PS/SS (long)

[Amy Z]

Hi all, 

I haven't been on this list much, but have haunted the main list for 
2 years.  I'm looking forward to some movie discussion.

This may seem a bit belated, but I really wanted to write my thoughts 
about PS/SS before going on to CS.  I'll post on that in a bit. 

As preface:  I am definitely, shamelessly, of the the-more-faithful-
the-better school.  I don't understand critics who say the movie 
was "too faithful" (especially if they think there was a big 
Halloween party in PS/SS . . . I wonder how the Time reviewer who 
noted that "absence" knows how faithful the movie is if he doesn't 
know the books very well?).  I knew that lots of great lines and 
scenes would be cut from sheer necessity—my main concerns were:  did 
they get the characters right?  did they get the feel of the 
wizarding world--the biggest "character" in the books--right? and did 
they honor the themes of the book?  I thought they did a bang-up job 
on (a) and especially (b); I have more complaints about (c), though 
overall I still thought it was terrific.  I watched it 4 times in the 
theater, which I can't really afford, and 3 or 4 more times since 
then on video.

THE CHARACTERS  

Dumbledore, well, this has been said a thousand times already, hasn't 
it?  Part of it was the screenwriting and editing, I'm sure, which 
took out a lot of the essence of the man (would it have killed them 
to put in *one* line showing that the man is *funny*?  How long does 
it take to say "Nitwit!  Blubber!  Oddment!  Tweak!"?).  If I were 
Richard Harris and read only that script, not having read the books, 
I wouldn't know he was supposed to be whimsical, funny, and extremely 
energetic.  OTOH, there was probably a lot of stuff that they shot 
and then cut, so I bet he did know a lot more about Dumbledore than 
we see on screen.  Also, there is *no* excuse for the way he 
delivered that earwax line.  If I were Chris Columbus, by the fifth 
unemotional take I'd have sent someone out for some real BBEFBs and 
slipped Harris an earwax one.  *That* would've gotten a reaction out 
of him.

Harry:  Harry, Harry, Harry.  I thought DR did one hell of a job, and 
not just "for a kid of 11/12."  He caught what seems to me the 
essence of Harry's character at this point in the books:  he's not 
very expressive, but is chock-full of opinions, wonder, and 
feelings.  Not an easy thing to portray, but he does.  One perfect 
example:  when Hermione's just come into the compartment and is being 
Hermione, and Ron gives him a "can you *believe* this girl?" look, 
the look he gives back sums up Harry at that early stage—he's 
restrained, even subdued, so he isn't one to roll his eyes in 
response, but you can tell he's thinking the same thing.  
Certain little things are really fantastic, like the way he puts the 
wands down in Ollivander's shop.  Very funny, in that character-based 
humor way so dear to this viewer's heart.  And who knew John Hurt was 
such a master of coming timing? (I can't WAIT to see him again and 
hope he is in GF, even though I know they'll need to slash it to bits 
and he probably won't be.  JH as Ollivander just goes to show that 
someone can look nothing like one's mental image of the character and 
still be perfect.)

One cartoonish moment can really leave a sour taste in the mouth, and 
that's my experience with the Dursleys.  Really they were great 
overall—the one moment that seemed OTT was the scowl Vernon aims at 
Harry and Hagrid while Petunia is relating the true story of Lily.  
You could certainly argue that the Dursleys are supposed to be 
cartoonish, but I like for characters to be real enough that I can 
believe in them—OTT moments disrupt my suspension of disbelief.

Hagrid was perfect except for a lapse I really disliked:  in the 
book, he gives Dudley a pig's tail in a fit of anger; in the book, it 
seems much more deliberate, hence cruel.  I don't see Hagrid that way 
and don't like it.  He is hot-tempered, but not mean.

Almost everyone else was spot on.  Rickman was born to play Snape 
(and even got through that dumb line about good luck with the 
Quidditch match—couldn't they find a better way to tell us there's a 
match coming?).  Emma Watson is still way too much of a beauty to 
play Hermione--who would care that she's a know-it-all?  Every boy in 
the 1st year would have a crush on her--but she was pretty good 
despite her looks :-P.  Rupert Grint was mostly terrific, best when 
he wasn't being asked to be super-serious (but my complaints about 
the chess scene follow).  He was a master of subtlety in his reaction 
to "I've got presents!"  I had serious trouble understanding Seamus 
(after 7 or more viewings, I still don't know what he's saying in 
that water-to-rum spell).  

