(no subject)
Fan-amazing-tastic. In the immortal words of Ronald Weasley: "Bloody brilliant."
Need I bother saying more?
Okay, if you insist...
Spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.
Okay, so this is the first of the movies to really feel like the books to me. It wasn't spot-on perfect, no, but it was close enough to make me freak out. This is the best of the movies. Period. No if ands or buts. Hands down. Shall I say it again? Okay, then. This is the best of the movies, no question.
What do I love most? The kids' ever-growing ability to act? The stunning direction? The special effects? Neville Longbottom? Heck, for the first time I even like Michael Gambon as Dumbledore (who'd have thought?)! The Weasley Twins? The audience of fans who clapped with me every time I started mad-clapping? The exhilaration of the story--just as JKR intended?
Hmmm...I believe what I love most is the fact that my complaints are utterly silly. Which translates to this: I really felt like this movie honored canon. Which is probably the highest praise I can give it. It honored canon, and it was exciting, and... Oh man. It's hard to name what I loved about the movie because I loved it all. I really did.
Of course, the nit-picks are so much easier to pick out and explain. But they're so silly. I don't know why they made me so mad (I even knew at the time it was silly, but there you go).
Nit-pick one: I loved everything up until the big Pensieve scene--which is way far into the movie, so that should tell you something. However I had quite a few problems here. Many of which are silly. The Pensieve didn't have runes around the basin, which really bothered me (far more than changing its shape from a "shallow basin"). Like I said, no idea why it bothers me so much, but it wouldn't have hurt them to slap some runes around the edge. What a silly thing to notice/be upset about.
Nit-pick two: Then Dumbledore says "Pensieve" incorrectly (seriously, the movie-folk need to learn how to say these things...animagi, accio, pensieve, morsmordre, Voldemort...it's just embarrassing...but I'll live). The pronunciation of "Pensieve" only bothers me because I've gotten into arguments with people over it and...grrr.
Nit-pick three: Let's not forget that Harry found Barty Crouch Sr. dead just before the Pensieve scene. Yet this is never brought up. Um...yeah...weird.
Nit-pick four: Barty Crouch's voice was...wrong for the part. This was throughout, however. I suppose it's kind of pointless to complain about it, since the actor can't help what his voice sounds like.
Nit-pick five: Not that this really bothered me, and I wasn't expecting it to actually happen...but it would have been nice to see Bellatrix at the trial. But you know what? It wasn't that important to have Barty Crouch Jr. pretend to be innocent because you don't have the whole deal with him and his mother and...all that complicated stuff that would have tied up the whole movie, and I know it's better this way...but it still would have been nice to see Bella swear her undying loyalty to Voldemort. *sigh* (And how cool was the contraption they had Karkaroff in? That was awesome!)
(And Lucius Malfoy rocks my face off. He's just exhilarating to see on screen and...wow... And Fleur! I have officially fallen in love with Fleur Delacour. She had, like, five minutes of screen-time and she still managed to come off as both haughty and sympathetic. And how creepy were the hostages during the second task? It was great! And the first task--)
Oh wait! I did have a nit-pick before the Pensieve Scene! Nit-pick five and three-quarters: I wanted to see the dragons! We saw Fleur's Common Welsh Green, and Harry's Hungarian Horntail--but I wanted to see the Chinese Fireball and the Swedish Short Snout! Waaaaah! Maybe you didn't have to do the big ones, that's fine, but why couldn't we see the little model dragons from the bag? Why? I wanted to see them. *pouts*
Nit-pick six: I didn't care for the changes in the third task. I particularly didn't care for Cedric's being a bit of a jerk there before the end. I understand that the cost of building the CGI magical creatures would have been astronomical, but...the best part of it all was Harry and Cedric fighting off that giant spider together: Harry calling out to warn Cedric, them taking the spider down together, Cedric refusing to take the cup alone even when Harry's leg was broken... That's what makes the third task in my opinion. I wasn't that sorry to lose the Sphinx or the Skrewts...but the spider was a plot-point.
