Posted in media madness
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i heartily admit it...i am a book purist!
no, really i am, and i have trained Big J well in this regard. I really thought that we were going to be kicked out of the theater Saturday, but we were sitting among other disgruntled book purists in the front row (where ELSE would a 17 yr old boy who eats 3.5 lb hamburgers want to sit?) I cannot be happy with any interpretation of a book, no matter how well it's done. Even my all time favorite novel, Gone With The Wind is subject to Big J and I tearing the movie apart (after the first viewing). I can barely tolerate biblical movies as the gross discrepancies far outweigh any of the actual biblical text (like when Gregory Peck, as King David, has stars of David all over his clothing...but i'm digressing....)
so, with that in mind, here's my review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...if you are not a Harry fan, feel free to enjoy my other non-Harry posts
Firstly, i did read the sceene-by-scene review on MuggleNet because i needed to know what not to expect...and i wasn't disppointed
the GOOD things, because, yes, if you completely divorce yourself from the fact that this is the pivotal book in the series, and that there actually IS a book, then it's not too bad...
you have the wonderful Rupert Grint, who as Ron Weasly, almost steals the movie! You can really see the struggle that he has being the best friend of "The Boy Who Lived"...poor Ron, who is practically invisible at home, who resents being poor, has to compete with Harry's fame. Here his best friend is picked for this contest, and until the first task, really gets his anger to boil...then after they make up, (you fans know the details) he just gets better with the whole being jelous of Hermione, etc, etc, etc...of the Trio, i really thingk he is soooo embodies Ron, and could possibly be the most talented, and that says alot!
Brendan Gleason as Mad Eye Moody was a hoot! Another great casting choice. Although they messed with the actual storyline, he really portrays the mania of Barty Crouch Jr to a tee...if i were going to see Order of the Pheonix, it would be a treat to see how he portrays the REAL Moody
special effects...they get better with each movie, and the especially hard things that JK Rowling portrays in the books, like PortKeys, the Pensieve, dragons, and other magical creatures, the rebirth (see below for the negatives on this) were really great...i enjoyed all of it
unfortunately, the BAD outweighs the good, once again in the series
*SIGH*
Dumbledore...the character who is Harry's mentor, almost uncle/grandfatherly so in the books is a screaming demented loon in the movie... i HATE him in the movies (well, ever since Michael Gambolin has played him) He is so UN-Dumbledore, it takes a huge stretch to believe that this is our beloved headmaster...along with a new director, they should get a new Dumbledore
Harry...poor Harry...they didn'y really let him have his scene, which the whole book leads up to, which is 3 whole chapters in the book, they reduced to under 7 minute...there was plenty of other stuff that they could have deleeted from the movie in order to do justice to the Rebirthing and Dueling scenes. Did we really need 5 minutes of dancing classes that weren't even in the book, and Hargid's roaming hands while dancing with Madame Maxime???????????
time....waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy to rushed...i can't even begin to complain about that one.
Sirius Black...yes, the perfect thing to do when writing to someone who is hiding from the Ministry of Magic is to send your snowy white owl with a CLEARLY MARKED letter...very brilliant. and NOT IN THE BOOK!!!! And speaking of the book, this book is where, although Sirius doesn't appear actually till the ending, is where you really establish that Harry and Sirius are bonding into their relationship...good luck explaining that one in the Order, which i won't see
overall, the Rebirthing Ceremony lacked much, much MUCH of the absolute horror that is portrayed in the book. Can someone REALLY cut off their hand without so much as a whimper????????????????????????????????????? Did you really feel Harry's complete devastation when Cedric is AK'ed? While the effects of the rebirth were rather cool, the whole scene was too short and lacked the intense horror that it should have had...this is VOLDERMORT...the most terrible awful, feared wizard of all time!!!!!!! This is the equivelant of (dare i say) Satan himself rising in bodily form...why didn't it seem that way? Would his followers really mouth off to him the way Malfoy does (another brilliant actor in a potentially great role, i forget his name) Ralph Finnes, who could be sooooooo incredibly terrifying, and who did a decent job of the same sort of mania that Brendan Gleason portrayed, should have been allowed to stretch just a tad more into terrifying...
the Duel...the crux of the story, the topping on the terror...what happened??????????????????????????? Again, aside from effects, this lacked the importance, the horror, the terror...really now, Harry didn't even FLINCH when his parents come out of the wand????? the whole extremely important event was far too rushed to do it the sort of justice it deserved...i'm really beginning to think that the whole series WOULD have been better as a cartoon
WAIT!!! there's more!
returning to Hogwarts with dead Ced....poor Daniel...his big emotional event in the whole story so far, and all he got to do was cry over Ced for 2.6 seconds, then was dragged away by MadEye...no warning from Dumbledore to stay, no confusion, no nothing....except for Cedric's dad, and i was expecting to bawl like i do when i read it...oh well.
and there is also the complete underuse of all the key characters that make Harry's life at Hogwarts so interesting, especially dear Professor Snape, portrayed by Alan Rickman, who will hopefully stay on as he is excellent as Snape when ALLOWED to be Snape and not some side character...Maggie Smith as Profesor McGonnagall is great, even in the silly dance class scene...Hagrid, what the heck??????? another imnportant character relegated to a back burner, and not a good one at that....what WAS that dance thing with Madame Maxime (who should be the SAME height as Hagrid)
all in all, the screenwriters and producers and dircetors of these movies are moving in the dangerous direction of FAN FICTION instead of book canon...playing up a relationship between Ron/Hermione, making Dumbledore an idiot instead of the brilliant wizard he is, making Snape laughable and not evil, etc. No wonder we haven't seen or heard from JK Rowling in a while...she isn't writing the last book, she is hiding from irate fans everywhere who see what Hollywood is doing to her beloved books...turning them into rubbish fit for the bin, and nothing more. The WB executive who had JKR sign that contract to adapt the books into movies must be laughing out loud. No, i don't feel sorry for JKR so far as finacial gain goes...she herself has said she has more than what she could ever need and doesn't even know what to do with it all. No, they are taking her dream, her ideal and twisting it into something other than what she intended. Okay, can i really state that. Yes, because it's clear to anyone who actually READS her books to see what she intends. And it's a far cry from what the WB people intend.
i really have alot more to argue about, so i would invite anyone who would enjoy the banter to come and join my Harry discussion group, which is listed on my sidebar...please let me know that tyou are from HSB for approval...i have had some very negative experiances discussing Harry with others, which is why it must be approved. Please do not come by to spout the "evils" of Harry...i clearly disagree |
...
WHAT was that anyway....but, the crux of the story, the pivot point of the series, is almost made to be less than what it is...and with it, Harry's huge part in the storyline and his growing hatered of Dark Wizards, Dark Arts and Voldermort...he just didn't seem to be "Harry" and that has nothing to do with Daniel Radcliff's portrayal of him...Daniel is a tremendous young actor who will forever be typecast as Harry, so they should at least let him do the full range of emotion that JK Rowling has written for him (I will rant about her in a moment, i promise)
(okay, yes, he is my favorite character and both Big J and I thought that the actor who was playing Karkaroff would have made a much better Sirius that Gary Oldman...but that's a HUGE digression, sorry)
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