New icon, errands, and Harry Potter
Nov. 27th, 2005 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperOne of these days I think I shall have to upgrade my number of userpics, because it's starting to get harder to choose which ones to swap out when I make a new one! I just finally whipped together an icon for book posts, based on an Arwen base by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
underdark_icons:
(The text says "girl just needs a good book".)
In the meantime, I went down withsolarbird to run assorted errands this afternoon, picking up groceries and Christmas lights and such. It's been an otherwise uneventful afternoon.
Yesterday was somewhat more eventful, as Dara,spazzkat, and I went to go meet mamishka, darthhellokitty, kingchiron, and one other person I don't think I know to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the Cinerama downtown. Picoreview: I liked it well enough, and there were one or two bits that were genuinely creepy, which is in keeping with the story getting darker and more complex as its target audience gets older. I have a quibble with the ending, though.
There's a particular plot point at the end of this movie that felt totally inadequately explained to Dara and me: i.e., Harry telling everybody that Voldemort is back, and especially that Lucius Malfoy was among his followers in the graveyard. Those in our crowd who have read the books explained that in the book, Harry is telling people right and left about this and he is not believed. That, in fact, the Ministry of Magic makes a huge point of covering it up. In the movie this is only briefly alluded to, where Dumbledore tells the students that the Ministry doesn't want them to reveal that Cedric Diggory was murdered by Voldemort. We don't see Harry blowing the whistle on Lucius at all, whether to Dumbledore or whoever. We don't see any sign at all that anyone outside Hogwarts does not believe what happened to Harry. And these things seem just too damned important to leave out of the movie adaptation. If nothing else, I would have liked to see two or three lines between Harry and Dumbledore about it--just enough to show the audience that Harry tried to tell him this vital piece of information, and Dumbledore warning him that it would have to be handled with the utmost discretion, and to ask him to trust him and the other adult wizards to pursue it on the sly. Something. Anything. That way, seeing Harry try to go along with the upbeat spirits of everyone else at the end, but perhaps with a camera shot or two on him looking solemn and worried when no one else is looking, could have been cool.
The point was raised in our group that perhaps the moviemakers were assuming that everyone has already read the book and would just understand what's going on. I hope that isn't actually the case, because if it is, I think that's a cop-out. I would not have liked Joss Whedon saying "oh, you have to have watched the Firefly episodes to understand Serenity", for example. The Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies would have been much diminished if they had not stood coherently together on their own, and required viewers to go and read Tolkien to understand what happened. Sure, go and read the source material to enhance the movie experience. I'm all for that. But you shouldn't have to do so in order to actually understand fundamental plot points of a movie's storyline.
But just for the sake of talking about what I did like--I really liked the bit where Snape kept whapping Harry and Ron upside the head while they were trying to talk about getting dates for the dance during class. The first camera shot of Hermione, Ron, the Chinese girl Harry was crushing on (I didn't catch her name), and the French girl's little sister under the lake--genuinely creepy. The shots of Voldemort's followers in the graveyard--also genuinely creepy. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, two thumbs up. The attack on the Quidditch World Cup--actually a little frightening. And Harry coming back with Cedric's dead body--very high-impact and emotional. I actually started tearing up.
There's lots of goodness all over the movie, in fact. Goblet of Fire holds together very well on its own up until the very end, so it's kind of irksome that it does fall apart in those final few minutes. Like Dara, I think this makes this movie a less coherent work than Prisoner of Azkaban, which remains my favorite of the movies to date.
Sunday miles: 2.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 514.1
Miles out of Rivendell: 56.1
Miles to Lothlórien: 405.9
underdark_icons:(The text says "girl just needs a good book".)
In the meantime, I went down with
solarbird to run assorted errands this afternoon, picking up groceries and Christmas lights and such. It's been an otherwise uneventful afternoon.Yesterday was somewhat more eventful, as Dara,
spazzkat, and I went to go meet mamishka, darthhellokitty, kingchiron, and one other person I don't think I know to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the Cinerama downtown. Picoreview: I liked it well enough, and there were one or two bits that were genuinely creepy, which is in keeping with the story getting darker and more complex as its target audience gets older. I have a quibble with the ending, though.There's a particular plot point at the end of this movie that felt totally inadequately explained to Dara and me: i.e., Harry telling everybody that Voldemort is back, and especially that Lucius Malfoy was among his followers in the graveyard. Those in our crowd who have read the books explained that in the book, Harry is telling people right and left about this and he is not believed. That, in fact, the Ministry of Magic makes a huge point of covering it up. In the movie this is only briefly alluded to, where Dumbledore tells the students that the Ministry doesn't want them to reveal that Cedric Diggory was murdered by Voldemort. We don't see Harry blowing the whistle on Lucius at all, whether to Dumbledore or whoever. We don't see any sign at all that anyone outside Hogwarts does not believe what happened to Harry. And these things seem just too damned important to leave out of the movie adaptation. If nothing else, I would have liked to see two or three lines between Harry and Dumbledore about it--just enough to show the audience that Harry tried to tell him this vital piece of information, and Dumbledore warning him that it would have to be handled with the utmost discretion, and to ask him to trust him and the other adult wizards to pursue it on the sly. Something. Anything. That way, seeing Harry try to go along with the upbeat spirits of everyone else at the end, but perhaps with a camera shot or two on him looking solemn and worried when no one else is looking, could have been cool.
The point was raised in our group that perhaps the moviemakers were assuming that everyone has already read the book and would just understand what's going on. I hope that isn't actually the case, because if it is, I think that's a cop-out. I would not have liked Joss Whedon saying "oh, you have to have watched the Firefly episodes to understand Serenity", for example. The Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies would have been much diminished if they had not stood coherently together on their own, and required viewers to go and read Tolkien to understand what happened. Sure, go and read the source material to enhance the movie experience. I'm all for that. But you shouldn't have to do so in order to actually understand fundamental plot points of a movie's storyline.
But just for the sake of talking about what I did like--I really liked the bit where Snape kept whapping Harry and Ron upside the head while they were trying to talk about getting dates for the dance during class. The first camera shot of Hermione, Ron, the Chinese girl Harry was crushing on (I didn't catch her name), and the French girl's little sister under the lake--genuinely creepy. The shots of Voldemort's followers in the graveyard--also genuinely creepy. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, two thumbs up. The attack on the Quidditch World Cup--actually a little frightening. And Harry coming back with Cedric's dead body--very high-impact and emotional. I actually started tearing up.
There's lots of goodness all over the movie, in fact. Goblet of Fire holds together very well on its own up until the very end, so it's kind of irksome that it does fall apart in those final few minutes. Like Dara, I think this makes this movie a less coherent work than Prisoner of Azkaban, which remains my favorite of the movies to date.
Sunday miles: 2.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 514.1
Miles out of Rivendell: 56.1
Miles to Lothlórien: 405.9