Harry Potter, finally
Dec. 31st, 2005 04:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
womzillanellorat and supergee and I were both so busy before the holidays that we didn't have a chance to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We finally did on our last day together in Michigan.
Earlier, my sister had told me that she utterly hated it. Here's a letter I just sent to her about my reactions.
We saw it over the vacation. I liked it, overall, but I can easily see why one wouldn't. It's very disjointed, especially at the beginning--I wouldn't have been able to follow the sequence of events at the Quiddich World Cup if I hadn't read the book. A lot of the most interesting material is covered in a very perfunctory manner, especially the stuff with Minister Crouch and his son, which worked a lot better in the novel because Crouch was more than a walk-on. It's almost impossible to make the connection, in the movie, between the younger Crouch's torture of Neville's parents during the first war against Voldemort and his deliberate tormenting of Neville in the Dark Arts class by forcing him to watch the scorpion suffering the Cruciatus. Likewise, at the end, it's hard to follow the reversals, and the explanation of why the ghosts of Harry's parents conveniently show up to save him.
Most of what is left in the film is a) the three "test" sequences, only the first two of which are any good, and even the mermen sequence seems abbreviated and b) a lot of junior high romantic nonsense. I mean, my favorite scene in the entire film is the study hall sequence where Harry and Ron discuss the impossibility of actually asking a girl to the ball (the one which has Snape hitting them on the back of the heads repeatedly). It's funny nonsense, but it's pretty slight.
More than in any of the previous films--and for that matter, more than in any of the other novels before or since--the female characters are mechanized, put into positions of being playing pieces for the boys to move around. The underwater trial sequence, in fact, literalizes this, making Hermione, Cho, and Gabrielle (Fleur's sister) into actual prizes, along with Ron. Hermione in the other stories is at least the equal of Ron, sharing second fiddle behind Harry, but here she's almost completely passive. Completely dropped from the movie is a subplot where Hermione tries to start a liberation movement for the house elves; but this was so clumsy in the novel that it's just as well that it was left out.
So, as I said, I can see why you disliked it. I thought the good parts, backed by the emotional or narrative glue of the novel, made it overall into a good film, but I'm disappointed that it wasn't much better.
On a related note, I'm disappointed that no one seems to have written the HP/Fafblog crossover fanfic Harry Potter and the Giblets of Fire. Bow before Voldemort! BOW!
Earlier, my sister had told me that she utterly hated it. Here's a letter I just sent to her about my reactions.
We saw it over the vacation. I liked it, overall, but I can easily see why one wouldn't. It's very disjointed, especially at the beginning--I wouldn't have been able to follow the sequence of events at the Quiddich World Cup if I hadn't read the book. A lot of the most interesting material is covered in a very perfunctory manner, especially the stuff with Minister Crouch and his son, which worked a lot better in the novel because Crouch was more than a walk-on. It's almost impossible to make the connection, in the movie, between the younger Crouch's torture of Neville's parents during the first war against Voldemort and his deliberate tormenting of Neville in the Dark Arts class by forcing him to watch the scorpion suffering the Cruciatus. Likewise, at the end, it's hard to follow the reversals, and the explanation of why the ghosts of Harry's parents conveniently show up to save him.
Most of what is left in the film is a) the three "test" sequences, only the first two of which are any good, and even the mermen sequence seems abbreviated and b) a lot of junior high romantic nonsense. I mean, my favorite scene in the entire film is the study hall sequence where Harry and Ron discuss the impossibility of actually asking a girl to the ball (the one which has Snape hitting them on the back of the heads repeatedly). It's funny nonsense, but it's pretty slight.
More than in any of the previous films--and for that matter, more than in any of the other novels before or since--the female characters are mechanized, put into positions of being playing pieces for the boys to move around. The underwater trial sequence, in fact, literalizes this, making Hermione, Cho, and Gabrielle (Fleur's sister) into actual prizes, along with Ron. Hermione in the other stories is at least the equal of Ron, sharing second fiddle behind Harry, but here she's almost completely passive. Completely dropped from the movie is a subplot where Hermione tries to start a liberation movement for the house elves; but this was so clumsy in the novel that it's just as well that it was left out.
So, as I said, I can see why you disliked it. I thought the good parts, backed by the emotional or narrative glue of the novel, made it overall into a good film, but I'm disappointed that it wasn't much better.
On a related note, I'm disappointed that no one seems to have written the HP/Fafblog crossover fanfic Harry Potter and the Giblets of Fire. Bow before Voldemort! BOW!
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Date: 2006-01-03 03:45 am (UTC)Actually, I just plain didn't like Dumbledore in this movie. I didn't have a problem with him in the third movie, though I know others did, so I don't know how much is actor, how much direction, and how much specific expectations I had of differing books.