i missed that, i’ll have to watch more closely on my next viewing,
re: the black kid with draco in the room of requirement. that’s blaise zabini, a minor slytherin character from half blood prince. it was supposed to be crabbe and goyle that accompanied draco but the actor who portrayed crabbe ran into some legal trouble and didn’t appear in the later movies as a result, so they replaced him in the scene with blaise.
Honestly, I think we have to give the movies(the screenwriter) the chance to add a few things that are “movies only”, like Neville with Luna and so forth. It’s minor things and make sense from the movies’ point of view.
To answer a question from a page back, I’m 90% sure Rowling played a witch in the background of Knockturn Alley at some point.
I was specifically looking for Percy and missed it too.
Well that makes sense. I always thought the Angelina character should have gotten a few more lines. I thought I saw her in the movie in a fleeting view of the kids grouped together.
Did they show the three way duel between McGonagall, Slughorn and Kingsley againgst Voldemort?
I was quite disappointed with how the movie handled Neville vs. Nagini, and Mrs. Weasley vs. Belatrix. The two high points of the book, and both fell flat!
no, that’s the big complaint by us complainers. They deviated heavily from the book on the final battle scene. I thought the author nailed it. I would have preferred a visual line-for-line version of the book but instead they have Nevelle walking around with the hat and when he confronts Voldemort he is sent sailing into the castle. Eventually he gets around to the snake which is terrorizing the 3 kids. Harry has a prolonged fight with Voldemort by himself and then kills him outside instead of the highly focused events in the book. It’s a complete hose-up IMO when they already had a perfect screenplay written
I went to the midnight showing last night and had a blast. I went with friends and family and we’ll all dressed up (I went as Sirius). Lots of other people were dressed up and the atmosphere was great (Fenway theater in Boston, where people had started lining up at 1pm). Keep in mind that for me the movies always pale to the books:
I think the changes were made so that there could be parallel action. While Harry is fighting Snape, the others are trying to get the snake, and the rest of the battle is raging, which includes Weasly vs Bellatrix.
As I recall in the book, those events were more one after the other. Filmmakers prefer to intercut storylines because it makes it easier to compress action. The characters in first scene are at Point A. When we rejoin them later, we find them at Point B, where they have moved while we were watching the other scene. We don’t need to waste a lot of time showing how they got from A to B, and can focus on the moments that really matter. It also adds tension and suspense because Harry is forced to fight Voldemort before all the Horcruxes have been destroyed. If Harry manages to defeat him before they kill Nagini, then it could all have been for naught.
I liked some of the things they added, like Harry pulling Voldemort off the bridge. It was a nice call back to the first book, where he discovered that Voldemort could not bear to touch him because his mother’s love and sacrifice permeated his very flesh. Harry remembered that and used it as a weapon in his duel.
In the book a lot was made about the fact that Voldemort’s complete lack of love was his greatest weakness. It wan’t spelled out in the movie, but was present under the surface in moments like that, and the awkward hug between Voldemort and Draco. Voldemort wanted to make a big show of welcoming Draco back and making it seem that anyone else who joined him would be welcomed with open arms. He totally botched it because he had never hugged another person in his life.
I saw it in 2D. Did those who saw it in 3D think it benefits?
Saw the first showing this morning in IMAX 3D. I’m not usually a 3D fan, but that just happened to be the only time slot that fit into my schedule today. Luckily, we got really good seats and I managed to forget I was even wearing the glasses, which is a high compliment to the movie in my mind.
Needless to say, I loved it. Lots of my thoughts have already been mentioned: Bellatrix!Hermione was awesome, acting was so much better all around from all, The Prince’s Tale and its immediate aftermath had me crying.
I understand what you’re saying, and I don’t necessarily disagree, but I did notice in the scene when Harry is leaving for the forest, he and Ron make meaningful eye contact over Hermione’s shoulder. We only saw it from Harry’s side, but I’m pretty sure they had a subtle, but definite, moment of “I love you, I understand, goodbye,” there between them.
