First half is shamefully old, but I've finally completed a two-part Goblet of Fire movie recap at my lj, if anyone's interested. Part One and Part Two.
I wasn't sure whether to comment here or at your original post. Oh, well, here goes.
/LUDO BAGMAN WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF CANON/
And yet after GOF, he never shows up again. I wonder if the filmmakers of POA would've bothered to include Crookshanks if they'd known that he was going to lose all relevance and ultimately disappear after POA.
/I guess because there’s no SPEW/
Yeah, that was another omission that annoyed fans, but seriously, it's another plot thread that goes nowhere. And they cut Winky, and Dobby only shows up again in the DH movie, so what would've been the point of including SPEW?
/Fred and George really are two of the most fanonised characters in these films/
I never realized that, but it's true. Probably because all of the awful things that they do in the books are omitted: no choking Dudley, no Montague, no bullying of Ron, no hissing at first-years, etc.
/He’s picked the whole ‘Lucius is a shitty dad’ thing (this time poking Draco in the stomach with his cane for boasting about sitting in the Minister’s box) and dammit he’s sticking to it/
*snorts* Some fans have blamed Jason Isaacs for the large amount of Abusive!Lucius in fanfiction, but honestly, I think that the idea came before the movies.
/there’s the beginning of the game and a shot of Krum, then a cut to the aftermath/
Yeah, they didn't even bother to show the match itself. It just ended very abruptly as soon as it began. In fact, I wonder if the overly long dragon chase in the first task was supposed to make up for it or not.
/Movie!R/Hr is not strong, especially compared to H/Hr/
Honestly, I think that a large part of that is Steve Kloves. He really comes off like a H/Hr shipper and it shows. In the HBP movie, Dumbledore just had to say that he noticed Harry spending a lot of time with Hermione and then by the end of the movie, when Harry is talking about the RAB locket, he and Hermione are sitting close together while Ron is conspicuously sitting away as if he's a bystander eavesdropping on their conversation.
I know that Ron was increasingly dumbed down and shut out more and more in the books themselves as the series went on, but Kloves definitely didn't help matters.
/There’s a charming shot of the ‘lovely ladies’/
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if someone involved in the production and writing had a musical theatre background. The contrast between Durmstrang's entrance and Beauxbatons' reminds me of opera, with each character having their own leitmotif. I think the reason why they're portrayed as single-sex schools is to simplify and further emphasize their leitmotifs: Beauxbatons is light and airy, while Durmstrang is thunderous and intense.
/I liked an interview I saw with the actress playing Fleur, where she was saying how the character was pretty much the British stereotype of a French girl/
The funny thing is that I've seen Clemence Poesy in interviews too and learned that she can speak English very well with a much lighter accent, which means that the accent that she had in the film was deliberately stereotypical.
Yeah, I kinda feel for the filmmakers in that I think even having JKR to consult probably wasn't much help, like she literally seems to make shit up on the fly, so it's not like if you said 'Do we really, really need to keep in elves/Crookshanks/Ludo?' that she'd say, she might have a headcanon that they were in the last battle too or something.
And yet after GOF, he never shows up again. I wonder if the filmmakers of POA would've bothered to include Crookshanks if they'd known that he was going to lose all relevance and ultimately disappear after POA.
PAH. Don't get me started on PoA. The screenwriter and director surely had no problem omitting the heck out of materials important to THIS book and the two books before it. The Shrieking Shack confrontation was down to like three minutes in total. Seriously?
Yes, the Entry of the Women’s Chorus (Beauxbatons) and the Entry of the Men’s Chorus (Durmstrang) was straight out of Gilbert and Sullivan. I haven’t decided if it’s more like the Rapturous Maidens/Heavy Dragoons in Patience or the Fairies/House of Peers in Iolanthe.
I know it warps canon since neither school was supposed to be single-sex, but it had no effect on the story, since all the important characters from Beauxbatons are female and all the important characters from Durmstrang are male. Personally I don’t mind the change, mainly because I’m a big opera fan—especially Gilbert and Sullivan. I got a kick out of seeing a miniature production number slipped into a Potter flick.
/I love how much Michael Gambon’s yelling offended fandom as a whole/
Well, that and grabbing Harry like a maniac. I think that's one of the reasons why many fans preferred Richard Harris.
