My late comments

[Elizabeth Dalton]

Hi,

I saw the movie Sunday afternoon with my 7-year-old daughter and my 
mother-in-law, who's probably about sixty. My daughter hasn't read the books 
(she's just starting to read, but she's also only been speaking English for 
about a year-- long story). My MIL has read and enjoyed all the books. I read 
them this summer for the first time-- I've probably read them about 3 times 
each, at this point. (I sometimes only read parts of them on re-reads, so it's a 
little hard to estimate this.)

After logging into this group, I ploughed through the archives. Well, everything 
since Friday, anyway. :) Not much left to say that hasn't already been said, but 
here are the few points I'd like to make:

First, I guess I'm alone in this, but the altered confrontation between Harry 
and Voldemort/Quirrell really bothered me when I saw it. Where was the point 
about Lily's sacrifice? What's this nonsense about bringing James and Lily back 
to life??? I can see that having Quirrell crumble to dust was more cinematic 
than blisters, but Harry doesn't come across as nearly as brave without the 
issue of the pain from his scar (don't ask me how they would have shown this, 
though). And though I didn't realize this was bugging me until I read the 
comments here, it bothers me that he ends up purposely killing Quirrell. It *is* 
OOC. And I guess I really am the only one to complain about this item: I don't 
think Voldemort should have been able to swoop through Harry like that at the 
end of the fight. For Pete's sake, he's not supposed to be able to *touch* 
Harry. What kind of sense does it make for him to be able to attack him directly 
this way? But I suppose Rowling must have ok'd the change, and I do admit the 
whole thing was more dramatic than the "deus ex Dumbledore" book scene.

Second, I think it weakened the story considerably to have all the other 
characters addressing Voldemort by name. Hagrid whispers it once and then after 
that things just go on as if it doesn't matter at all. That takes out a lot of 
the impact of confronting him directly at the end. Of course, if they'd done it 
properly, they'd have had to leave in the scene where Dumbledore tells Harry to 
use the proper name. (Like many here, I felt Dumbledore especially got chopped 
up in the dialogue department.) But of all things, to leave out the bit where 
Harry rants at Ron and Hermione about what it was like when Voldemort was 
around, Ron getting more and more upset at the way Harry uses the name so 
casually.... Then again, that is one of my favorite scenes. We all have them, 
don't we?

Third (but this has been discussed to death), I think they really underplayed 
Snape, his actions, motivations, history, etc. He's easily the most intriguing 
character from my point of view. Rickman did a great job with the few scenes he 
had (enough for me to forgive him for not being as thin as I've imagined Snape 
to be), but he didn't have enough airtime, and then to leave out Dumbledore's 
explanation for Snape's animosity... unforgiveable!

Overall, I agree with comments that have been made about taking out original 
lines to put in lesser lines, especially in how that affected the humor. I also 
think that while the beginning and middle showed the effect of compressing the 
story somewhat, the ending took the most damage. There's a lot to fit in there, 
to set up for the later stories, and I think they left too much out. I can't see 
how they'll be able to do PoA, let alone GoF (unless the rumor is true and they 
go for two movies for GoF).

But the acting was quite good, the casting was good, and I thought most of the 
effects were decent. (I particularly liked the entrance to Diagon Alley. I'm 
trying to forget about the centaur and the unicorn.) The kids did a really great 
job, all things considered. Even if they did always look made-up, and the 
crinkle tool they used on Hermione's hair was kind of obvious. It really helped 
me to see the relative sizes of the kids, especially in the Quidditch match, to 
understand why it is such a big deal to have a first-year playing on the 
Gryffindor team. I can only imagine that the CGI editing I'd heard they planned 
to use for Harry's eyes just didn't work out in time. No matter. That glare he 
gave Dudley in the zoo didn't need any tinkering.

Given that so many of you have reported liking it better on a second viewing, I 
think I'll see if I can fit that in at some point. And I do hope there's a DVD 
with plenty of extras. I don't know if that four-hour director's cut really 
exists, but I know we saw stuff in the trailer that didn't make it into the 
movie (e.g. the reminder not to use magic in the corridors), so hopefully a less 
cut version would be... well... less cut up. :)

Happy nitpicking, everyone,

Elizabeth

(...who likes Rickman well enough, but has her own ideas about the Snape she'd 
like to invite in for a cup of tea and a bit of cheering up. Poor misunderstood 
fellow.)