[HPFGU-Movie] What's wrong with the first movie (VERY long)

[Richelle Votaw]

First I'll say that my comments on GulPlum's comments are a lot shorter than his.  And, for that matter, less intricate.  :)  For one thing, I'm pretty much happy with both movies.  Pretty much.

GulPlum wrote:

> become? This film is *so* unoriginal, *so* simplistic, and *so* much geared 
> for under-10s (including the marketing: the toys which have flooded the 
> market don't seem to cater in the slightest for the infamous adult fans of 

Amen.  Considering if you average out the age of HP *readers* they'd be over ten, why is the movie aimed at such a younger age?  Because they buy toys?  Ha, come take a look around my room, you can't move an inch without bumping into something Harry Potter.  Usually a toy.  My main complaint at the under-10 aim of the movie was the way they completely and totally ruined the last scene.  Leaving out Hermione's big part (the logic) was one thing, it would've been rather complicated to translate to screen and still be mildly entertaining.  But the confrontation at the end was a load of baloney.  Ooh, look, this guy crumbles if he touches me.  Hmm, I'll aim for his face.  Oh, wow, a pile of dust.  Guess I'll pick up the stone now.  Eek, Voldemort vapor!  I'd better fall over.  Next thing you know Harry's in the hospital.  Why?  Did he bang his head on the concrete step falling over?  That's the best I could tell.  What happened to all the screaming, between Quirrell burning, Harry's scar on fire, and Voldemort yelling it should've been a lot more dramatic.  And how about that, this eleven year old saves the day, saves the stone, saves himself ALONE.  No Dumbledore in sight.  To me that was going too far.  Harry was brave, yes.  But Dumbledore DID show up in the book.  No sign of him in the movie.  The movie makes Harry look a) like a murder by aiming for Quirrell's face, not so apparently in self defense as in the book (just hanging on to him) b) the big hero because he defeats him ALONE and c) a wimp because even though he did all that a little Voldemort vapor and falling down winds him up in the hospital.

> by some of the young actors. In terms of style, I actually resent 
> Columbus's over-use of close-ups of Dan's face. OK, he's cute, but the 
> number of close-ups really was well OTT. At some stage, I'm going to have 
> to count them...

Aww, come on.  He just knew those chubby cheeks wouldn't last, and had to make the most of them. :)

> The script appears to have no knowledge of the characters or the archetypes 
> they represent - again, I am baffled by the fact that adults might possibly 
> be interested in these cardboard cut-outs and the machine-written plot. For 

Yea, did you know that Ron has twin brothers?  If you watch closely you can see them once every half hour.  And they even have a line now and then!  For that matter, some things are done but they don't record the sound for you to know about it.  It wasn't until about the 25th watching of SS/PS that I noticed at least one of the twins was actually saying "We got Potter" after Harry got sorted into Gryffindor.  Just like the book.  Would've been nice to HEAR that.  My lip reading is only so-so.

> Ron is *not* a witless, clueless, bungling fool. Sure, he's not 

Oh, yes, absolutely right.  I blame Steve Kloves for the dumbing down of Ron.  (Can we send him a copy of this email?  Anybody know where to send it?)

> Hermione is possibly the closest to her book self (although perhaps Emma's 
> a little too pretty) and has had fewest of her lines re-written. Malfoy's 

She also has more of Ron's lines than anyone else.

> Then there's the comparisons with LOTR. As it happens, I really, really, 
> really, dislike the LOTR books. I got through "The Hobbit" when I was about 
> 10 and found it "interesting". I re-read it about 10 years ago and from a 
> new perspective, found it boring, unoriginal and derivative. I've tried 
> reading LOTR on and off for the last 30 years and have never managed to get 
> beyond around page 80 before being thoroughly bored and pissed off that I 
> was wasting my time. I therefore can't compare the books to the movies but 

Well, confession time.  I tried and tried to read the LOTR books.  I finally made it through the first one.  By skipping all the Elvish. (I don't speak Elvish, sorry).  And skimming through the overabundance of songs.  (sorry again)  For the others I had to buy the CD's.  And it was pretty good.  I like the movies.  But that could be mainly because of Viggo Mortensen <sigh>--I love men with swords.  Anyway, I'll use my uncle as an example here.  He's been a long time fan of the LOTR books.  Read them and reread them more times than even he can count.  He hates the movies.  Positively despises them.  Wouldn't even go see Twin Towers, he was still busy being mad after Fellowship of the Ring.  So I really don't think everyone is wild about the LOTR movies.  Whatever my point was, I forgot.

Well, I've rambled enough (this was supposed to be short, I don't know what happened).

Richelle


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