I’m curious: for those of you who have seen (and evidently enjoy) the movies but haven’t read the books: why not? Just don’t have enough time, not interested enough…or what? Because if you enjoy the movies, you’ll get infinitely more out of the books.
The book certainly doesn’t desrcibe Harry as being RIPPED and TONED. But then, I guess Quidditch is pretty physically demanding. Still, he looks more like he has his own professional Hollywood trainer as opposed to merely being an active kid. Is Radcliffe really 16? I though the problem was that the actors were starting to get too old for their parts, but 16 sounds pretty darn close to what Harry should be (he’s supposed to turn 18 over the summer of book 7, right?).
Well, the kids were all the right age when they started filming the first one. It’s been five years since they started filming it, he was 11 then, that makes him 16 now. But then, this movie was filmed a year ago, so he was only 15 when it was done (compared to the character, who is supposed to be 14 in GOF).
Films and TV shows routinely have actors in their 20s and sometimes even 30s portraying teenagers. It’s no biggie.
Here’s my big “why couldn’t they…” question, although it really applies to book 5…
Pretty much all of book 5 revolves around Harry not being able to convince people of what he saw, and people calling him a liar. But there are at least 2 apparently foolproof methods in the wizarding world to convince people of the truth of what you’ve seen:
(1) Veritas serum
(2) Put your memories into a pensieve.
Why doesn’t Harry do one or both of them?
You’re absolutely right, of course. Had to try 
the champ. cup was in d.d.'s office until it was placed in the maze. moody placed it in the maze and made it a port key. moody then patroled the outside of the maze with 3 other teachers and imperius’d krum and interfered with fleur and tried to interfere with cedric.
moody would have a tough time getting to harry’s dorm room and get a sock or pants or something. it seems only heads of house and the headmaster is allowed into the dorms.
deatheaters really don’t think for themselves often. the penalty is way to high if lv finds out.
Uhm. This actually is pretty close to canon. In the books, there’s a part where a character mentions it would be “more than his life’s worth to make an unauthorised portkey”. We can assume from that, then, that to do so is to invoke some kind of punishment. The only other time we’ve seen “unauthorised” portkeys are those Dumbledore has made when it’s been an emergency - something he could explain to any law enforcement. And, to be honest, who’s going to disagree with Dumbledore?.
Re; MaxTheVool’s question;
[spoiler]
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Veritaserum is not always effective. There’s a good explanation of why on JKR’s site: [COLOR=Black]http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/faq_view.cfm?id=105
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A pensieve could work, though. The problem is, it’s not just a case of the ministry not believing the truth, but also not wanting to; if Harry’s right, then all they’ve done for the last few years has been for nothing, and in particular, Fudge will likely lose his job for accepting all those false-repented Death Eaters back with open arms. But yeah, a pensieve could be used. Plot hole.
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I read the first one and thought it was okay, but didn’t like it enough to read the rest. I wait eagerly for each new book so I can read the spoilers. I’ve seen and enjoyed (to various degrees) all the movies. I just don’t have much interest in actually reading the books.
As for GoF, I liked Mad-Eye Moody, but felt the polyjuice thing came out of nowhere. Barty Crouch Jr. wasn’t in it enough to understand his importance. Fleur Decatour seemed weak, and I agree with those who said the female characters were pushed to the side. Liked Krum. It was a bit choppy, but I enjoyed it. Not as much as the third, but better than the first two.
Someone came up with the theory that the reason Voldemort’s plans are so stupid is that Snape (who is a double agent working for Dumbledore) keeps feeding them to him to ensure that Harry survives.
Problems with using a pensieve as a truth-proving device are made apparent in Book 6.
Dumbledore not only discusses how he was unable to use collected memories to achieve much good and we are shown how memories can be altered (albiet clumsily) as well as altered more expertly by a powerful wizard like Voldemort.
The unauthorized portkey idea is probably a good solution: if the ministry instantly knows when one is made then Moody couldn’t have just made a portkey in his office, invited Harry there, and send him to the graveyard (of course, still doesn’t explain why he couldn’t just lure Harry off grounds and then disapperate with him). If changing the destination of an existing portkey can’t be detected though, then the cup is perfect (if it really was a portkey back: was that mentioned in the book?). But Rowling fails to make it apparent, and the fact that the characters never even question the goofiness is even more of a problem than the problem itself.
Are you kidding? I thought it was all TOO clear.
