestalls the incredibly cringeworthy ‘He says he likes it here much more!’ line, the awful parts from the end chapter where the Durmstrang students are looking frightened of being chastised by the almighty Dumbledore, and Krum noting Cedric’s heroism in being kind to them, even though they’re inferior foreigners.)
I liked an interview I saw with the actress playing Fleur, where she was saying how the character was pretty much the British stereotype of a French girl.
* Ron’s just a big bucket of hormones in this movie, macking on Krum, Fleur, later Cedric, Hermione… It’s cute, and it’s nice to see Rupert Grint given more to do than just look terrified.
* Hagrid and Maxime instantly bond - aw, people of the same race will automatically like each other! (Although to be fair, there’s no 'Everyone who dislikes or questions Hagrid is now a racist, since it turns out he's half-giant' plotline in the film. *sheds a tiny crystalline tear for this loss*)
Flitwick calls Hagrid an ‘idiot’, winning my love and admiration forever. (Yeah, I’m easy, what of it?)
* Dumbledore pointing out that the Tournament is ‘extremely dangerous’ thrills the twins. Ironically, we never see the Twins doing anything particularly heroic - all their fights are when they outnumber the opponent, and usually against younger, smaller students also. I kinda wish one had gotten in, just to see them separated and shitting themselves: ‘What do you mean my fists and hilarious poo jokes are useless against a dragon?!’
* Everyone boos at Crouch explaining about the age limit. Because they’re proved their maturity by panicking at lightening, and the noted booing.
* There’s a random cut to Ginny (she apparently aged two years between POA and GoF, and joined the fourth-years. Perhaps she had a Time Turner, too? We shall never know.) when the Goblet is revealed, talking to the Patil twins. No, Ginny, avoid the pitfalls of female friendship! Before you know it, you’ll be giggling, wearing pink, and forgoing your five year plan to land a man!
* Harry gets a clunky line of foreshadowing about having a feeling that Moody’s not drinking just pumpkin juice. Oh, Harry, you’re so jaded! Cheer up, maybe Moody’s a loveable alcoholic like Hagrid?
* Aw, there’s a shot of Fleur sitting next to Cho at the Ravenclaw table, with Gabrielle and Roger Davies on either side of them. Team Ravenclaw!
* For the set detail junkies among you, there’s a dragon shaped pipe that looks like Falkor from the Never Ending Story.
* The chapter ends with Karkaroff entering the Great Hall at night to get to the cup, apparently purely so the audience suspects him of tampering with it.
Or maybe being from Eastern Europe, he’s covetous of such awesome riches as a glass cup. (Isn’t there a great line in the book about how the Durmstrang students are awed at the gold plates that Hogwarts so modestly uses? Non Western countries just eat with their fingers!)