Potter Really Stinks

[vovat]

I had Thanksgiving dinner at bethje's house. I had turkey, lasagna, and ham. It was all quite good, but I overestimated the amount I could eat, and ended up with too much on my plate. I eventually finished it all, though.

After dinner, I went with Beth and Dorothea to (finally) see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When the movie started out, it seemed rather rushed. That isn't to say that I wanted to see things like the Quidditch World Cup in their entirety, but there were a lot of plot elements that they introduced hurriedly, as when the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang showed up on what was presumably the first day. After the Triwizard Tournament started, though, the pacing started to improve. There were a few things I wish they had shown, though. They never addressed Rita Skeeter's ability to turn into a beetle, how the Dementor sucked out Barty Crouch Jr.'s soul, or Igor Karkaroff's departure from Hogwarts after Voldemort's return. I also didn't like the idea of Barty Jr. being at the Riddle House with Voldemort and Wormtail. It ended up not really affecting the plot that much, but there didn't seem to be any real reason for the change.

Things I liked about the movie:

• The performances of Mad-Eye Moody, Rita Skeeter, and Madame Maxine.
  
• The dragons were very well-rendered. Actually, most of the visuals were quite good, with a few exceptions.
  
• While I did miss Dobby, I liked Neville's involvement in finding out about Gillyweed. It gave Neville something to do, and a use for his aptitude in Herbology. I think that was one change that might have actually been for the better, since Dobby showing up in the morning with the Gillyweed seemed to me to be rather anticlimactic, and too easy.
  
• Ron and Hermione sang a few lines of the Hogwarts school song while in the woods with Hagrid. I found that to be a nice touch.
  

Things I didn't like so much:

• The haircuts. Did it suddenly become the fashion for every male student at Hogwarts to wear their hair long? I didn't think it was such a good look for Harry, Ron, Fred, and George.
  
• While on the subject of new looks, what was up with Flitwick in this movie?
  
• Dumbledore's burst of anger upon finding Harry's name in the Goblet of Fire struck me as somewhat out of character. And speaking of weird characterizations, Snape was apparently channeling the spirit of Moe Howard in that one scene.
  
• I didn't really care for the way they showed Sirius Black's face in the fire. It was hardly of the level of the Howler from Chamber of Secrets (perhaps the worst visual effect in the films so far), but I wish they'd stuck closer to the book for this.
  
• Since when did Parvati and Padma Patil become the twins from The Shining? I mean, they're not even in the same house, and I don't think they were ever together in earlier movies, but they were disturbingly inseparable in this film.
  

And a few other comments that aren't really positive or negative, just things I wanted to address:

• I think we saw considerably more of Fred and George than in the earlier movies. Ginny also frequently appeared in scenes where she didn't actually have anything to do. On the other hand, Percy never appeared at all.
  
• The crying stained glass window was pretty weird. It made me think of when people claim that their statues of the Virgin Mary are crying, and stuff like that.
  
• Was it just me, or was that scene with Moaning Myrtle very overtly sexual? That is one perverted ghost!
  
• Could they have made Death Eaters' costumes look any MORE similar to KKK outfits?
  

Even though there are more items on my bad list than on my good one, I did like the movie a lot. I've liked all of them, though; I'm not one of those people who thinks they didn't get it right until this time. I'm not really sure how this stacks up the others. As much as they ended up cutting out, I think it actually stuck closer to the book than Prisoner of Azkaban did, but I'm not really sure which one I liked better. I need to watch both of the last two again, I suppose. Chamber of Secrets was probably my least favorite of the four so far, but even that was a quality film.

Comments

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

If Rowling really wants to tie up all the loose ends (and I don't necessarily know that she does, mind you), the last book is probably going to have to be even longer than the fifth one.

Same thought here.