Regarding Harry Potter (movies, that is) [possible open spoilers]

Cafe Society
1

So I spent the last three nights watching The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, and The Goblet of Fire for the first time (believe it or not), after borrowing the DVDs from my sister. I have a few thoughts …

1 - I rather enjoyed the character of Severus Snape. Grim, serious, intimidating, possibly evil … and yet he also seemed honorable and dedicated to serving the good of Hogwart’s. Those who have read the books (which I haven’t), help me out. Is he a reformed bad guy? I thought I heard something in GoF to the effect that he was once a “death eater”?

2 - Hagrid … he’s big. Wow. Camera tricks? Robbie Coltrane’s imdb.com page says he’s 6’-1", but he looks much bigger as Hagrid.

3 - Hermione was a lot more fun in The Prisoner of Azkaban than she was in The Goblet of Fire.

4 - What was up with Ron’s whining in GoF? It seemed to come out of nowhere, all of a sudden. I realize it was jealousy, but I didn’t quite get how the Goblet spitting out Harry’s name upset Ron. Was this a situation where the filmmaker assumed the viewer has read the book?

5 - Moaning Myrtle seems to be something of a horndog.

6 - These movies seemed really freaking long.

7 - Is Harry actually J.K. Rowling’s transgendered Mary Sue?

8 - How old is Ron’s little sister, Ginny, supposed to be in GoF (the actress, Bonnie Wright, was 13-14, but Ron was supposed to be 14 so Ginny had to be younger)? Because I think she and Neville Longbottom totally did it after the Yule Ball. Neville returned to the dormitory late (it seemed), wearing his shoes around his neck, and just look at the shit-eating grin on his face while he was talking to Harry.

9 - Is the “sorting hat” really necessary? Because it would appear that, ala George Lucas, looking at a student’s name would be a pretty reliable method of determining who belongs in Slitherin. “Hmmm … ‘Draco Malfoy’? Slitherin.”

10 - Draco Malfoy. What a dick.

11 - In GoF, did Harry not notice that Lucius Malfoy was one of the death eaters? If so, why did he not mention this fact to Dumbledore after he reported Voldemort’s return? Was it already common knowledge?

2

I’ll answer as many of these as I can, having read all the books and seen all the movies…

Yes, he is a former folower of Voldemort, but the author has always left it a little ambiguous as to his motivations…is he REALLY reformed, or is he just pretending so he doens’t get executed?

Well, she’s growing into a teenaged girl, with all the teenaged girl stuff associated with it. She really likes Ron, but throughout the books Ron has only treated her as a friend, not a romantic interest. Since she’s maturing and is interested in a relationship, she would like for it to be with Ron, but he seems to be looking everywhere else but her (this is more obvious in the books than the movie).

Harry’s ALWAYS being noticed for stuff. Perhaps you noticed his name is in the title of every movie :wink: Again, it’s the teenage thing. Ron wants to get involved with some girls, etc but always seems to be in Harry’s shadow, and resents it when once again Harry seems to be the center of attention.

Try reading the books. There is plenty left out for the movies, but overall I think they capture the feel of the books pretty well, with the notable exception of GOF. I think that one fel a little short, but each book seems to have packed more and more in, so it’s tough to get the whole thing into a movie.

There are some that are obvious, and some that are not. Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, those are pretty obvious. What do you want, it IS a kid’s book after all.

Yep, Malfoy was well known as a follower of Voldy before his untimely demise, and it’s no surprise that he’s back in the ranks now that Voldy has returned. Dumbledore lilkely already knew.

3

  1. You heard correctly; Snape is a reformed Death Eater.

  2. Ron believed Harry to have found a way to get his name into the GoF despite being underage, and was angry with Harry for not (a) helping him do the same, and (b) telling him how he did it. This all ties in to Ron being jealous of Harry’s fame, which is a theme throughout GoF.

  3. I’d guess Ginny is 13-ish in GoF; it’s her 3rd year at Hogwarts, as I recall, and I believe 11 is the average age to start classes. Ron should’ve been pushing 15 in GoF, since it’s the 4th book (the first being opened by Harry celebrating his 11th birthday).

  4. I’m sure he recognised Lucius, but… I’m not sure if this was covered in the movie, or is in the beginning of the next book, so possible minor Order of the Phoenix spoiler: With the Ministry of Magic denying the report of Voldemort’s return, I’d guess Harry figured it was futile to try to finger Lucius as a Death Eater, especially considering he “reformed” when Voldemort was first defeated, and is now an influential wizard with Ministry connections.
    There’s a lot more background in the books, and several things make more sense. As one might guess, the movies leave out a lot (which makes their inclusion of scenes which never happened even more strange). I’m going to wander off now and try not to recall it’s been several years since I read any of the books, and I’ve only seen the films 1-2 times, yet somehow this sticks in my head better than real history.

4

Yeah, it’s camera tricks.

A list of Minor Slytherin characters on Wikipedia. Most have normal-sounding names.

In the book, when he gets back there’s a scene where the Minister for Magic is refusing to believe Voldemort’s back, and Harry starts shouting the names of people he heard Voldemort refer to - with the Minister providing excuses that they are no longer Death Eaters. Malfoy is one of those names.

5

heh I was only half serious with that question :wink:

Oh, I remembered another question I meant to ask:

12 - What, exactly, is Filch’s job? Groundskeeper? Night watchman? Maintenance man?

Thanks for the other answers :slight_smile:

6

Well, keep in mind that next to a bunch of youngsters, he’s going to look pretty big. And he DOES have a lot of hair, which makes him all the more massive-looking. Imagine my surprise when I was watching the Bond flick Goldeneye, and when Jimbo goes to see the Russian mobster…holy crap! It’s Hagrid!

