Harry Potter Chapter by Chapter: New Cover Designs

When you are starring in eight freaking movies based on a series of books, you could at least read them. I admire Alan Rickman as an actor, though I *have* seen him give a bad performance..."Quigley Down Under" anyone? Gambon, in his interviews, quite frequently sounds like an ass. Again, this does not preclude him being good in his role. It's just annoying that they don't respect the material enough to take it seriously. They're always telling us their damned political opinions, however. Actors.

 

I agree with your take on Alan Rickman, Ghost. And in answer to your question, I don't think the Potter's moved into the Dumbledore's house, they just kind of gravitated towards Godric's Hollow because it was a well-known wizarding community. I believe there's someplace in Deathly Hallows which mentions this. And I believe it was also confirmed that Slytherin and Voldemort were descended from the Peverell brother who owned the Resurrection Stone, Cadmus, because his Grandfather Marvolo Gaunt had the Stone set into his ring.

There's a lovely family tree on the Harry Potter Wiki, which shows this:

[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/harrypotter/images/thumb/e/e0/Familytree2.jpg/700px-Familytree2.jpg]

 

Gambon had been getting better, but ruined it again for me in the duel with Voldemort at the end of OOTP. Once again he starts shouting, when the book clearly describes DD as keepign his cool until Voldemort possesses Harry.

Again, he doesn't have to read the books, but either he or the director should have a better sense of the character. They've been far wide of the target too many times.

 

If I were whomever pays him, he'd read the damn books. And so would Rickman.

 

I'm pretty certain it was Voldemort who was shouting during the battle. If I remember, Dumbledore did indeed remain calm during the entire battle, and he didn't shout or even speak.

 

I can't remember.

Gambon wasn't very good in POA, but he got better...

 

I thought he was at his best in PoA.

 

That's how it's described in the book. Dumbledore speaks, but in a very calm tone until Harry is possessed. Maybe it's just Gambon's natural voice, but he always seems like he's shouting.

 

I totally agree. In PoA he was just the right mixture of wisdom and excentricity - just like the book Dumbledore. In GOF there was that infamous "shouting at Harry" and in OOTP there was the "Shouldn't you be at class?", which were totally out of character. In HBP he was actually pretty decent, more truthful to the book.

 

Mar, what did you think of the new movie?

 

Since the actors are working to create movies, not the books, that should be their primary goal. They need to know where their characters start and end in the context of the MOVIES, not the books. Since Rowling did give them this arc (which I was not aware of prior to this thread) I see no reason for them having to read the books. I can see how differing details between the two media could muddle their performances.

 

Yes, apart from descriptive phrases indicating in what manner each line of dialogue is spoken, there isn't anything of substance missing from the screenplay compared to the book. Those emotive inflections change from take to take anyway, and are generally chosen by the editor, under the guidance of the director of course, as to which particular emotion to reveal to the audience. That aside, the character, ideally, should have made a smooth transition from book to script... IF the screenwriter has kept the character intact. But what has occurred here is that Dumbledore has been written, by Kloves and Goldman(berg?) both, as rather more human, weaker, less sure of himself.

Gambon, for his part, seems to have interpreted this change as frustrating and leading to anger. This shift from the more confident, didactic and knowledgeable Dumbledore of the books has spanned several directors and at least two writers. So I think the heart of the problem here, if there is one, is that at the top levels of this production, someone -- David Heyman, perhaps -- has decided to approach the character as a little more error-prone, a little less perfect. To my mind this makes him more human, and therefore more interesting and more realistic. Others heartily object. Either way it's in line, ultimately, with the Dumbledore we come to know after his death, revealed in the early chapters of DH: a man who did make mistakes of both judgement and action. In the books this comes as something of a surprise, but the producers appear to have decided to lay the groundwork earlier in the series, just as they've done with the Ron-Hermione romance.

IOW, the filmmakers have sprinkled indications of Dumbledore's imperfect-ness throughout the films, coinciding with Gambon's start in the series, rather than waiting to reveal his imperfect-ness all at once in DH, and running the risk of it seeming unbelievable and out-of-character to the audience. Some fans have a problem with this shift, but I for one rather enjoy it. When I read the books now, I see and hear no one but Gambon as DD, and I like it that way.

 

I went to see it with little expectations and was neither disappointed nor pleasantly surprised. It was average - not the best, not the worst HP film. But while there were some really good scenes, I thought overall it was too... what would be a good word to describe it... disjointed? It really felt like a bunch of only loosely related sequences thrown together. It wasn't consistent.

The attack on the Burrow, for example, was completely pointless, there was no reason for it, and what's worse, it left no impact afterwards. They should've done the battle between Death Eaters and Aurors instead.

Good things:

+ Draco. Tom Felton was brilliant here, he really shone out and it was definitely the best "child actor" (I realise they're no longer children, but you know what I mean) performance. Period.
+ Ron. With each film I'm more and more convinced that Rupert Grint is the best actor from the trio and has a really good potential to become a great comedian. The scenes where he's under the influence of the love potion were simply hilarious, how he sat staring at the Moon with that stupid grin on his face.
+ The finale at the Astronomy tower. Almost exactly as I imagined it while reading the book. All three main participants, Dumbledore, Draco and Snape, were spot on.
+ Quidditch! At last!
+ The Pensieve scenes with little Voldy. Such a creepy kid. Loved him!
+ Hermione was actually quite decent in this one... Loved her Oppugno.
+ Nice touch with showing the kidnapping of Mr. Ollivander.

