flying faceoff,

[Joanne0012 at aol.com]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at y..., Elizabeth Dalton <Elizabeth.Dalton at E...> wrote:
> 
> > Also, what kind of a flying teacher has people line up *facing* each 
> > other for a flying lesson? Hooch's order, which Neville preempted, 
> > was to rise up and move forward a bit, then come down again. Wouldn't 
> > they have crashed into each other? Very funny, but poor training.
> > 
> 
> I wondered about this too, while I was watching. I was surprised no one else 
> mentioned it up to this point. I remember thinking, "good thing this lesson 
> didn't go any farther!" Maybe Madam Hooch was going to have one line take 
off, 
> then the other? That still doesn't make much sense....

This whole scene was just full of bad thinking, IMHO.  

She gives them NO instruction about HOW to do the things she tells them to do.   

She gives absolute beginners directions that involve three or four new steps 
they've never tried (has the woman studied NO pedagogy), even after seeing 
how much trouble they have with just "Up!"  

Then when she blows the whistle, why does only Neville take off?  Perhaps the 
students, like us, are afraid that they're going to run into each other? We know 
that at least Draco has flown before, so he and probably other students 
should've also been off the ground, too - in the book, Neville starts up before 
the whistle.

Why does Hooch have no broom of her own, to show them how to do things, or 
to go fetch kids like Neville who can't control their brooms? Surely, he's not 
the first to ever have this problem.  Or isn't there some sort of anti-levitation 
spell she should've had handy?

My niece thinks she spotted a Hufflepuff (perhaps even the Columbus daughter, 
who plays Susan Bones during the sorting) among the class, which is supposed 
to be just Gryffindors and Slytherins.  Perhaps somebody who's going to the 
movie again should watch for non-Gryffindor/Slytherin insignia on the 
students' robes in hopes of adding this item to the "list of errors".

I'm clearly disgruntled with this whole scene, partly because I'm peeved with 
Zoe Wanamaker for her whining about her contract, but I must admit that she 
looked fabulous.

There were two tiny moments in this scene that I found just delightful -- 
Neville's perfect, soft "Ow, ow, ow" when Mme. Hooch moved his wrist, and 
Draco swaying a bit and giving just the slightest nonverbal "Whoa!" (with his 
facial expression and body language) as Harry goes whizzing past him in 
pursuit of the remembrall