Seventeen points against the movie (not all L.O.O.N.) and five pros

[pigwidgeon37 at yahoo.it]

Hi, everybody,
I sincerely hope that not too much of what I'm going to write now has 
already been said, but I was in London for five days (to see the 
movie and Alan Rickman in "Private Lives") and therefore my mailbox 
was so full that I could only do a very superficial reading. Here are 
my seventeen points:

1)A really big time line inconsistency: Hagrid comes to the hut out 
on the sea with Harry's birthday cake, so it's supposed to be 31 
July. Then they are off to Diagon Alley, where they arrive on the 
next morning. And from there, they go directly to King's Cross???!!! 
So that would either shift Harry's B-day to 31 August or the start of 
term to 1 August. BIG mistake! (to say nothing of the fact that they 
have what must be breakfast at the LEaky Cauldron and Harry eats some 
kind of soup which for breakfast is a tad unusual)

2) My strongest objection to the film: Richard Harris as Dumbledore. 
Where is the smile, where is the fundamental goodness of this great 
man, where is his wonderful eccentricity? Here is an inaccessible, 
rather authoritarian personality who would never ever say (and in 
fact he doesn't) that his heart's desire are warm socks.

3) From what I saw, the Sorting Hat has already been argued about- 
anyway, it remains incomprehensible to me *why* on earth it's 
impossible to give the hat a tiny little voice, and why the children 
cannot be called in alphabetical order.

4)To somebody who hasn't read the book, it cannot be clear why Harry 
doesn't want to become a Slytherin. There is one short thing Ron 
mutters to him (originally Hagrid's line) about all Dark Wizards 
being ex-Slytherins, but that is certainly not enough.

5) It is never stated that McGonagall is Head of Gryffindor and Snape 
Head of Slytherin, albeit it is vitally important to the plot, above 
all to make Snape seem to be the Bad Guy.

6) The way the HRH friendship develops has, IMHO, been completely 
bungled. The three of them are shown together in a not so unfriendly 
way when Hermione leads Harry to the showcase with James Potter's 
brass plaque (a totally unnecessary scene, and Hermione's line "It's 
in your blood" is of such striking banality!). Anyway, besides from 
being unnecessary, the scene spoils the effect of the trio becoming 
friends after Harry and Ron have knocked out the troll.

7) I wanted to write a long rant about James Potter, but from what I 
saw of the other posts, he seems to have been sufficiently torn to 
shreds already. So I'll limit myself to saying that he looks like 
Michael Palin in the brilliant bookkeeper sketch, and James Potter 
most definitely shouldn't look like that.

8) Did JKR *tell* Columbus that Voldemort went to Godric's Hollow 
unaccompanied? Or did Columbus make that up by himself? That would re-
raise the question of how V.'s wand and clothes got into Pettigrew's 
hands.

9) Another one in the interminable list of small things that are 
different from the book but wouldn't need to be: Why does the 
Invisibility cloak have to look like a Persian carpet instead of 
being silvery grey?

10) What's everybody's opinion about the moving staircases? For my 
taste, they are much too scary and exaggerated.

11) I'm fully aware that some things have to be cancelled in order 
not to make it a 4 hour-film. But why did they cancel the troll and 
the potions from the obstacles protecting the stone? The Devil's 
Snare scene would not have needed to be that long, and the chess game 
could have been shortened a little, no need to make the chase for the 
key a parody of Hitchcock's "Birds"- and we could have been allowed a 
short glimpse of the k.o. Troll and, far more important, we could 
have seen Hermione solving the logical puzzle. Important because she 
is awarded 50 points "for the use of cool logic in the face of 
danger", which certainly doesn't refer to the Devil's Snare, but to 
the potion puzzle.

12) Did anybody actually *like* the special effect of Quirrell being 
reduced to ashes? It reminded me a lot of the third Indiana Jones 
film. And it makes Harry's actions very questionable. It's one thing 
to see and take advantage of the fact that Quirrell cannot touch him 
without getting all blistered and feeling a lot of pain, but it is 
entirely different to grab his face, knowing that it will be reduced 
to ashes. Quirrell should be killed by Voldemort, not by Harry.

13) Due to the- at least IMO- miscasting of Dumbledore, the 
exaggerated staircases and to a certain extent also to the lighting, 
Hogwarts doesn't seem a very homely place, again IMHO.

14) What are they going to do about characters like Binns, Peeves and 
Sprout? Spout f.ex. will be essential in the next film, let alone 
that she's also Head of House, but then the fact that there *is* such 
a thing as heads of houses is completely neglected (see above)

15) *Very* personal POV: I simply hate Gred and Forge! They look like 
they were two Percys- I cannot imagine them as the super-pranksters 
they should be!

16) When welcoming the new students, McGonagall tells them more or 
less the same things she does in the book, namely that the respective 
houses will be kind of a family, that time will be spent together in 
the common room- so why did they keep that line, but OTOH the 
children are obviously sitting in the Great Hall, studying and 
playing chess?

17) Can't resist my L.O.O.N.y nature: Before going to Hogwarts, Harry 
is wearing Dudley's old clothes, but at Hogwarts, he has got 
perfectly fitting trousers etc. (not the ones that are part of the 
school uniform!). Why and, above all, how?

OK, there are also some points in favour of the film:

1) The scene at Ollivander's is simply brilliant
2) Same goes for the Quidditch match
3) The Great Hall *is* great!
4) Ron, Hermione, Draco (well, the hair...), McGonagall and Snape are 
really well-chosen.
5) A detail I liked immensely: Harry taking those completely 
nonsensical notes at the beginning of the Potions lesson.

So, that's it, I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings- comments 
welcome!

Susanna/pigwidgeon37