I'm not in a good mood today. It's not a depressed mood; more of a "really annoyed with someone who saw fit to lecture me this morning on something that felt unfair" mood.
Sorry. The right to privacy act prevents me from revealing more.
Suffice to say, I'm sitting in that first flush of anger that makes you feel so good, so entitled, while you're in it, but in the wiser, back part of your mind -- where the still, small voice lives, the one that you're not listening to, yayayaaaaayoucan'tmakeme -- you know you will feel really bad about it all later, and that you're just compounding things by sitting and rolling around in the anger and self-vindication and stuff.
That's where I am today.
And my virtual father-in-law's coming to town this week and staying with us. So that will be loads of jolliness to which I am not so much looking forward.
So -- in a highly impersonal, obviously deflecting way -- who saw the latest Harry Potter movie this weekend?
(WARNING: If there is someone out there who doesn't want to know what's in the movie -- not that I give away anything, or, for that matter, that anything conclusive actually HAPPENED -- or if you don't care in the slightest bit about HP, or my opinion on such -- you might want to quit reading now.)
What did y'all think? I'm tempted not to put my thoughts here first, so that you can give me an uncolored response.
But, because it's my blog, and I'll cry if I wanna:
As those of you who care might recall, I don't read the books, but probably will someday. This is fueled mainly by a combo of 'annoyed that I didn't write them first,' 'not a lot of free time these days' and 'insistence that Jo Rowling will not have the power to make me salivate over the release of her next book.' But, I'm fascinated by the phenomenon in general. And, though I'm completely annoyed by her borrowing from here, there and everywhere under the sun, she does mix it up well and serve it in a delicious way, with bonus points for presentation. Or so it would appear from all I see in the movies and hear from those who HAVE read the books.
I found the movie the least 'fun' of the four so far. I think it has a lot to do with the growing length of the books, thus more to squish into a 2 1/2-hour moviegoing experience. I thought the cinematography was the least fun, the magic was the least visible, and I do not give two figs about Voldemort, so that didn't do anything for me. (I'm definitely not a true fan, yes, as I said.) The kids going through puberty angst -- eh. *shrug* I've never been into teen angsty plots. (hated Judy Blume as a kid.) And there was so much that was thrown in there haphazardly, for lack of time to explain and flesh out, and which left the book-uninitiated feeling very disconcerted. The jumps from scene to scene were very disjointed. Etc. Important lines were tossed in without much emphasis put on them. And much, much made no sense -- I hear it made a lot more sense in the book.
The Myrtle ghost chick stuff? Ew. Ew ew EW. (loved how a Star Trek IV plot made its way into that scene, also. Tres original, Jo.)
This maze business? Totally boring, because it sounds like they cut out almost all fun and explanation thereof.
The dragons? We have no idea (I hear you do in the book) what happened to the previous three 'champions' (and how are you a champion if you haven't won anything yet, exactly?), except that they made it on to the next bit. Those are the parts that are the fun viewing. Not so much stupid Voldemort scenes that actually AREN'T in the book. Oh, and how about how it was Christmas, oooh! And now school's over. Write to me, won't you boys?
And the dance. So, these two 17-year-old boys asked a 14- and 15-year-old? Hm, shortage of older girls there at Hogwarts? Gross.
In the water competition portion: Would that girl have died if Harry hadn't saved her? Who knows. Why did Fleur delaCoeur get to move on to the next one even though she failed? Because, I thought we were told during the first competition that if you fail, you're out.
Yeah, yeah, it's all been explained to me. By one who read the books. But that shouldn't have had to happen, if the movie was GOOD. It should have stood on its own.
Hm. Maybe I liked it even less than I thought I did.
ANY Harry Potter movie is worth seeing, and fun viewing, in my opinion. But I had myriad issues with these.
As always, please, please, PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE feel free to disagree. We'd have a boring time if you didn't. I guess my main point here is that, in the past, it feels like Potter movies have been the most fun for those who had no expectations, and little knowledge of, the books. (Me.) But this one was the opposite way. And as a result, I am bummed. I heard from all and sundry that it was really great. Well, it wasn't -- not to me.
I wish we would go back to the days of the intermission. Make a four-hour movie, if the book warrants it! And have a 20-minute intermission. And, for everyone's sake, please actually clean the bathrooms -- including the re-stocking of toilet paper -- and sweep the theater floors between showings. Thanks.
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I haven't seen the movie yet, but I totally agree with you that it has to stand on its own (or at least with the other movies but not the books) to be good. Movie #3 was good right? I am a fan of the books and it also gets on my nerves when other fans want the movies to be exactly like the books. They are different media and if something is in the book, but everything pertaining to it is out of the movie, leave it out too. And feel free to make up extra crap that will work in the movie. A good movie is different than a good book. But then I remember that those other fans are kids and I cut them a little slack.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I thought the movie was freakin' awesome. Everything made sense to me, but it's hard to put myself in the place of one who hasn't read the books. One question though: Could your bad mood have fueled your dislike for the film?
ReplyDeleteNah. The bad mood stuff didn't happen until the next day.
ReplyDeleteIt would be hard to separate yourself from your prior knowledge. Things like, say, the relevance of Victor (Viktor?) Krum and Hermione -- I still have no idea, but I hear there's more there. Stuff like what I said before about the maze part of the tournament -- so, it ate Fleur, but then she was alive? And she didn't finish the second segment, but was allowed to compete? (I hear now that it's points-based, but that was never said.) And the editing felt choppy, just because he was trying to cram so much in. We went from scene to scene with no real moment to digest what the heck before we dove into something completely different. And, as I said before, I love cool, (somewhat) inventive magic stuff. Less of that here. And the gorgeous shots of Hogwarts. Which looked super gloomy to me this time.
And, what was the point of Harry bumping into Cho at the owlery? Why do they GO to the owlery? It seemed kind of nasty. And, again, what was the attraction to her? She didn't seem all that interesting to me.
I have a thousand questions like that. But you would know all that, so you would be able to merely enjoy the fun of seeing it all on the big screen.
From the sound of it, the director made some great decisions as to what to cut -- it takes Jo 150 pages to get the Beaubatons and the Sturm und Drang -- oops, Durmstrangers -- to Hogwarts? Sheesh. And, thank God no more house elves.
And, why so much Nevill? There was only two reasons to care about him here, and it seems like we saw him about 20 times. I hear his bit is more important as we go, but that's another thing I wouldn't know without help.
I'm not saying the director could've done it better. Well, maybe I am, here and there (owlery? points system?). But, overall, I think he did a good job. It's hard to do these things well for everyone -- kid fans, adult fans, kid and adult non-fans.
I just came home from the movie... 3 words. Read. The. Book.
ReplyDeleteIt's the only way the movie would make any sense. There's just so much more there and I can really understand why you felt the movie was choppy. It was if you hadn't read the book and couldn't fill in the blanks. Plus there was at least one scene that I'm fairly certain was not in the book at all, but now I'm drawing a blank on which one it was.
But the scene with McGonagall and Gryffyndor before the Yule Ball was an absolute SCREAM!! I'm pretty sure I embarassed LightGirl with my outright laughter. That was a masterpiece of alliteration. I want Pete & Jackie to see it before their wedding ... just for the silly effect.