Saw the latest Potter movie. It was pretty good and rather concise but I sort of expected both.
More with “minor” spoilers after the jump…
The Potter movies are to the point where you don’t say “great special effects” – if they weren’t great, that would be something to talk about. As it stands, since the first movie, you don’t even notice them: you even start to take them for granted because they are woven through the scenes so well.
And it could not have been any easy task, trying to fit a book of that since into one movie… I knew there would be stuff left out, but the stuff that they left out? Why make Cho the turncoat to the DA? In some ways it doesn’t matter but the way the they left that story hanging bothers me.. I mean, when it was Cho’s friend, she told of her own volition and Harry took it out on Cho. In the movie, Cho is forced to confess with truth potion. So they show Cho with the teachers as being the traitor. They show the DA snub show in later scenes. They show Harry and friends finding out that she was coerced. But they don’t show anything after that! I mean, should they try to apologize? To keep the story true, Cho would reject an apology, but still… they’ve had a lot of other characters swoop in for one scene per movie – it’s not like it wouldn’t confuse people to pull in one extra person and say “it’s her friend!” and that’s that. I didn’t get it.
Then there’s the question of prefects. In the book Ron and Hermione are made prefects for their house – it gave Harry a chance to be madder at Dumbledore… deal with the feelings of being passed over. Depth of character and all that. Skipped for the movie for no apparent reason. And since that all comes up in the next book/movie, they’re going to have some ‘splain’n to do. Especially since I’m working my way through Book 6 now – I think it’s my favorite so far.
I also saw a reviewer make comment that “people that didn’t see movie 4 will be lost from the beginning” – I say good. Screw’m. This is a seven book series be it movie or book. I’ve read a number of book series (and see a lot of movies) that feel they have to bring people up to speed. I hate that. It’s a waste of paper for people that have been fans of the series and a waste of film and time for flashbacks that real fans don’t need to see. In today’s day and age – where books and DVDs are available for new fans – there’s no reason to backfill a story that’s already been told. This movie jumps right into the story and I applaud that. You could probably fit Rocky 1-5 into a three hour reel if you cut out the flashbacks in each movie.
Worth the money in the theatre – certainly got me in the mood for Book 7.
On book launch night, I bought the 7th for my son and my niece, and a copy for myself because I couldn’t wait for my chance at one of the kids copies. Both my son and the bookstore folk pooh poohed my prediction of what would come to pass in book 7 but in was right (nyah nyah :)
The night before we saw the movie. Warners should have vetted what they were doing in the movie with Ms. Rowling, since they made a few gaffes which will be hard to get out of. My son thinks J.K.R. deliberately put some things in book 7 to mess up the Hollywood version.
My thinking is that the books have suffered being filmed since #4… at that point it would have been clever to start making TWO movies per book. They’d still have to leave a lot of stuff out (after all, novellas are the most suitable length to make a movie from.) Even the Lord of the Rings “theatrical length” movies were pushing it hard. The extended versions were much better and they still had to leave an awful lot out. Even so, the Rings books were loaded with “filler”, by which I mean outright digressions from plot, poetry and whatnot. The Potter books have so much more going on in them that it is dangerous to lose or change stuff (although that almost seems to be de rigueur for many movie folk), particulary when the filmakers obviously didn’t know how it was all going to end.
Oh I agree with you on the movies, since 4… some of the stuff they cut was OK – other stuff will cause a problem. Either way, I think they shoulda made Harry a LOT angrier in movie 5. Probably didn’t b/c “we don’t want teenagers watching the movie to get the wrong idea”. Meh.
And yer son is probably right as well: the movie series will have to end differently (or at least with a lot less details)… Harry will probably be sponsored by Cadbury and move to the states to help the story along.