Well, maybe if Ron hadn’t been so “loquacious”… :smiley:

I humbly submit the bath scene as the most disturbing in the Potter film series to date.

And the crazy part is, they STILL have to trim significant parts of the books. Or should I say, tomes.

Heheheh, yeah. Darth Sidious? Bad guy. Biggs Darklighter? Good guy. Random bit part? Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw.

Seriously. Want…to smack…so bad. The problem is, his dickiness isn’t even nuanced. Okay, okay, we get it, we’re supposed to hate your guts, now STFU already. How is it that he hasn’t been ground to paste by a kid twice his size by now? His entourage is a bunch of spineless wimps anyway.

7

Even more so when you discover that the actress playing Myrtle is not a teenager … she was born in November, 1965 (six months older than me)! I wonder why they made that casting decision. Friend of Rowling? Established actress who really really really wanted to be in a Harry Potter movie? Couldn’t find a teenaged actress who could pull off the role convincingly?

8

Some of the names are just completely absurd.

I mean, Remus Lupin is a Werewolf??? Really??? Wow. I would have never guessed. It’s a shocker is what it is!

At other times, she falls into the AA, BB, CC game, like Severus Snape and the names of the House Founders. Not 100% certain off the top of my head, but it’s like Salazar Slitherin, Helga Hufflepuff, Goddfrey Griffindor and Rowena Ravenclaw.

Thankfully, we didn’t end up with Peter Potter, Wesley Weasley and Dick Dumbledore. :stuck_out_tongue:

9

That’s kinda like Sarah Vowell doing the voice of teenaged Violet in The Incredibles. I mean, she did a pretty good job and all, but…they couldn’t find a younger actor with that sort of intonation? Christina Ricci (Wednesday Addams) wasn’t available?

10

Maybe they knew that the character would show up in later movies and so they picked someone who wouldn’t look any older (seeing as Myrtle is dead)?

11

Yes, camera tricks. One thing we learn in the book GoF, but I think they left out of the movie is that Hagrid is half giant - his father was human, his mother a giant. She’s a bit inconsistent, it seems, in just how tall he is, but it averages out to 8 feet or so.

I don’t think so. The movie skips over a lot of Harry’s less nicey-nice moments. They’re there in the books - he’s not perfect, nor is he quite as passive as he is in the movies. He’s a bit more complex of a character, especially in GoF and the later books.

She’s a year behind the main three in school - her first year was Chamber of Secrets. Harry’s one of the younger in his class (as we find out later when Ron and Hermione can take an age-specific test he can’t), so it’s possible she’s 12 at the time she starts, though 11 is more likely. Ron is one of the older in his class. So they may be “Irish twins” - which would certainly fit in with Rowling’s metaphor for the family as working class Irish Catholics, only the magic equivalent thereof. So by Goblet of Fire, she’d be 13 or 14.

As for your Neville theory - it’s possible. It’s never directly stated, but in the books Ron is quite pissed off at Ginny for being rather too popular with the boys for his taste. While I’d be surprised if they had sex, I would not be at all surprised if they had engaged is some good snogging. (Wait, is snogging sex? I don’t think so, I think it’s “making out”.)

12

Rowling has actually given birthdays for Ron and Ginny on her website. Ron was born in March, and Ginny in August of the following year, so they’re about seventeen months apart, and Ginny is (just barely) 11 when she starts at Hogwarts.

13

She’s 13 – almost exactly one year younger than Harry(her birthday is a couple weeks after Harry’s).

That bit kind of annoyed me, actually, because in the books, Neville is an awful dancer. In the movie, it was pretty obvious to me that Neville had a good time at the dance, but there’s no way that anything happened.

14

Yeah, now that I’ve thought just a bit more about it, the Yule Ball is where Ginny meets Michael Corner, so there’s no way that anything happened between Neville and Ginny.

15

As other people have mentioned, he was indeed a death eater. As I recall, the movie minimized or left out completely a rather dramatic scene where he thrusts his bare left arm (marked with a now-visible-now-that-Voldemort’s-back Dark Mark) out at the minister and yells at him for not believing. Harry witnessed that scene, by the way. Whether or not he’s truely reformed or a double agent is left for future books to sort out.

And the real shame is that they actually leave out some fairly key information. I came out of Prisoner of Azkaban pissed off at the scene in the Shrieking Shack as it left out huge gobs of back story about Sirius, Lupin, Pettigrew, Harry’s parents, and Snape, which is actually pretty important to understanding events and motivations in future movies.

Assuming that it follows the book pretty well, you should be seeing some more of Harry’s many faults in the Order of the Phoenix movie.

Rowling’s less-than-subtle naming strikes again. :slight_smile:

One thing that was, again, not spelled out in the movie but is pretty well noted in the book is that many families have traditions placing them in certain houses, so you probably could have picked out Draco and many other children’s houses before the sorting. But there’s always some surprises out there.

Coming up you’ll learn that Sirius is the Gryffondor white sheep of the Black family, a traditionally dark family like the Malfoys.

It was definitely common knowledge that Lucius was a Death Eater. He escaped prison in the 80’s by claiming to have been under the mind control unforgivable curse (whose name escapes me right now).

16

The Imperius Curse.

17

“no way”? Because she met a different boy there she later dated? Well, now I know who’s never been a 13 year old girl! :smiley:

18

Argus Filch’s title is “Caretaker”, but he does a little of all of the above, plus hall monitor. He is a squib (someone born to a wizarding family who is incapable of doing magic himself), which I don’t recall if the movies mention.

19

Imperius.

20

My favorite part about the last movie is that when Hermione’s crying on the steps, right behind her there’s another, completely unrelated girl making the same kind of scene with her friends around her, too. In other words, welcome to adolescence. :slight_smile: