[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
So to recapitulate:
[ul][li]Too much was left out of the story[/li][li]Performances were not up to par[/li][li]Poor direction[/li][li]Wardrobe was wrong[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Y’all gotta be kidding me. I enjoy the first two strictly because I’m a fan of the books; the sets were ugly and uninspired, the castle looked nothing like I imagined it, and the acting was crap. Personally, I think the actors playing Harry and Hermione are miles better than they were, though unfortunately there seems to be no saving whats-his-face who plays Ron; he’s a dreadful actor. I like the new Dumbledore as well; the old one (notice that I’ve forgotten the name of just about every actor in the movies) seemed far too old-mannish to play Dumbledore, who despite being an old man, is also an incredibly powerful wizard and a cheerful, funny man. The old Dumbledore seemed rather slow and feeble.
The castle grounds in the first two movies and the exterior shots of the castle were not only inconsistent (some scenes seemed to show an entirely different Hogwarts than others) but dull and not in keeping with the spirit of the story. And I can’t really speak to plot holes, because I know the books so well that I just didn’t notice anything they left out.
Mostly, though, I found Chris Columbus’s movies irritatingly cute and rather graceless. Their pacing seemed dependent on his own formula for movie-making (hack that he is) rather than appropriate to the story being told. And there was just very little to like about them beyond funny moments of dialogue lifted straight from the book and the performances of Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith (and John Cleese, for what little we saw of him.) As much as the third movie left out (and I too would have been happy had it been an hour longer), I didn’t feel like it dawdled over parts and rushed through other parts. But I’m probably biased - I think Cuarón’s an absolutely brilliant director.
I thought Harry Potter 3 felt like its own movie; the first two seemed like rather calculated movies designed to appeal to children. The third one, I think, had loftier intentions, and I thought it met them well.
I still hate that obnoxious little bastard they have playing Ron, though.
I thought this was easily the best of the HP movies so far. The wardrobe change didn’t bother me–barely registered on my radar. Besides they wore the uniforms in class, just not on their downtime. OTOH, I agree that it was a shame the authors of the Maurauder’s Map weren’t revealed. I seem to recall reading in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, however, that there was a reason for it. I’ll go and see if I can find the cite. It’s been a while since I read it.
I thought on the whole, the acting was much better. Each of the three leads have improved. Excalibre, I think the kid who plays Ron is awesome. I don’t think he’s the greatest actor in the world, but he suits the part. Dan Radcliffe gets better each film (although I didn’t really buy the crying scene by the shrieking shack…I think it’s the quivering lip curl after the “I’ll kill him” bit that does it. It makes me laugh every time), and Emma Watson is, IMO, the most talented of the group.
I liked the scene with Harry flying with Buckbeak, but it was so “I’m the King of the World” at one point that I let out a giggle in the theatre the first time I saw it.
I have to agree with everyone who was disappointed in the werewolf effects. I didn’t think they were very good, especially after the great job they did with Buckbeak. I’ll go one step further and say I didn’t like Padfoot either. Why, oh why, couldn’t they have used a real dog instead of CGI? It detracted from the scene.
But I loved the blowing up of Aunt Marge–that scene with Harry stomping out of the house and Aunt Marge floating away just cracks me up every time.
I recognize there were flaws, but I just thought PoA caught the atmosphere in the books in a way the first two films weren’t able. I missed the stuff that was left out, but I still think this film was superior to the other two.
I also thought it was the best done of the three. The look was superb, much better than the first two, and the story was fairly decently done – yeah, they should have identified the makers of the map, but otherwise…
Personally, I thought Thompson’s “bat-shit crazy” was spot-on… I always thought Trelawny was a total loon.
The werewolf-as-a-bipedal creature was annoying, especially as the book has Lupin say that he spends his wolf phase as a normal wolf curled up in front of the fire in his office. On the other hand, it is more or less the standard Hollywood vision of a werewolf (about the only film I can recall where the werewolves turned into real wolf-like creatures is the Jack Nicholson Wolf – and then only at the very end).
We all know why they didn’t have the kids wearing their robes… and it didn’t have anything to do with Radcliffe or Grint!
Non-HP reader here (Muggle?), who really enjoyed the 3rd movie and didn’t find it difficult to follow at all.
Personally, I was bored with the first movie because it felt faithful to the books–in that I’d constantly find myself asking, “Why are they including this? What relevance does it have to the story? How does this contribute to the atmosphere?” only to come up completely empty. So I assumed it was in there because it was in the book and readers would expect as much (which is, quite frankly, a terrible approach for any adaptation).
HP3 felt like a movie, fully-formed, with enough magic, character arcs, surprising (but not gratuitous) turns to keep me pleasantly diverted. I have to assume this is Cuaron’s doing because Columbus is a hack of the highest order. Since future HPs have other “real” directors at the helm (Mike Newell’s up next), this may keep me interested in the series.
I think that the movie definitely suffered from the length of the book, and the constraints of the movie. But given those constraints, I think that Cuaron and company did a superb job. The atmosphere was great, and I especially liked the Marauders’ Map. They were ruthless in cutting out side-plots, but that was necessary to make it fit into a movie. My one complaint is that they should have settled the identity of Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs.
1: The “Wanted” posters of Sirius Black annoyed the crap out of me. Yes, he did reportedly laugh while he was being arrested, but it’s clear (given his innocence) that the laughter should have been hysterical. That photo in the poster is making him out to look like a mad, “look-out-I’m-the-boogeyman-and-I’m-gonna-getcha” lunatic.
“King of the World?” I suspect this is supposed to be some sort of reference to Titanic. I saw Kelly Reno winning the horse race in The Black Stallion when Harry rode Buckbeak.