/A terrifying monster vaguely resembling the terrifying monster Gary Oldman appears/
Yeah, if this was all they could do with Sirius, they might as well have cut him out.
/Moody’s line about Draco’s hair being greasy seems to be several films out of date/
I noticed that too! I was thinking, "Wait, what are you talking about? He ditched his slicked back hair in the third film."
/Apparently wizards don’t have to! So glad JKR shared that with us/
*groans* WHY. Why did anyone feel the need to ask that? Why did she feel the need to answer that? WHY?
/Ron appears to have adopted a manservant/
Yes, what exactly was the point of Nigel?
/the boys hate dancing, the girls are thrilled/
Just like the girls are the only ones who excitedly approach the cauldron of Love Potion in the HBP movie. -_-
/girls only love guys who ignore them/
Unless you're James Potter, who bullies his future wife's supposed 'best friend' right in front of her.
/Barty Crouch Sr. was ‘never whole again after losing his family/
Both Crouches were flattened here. Barty Crouch Jr. was always crazy and Barty Crouch Sr. was just a poor, normal father who was horrified by his son.
/your classic dumb blonde, he takes off his Death Eater mask before role call/
And lets his hair hang loose (gee, I wonder who the Death Eater with the long blond hair is?).
/calls Harry a ‘handsome boy’ (so I guess there was a precursor to the awkward hug in DH….?)/
Actually, that was Cedric. Or did he call Harry handsome too? Yeah, I don't know what they were trying to do with Voldemort. First, he randomly nudges Cedric's face with his foot and remarks that he's handsome here, and then he randomly hugs Draco in DH.
/Why is Dumbledore showing Harry’s arm off like a dope tatt?/
I thought that was weird too: why is Dumbledore suddenly grabbing Harry's arm and brandishing it to Barty? I don't know why Dumbledore is so grabby in this movie.
/Heh, I kind of love the alternate canon that Crouch Jr. is still alive/
And so is Peter. The DH movie didn't include the silver hand scene, so as far as the audience is concerned, Peter just vanished along with Barty. And Crookshanks.
Just like the girls are the only ones who excitedly approach the cauldron of Love Potion in the HBP movie. -_-
I thought it was fascinating Fantastic Beasts 2 continued the 'ladies have to ply/spell/rape men into being around them' theme, she's really fixated on that. Probably because she's not that interested in female characters, she's like 'Why WOULD a guy want a woman?', hence why all her fave female characters are uninterested in friendship with other girls (unless they can form a Man-Getting Alliance, lol.)
And so is Peter.
LOL, good for him, tbh. I hope he lives a happy, ratty life, the silver hand scene in DH was so thrown-away JKR's probably forgot it herself.
All in all, I honestly cannot rewatch this film. I'd rather watch something that has the mystery and unraveling of mystery written well, like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
...now I need to watch Tinker Tailor again. Or re-read the book. Some sentences have stuck in my mind for years, like "and he was soaked to the skin, and God as punishment had removed all the taxis from the face of London." Such a perfect description of one of those ordinary rotten-luck nights we all have sometimes. And it's amazing how much drama Le Carre wrings out of what ought to be dull paperwork. Who knew looking through message logs and shipping manifests could be so tense? Now that is skilled writing!
Famously, if you want the swashbuckling unrealistic British spy stories, you read Ian Fleming or watch the movies; if you want more realistic British spy work but no less exciting, you go for some John le Carre. :)
The 2011 film is great, but if they shaved down the story any more in the adaptation, it would collapse. xD As it was, the adaptation was good and just from watching the movie you wouldn't suspect anything was gone from the book.
There was also a BBS miniseries adaptation back in 1979 starring Sir Alec Guinness as George Smiley, a much more frog-like Smiley as envisioned by le Carre, lol. And the actor who played Peter Guillem in that is also the narrator for the audiobook which can be found on Youtube.
I remember seeing a bit of a documentary somewhere about Sir Alec preparing for the scene where they catch the mole. One of the other people involved in the production walked in on him just, like, stroking the gun and talking to it about who the mole might be, as if he were Smiley worrying about the fallout once they knew for sure. "Oh, I hope it isn't..." I loved that image.
