Review (Non spoilers and Spoilers) - Re: Shipping, Dumbledore, etc.

[jonathandupont at hotmail.com]

Hi all. Very interesting to read all the reviews and comments so far -
 especially the talk about what is to be accepted as canon or not. I 
would suggest that new facts should at least be taken as 'half-
canon' - as Steve has done.


Non spoiler bit...
Well, I saw the film yesterday and I mostly loved it. Very, very 
faithful - as much as we could have hoped for really - and great 
acting. Rupert, as everyone says, was absolutely brilliant (add 
another b word for alliteration before that if you like) and so were 
Emma, and Daniel. 
However, obviously its best to go in with low expectations - not 
everything is perfect after all. Just enjoy it.

Enough of this. On with the 



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First things first to get it over and done with. Shipping - or the 
H/G moment. I hope Penny doesn't mind if I steal her quote as it was 
the nearest one availible:-

--- In HPFGU-Movie at y..., Penny & Bryce <pennylin at s...> wrote:
> *Loved* Cassie's notations of the H/G interaction (He ignores her!) 
and 
> the H/H'iness going on.  Very happy indeed.
> Penny
> (who cannot wait to see the Movie on Friday!)

He didn't quite ignore her - and he had a lot on his mind at the 
moment. What I was a bit surprised at was that Ginny does not learn 
who Harry is - and she still seems immediately taken with him. I'd 
always pictured her being overawed at first because of the celebrity 
thing. Maybe she's just being friendly.

On a related note - I'm hoping that the chess match may dilute some 
of the anti-Ron feeling... It shows him in his best, and a lot of 
noble sacrifice. Tell me - does he look then as if he's likely to 
betray Harry lately?

Because I'm completely unorganised - some more random thoughts that 
the movie inspired in me, going chronologically:-

- The Snake scene - very nice idea of the added bit with Dudley - 
almost caused as big a laugh as the bit with the Ron and the 
broomstick, or Hagrid's running joke. I liked the change a lot - the 
look on Dudley's face was priceless.

- The Letters scene - I thought the bit where they were flying 
everyone was great - the hundreds of owls also caused a laugh.

- The Hut scene - I didn't like the changes they made to this. By 
splitting up the explanation of Hagrid's past, we lost a lot of the 
impact of Hagrid getting mad at the Dursleys. Also I don't think it 
was made explicitly clear why Harry Potter was famous. Did they 
actually did state clearly that the spell rebounded, Voldy was half 
killed and thus the dark reign ended?

- The flashback - You can tell you're too devoted to fanfic when one 
of the first thoughts in my mind was, "Right, that's messed up the 
back story to Barb's Time of Good Intentions then" - of course, this 
is semi canon, but still... I also always pictured it happening at 
night

- The station scene - Nice introduction of the Weasleys, although I'd 
preffered it to be a bit longer.

- The meeting of the trio - Did anyone else get a shiver down their 
spine when the trio met for the first time? Bit like R2/3PO from Star 
Wars Ep 1, or whatever. It might have been just me deliberately 
looking for it but I thought the music changed just slightly when we 
saw Scabbers for the first time. Then again I think it was my mind 
just implanting it - as there's no way John Williams would probably 
know or be able to play that, is there? Still, I can't quite look at 
the rat innocently.

- The Sorting Hat Scene - Ahem - way too contrived the order they 
sorted the students in... except maybe [insert drum roll]... they 
were doing them by age. It seems to me that if you're not going 
alphabetically, by age would be the next logical one. And who was 
first? Why Hermione, who we know has a September birthday. Yes... I 
really did sit in a cinema and think "Aha! Crucial evidence for the 
1979 theory". Also note that Ron goes before Harry - which fits in 
with the age thing. I'm assuming that there were other students we 
didn't see in between the stars and Susan Bones - who I assume we saw 
to show us that other houses existed, but so that they didn't have 
the trouble of casting someone important for a later movie.

- Early section of the movie - I understand why they did it, but I 
didn't really like the way they replaced Hermione with Neville 
basically in the early scenes. Kind of undid the whole point of the 
Troll incident.

- Invisibility cloak - just wanted to add that I loved the effect.

- Quidditch - I enjoyed it a lot, and it certainly was very brutal. 
Harry did seem to sit still for the first half of the match though. I 
actually enjoyed the surfing bit <shrug>. Don't know how they're 
going to handle this in future - one match a film, and what about POA?

- Mirror of Erised - Very well done scene IMO. Would have been nice 
to see Ron's POV though. Still, I found it the most emotional scene 
in the film.

- Dumbledore - He appeared in the above scene - that's my link ...  - 
I agree, Richard Harris had the worstly done character in the film. 
There was none of the lightheartedness or kidness of the books. He 
NEEDED to have read the books - I think he just assumed automatically 
that D was a typical Merlin-like figure.

- Norbert - or wherever he appeared. I think he was unnecessary, and 
a waste of time to be honest.

- The End - Devil's Snare scene was, well, different. I miss very 
much the "Are you a witch?" line, but I know why they did it. Keys 
was an interesting variant - Harry definitely throws it to Hermione 
by the way - and the Chess was very well done, although not that much 
of a good finale. So onto, the Voldemort scene ie. where they changed 
everything. 

BIG(GER) SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN.

What they did was interesting I suppose. Personally I'd have played 
it as canon, but showed Dumbledore running in and battling with Voldy 
while Harry was still screaming. The crumbling effect of Quirrel was 
interesting but ... I don't know, a bit too violent for me. And a bit 
too easy. Harry didn't seem in as much pain either. On the plus side -
 well fanfic wise, Voldy offering to bring Harry's parents back will 
add creditability to a few fanfics. Though it kinda causes problems 
with the magic cannot bring people back from the dead rule, doesn't 
it? Maybe the dark lord was just lying.

The very end I think they played wrong - if you see Harry Knowles 
review on www.aintitcool.com (he's saving the books for a depressed 
time) he absolutely hated it. We, who've read the books can justify 
it, but I can see why an outsider wouldn't like it. The 'LOVE' thing 
(it sounded in capitals) came off wrong for one thing, and they 
should have explained it more. Where was the "Snape saved your 
father" thing, as well? The big problem Harry had was that he felt 
Gryffindor winning the House Cup was contrived - and silly, in giving 
the hero everything. I can see why it would seem so in the movie - 
because the movie focused so much on the stone (BTW notice how they 
cleverly only refer to it as Philosopher's / Sorcerer's (I presume) 
once - very neat). We saw nothing of Harry's school life, and so why 
Gryffindor earned the cup.

I think they needed an extra ten minutes to focus on the normal 
school year. This should have included:-

- Most importantly Harry and co. getting in trouble for all the 
points they lost. That really undercut the bravery of them going 
after the Stone.

- Fred and George. They were badly missed in the jokes department - 
and what about setting up for the Marauder's Map?

- Introduction to classes and subsequent scenes - I'm talking about 
20 second sequences here where we introduce classes or remind the 
audience of Snape's hatred. Stuff to show time passing. How do you 
that quickly? Well - a few montages would have been nice.

I think that honestly would have been worth the extra time. Besides, 
COS and POA are going to have to be longer anyway so you might as 
well do a more complete look at this book...
 
So, overall, good work people, and keep it up. I look forward highly 
to Chamber, and are considering seeing this one again. I was not 
dissappointed.

Now let's hope Lord of the Rings is good,

Jon