Also, they knew he was going to die so I can understand their lack of reaction to seeing his body. They knew it was coming. Devastated yes, but not shocked or surprised.
My bullet points:
[ul]
[li]I wish they could have shown the actual death of Fred. I think it would have made more of an impact.[/li]
[li]Draco was awesome.[/li]
[li]Hagrid was barely there, which is not a bad thing in my book. And Grawp was completely absent, which is a wonderful thing in my book![/li]
[li]Liked the scene when Harry hid among the students and then confronted Snape in front of the whole school. Rickman was really chewing the scenery in that one![/li]
[li]Snape’s death was truly horrific.[/li]
[li]Again, Kloves shows his Hermione fanboy side: It was Harry’s idea to ride the dragon out, not hers! (Just as Ron stood on a broken leg between Sirius and Harry and told him he’d have to kill them all in PoA, not Hermione!) I love Hermione, too, but Harry’s the hero and Ron’s more than just comic relief.[/li]
[li]The Chamber of Secrets scene was cute. In kind of a scary way.[/li]
[li]Harry and Ginny’s kiss fell flat, to me. Which disappointed me because I’m a Harry/Ginny shipper.[/li]
[li]For a minute there, I thought they were going to take away Neville’s killing of Nagini, and I was about to be super pissed. But then he woke up and it was all okay again. :)[/li][/ul]As to the “it was better in the book” complaints, well, I disagree. I guarantee you, if they had put what was in the book word for word and scene for scene in the movie it would have been a major letdown. They are just two different mediums and as much of a Rowling fangirl as I am, that final battle in the book was not that great. I mean, Harry and Voldemort have that stupid faceoff where they taunt each other for about three pages before they get down to it. It would have been very boring on the screen–too much exposition. Same for Ariana’s story. Would have been nice to have, but it’s an obvious choice for the cutting room floor, IMHO.
That’s all I have for now (aren’t you all relieved!) I’ll probably have more when I see it again next week.
Just got back from seeing it, (In IMAX and 3D, no less!)
It was pretty freeking awesome, I must say.
I may have shed a tear over Dobby the House Elf, but I cried buckets over Snape, and my friends all made fun of me (again!)
I had two disappointments:
[spoiler]A. You didn’t get to see Percy reconcile with his family, and that was one of my favorite bits in the book.
B. In the movie, when Hagrid is carrying Harry and everyone thinks he’s dead, it’s Genny who screams, in the book, it’s McGonagall… It may seem kinda nitpicky, but to me, that said a lot about her (Minerva’s) affection for Harry, and his for her, moreso than any other scene in the books. [spoiler/] That being said, the movie pretty much rocked my socks, the 3D made it extra fun, and a good time was had by all.
While I understand your point the book was written well enough to follow in the movie. They added the entire basilisk scene as well as the nagini snake scenes.
Valermort was no longer affected by Harry touching him (GOF). the entire fight scene was added. It was far less dramatic then if they’d followed the book and Harry dropped him in front of everybody. Having Voldemort slowly disappear was anticlimactic compared to the book. Nobody clapped.
agree. Draco was a schmuck all through the books so this wasn’t a departure for his character. The fact that he integrated back into society was spelled out as he and his family walked away.
Saw it last night.
Strange atmosphere in the theater with about half of us there to watch the movie and the other half there to be ‘part of the event’, joking and chatting through the whole thing. There seemed to be a running whisper of ‘shutupshutupshutup’ through most of the soundtrack, punctuated with the occasional “Give it a bloody rest, mate!”
Was it explained that Luna was going back to Hogwarts while the others went to Gringott’s? It seemed like a huge plot hole when we saw her at the safe house then she pops up in the room of requirement as though she’d been there the whole time. Did I miss something?