Extremely late here, but as an amateur artist and theatre buff, I have to say I disliked Hermione’s pink dress not because it’s ‘girly,’ or because it’s ‘non-canon,’ but because it clashed horribly with Krum’s bright red uniform. Periwinkle blue would have made a much prettier picture of our homecoming princess dancing with her sports hero. The costumier who designed Hermione’s dress and the costumier who designed the Durmstrang uniforms obviously did not communicate.
In-universe, of course, Hermione would have bought her dress in advance without knowing what her partner would wear, nor—being Hermione—would she have cared. But costume designers are supposed to think about what the entire picture looks like.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-03-20 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-20 09:29 pm (UTC)Comments on GOF Movie Sporking Part 1
Date: 2019-03-25 08:44 pm (UTC)/LUDO BAGMAN WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF CANON/
And yet after GOF, he never shows up again. I wonder if the filmmakers of POA would've bothered to include Crookshanks if they'd known that he was going to lose all relevance and ultimately disappear after POA.
/I guess because there’s no SPEW/
Yeah, that was another omission that annoyed fans, but seriously, it's another plot thread that goes nowhere. And they cut Winky, and Dobby only shows up again in the DH movie, so what would've been the point of including SPEW?
/Fred and George really are two of the most fanonised characters in these films/
I never realized that, but it's true. Probably because all of the awful things that they do in the books are omitted: no choking Dudley, no Montague, no bullying of Ron, no hissing at first-years, etc.
/He’s picked the whole ‘Lucius is a shitty dad’ thing (this time poking Draco in the stomach with his cane for boasting about sitting in the Minister’s box) and dammit he’s sticking to it/
*snorts* Some fans have blamed Jason Isaacs for the large amount of Abusive!Lucius in fanfiction, but honestly, I think that the idea came before the movies.
/there’s the beginning of the game and a shot of Krum, then a cut to the aftermath/
Yeah, they didn't even bother to show the match itself. It just ended very abruptly as soon as it began. In fact, I wonder if the overly long dragon chase in the first task was supposed to make up for it or not.
/Movie!R/Hr is not strong, especially compared to H/Hr/
Honestly, I think that a large part of that is Steve Kloves. He really comes off like a H/Hr shipper and it shows. In the HBP movie, Dumbledore just had to say that he noticed Harry spending a lot of time with Hermione and then by the end of the movie, when Harry is talking about the RAB locket, he and Hermione are sitting close together while Ron is conspicuously sitting away as if he's a bystander eavesdropping on their conversation.
I know that Ron was increasingly dumbed down and shut out more and more in the books themselves as the series went on, but Kloves definitely didn't help matters.
/There’s a charming shot of the ‘lovely ladies’/
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if someone involved in the production and writing had a musical theatre background. The contrast between Durmstrang's entrance and Beauxbatons' reminds me of opera, with each character having their own leitmotif. I think the reason why they're portrayed as single-sex schools is to simplify and further emphasize their leitmotifs: Beauxbatons is light and airy, while Durmstrang is thunderous and intense.
/I liked an interview I saw with the actress playing Fleur, where she was saying how the character was pretty much the British stereotype of a French girl/
The funny thing is that I've seen Clemence Poesy in interviews too and learned that she can speak English very well with a much lighter accent, which means that the accent that she had in the film was deliberately stereotypical.
Re: Comments on GOF Movie Sporking Part 1
Date: 2019-03-28 10:25 pm (UTC)Yeah, I kinda feel for the filmmakers in that I think even having JKR to consult probably wasn't much help, like she literally seems to make shit up on the fly, so it's not like if you said 'Do we really, really need to keep in elves/Crookshanks/Ludo?' that she'd say, she might have a headcanon that they were in the last battle too or something.
Re: Comments on GOF Movie Sporking Part 1
Date: 2019-04-27 09:57 pm (UTC)PAH. Don't get me started on PoA. The screenwriter and director surely had no problem omitting the heck out of materials important to THIS book and the two books before it. The Shrieking Shack confrontation was down to like three minutes in total. Seriously?
Re: Comments on GOF Movie Sporking Part 1
Date: 2019-04-30 07:47 pm (UTC)I know it warps canon since neither school was supposed to be single-sex, but it had no effect on the story, since all the important characters from Beauxbatons are female and all the important characters from Durmstrang are male. Personally I don’t mind the change, mainly because I’m a big opera fan—especially Gilbert and Sullivan. I got a kick out of seeing a miniature production number slipped into a Potter flick.
