So far, Snape, the Minister of Magic, Lucious Malfoy, Voldemort (one assumes), Harry, Hermione and Ron.
I disagree here–he’s Harry freaking! Potter, who gets on the evening news without even wanting to be there every time he has an argument or looks at a girl. I’m sticking with the explanation that the Minstry knows what’s up but is trying to pretend it didn’t happen. Why? Maybe to cover its butt. It looks bad if Voldemort returns, invades a huge sporting event, and kills a kid on your watch. Plus, it’s questionable about where some Ministry officials’ loyalties lie. Some are morally sketchy and would align themselves with whomever is “winning.”
Regarding someone’s comment upthread, I’m going to be horrified if they recast the kids. It’s very disturbing to even think of it. I’d rather have 22-year-old Daniel, Rupert, and Emma playing 17-year-olds than new faces appearing out of nowhere to replce the familiar ones. :eek:
The problem is that in OotP, the whole POINT of Dumbledore in that book is that he CANNOT show any care or love or even barely much interest in Harry. He has to keep up the ruse that he is not close to Harry so that Voldemort doesn’t try to use Harry to get to Dumblydore. That means that there is no room for the sort of kindly figure of Dumbledore to emerge until the very very end of that movie, and by then we’ve gone almost three movies of him being a distant, cool nutcase. That’s just hard to recover a character from.
We finally got to see GOF tonight. LOTS of spoilers here, although I’ve tried to hedge them a bit.
For the most part, I didn’t think the overall movie was that bad–if you look at it as a movie, rather than a condensed version of the book. I was awake and on the edge of my seat for the 2+ hours the movie ran, which is more than I can say about a lot of movies.
The ferret scene was perfect in every way. (It would have been a better introduction to Moody’s “uniqueness” than showing him creeping up to the castle during the dinner.)
I liked the rendition of the dragon challenge. I think it was much better than the book’s version–even though I knew how it would turn out, I was anxious and actually crying while watching the scene played out.
I LOVED the scene of Harry and Myrtil in the prefect’s bath. I was laughing hysterically, as was my 14yo daughter sitting next to me.
I also liked the Lake challenge. It was very well played out, and really did show the original angst that Harry faced in trying to decide which “victims” to rescue.
I didn’t think the maze scene was really that bad. Yes, the sphinx and the spider were missing, but it gave a better impression that something was out to remove the challengers better than the book itself did.
The portrayal of Moody was GREAT. The eye thing wasn’t really what I imagined, but they carried it off very well.
I also liked the actor who played Cedric. JKR makes repeated attempts in the book to convey that he is a very handsome person, without much else going for him, and that came across very clearly to me.
Victor Krum was also very well played.
That said, I think there were also serious flaws in the movie.
I was seriously disappointed by the Quiddich World Cup parts. The portrayal of the portkey was cool, but could it have hurt to show at least some of the game itself. I also would not have had a clue what the riot was about if I had not read the book. Yes, it was scary, but it was overdone. I would have preferred that they stuck with the book and had Harry, Ron, and Hermione lost in the woods. That would have made a lot more sense than having Harry get trampled, then having Hermione and Ron happen to show up looking for him just at the right moment, after what seemed to be a lengthy period of time.
I saw no reason for the dramatic “dances” of the Beaubaton and Durmstrang students. Durmstrang was fun to watch, but it didn’t really add anything to the plot, and I would have preferred to have more plot than fluff. (I also got the impression that both schools were co-ed from the book, and the gender separation really didn’t help the movie’s plot at all–surely there is some school in France where wizards can study, as well as some “northern” school where witches can study?)
There were far too many scenes added just to provide filler and clues, but which didn’t really fit the overall plot of the story. The most striking that comes to mind is the scene where they come across Crouch’s body, with no explanation at all for why the four of them are in the woods in the first place. It would have been much better to have had something closer to the original story, where Krum just wants to find out if Harry really loves Hermione. (And that wouldn’t have taken that much longer to do, would it have??) Lots of the shots of Moody fall into this category, too. It would have been fine with me to shave off the preview of Moody coming through the woods at the beginning and just have him introduced as the new DADA teacher. (What the heck was that lighting stuff from the ceiling!!!)
Rita Skeeter was downplayed much too much. The movie didn’t really do enough to make me dislike her, and the whole wordplay behind her name was completely lost in the cuts made to the story line.
I hate Gambon’s portrayal of Dumbledore. I realize that the original book does start showing D’s humanity at this point, but Gambon doesn’t show any strength whatsoever. In PoA, it was bad. In this movie, it was worse. In the books, Harry sees Dumbledore as a source of strength he can trust and rely on. There is nothing in this Dumbledore character that portrays strength and reliability.
Fleur Delacoeur was also very disappointing. While I admit that she doesn’t do much to earn respect in the book, this movie really doesn’t give us much reason to see why she was chosen as Beaubaton’s representative in the first place. We see nothing about her in the dragon challenge. She gives up almost immediately in the lake challenge, and she is the first to disappear in the maze challenge, all after several all-too-generalized shrieks of fear. I have no sympathy for her at all based on the movie alone, and see absolutely no reason why Ron is so smitten with her. At least the book’s explanation that she is part vela helps the reader understand why Ron drools after her rather than paying more attention to Hermione.
Just watched this yesterday. Mild spoilers below.
I will say that I liked it better than the last three movies (I don’t think I’ll EVER get over who they cast for Lupin; it’s just wrong). It had me at the edge of my seat most of the time, even though I knew what was going to happen. That’s always good.
The beginning of the movie seemed way too rushed. I was disappointed they cut the veela out, and the riot seemed almost random. Like Kiminy mentioned above, if I hadn’t read the book I don’t think I would have noticed what was going on.
I did not like Dumbledore at all. He seemed too much on edge, with none of the gentleness or quirky sense of humor that is evident in the books.
Overall, it was all right. I am definitely re-reading GoF over again soon. It’s never been my favorite HP book, but the movie’s made me want to read it again.