I know they had to take out a gazillion things to make everything 
fit, and for the most part I'll let them go, but one thing that 
wouldn't have taken one extra second and would've created character 
is having Ron wince whenever Harry says "Voldemort."  While I'm on 
the subject of things that would've taken no time, why did they 
change "Greek" to "Irish"?  Hagrid got a three-headed dog off a 
*Greek* chappie.  That's FUNNY.  That's a joke for the adults, or for 
the kids who've read Greek mythology.  That's the kind of thing that 
evokes images of an Ancient Greek in a toga smuggling Cerberus's 
puppies into a pub and makes me laugh my patootie off.  AND it's one 
syllable less. They could've preserved the humor and saved themselves 
a valuable 1/10 of a second.  Grrr.

THE WIZARDING WORLD

Whenever I'm asked to explain why I love these books so much, I find 
myself stuttering about Kwikspel and Peeves and witches griping about 
the price of potions ingredients.  It's all the little details of 
life in the wizarding world that make it so real and so enviable.  
(If they keep doing this, I'm going to trade in my job, house, and US 
citizenship for a life at Hogwarts.  At the end of the CS movie, when 
the camera is pulling back from a night-lit Hogwarts, a woman in back 
of me said to her friend, "Isn't it beautiful?"  I had to restrain 
myself from turning around and gushing, "Don't you want to move there 
*right now*?")  So I was just utterly delighted with all the details 
of the movie:  the floating candles, the talking paintings, the dumb-
looking troll, the Golden Snitch, etc.  And then there were the ones 
not in canon, like the way goblins' teeth fit together, and the 
appearance of the torches, and the Hogwarts hog statue, and the 
hilarious muttering noises the Bludgers make, the owl mobile in 
Harry's room at Godric's Hollow, that got the spirit of JKR 
completely.  With those details, I really felt the moviemakers 
understood what it meant to make a cinematic equivalent of the HP 
books (and I didn't see the competition, so I can't really judge, but 
it seems a crime the art directors didn't land an Oscar).

As the CS release approached, I started hearing a lot of stuff about 
how it was going to be a better movie because it was "more cinematic" 
a book.  If this isn't just the director playing up #2 so as to 
forestall "It wasn't as good as #1" criticisms—he must know that a 
lot of fans consider CS the weakest book—then I gather what this 
means is that so much of PS is about Harry getting to know the WW; in 
a way the "plot" doesn't get started `til midway through the movie. 
Well, that's codswallop, in my opinion.  In terms of the books, I 
actually do like CS marginally better than PS, but the fact that 
Harry doesn't even start classes `til halfway through PS doesn't 
bother me at all.  Come on, raise your hand if you really find it 
dull to read about Nov. 1 '81, his early life with the Dursleys, the 
letters from no one, his discovery of the truth, Diagon Alley, and 
the first trip to Hogwarts.  Yeah, I didn't think so.  I loved every 
second when I read it, and I loved watching it unfold on the screen.  
The moviemakers took their sweet time letting us discover the WW 
along with Harry, and didn't worry about the fact that the Voldemort 
plot then had to fit into only half the movie—it fit fine into half 
the book, didn't it?  And they took the time that scenes like the 
Mirror of Erised demand.  Which brings me to


THEMES

OK.  Once again, they were mostly very faithful to the book and on-
target.  But there are a few thematic things that deviated 
unnecessarily from the books, and not in a way that improved things 
(while on the subject of improving things, though, they really fixed 
the "why the heck are there broomsticks there" irk in the flying keys 
scene.  Well done, Mr. Kloves).  One:  too much emphasis on James and 
Lily.  Yes, Harry's sadness about not knowing his parents is central 
to the book, but by having Voldemort tempt him with being able to 
join them, the screenwriter makes it a cliché.  I almost groaned when 
I got to that.  Two:  another cliché is the speech from Ron about how 
Harry has to be the one to go on.  Of COURSE Harry has to be the one 
to go on—but JKR accomplished this without the big speech, and it was 
much more effective, IMO, not to mention allowing Ron to just be 
brave and self-sacrificing instead of trying to manipulate a Grand 
Plan.  (Now, Harry's big speech about how he's going to find the 
Stone, that I wish they'd kept.  It always gives me the shivers.)  