Comments on GOF Movie Sporking Part 2
Date: 2019-03-25 08:47 pm (UTC)Yes, he was a great choice for the role. :)
/I love how much Michael Gambon’s yelling offended fandom as a whole/
Well, that and grabbing Harry like a maniac. I think that's one of the reasons why many fans preferred Richard Harris.
/A terrifying monster vaguely resembling the terrifying monster Gary Oldman appears/
Yeah, if this was all they could do with Sirius, they might as well have cut him out.
/Moody’s line about Draco’s hair being greasy seems to be several films out of date/
I noticed that too! I was thinking, "Wait, what are you talking about? He ditched his slicked back hair in the third film."
/Apparently wizards don’t have to! So glad JKR shared that with us/
*groans* WHY. Why did anyone feel the need to ask that? Why did she feel the need to answer that? WHY?
/Ron appears to have adopted a manservant/
Yes, what exactly was the point of Nigel?
/the boys hate dancing, the girls are thrilled/
Just like the girls are the only ones who excitedly approach the cauldron of Love Potion in the HBP movie. -_-
/girls only love guys who ignore them/
Unless you're James Potter, who bullies his future wife's supposed 'best friend' right in front of her.
/Barty Crouch Sr. was ‘never whole again after losing his family/
Both Crouches were flattened here. Barty Crouch Jr. was always crazy and Barty Crouch Sr. was just a poor, normal father who was horrified by his son.
/your classic dumb blonde, he takes off his Death Eater mask before role call/
And lets his hair hang loose (gee, I wonder who the Death Eater with the long blond hair is?).
/calls Harry a ‘handsome boy’ (so I guess there was a precursor to the awkward hug in DH….?)/
Actually, that was Cedric. Or did he call Harry handsome too? Yeah, I don't know what they were trying to do with Voldemort. First, he randomly nudges Cedric's face with his foot and remarks that he's handsome here, and then he randomly hugs Draco in DH.
/Why is Dumbledore showing Harry’s arm off like a dope tatt?/
I thought that was weird too: why is Dumbledore suddenly grabbing Harry's arm and brandishing it to Barty? I don't know why Dumbledore is so grabby in this movie.
/Heh, I kind of love the alternate canon that Crouch Jr. is still alive/
And so is Peter. The DH movie didn't include the silver hand scene, so as far as the audience is concerned, Peter just vanished along with Barty. And Crookshanks.
Re: Comments on GOF Movie Sporking Part 2
Date: 2019-03-26 05:37 pm (UTC)I thought it was fascinating Fantastic Beasts 2 continued the 'ladies have to ply/spell/rape men into being around them' theme, she's really fixated on that. Probably because she's not that interested in female characters, she's like 'Why WOULD a guy want a woman?', hence why all her fave female characters are uninterested in friendship with other girls (unless they can form a Man-Getting Alliance, lol.)
And so is Peter.
LOL, good for him, tbh. I hope he lives a happy, ratty life, the silver hand scene in DH was so thrown-away JKR's probably forgot it herself.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-27 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-29 01:25 am (UTC)I think I have my week planned now :-) Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2019-05-17 08:33 pm (UTC)Famously, if you want the swashbuckling unrealistic British spy stories, you read Ian Fleming or watch the movies; if you want more realistic British spy work but no less exciting, you go for some John le Carre. :)
The 2011 film is great, but if they shaved down the story any more in the adaptation, it would collapse. xD As it was, the adaptation was good and just from watching the movie you wouldn't suspect anything was gone from the book.
There was also a BBS miniseries adaptation back in 1979 starring Sir Alec Guinness as George Smiley, a much more frog-like Smiley as envisioned by le Carre, lol. And the actor who played Peter Guillem in that is also the narrator for the audiobook which can be found on Youtube.
no subject
Date: 2019-05-22 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-15 12:06 am (UTC)In-universe, of course, Hermione would have bought her dress in advance without knowing what her partner would wear, nor—being Hermione—would she have cared. But costume designers are supposed to think about what the entire picture looks like.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-19 08:18 pm (UTC)