I really want to find this movie under the tree this year.
They left it out for future inclusion in a later movie, where the shared history of the older characters with Harry’s parents would be revealed in one film. Makes sense to me. Slowly revealing the past clue by clue works in the books, but in a set of movies that are released years apart, it would just be too much for the audience to keep track of. Revealing it all at once makes much more sense.
I really didn’t like the first two movies, the cutiseness of the characters and the sets, as well as the unwillingness to edit the story really made for a boring experience. This third one is the only instalment which does a halfway decent job of being a stand alone film, instead of relying on the audiences enthusiasm for the books.
Huh. I never realized before that I can’t report my own post.
Upon perusal of my first post, I feel that I should have put point #1 in a spoiler box. Would some Mod be good enough to do so for me; or if a current poster is closer, could you report the post, please?
Worse still, even in the movie Hermione explains in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class that the werewolf’s appearance differs from that of a regular wolf in several minor ways, like the shape of the snout. There’d be no mistaking this wolfman for an ordinary wolf.
However, I have decided to justify this by assuming that Lupin was doing his best to resist the transformation and didn’t completely change into a wolf. This is a completely made-up explanation on my part, but I’m happy with it.
Not quite. In the movie, Snape asks her to tell the difference between a werewolf and an animagus, not an ordinary wolf. (Of course, from the examples of Sirius and Pettigrew in the movie, it’s reasonable to figure that a wolf-animagus would turn into an ordinary wolf, but I imagine the change in the question was intentional.)
I’ve read in other threads that the apporved method of dealing with this is to report the post above or below your own, and then add a note saying that you’re actually reporting your own post.
As for the movie, I think it’s the best example of what a difference a director can make. Cuaron had the same actors, same writers, presumably the same budget… and made a movie that was in an entirely different league from the two crapfests churned out by Chris Columbus. It wasn’t a great movie, by any means, but it was still pretty damned good.
Maybe from now on, it would be cool if they had 2 versions of the movie: a long and a short one for the kids. Just edit the same footage differently for the short one.
(And more money, for those HP junkies who’d go see both.)
Isn’t it obvious that the idea was to totally separate the appearance of Sirius the Dog and Lupin the Werewolf? If you had two hairy dog-like creatures in the same shot, it would easily get very confusing.
I am such a hopeless Harry Potter fan that my opinion of the movie is going to be distorted in multiple ways, but -
[ul][li]It would have been a better movie if if could have been an hour longer. I know this is too much for younger children, but I think as Harry and his friends grow up, the movies will tend to grow up with him, and appeal to an older and older audience. ISTM that a group that can read an 600 page book (or whatever PoA is) can sit thru a three hour movie. []I found the depiction of Hogwart’s to be one of the best parts of the film. I really got the feeling that I was learning why Harry loves the place so much. And the conflict with his aunt set the stage adequately to make the contrast between the attractive Hogwart’s and the repulsive Privet Drive. []They better make the next movies fast - the actors are growing up! []As the books get longer and more complicated, it is going to be harder and harder to do justice to them. I worry if “The Goblet of Fire” is going to seem slap-dash, what with the Quidditch World Cup, the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and the ongoing conflicts all having to be squeezed in. []I think Gambon did a good job as Dumbledore. Harris did fine, so did Gambon. []I thought Madame Trelawney was perfect - dotty verging on insane, but that one burst of true prophecy that even she did not realize. The part where Hermione gets fed up with something that cannot be learned out of books and fierce determination to excel was something that had to be sacrificed to edit for length - but I still missed it. []Time travel is one of the hardest plot devices to handle, and requires an especially severe willing suspension of disbelief. The movie handled it as well as it could. []Special effects? Not as brilliant as the spiders in CoS, but good enough. []It is going to be difficult to handle the death of Sirius in OotP. To have the proper impact, it has to be a beloved character. Harry has to love Sirius. If the Sirius character is not properly developed in GoF, where Sirius is both a friend in his own right as well as a refuge from the Muggle world, his death won’t “work”. [*]If they leave out the speech from Nearly Headless Nick about death at the end of OoP, I will be pissed. This is central to Harry’s development, and sets the stage for his or Voldemort’s death at the climax of the series.[/ul]Overall, I gave the movie a solid B. Good but not great, but only in contrast to the first movie.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
I didn’t understand the logic of the Dementors and the patronus spell as depicted in the movie. Dementors were explained as feeing off your good thoughts and leaving you only with the bad ones. And then the patronus spell produces a shield of positive energy that keeps the Dementors away? Wouldn’t it attract the Dementors?
I’m afraid I’m going to have to revise my opinion of Hermione’s “genius” status. When Harry casts the Patronus that drives off the Dementors, he tells Hermione “I knew I could do it – because I already did it! Does that make sense?” She says “No!” No? So, genius Hermione can’t understand a concept that Ted “Theodore” Logan can?! “So, after the report, we can’t forget to do this, otherwise it won’t happen – but it did happen! Hey, it was me who stole my dad’s keys!” (And the book won’t help either – she says “I don’t know” instead.) Honestly – you’d think Hermione never even saw an episode of Doctor Who in her life!
I think it acts as more of a decoy than anything else. Instead of the dementor overwhelming and leaving you incapacitated, it attacks something that is in essence pure good memories. This leaves you free to get out. You’re right that there’s a discrepancy in how the movie explains things.
A rationalization, one I’m sure the director never considered but which helps maintain my enjoyment, could be that dementors can be overwhelmed by very powerful and concentrated happy emotions. Imagine taking a sip of clear, cool water. Now imagine a huge tidal wave of that same water. The first is healthy and invigorating while the second is potentially deadly.