Three:  I know they were trying to get rid of the Dumbledore deus ex 
machina, or something, but I really really disliked the way they 
changed the confrontation with Quirrell.  In the book, Harry hurts 
him terribly, but it's sheer self-defense (and it is Voldemort's 
leaving Quirrell that kills him, not anything Harry does to him).  In 
the movie, after Harry sees that he's making Quirrell crumble to 
bits, he still grabs onto him.  It's morally justifiable, because Q 
is still trying to kill him, but just the same, it makes Harry into a 
killer at age 11.  This is serious.  Two books later, Harry will 
refuse to kill Sirius and he'll keep Sirius and Remus from killing 
Peter, and it'll be important.  I suspect that Harry is going to kill 
someone sooner or later, and that it's going to be very, very hard on 
him.  JKR takes death seriously, even when almost anyone (even JKR 
herself, maybe) would say the person deserves it.  Hollywood does not 
take death very seriously, and it shows in this alteration.  Sure, 
make our hero kill someone, it's par for the course!  It won't, you 
know, *upset* him or make him question his own actions or make him 
question his messianic role in the WW or anything. 

OTHER BITS

-I loved the way the chess match was shot like a battle scene, great 
music, whole deal (and I say that as someone who is not a John 
Williams fan).  I didn't like the proliferation of "make my day" 
lines from Ron ("and then we play")—again, JKR wrote it in a much 
more understated, and IMO effective, way.  It's really emotionally 
powerful as written—Ron isn't setting out to be a big hero, he's just 
doing what needs to be done, and because he has such courage and 
integrity, he does something really heroic.  I really like that, and 
wish the moviemakers saw the power in it that I do.

-Hedwig was incredibly beautiful.

-Another nice note about the music—see, I can find friendly things to 
say about John "Sledgehammer" Williams if I try—I liked the Erised 
theme.  I don't know what it's called, but we hear it in the mirror 
scene and then in the little interlude with Hedwig that follows.

-Two things I hated about the music:  the stinger on Draco and 
Harry's non-handshake.  Bad, bad, bad.  We KNOW it's a key moment; 
please refrain from shoving it down our throats.  And the Christmas-
morning music—it was just too whimsical, sweet, and oh-so-Christmas-y 
for my blood.  Humbug!

-What the heck was that "it's in your blood" crap about?  James was 
not a Seeker, first of all (I know, I know, I'm opening a can of 
worms here.  Look at `em go!).  Second, they could have accomplished 
exactly what needs to be accomplished with this line by leaving it 
the way JKR wrote it—McGonagall telling Harry his dad was an 
excellent Quidditch player.  The one thing that does come out of the 
way they do it is the exchange:  "She knows more about you than you 
do."  "Who doesn't?"  Uncanonical, but I like.

-Much has been made of the poor SFX with Quidditch.  They were just 
fine to me; what bothered me was that in Harry's reaction shots, he 
didn't look like he was moving.  I picture him flying around at all 
times while looking for the Snitch and watching the action, not just 
hanging in the air cheering or booing.  That wasn't a SFX issue, 
however.  I'm not sure what the standing-on-the-broomstick thing was 
all about—it made Harry look like a hotdogger.  Ick.  I didn't like 
it that Quidditch was so rough, either.  I know it's a physical 
sport, but doesn't Hooch ever read the rules on cobbing?

-Firenze was the weakest effect.  It's hard to get human gestures 
right in CGI.

-In general they really did a bang-up job condensing.  Even though 
like all fans, I wished they could've kept every single line, I was 
nodding at every cut, "yep, that was a good choice"—they kept what 
was essential and made it all hold together.

I have about 50,000 other opinions about the movie, but this is quite 
enough.  Thanks for listening, and I'd love to hear responses.

Amy Z

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