Nit-pick seven: Pettigrew didn't finish the lines of the incantation: Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son! Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master! Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe! He chopped off the end of every line. No it's not a big deal, but if you're doing such dark magic and powerful magic as this, you might as well get it right. You wouldn't want the spell to go wrong and have Voldemort come out with twelve heads or something, would you?
Nit-pick eight: Pettigrew cuts off his own hand. He should be a convulsing mess. He should be shrieking in pain. He should be panting in pain. He should be dropped to his knees on the ground beside the cauldron, slumped sideways, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm gasping and sobbing. Because I don't care if you're magical or not, if you cut off your own hand it's going to hurt BIG TIME. And in the movie he's just as steady as can be, no big deal that he lost his hand. I don't care for that...because ouch.
Nit-pick nine: Voldemort's eyes weren't red. That would have been sooooo AWESOME! All that blue and green and dark in the scene and then you have Voldemort with his luminous skin, floaty robes, and to top it off those creepily almost-glowing red eyes. *shudder* It was creepy yes, but the red eyes would have been give-me-nightmares-it's-so-cool creepy. Alas, his eyes weren't red, and that makes me very, very sad. (Probably the only time I'll be sad to not have nightmares!)
Nit-pick ten: There were, like, four death eaters at the grave yard. There should have been more like thirty or forty. (Although it's always a pleasure to have Lucius unmasked! And the Death Eaters at the World Cup were brilliantly terrifying--why didn't they show up at the end?)
Nit-pick eleven: I felt like they should have made a slightly bigger deal with the Priori Incantatem. I mean, Harry's seeing his parents for the first time since he was an infant and the music doesn't change, the action doesn't slow to accommodate such a huge moment or anything. While I didn't expect we'd get Phoenix Song like the book, I expected more score there. Or that...I don't know. That little bit went a little too quickly for me--seriously 45 seconds longer with a change in score would have made me happy (also, I quite like the new composer...he makes it feel more genuine than John Williams).
Nit-pick twelve: When Harry and Cedric turn up again, there's this really great moment when everyone is cheering and then they realize what's happening. That's really amazing. But then the crowd is supposed to panic. I mean utterly panic. And they just stood in shocked silence. I thought that was extremely weird.
Nit-pick thirteen: Woah, they jump from Barty Crouch Jr.'s craziness to the End-of-Term feast? What about the de-briefing? The full explanation of Priori Incantatem? Sirius! I wanted to see Harry get taken care of...or at least a hint that he was being looked after and... I guess I was just upset that my favorite part of the book was cut: Molly Weasley's hug. (It's sad that I can quote this part without benefit of my book: "Mrs. Weasley set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother's face, his father's voice, the sight of Cedric, dead on the ground all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, until he was screwing up his face against the howl of misery fighting to get out of him.") That, and I like the political maneuvering by Fudge, the departure of Sirius and Severus after shaking hands and...*sigh* GoF really is a good book, isn't it?
Nit-pick fourteen: "Remember Cedric." I don't care that the rest of the speech at the End of Term Feast was changed, all he had to do was say the words "Remember Cedric Diggory" and I would have been swooning in happiness. I suppose the higher-ups don't realize what a rallying cry that line has become to us Potter-ites? Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory. I mean, it's practically monumental. I don't mind that they saved the "right or easy" part until Harry and Dumbledore's private talk, but as they were panning to the ceiling of the Great Hall, couldn't Dumbledore have just said the line "Remember Cedric" and let us fans sob in exquisite and beautiful sadness?
(ETA Nit-pick fifteen: Oh, and why wasn't Padma Patil in Ravenclaw?)
(ETA Nit-pick sixteen: Constant Vigilance, anyone?)
And...that's it.
Sort of. My other complaint is a complaint I have with the actual books themselves. At the end of the film Dumbledore tells Harry that he's not alone (while that line is not in the actual text, there is plenty of implication at the end of GoF that Harry won't be alone, which only serves to crush Harry in the next book). NOT ALONE? NOT ALONE?!!! What else would you call OotP if not utter abandonment? Huh? What part of "not alone" involves isolating Harry with his relatives with no news? What part of "not alone" means systematically stripping away everything that Harry holds dear? What part of "not alone" equates to Harry dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder without any sort of comfort or solace? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Okay, I love Five because it is so dark and...beautiful...but the plot is nothing less than cruel. And this may be even more cruel to set Harry up for the fall. "You're not alone." Pfft! If only you could make good on your word, Albus.
