Seeing the film first - PC game based on the film's actors

[Neil Ward]

At first, I found it hard to believe that anyone could have been to 
see the Harry Potter film without having read at least Book 1, but 
today I encountered two people who had done just that, and their 
reactions were quite different:-

The first person - a work colleague - took his two sons, aged 5 and 
almost 7, to see the film.  He thought he'd read the book, but it 
turned out that he'd read GoF, so he decided the film "made no sense 
at all". He felt that it was rather violent for younger children, and 
also noted the smattering of swear words, which he felt were 
inappropriate.  

I wouldn't have taken a child under 7 to see the film, but I think he 
was perhaps under the impression it was a family film and safe 
viewing from cradle to grave (well, not literally for deceased 
viewers, but you catch my drift).

The other reviewer was a close friend who has been sneering at me 
ever since I confessed to liking the Harry Potter books.  I refused 
to attend the film with him when he expressed an interest, since he 
hasn't read any of the books.  He loved the film and now can't wait 
to read all the books!  Quel surprise.  He told me he found the film 
very entertaining and had no difficulty in following the story.  Of 
course, when he reads the book, he'll get a lot more information than 
he would have gleaned from the film.

***

My other point is to note that the Harry Potter computer game is 
quite cool.  The reason I'm mentioning that here is that the 3D 
characters are modelled on the actors in the film.  The voices are 
soundalikes (such as that Sowerbutts boy they hired to do Harry's 
voice) and the boy doing Malfoy's voice is superb, IMO.  

It veers quite seriously from canon, even from movie-canon, but 
somehow seems to have won the approval of WB and JKR.  I won't review 
it here, of course, (HPfGU-ComputerGame anyone?), but I was 
interested to see that the representation of Professor Sprout doesn't 
look a bit like Miriam Margolyes, although the voice is like hers.  
I'm not sure if this is because Sprout had not been cast when the 
game was designed, or because MM is not going play Sprout in CoS (she 
is though, surely?).  Similarly, Peeves does not look or sound like 
Rik Mayall in this game.  Read into that what you will.

Neil
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Flying Ford Anglia