In Search of the "of the": Social Thread v8.0

I was going to ask this on Twitter, but I need more characters. Can we all agree that the Harry Potter battle scenes felt soft? Decent ending to the series, but doggone if there was almost no peril to their entire confrontation. IMHO, that made the entire battle of Hogwarts feel inconsequential. Thoughts?

 

I was whelmed. I didn't tense up at all the way I do during good action scenes with characters I'm invested in.
Given that the movie clocks in at 2:10, they could've definitely taken 10-20 minutes and really had themselves some more battle. I was honestly expecting it to be equivalent in length to Helm's Deep.

 

I thought the battle surpassed my expectations, but then again they were pretty low to begin with. Having watched the various clips they were releasing, I was pleased to see what were terrifyingly boring "war" scenes work in context and with music. I will say that things seemed to lose steam and fall apart (figuratively and literally) by Voldemort's end. It disappointed me greatly that they ultimately released almost every second of that final showdown in the Harry vs Voldemort featurette, so there was pretty much nothing new.

They also managed to get my hopes up for a brief second and then kick me in the balls and laugh at me as Harry started dialoguing with Voldemort in the middle of the fight, only to have him basically interrupt himself to pull Voldemort over the cliff for no reason. Seriously, Harry saying "you're right, the wand will never answer to you," etc was onto something great. We almost ended up with a final battle and Harry's monologue. It'd be a win-win! But instead we got Harry, with full knowledge that Voldemort is still invincible and he himself is not, deciding to take the former over a cliff. There were three possible outcomes that had to be going through his head:

1. They hit the ground and Harry dies and Voldemort is temporarily vanquished and returns yet again.
2. Nagini is killed while they're falling and they both die.
3. Voldemort does his flying thing and neither of them die.

Outcome 2 I could almost get onboard with. But Harry has cheated death twice by now and it seems rather stupid to take that kind of a risk with no guarantee that Nagini will be killed at that moment. If Voldemort was already mortal, sure, I can see Harry making the sacrifice again. But he wasn't mortal yet, and Harry knew that. Outcome 3 is what we got and brings us back around to "why?"

The final moment in the courtyard seemed less punctuated than it should have been. I was glad to see the Priori Incantatem moment stop once they realized Nagini was dead. I would have taken that moment to do what happened in the book and simply bring it back around to "Avada Kedavra!" "Expelliarmus!" (like in the graveyard) then have a single collision and loud bang, and it's over. Instead they drew it out and had Harry's spell overtake Voldemort's. Okay, cool, now that Voldy is clearly dying, how about Harry nails him with one last spell? No? Okay, he'll dissolve for another minute as we ease into the fact that the fight is over. K.

Other minor things:

-Snape hugging dead Lily was a little much. Our theater laughed. We got it by then, thanks.
-Harry should have at least repaired his phoenix wand before breaking the Elder wand. Also I would have loved his line from the book to close the series: "That wand's more trouble than it's worth. And quite honestly, I've had enough trouble for a lifetime."
-I really didn't like the rendition of the Imperius curse in this film, and neither did anyone sitting around me in the theater.
-The epilogue just caused a lot of laughter. I didn't think it would work going into it though.
-There were probably a few others but whatever...

Overall though, I really enjoyed the film. In retrospect the bulk of the battle could've been a little louder and jarring for my tastes, but I'll take it; again, my expectations were rather low. My final problem was placing VFX credits dead last, even after music and sound. I've noticed that on past Potter films, and it kinda paints WB in a bad light in my eyes as to how much they value the "real wizards" behind these movies. Then there's how many hundreds of them/us who weren't credited at all, but that's an ongoing discussion apart from Harry Potter

 

I liked HP 7.5.

Only thing that the film failed at was the violence. They dumb down a lot of the action, I suppose to keep it at a PG rating. Pretty much all my disappointment can be pointed at that.

That aside, it ended how I expected it to... Not the best adaption of a literal work but certainly the most successful.

 

Of all the overused internet memes, none are more tiresome than Downfall parodies. It seems like every time some remotely newsworthy pop cultural event occurs, someone does a hack job turning the negative opinion of it into Hitler subtitles. It was funny at first, but after you've seen about 7 or 8 versions of it, you just want to kill anyone who posts a link to one, and track down and crucify the person who made it.