This last point had me crying in the theater. "You're not alone." The very idea is utterly ridiculous in the face of Order of the Phoenix. It's not right, what is done to Harry--by people he trusts. It's not right. Ridiculous. Riddikulus. My friends all thought I was insane. Their first reactions were "Cedric?" and I told them my frustration. And then they all went straight into a rousing praise of Dumbledore's perfection and how the tragedies of OotP were all really Harry's fault...and I just stewed on the car ride back.
But still. Still. Good movie. The fact that I am even upset by this last point shows the brilliance of this film--because that's a canon issue. Good movie. Great movie. Worth every bit of waiting.
And I love Neville Longbottom. I love Neville thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much. And I loved Mad-Eye Moody, even though his eye was wrong (in my mind). And Barty Crouch Jr., batshit crazy as he is, was still really fun. And Hagrid. And everybody, really. Some things I'm still trying to digest. This was a great film. I am very, very happy with it. Very happy with it. Extremely, amazingly happy with it. And Snape! Severus Snape was perfect in the film--not much of him, but just enough in the right places (I was just waiting to see something happen between him and Barty Jr. at the end!!!oh!!!)! The same with McGonagall! And the Yule Ball, and... Oh my... There was a lot in this movie. It feels absolutely jam-packed--but it was brilliant. BRILLIANT. I am thrilled. I am tired and thrilled.
I've never been so completely satisfied walking out of a Harry Potter film. Oh wow...good movie.
Right. I have to go to bed now. (Tomorrow's Trombone Day, so I have to herd middle school trombone players around at 8 in the morning...most of which are going to be hyper active little boys...oh joy. I wonder if they'd be interested in discussing Harry Potter with me?)
Need I bother saying more?
Okay, if you insist...
Spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.
Okay, so this is the first of the movies to really feel like the books to me. It wasn't spot-on perfect, no, but it was close enough to make me freak out. This is the best of the movies. Period. No if ands or buts. Hands down. Shall I say it again? Okay, then. This is the best of the movies, no question.
What do I love most? The kids' ever-growing ability to act? The stunning direction? The special effects? Neville Longbottom? Heck, for the first time I even like Michael Gambon as Dumbledore (who'd have thought?)! The Weasley Twins? The audience of fans who clapped with me every time I started mad-clapping? The exhilaration of the story--just as JKR intended?
Hmmm...I believe what I love most is the fact that my complaints are utterly silly. Which translates to this: I really felt like this movie honored canon. Which is probably the highest praise I can give it. It honored canon, and it was exciting, and... Oh man. It's hard to name what I loved about the movie because I loved it all. I really did.
Of course, the nit-picks are so much easier to pick out and explain. But they're so silly. I don't know why they made me so mad (I even knew at the time it was silly, but there you go).
Nit-pick one: I loved everything up until the big Pensieve scene--which is way far into the movie, so that should tell you something. However I had quite a few problems here. Many of which are silly. The Pensieve didn't have runes around the basin, which really bothered me (far more than changing its shape from a "shallow basin"). Like I said, no idea why it bothers me so much, but it wouldn't have hurt them to slap some runes around the edge. What a silly thing to notice/be upset about.
Nit-pick two: Then Dumbledore says "Pensieve" incorrectly (seriously, the movie-folk need to learn how to say these things...animagi, accio, pensieve, morsmordre, Voldemort...it's just embarrassing...but I'll live). The pronunciation of "Pensieve" only bothers me because I've gotten into arguments with people over it and...grrr.
Nit-pick three: Let's not forget that Harry found Barty Crouch Sr. dead just before the Pensieve scene. Yet this is never brought up. Um...yeah...weird.