When Sirius tells Harry that they’ll be with him all the way because “we’re there” and points to Harry’s heart, someone beside us said “What, in his pocket?”, the kid and I spent the rest of the movie whispering Gollum quotes “What has it got in it’s pocketses, precious?” and when Dubledore turned up at the station the kid said in utter joy: “It’s Gandalf the White!”
I sniffled during the prince’s tale, the kid sobbed at Fred’s death. Loved the fragment of Voldy at the station.
Nitpickily noticed that McGonnagal says “His name is Voldemort.” His name is Tom Riddle, why pander to his ego by calling him something he made up (I know, because the book says so).
The bridge to the school seemed to be there/ destroyed / there again almost at random. Were there two bridges? Why go to such effort to only destroy one of them? Why destroy a bridge when your enemy can fly?
Loved Neville’s hero act but wished they’d kept it closer to the book’s version of events. It was such a bummer to see him knocked on his ass then basically wandering around in a daze instead of being the ‘other’ enemy that Voldy could have chosen.
I thought they did the 19 years later aging well. I giggled at how Hermione had kept well groomed and Ron had gone paunchy.
And, lest anyone think I didn’t enjoy it, I’ll be buying it at full price on DVD so I can watch it over and over. Without the distraction of the audience (including me and the kid swapping *sotto *jokes).
i saw it in imax but not 3d. the roller coastery gringotts scene was quite something in imax.
i’m with magiver, i would have liked the end to be a bit closer to the book.
i liked when tommy gets very crazed when bellatrix dies, and harry jumps up and yells “protego”! they still could have had them zipping all over the place after that. the films have the wand duels/fights looking like sword fights, so i wasn’t bugged by them moving all over the place. also it showed how destroyed hogwarts was.
there should have been more witnesses to tommy’s death, not just a few here and there on the sides of the courtyard. when harry appears in the great hall no one says anything to him? no one asks how it went?
it would have taken less than a minute for harry to say " i prefer my own wand" repair his wand and then break the elder wand.
really, seriously really, harry is going to use draco’s old wand with all he did in it? i don’t think so.
[QUOTE=maggenpye]
Nitpickily noticed that McGonnagal says “His name is Voldemort.” His name is Tom Riddle, why pander to his ego by calling him something he made up (I know, because the book says so).
[/QUOTE]
Something in the book they deleted that I wished they’d left in (back in the first movie) was the jinxing of the name Voldemort. It was great after Harry had spent 6 books trying to get people to stop saying “You know who”.
Do they release “special” DVDs that include the deleted scenes? The ones I’ve rented and bought don’t.
I actually thought they must have done some poor math on the aging process. If they were all 17, then 19 years later they’d still only be 36 right? Cause it sure looked like they made everyone in that scene out to be somewhere in their mid 40s at least. Poor Ginny was the worst. I can only assume that when she saw herself in the mirror in full makeup for the first time, she must’ve run to the director screaming, “This is what you think I’m gonna look like when I’m 35?!? My ass will NEVER be this fat!”
there were a few things i liked.
the grey lady ghost of helena ravenclaw was very, very, well done. just the right mix of scary and beauty.
draco’s mum in the forest was just perfect. loved it when she and draco walked away hand in hand. she would do anything, walk through any fire for her son. she would do what lily did.
molly can be very scary when she is riled up. very scary.
gringotts was very well done. also the aftermath with tommy.
that poor dragon. it hurt to see what was done to her. too bad hagrid wasn’t around. he would have gotten her all comfy and fixed up.
loved the shell cottage. wouldn’t mind living there.
especially after being a professional athlete. even with 3 kids!
Saw it. Loved it.
Really, considering it is a movie and a lot has to be trimmed, I don’t think we could expect any better. They did, in my opinion, the absolute best film version of the last book.
They took the time to slow things down for the key scenes and all the actors were amazing.
I actually liked Neville’s speech and how much screen time they gave him. He deserves it and if Voldemort had chosen him that night, I think Neville could have defeated him just like Harry.