However, this recently made video is a shining gem of an exception.

Hitler reacts to Carmageddon.

 

Man I REALLY want to watch that link now after that rant

 

Carmageddon=Y2K

 

Same time next year, the sequel: Carmageddon 2012

 

Carmageddon used to be one of my favorite computer games.

 

Re: Violence in Deathly Hallows pt 2:

One thing that struck me was how muted the foley was. People were being zapped/killed/banished all over the place but the audio didn?t give it the requisite weight. Too much poof and not enough oompf. It was obviously a conscious decision, but an artistic one or one to keep the film?s rating low?

DH pt 1, which I watched a week ago for the first time, was wholly pointless padding. Plot wise it was a muddled mess, I had no idea what the enemy?s goals were or the sense of scale in their takeover. DH pt 2 I had more fun with. OMG Harry actually has a measure of agency in his own story? only took most of a decade.

 

http://www.g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/714659/star-wars-the-old-republic-box-art-and-collectors-edition-leaked/
Rofl at the price tag.

 

Geeks are suckers. Right up there with the price tag on the Complete Saga on Bluray when it first came out.

 

We recorded the Sandstone music today.

Want some?

 

I was working in a cinema when the last film came out, a hell of a lot of people wanted to see a film called "The Black Knight"

 

Holy cow, it's been a while...

 

Dam that was cool....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71YsRO6G7Ks&feature=player_embedded

 

While that was pretty awesome, I didn't see any dams. I declare false advertising!

 

Anyone here upgrade to OSX Lion? And more importantly, any bugs that After Effects/FCP6 users should worry about? One thing I've been worried about is that upgrading maaaaaay delete the Quicktime 7 app, which I'm sure you agree is more useful than Quicktime X, but my worries are just pure speculation.

 

Upgrading to SL doesn't delete QT 7, so I doubt upgrading to Lion will either. Either way, you should be able to redownload and install QT 7 in the unlikely event of a it disappearing.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/905/cpsid_90508.html is a list of Lion compatibility with adobe apps. Should help you.

 

[image=http://l.yimg.com/eb/ymv/us/img/hv/allposters/45/1805535145p.jpg]
They were about seven years too late for that one.

 

Black Knight was hilarious... Just sayin'.

So I'm nearing completion on RvSB (remember that one from years ago? yeah), and throughout touching up roto, I simultaneously worked on another comp where the sabers had motion blur active, with the glows and masks tweaked to accommodate the blur. Really liking the look its giving the sabers, except for the cores getting heavily blurred at times, but which version should I go with? Its not so different looking that its distracting, it just makes them flow better, I think. I'm going to see what I can do about the cores and then post a comparison video to see what you all think.

 

Pics are always helpful.

Re: Potter Problems glad I wasn't the only one who felt "meh" about the battle scenes. Nate, the shot of Snape hugging Lilly was overdone in my eyes as well. We got the idea loooong before then, I thought. One interesting tidbit: I heard comments from those who hadn't read any of the books that said they followed along pretty well. I'm all for films making money and being watchable by anyone...but I thought this film could have pulled off a visual storyline that left non-readers/watchers a bit lost. //$0.02

I keep reaching for the upgrade button and talking myself out of it. Not sure what I'd gain at this point except being forever bound to the app store. Anyone loving/hating it so far?

 

Well not really forever bound, you can still access the system as you could before. But what system are you running. I tried out Lion a few days ago at the store and quite a few of the enhancements I enjoyed rely on the trackpad (or magic mouse to a certain extent). However, I run an iMac with a logitech mouse, so I wouldn't be able to take advantage of some of those features anyway. Unless some of the new features like versions, any side resize, or resume appeal to you, I would stick to what you are running now. However, that is only my opinion. If I used a MBA or MBP on a daily basis I would upgrade as soon as I could.

 

How I started my day: job interview at a video production company that uses FCP7, asking them about FCPX, and enjoying the collective groan and eyeroll.

 

Any time I meet another editor I bring it up. Love the exact same reaction! But then I'll probably meet some new kids in the fall who love FCPX. Not looking forward to that day.