Nit-pick four: Barty Crouch's voice was...wrong for the part. This was throughout, however. I suppose it's kind of pointless to complain about it, since the actor can't help what his voice sounds like.
Nit-pick five: Not that this really bothered me, and I wasn't expecting it to actually happen...but it would have been nice to see Bellatrix at the trial. But you know what? It wasn't that important to have Barty Crouch Jr. pretend to be innocent because you don't have the whole deal with him and his mother and...all that complicated stuff that would have tied up the whole movie, and I know it's better this way...but it still would have been nice to see Bella swear her undying loyalty to Voldemort. *sigh* (And how cool was the contraption they had Karkaroff in? That was awesome!)
(And Lucius Malfoy rocks my face off. He's just exhilarating to see on screen and...wow... And Fleur! I have officially fallen in love with Fleur Delacour. She had, like, five minutes of screen-time and she still managed to come off as both haughty and sympathetic. And how creepy were the hostages during the second task? It was great! And the first task--)
Oh wait! I did have a nit-pick before the Pensieve Scene! Nit-pick five and three-quarters: I wanted to see the dragons! We saw Fleur's Common Welsh Green, and Harry's Hungarian Horntail--but I wanted to see the Chinese Fireball and the Swedish Short Snout! Waaaaah! Maybe you didn't have to do the big ones, that's fine, but why couldn't we see the little model dragons from the bag? Why? I wanted to see them. *pouts*
Nit-pick six: I didn't care for the changes in the third task. I particularly didn't care for Cedric's being a bit of a jerk there before the end. I understand that the cost of building the CGI magical creatures would have been astronomical, but...the best part of it all was Harry and Cedric fighting off that giant spider together: Harry calling out to warn Cedric, them taking the spider down together, Cedric refusing to take the cup alone even when Harry's leg was broken... That's what makes the third task in my opinion. I wasn't that sorry to lose the Sphinx or the Skrewts...but the spider was a plot-point.
Nit-pick seven: Pettigrew didn't finish the lines of the incantation: Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son! Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master! Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe! He chopped off the end of every line. No it's not a big deal, but if you're doing such dark magic and powerful magic as this, you might as well get it right. You wouldn't want the spell to go wrong and have Voldemort come out with twelve heads or something, would you?
Nit-pick eight: Pettigrew cuts off his own hand. He should be a convulsing mess. He should be shrieking in pain. He should be panting in pain. He should be dropped to his knees on the ground beside the cauldron, slumped sideways, cradling the bleeding stump of his arm gasping and sobbing. Because I don't care if you're magical or not, if you cut off your own hand it's going to hurt BIG TIME. And in the movie he's just as steady as can be, no big deal that he lost his hand. I don't care for that...because ouch.
Nit-pick nine: Voldemort's eyes weren't red. That would have been sooooo AWESOME! All that blue and green and dark in the scene and then you have Voldemort with his luminous skin, floaty robes, and to top it off those creepily almost-glowing red eyes. *shudder* It was creepy yes, but the red eyes would have been give-me-nightmares-it's-so-cool creepy. Alas, his eyes weren't red, and that makes me very, very sad. (Probably the only time I'll be sad to not have nightmares!)
Nit-pick ten: There were, like, four death eaters at the grave yard. There should have been more like thirty or forty. (Although it's always a pleasure to have Lucius unmasked! And the Death Eaters at the World Cup were brilliantly terrifying--why didn't they show up at the end?)
Nit-pick eleven: I felt like they should have made a slightly bigger deal with the Priori Incantatem. I mean, Harry's seeing his parents for the first time since he was an infant and the music doesn't change, the action doesn't slow to accommodate such a huge moment or anything. While I didn't expect we'd get Phoenix Song like the book, I expected more score there. Or that...I don't know. That little bit went a little too quickly for me--seriously 45 seconds longer with a change in score would have made me happy (also, I quite like the new composer...he makes it feel more genuine than John Williams).
Nit-pick twelve: When Harry and Cedric turn up again, there's this really great moment when everyone is cheering and then they realize what's happening. That's really amazing. But then the crowd is supposed to panic. I mean utterly panic. And they just stood in shocked silence. I thought that was extremely weird.