Spoiler for book 4 and movie 4
Barty, unlike in the book, is actually seen by Harry being in action several times prior to his appearance in the pensieve and at the end. He’s seen being given an order from Voldemort at the start and then this is repeated again by Harry’s reliving of the dream a second time. It’s made pretty clear (from his distinctive siloette and you almost being able to make out his face) him at the World Cup casting the dark mark (also not in the book). He’s referenced throughout the movie (though not as often as in the book) and then given a name and backstory in the pensieve… where we see he has a distinctive facial tick. We then soon after see that Moody has the same tic… and that Barty Sr. is bothered by seeing it… and then almost immediately ends up dead! And in terms of polyjouce potion, it’s mentioned several times that someone has been making it: it’s smelt and Snape accuses Harry of making it. Furthermore, unlike in the book, there is never any excuse given for why Moody keeps drinking from his flask (the explanation in the book is actually a very effective and tricky cover: it certainly fooled me!) You definately are made to wonder where Barty is and what he is up to, and the scenes in which we quickly see Barty’s past, his family relation (Barty Srs’ son), his facial tick, then that Moody has the tick, and then that Barty Sr is pretty clearly killed for notiticing it, as well as all the fuss made over Polyjuice potion are all pretty good telegraphed clues: made even MORE clear and obvious than in the book.
Arg. I request a fix. 
Well, the Ministry thinks that Harry is mad, so veritaserum is out – Fudge mentions in GoF that it forces you to say what you believe is true, so it doesn’t work too well on people who are having hallucinations. The pensieve is a bit more troubling, but I suppose that it might be affected by insane people as well.
It isn’t the lack of evidence, it’s just that the ministry really doesn’t want to believe Harry’s story. Despite the eye witness accounts and the support of Dumbledore, many of the judges in Harry’s trial still thought he just made up the dementors appearing in his neighborhood. Harry could present a bucket of penseive memories, a veratiserum testimony, a photo of him and Voldemort together, it wouldn’t matter, the ministry would do all it could to cover it all up.
I thought the Pensieve was sorta like Mrs Weasley’s clock–a unique object. I believe that Snape borrows it from Dumbledore, no?
Harry wouldn’t get a whole lot of traction --and he really doesn’t have time or resources to tell the whole wizarding world about Voldemort. That would be like a couple of teenagers trying to tell our world about some untoward cosmic event. How much time would they get on the evening news?
Something else I noticed that bothered me.
It’s understood and accepted that the wizards competeing in the Tri-Wizard cup are doing so at the risk of their lives. It’s why the age limit was placed on entering in the competition. (The method by which the age limit was placed was incompetent, but that’s another matter.)
But in the second trial, four random innocent bystanders, who had themselves not consented to enter in the competition and were AFAIK all under the age limit anyway were used as hostages, with the implication that they’d die if the wizards failed to rescue them. What? Nobody had a problem with this? No irate parents demanded to know why the hell their child was chosen to be sacrificed as part of the competition? Do the books explain this at all?
It also seems to me that all the challenges in the competition, at least as portrayed in the movie, could have easily been solved with entierly non-magical means, but I expect that would be considered cheating.
Count me in as one of those who loved this to bits. I’m surprised by the criticism of Gambon’s Dumbledore – but diff’rent strokes and all that – because I loved how fierce and worrisome he was. Perhaps I’m projecting now to OoP but I think it is important now for him to show how much he cares for Harry, now that LV has returned. I especially liked his perturbed look the first time he read Harry’s name on the slip of paper. Shame Gambon’s lost his gorgeous Bristolian twang - but perhaps it is still lurking at the edges. It’s interesting how in this film and the last one they’ve shown him fannying around with candles – and now he mentions setting his curtains on fire – is this an important character attribute?
(spoiler for HBP)
And of course in HBP he sets Young Lad Voldemort’s wardrobe on fire, and is able to summon a ring of fire when he’s on his last legs. Hmm. And phoenixes of course burst into fire. How very interesting…
I loved Mad-Eye Moody, too – his funny bits were hilarious, and the spider bit was pretty well done. It was probably a good idea to increase the number of clues about who he actually is, and the transformation was fine. The plot, although different from in the book, was probably fairly cohesive, if you can believe that Crouch Jr escaped from Askaban with no one noticing and that Crouch guessed he was polyjuiced as Moody, and therefore had to die. The bit in the courtroom was fab – I really hope they use the same set when poor old Potter undergoes the fourth degree.
Everything else was IMHO set out very well. Cedric came over exactly right, as the kind of redcheeked hero any small boy would kill to fag for. I loved Barty Crouch’s stiffness and attempt at humour. Radcliffe has really come into his own, especially in the graveyard scene. LV was rather different from what I expected, but I rather liked his selfish chilly campiness. And as some one else said, I can’t wait to see him and Gambon sparring.
It’s made me very curious about how they’ll adapt the HBP, and I’m going to start a thread to that affect.
Yes, in the book they say that the hostages would have been freed when the time ran out, no harm. Harry goes through a period of feeling quite stupid that he felt the need to rescue them all.
etc. etc.
Yep, thank you.
The books are really good (I think OotP is by far the weakest), but Rowling is not a great world builder - she writes an evocotive world, but not a consistant one. No Tolkein here - where we can quibble about “why don’t the eagles just” but there is an answer that is fairly internally consistant to the books