Bad things:

- Ginny. Very unlucky casting all those years ago, as she totally DIDN'T grow up into that attractive girl described in the books. She seemed flat and her scenes with Harry had no chemistry. The shoestring scene was really stupid and, call me dirty, but to me it seriously alluded to a blow job...
- I HATE how the filmmakers always try to push Harry-Hermione forward!
- Harry in a Muggle cafe? Reading the Daily Prophet?? Flirting with a Muggle waitress a month after Sirius' death??? Meeting Dumbledore in the freakin' Underground???? WT*????!!!!
- The non-existent battle between Death Eaters and Aurors at the end. What's the point of all those Death Eaters present if the only thing they did was to set fire to Hagrid's cottage?
- Snape not losing it when Harry called him a coward. It should've been there. That's the whole point of Snape's character - he's always cool and calm, but he only loses it when it's about Lily and his sacrifice to her memory. It felt really undramatic in the film. A big wasted moment. Shame.
- No Bill.
- No Dumbledore's explanation to the Dursleys.
- No Prime Minister scene (I always hoped they'd get Tony Blair to do it, it would've been brilliant! ).
- Narcissa Malfoy. My God, was she ugly. And her costume absolutely dreadful.
- The scene in the hospital wing where Lavender (who overacted most of the film, BTW) moans to Ron and has a jealous fit at Hermione, while all the teachers politely stand and watch in the background. A really bad scene set-up and really embarrassing to watch.
- Why didn't Dumbledore talk to Harry which objects might be the other Horcruxes? This way, he left Harry totally in the dark and without any clue where to start. In the books at least he had an idea which objects to look for (the locket, Nagini, and something from Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff).
- The Inferi were like an army of Gollums. And when one of them pulled Harry into the water, it was totally like the Dead Marshes in LOTR. I also expected Dumbledore to shout "You shall not pass!" when wielding the flame...

I think that's all...

EDIT: On a second thought, I'd better put it under black highlight, just in case...

 

Thanks, Mar. I think that pretty much settles it -- wait for the DVD for me. If for no other reason than I don't want to subject anyone, whether friends, family or perfect strangers, to having to sit next to me while I complain for 2.5 hours.

 

I would've gone to the cinema to see the film (it's that kind of a film that looks good on a huge screen with surround sound), but there is no original soundtrack copy available in Slovakia - they're all dubbed, and I refuse to see it with dubbing (and not just because Slovak dubbing usually sucks). Heck, the nearest original copy of the film is probably in Prague, and that's a bit too long a trip to take just because of a Harry Potter film. I'm not that big of a maniac.

So I settled for a downloaded cammed version instead. Quality nothing much, but I got the picture.

 

The art direction was great and I liked the lil Voldies and Slughorn. But 'average' is a fair description.

 

I never realized how much in-breeding and cousin-marrying was going on. It makes a lot of the story seem like one big family feud. It makes Phineas Nigellus' moaning about losing his family seem like a bit of an overreaction. Sure, his name is gone, but he's directly related to every leading family of the succeeding generation. It helps to explain why there are so many shacking up with muggles, since not everyone will be willing to bed their own cousin.


Even though HBP turned into a remarkably mediocre film, it is at least a huge improvement over OOTP. I now have some hope that Yates will be able to do DH. The technical production quality has also, thankfully, returned to GoF quality. The editor and sound department got their stuff together again, after the long vacation that they all seemed to have taken during OOTP post-production.

 

"GOF quality"? I thought it the worst of the adaptations by far.

 

I re-watched GOF the other day and I think the one really good thing about it was that it perfectly captured the "British boarding school" atmosphere. Because that's a big part of the charm of HP books - that they're in essence boarding school stories, with some magic thrown in. It was there in POA and even more in GOF. It wasn't there in OOTP, which is very annoying, since in OOTP there was supposed to be this huge anarchy movement against Umbridge.

In all other aspects, GOF pretty much failed (wait, no, Voldy's rebirth was a pretty cool moment, too). But the perfectly captured school atmosphere was its one big redeeming factor.

 

I agree. By the end of the book, Hogwarts is in total chaos and Umbridge finds her self the target of a student revolt, which has been brewing behind the scenes for the entire book and finally explodes in the last 100 pages. I was also disappointed with the DOM sequence. The battle between the DA, the Order and the Death Eaters could have been a great set piece action sequence and all we got was the very beginning and the very end, although the Voldemort/Dumbledore duel was very well done.

 

Yeah. OOTP overall seemed very rushed - which is understandable, considering that it's the longest and probably the most action-packed and most complex (in terms of the number of subplots) book of the seven. They're finally splitting the seventh book into two films - I would've done the same for OOTP. Two two-hour long films would allow all the important subplots to develop and conclude properly.

 

Either that, or they should have bitten the bullet and made a three hour movie. Over all, I like where Yates is taking the franchise, though. He's gradually moved the films away from being a series about little kids running around with wands and broonsticks, to being a dark, supernatural drama.

 

It's not the longest book; and I would have liked all the subplots.

 

Err, it IS the longest book, IIRC...

 

Ya in the us editions its like a hundred pages longer than any of the others.. and it uses noticeably smaller print.