Another Review

[Laura]

I apologize for starting my own thread, but everything seems to be 
lapsing into specific little arguments, so I thought I'd just add 
all of my opinions at once.  That way you won't all be horribly 
annoyed by me posting 500 messages to different threads.  =)

I apologize for the length.  I had a lot to get out.  =)

As a summary, I think Cuaron is much better with imagery, Columbus 
better at story-telling.  Or maybe that would be his screenwriter?  
Or are they the same person?  OK, I'm confusing myself.  I 
originally liked the movie, because it's Harry Potter and all and I 
was so excited to see it.  But the more I think about it, the less I 
like it.

I did like some things.  The dementors were incredible.  I loved the 
scenes in the beginning, with the Fat Lady trying to sing and the 
kids complaining about how horrible she is.  The scene with the boys 
in their dormitory playing with food that apparently makes you make 
animal noises seemed slightly....random.  But I absolutely LOVED 
those two scenes, they added so much personality.  It's the kind of 
thing we don't even see in the books, but it shows little character 
quirks and tidbits of life at Hogwarts and how, even though they 
spend most of their time fighting evil, they really just are a bunch 
of boys.  It was cute to see them goofing off together and being 
friends.  Reminded me of fanfiction a little bit.  =)  

I also loved the Time Travel sequence.  I thought that was done very 
well.  ("Does my hair really look like that from the back?")  The 
werewolf imagery was a little disappointing, but I can understand if 
it was done that way to seem less scary for younger children.  (I 
still don't have to like it though.  *evil grin*)

Alright, I'll admit it.  I was bothered by the new scenery.  I do 
think that, in most cases, it was better than the older scenery, but 
I was bothered by the fact that it was new.  I mean, haven't MOST 
people who are watching this movie watched the first two?  And now 
everything is "magically" different.  What?  All of a sudden the 
exterior of the castle is different.  All of a sudden the grounds 
have sloping lawns.  All of a sudden there's this weird bridge thing 
in the middle of nowhere.  Where did all this stuff COME from?  I 
think these things will start to grow on me, but as I was watching 
the movie I was very disconcerted by it.

Similarly, I was bothered by the fact that The Fat Lady was a 
different person in different clothing in a different portrait in a 
different location of the castle.  In some cases I can see why they 
were tempted to change the scenery to something better, but why 
here?  Where is the advantage?  I just don't get it.

Some people have mentioned pretty trivial things, and I'll be no 
different.  For exmaple, the fact that the dementors don't fly in 
the books is a valid point, but not terribly important to the 
story.  I do, however, think that there were some huge 
inconsistencies, missed opportunities, and gaping plot holes.  So 
here are my suggestions.  In order of importance, from least to 
most.  Obviously some of my criticisms are rather trivial, minor 
things that were left out that weren't really necessary for the 
plot, but I just think they'd add to the movie.  So here we go:

We had like 5 minutes of Aunt Marge, 10 minutes of the Knight Bus 
(was that shruken head thing annoying to anyone else?), 5 minutes of 
some horribly cheesy over-dramatized "I'm king of the world!" scene 
with Harry riding Buckbeak, and another 10 with Harry, Hermione, and 
the WHomping Willow...OK guys, let's just chop each of those down to 
a minute each, and we've got 26 more minutes of film where we can:

-provide some comic relief with Sir Cadogan.  Every once in awhile 
you see him in the background, but we never get to interact with him.

-2 words: Quidditch Cup.   

-more clearly explain why Hermione is so stressed.  Her actions in 
Divination and with Malfoy seem completely OOC otherwise.

-more cleary show how no one will believe HRH and Snape being 
supermad about Sirius getting away (I just wanted to see Snape 
really mad.  And that makes no sense unless you include the whole 
sequence about how he was supposed to get an Order of Merlin and all 
that.)

-show the transition of time a little more smoothly.  It almost 
seemed to me as if the movie took place in 2 days.  So this is a 
pretty trivial complaint, but I was a little thrown off by that.

-give Trelawney some screen time.  What about all of the death 
threats she throws at Harry?  What about all of the snickering Ron 
and Harry do in her class?  I think she was a wonderful in the 
movie, but you don't get any kind of sense of how much of a fraud 
she is or how she continues to predict Harry's death, etc.  Without 
those details, it makes Hermione look, as someone else has 
mentioned, like a spoiled brat.  I was also looking forward to the 
crystal ball scene, where Ron goes, "It's obvious what this means.  
There's going to be loads of fog tonight."  OK, so I'm biased (that 
is one of my all-time favorite lines from the books), but I thought 
that a lot of the experience of the Divination class was left out.

-show Patronuses (Patroni?) how they're supposed to look, as 
animals.  I was incredibily dissapointed the first time I saw Harry 
do the spell.  Then, it was if, at the end of the movie, someone 
poked either the director or the screenwriter and said, "psst, 
that's not how it works."  So they randomly threw in the stag image 
in the last scene, leaving people like us disconcerted and people 
who hadn't read the books wondering what the heck that was all about 
it and why it never appeared in previous scenes where the Patronus 
was conjured.  (Or maybe the special effects guy is just a Potter 
fan and took it upon himself to add that without consulting anyone 
else, in which case I applaud him.  =P)

-get the prediction right.  Yes, it's better to "interpret" the 
books than copy them directly to the movies, but in this case I 
think a word-for-word rendition would have been wonderful.

-explain SOMETING about the James/Remus/Sirius/Peter/Snape thing.  
ANYTHING.  AHHHH.  Sorry, I just felt that absolutely NONE of that 
was explained.  No one tells us who created the Maurader's Map.  No 
one tells us about the prank.  We get very little to no sense of the 
relationship between the 5 of them.  And just a minor little rant, 
but when Lupin was talking to Harry (well, first off it sort of 
irked me that they were always randomly strolling the grounds or 
walking around the in Apparently-not-Forbidden Forest when they have 
these deep and meaningful chats), Lupin basically says, "Ah youre 
mother Lily.  She was such a sweet, kind woman.  She was a beautiful 
woman, inside and out.  She had such a capacity to make everyone 
feel wonderful  *deep sigh*  Oh.  And James.  Yeah, he was cool 
too."  What?!  Do we have any canon to support that Lily even knew 
that Remus was a werewolf?  Because to me, that was definitely what 
he was insinuating.

-SHOW HOW SIRIUS BREAKS INTO GRYFFINDOR TOWER WITH A KNIFE! 

*ahem*

So.  I agree with what someone else has said before.  It's a great 
movie, but a horrible rendition of the book.

I'm sorry to be so critical.  Maybe I've been unnecessarily harsh.  
In time, the movie will most likely grow on me.  But my intial 
impression was that of disappointment.

-Laura