Nit-pick thirteen: Woah, they jump from Barty Crouch Jr.'s craziness to the End-of-Term feast? What about the de-briefing? The full explanation of Priori Incantatem? Sirius! I wanted to see Harry get taken care of...or at least a hint that he was being looked after and... I guess I was just upset that my favorite part of the book was cut: Molly Weasley's hug. (It's sad that I can quote this part without benefit of my book: "Mrs. Weasley set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother. The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall in upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother's face, his father's voice, the sight of Cedric, dead on the ground all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, until he was screwing up his face against the howl of misery fighting to get out of him.") That, and I like the political maneuvering by Fudge, the departure of Sirius and Severus after shaking hands and...*sigh* GoF really is a good book, isn't it?
Nit-pick fourteen: "Remember Cedric." I don't care that the rest of the speech at the End of Term Feast was changed, all he had to do was say the words "Remember Cedric Diggory" and I would have been swooning in happiness. I suppose the higher-ups don't realize what a rallying cry that line has become to us Potter-ites? Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory. I mean, it's practically monumental. I don't mind that they saved the "right or easy" part until Harry and Dumbledore's private talk, but as they were panning to the ceiling of the Great Hall, couldn't Dumbledore have just said the line "Remember Cedric" and let us fans sob in exquisite and beautiful sadness?
(ETA Nit-pick fifteen: Oh, and why wasn't Padma Patil in Ravenclaw?)
(ETA Nit-pick sixteen: Constant Vigilance, anyone?)
And...that's it.
Sort of. My other complaint is a complaint I have with the actual books themselves. At the end of the film Dumbledore tells Harry that he's not alone (while that line is not in the actual text, there is plenty of implication at the end of GoF that Harry won't be alone, which only serves to crush Harry in the next book). NOT ALONE? NOT ALONE?!!! What else would you call OotP if not utter abandonment? Huh? What part of "not alone" involves isolating Harry with his relatives with no news? What part of "not alone" means systematically stripping away everything that Harry holds dear? What part of "not alone" equates to Harry dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder without any sort of comfort or solace? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Okay, I love Five because it is so dark and...beautiful...but the plot is nothing less than cruel. And this may be even more cruel to set Harry up for the fall. "You're not alone." Pfft! If only you could make good on your word, Albus.
This last point had me crying in the theater. "You're not alone." The very idea is utterly ridiculous in the face of Order of the Phoenix. It's not right, what is done to Harry--by people he trusts. It's not right. Ridiculous. Riddikulus. My friends all thought I was insane. Their first reactions were "Cedric?" and I told them my frustration. And then they all went straight into a rousing praise of Dumbledore's perfection and how the tragedies of OotP were all really Harry's fault...and I just stewed on the car ride back.
But still. Still. Good movie. The fact that I am even upset by this last point shows the brilliance of this film--because that's a canon issue. Good movie. Great movie. Worth every bit of waiting.
And I love Neville Longbottom. I love Neville thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much. And I loved Mad-Eye Moody, even though his eye was wrong (in my mind). And Barty Crouch Jr., batshit crazy as he is, was still really fun. And Hagrid. And everybody, really. Some things I'm still trying to digest. This was a great film. I am very, very happy with it. Very happy with it. Extremely, amazingly happy with it. And Snape! Severus Snape was perfect in the film--not much of him, but just enough in the right places (I was just waiting to see something happen between him and Barty Jr. at the end!!!oh!!!)! The same with McGonagall! And the Yule Ball, and... Oh my... There was a lot in this movie. It feels absolutely jam-packed--but it was brilliant. BRILLIANT. I am thrilled. I am tired and thrilled.
I've never been so completely satisfied walking out of a Harry Potter film. Oh wow...good movie.
Right. I have to go to bed now. (Tomorrow's Trombone Day, so I have to herd middle school trombone players around at 8 in the morning...most of which are going to be hyper active little boys...oh joy. I wonder if they'd be interested in discussing Harry Potter with me?)