CoS: MOVIE DISCUSSION

[Carol]

potioncat wrote:
>
> CoS --you know the plot.
> Hovering pudding, flying car, grinning Lockhart, hissing noises,
dueling club, petrified students, sneering Malfoys, dripping book, 
scurrying spiders, smug Riddle, screaming basilisk, cheering students.
> 
> 1. The twins and Ron appears in a flying car at Harry's window.  Ron
announces he's come to rescue Harry. There's no explanation of why he
thought Harry needed rescuing. Did this bother you? 

Carol responds:
The problem with having read the books first is that I don't always
notice absent explanations (unless they involve Snape); I just fill
them in. But you're right; given the curtailed plot in the film, they
could not have known that Harry was locked in his room. (Is that still
possible in modern England? In the U.S., bedrooms lock from the
inside!) I guess they knew that something was wrong because Harry
wasn't answering Ron's letters and that it was nearly time to get to
school.
> 
> 2. Whether or not you had read the book, did any timeline issues 
appear in this movie? Were there any inconsistencies, or gaps in
information? How does this CoS compare to SS/PS?

Carol:
I'll pass on answering this one until I rewatch the films.
> 
> 3. Can anyone get a good look at Lockhart to see if the emblem on
his vest has any significance?

Carol:

If you mean this image (hope the link works), I can't find a big
enough copy of the photo to see the emblem:

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/news/thor/lockhart_and_portrait.jpg

Maybe someone with more skill at Photoshop, etc., can blow it up for us.
> 
> 4. The dueling club dialogue is different in the movie than the
book. It's Lockhart who first suggests Harry. Snape nixes Ron, but
suggests Draco. Does this scene play out differently as far as
motivations and hidden agendas? Where does "Evanesco" come from?

Carol:
Well, Lockhart doesn't have a hidden agenda either way, and Snape does
separate Harry from Ron in the book, just not at the same point where
it occurs in the film. (It does make sense to have the line about
carrying a student home in a matchbox relate to Ron's defective wand,
so I think that the filmmakers were right to shift that line to relate
to Ron (and Harry) rather than to poor Neville (and Seamus) for
simplicity's sake. And if Snape is suggesting Serpensortia as a
deliberate means of determining whether Harry is a Parselmouth (a
question we're currently discussing on the main list), having Lockhart
originally suggest Harry obscures that (possible) intent. Another
change, BTW, is to have Snape rather than Lockhart suggest that the
students learn to block unfriendly spells. (I'm not sure, but I think
that the scriptwriter, Steve Kloves, was a DDM!Snaper from the beginning.)

As for Evanesco, it's true that Snape Vanishes the conjured snake
nonverbally in the book, but Evanesco *is* the Vanishing Spell that
the students learn later. (Snape periodically uses it to clean up
spilled potions, but I don't know whether we actually hear him using
it. I think that Hermione uses it on Harry's potion in fifth year in
another notorious Snape scene.) Probably the filmmakers asked JKR what
the incantation for the Vanishing Spell was and she gave it to them.
Alternatively, they may have known or looked up the Latin word for "I
vanish" and come up with "Evanesco." (evanesco -vanescere -vanui [to
vanish , disappear, pass away].) Slight problem: I can't tell whether
the Latin form is a transitive or an intransitive verb--if the second,
it would actually work better as an incantation in which the spell
caster vanishes instead of one in which he "Vanishes" an object. In
any case, the spell comes, as usual, from a Latin verb. The question
is whether JKR gave Kloves the name of the spell or whether he made it
up using her usual method and she later borrowed it from him. The
first seems more likely, IMO.
> 
> 5. Why doesn't anyone take on the rogue Bludger? Last year Snape was
trying to counter- hex the broom.

Carol responds:
Hm. good question. Snape wouldn't do it because Dumbledore is present
(and he probably doesn't want to be seen publicly protecting Harry,
or, alternatively, looking as if he's hexing the Bludger--one set of
burned robes is sufficient, thank you!) But, IIRC, in the book
Hermione stops Ron from trying to stop the Bludger saying that even
with a working wand, he might hit Harry. The Bludger is both a smaller
target than the broom and, apparently, more unpredictable in its
movements. Maybe not even Dumbledore can stop it.(?)
> 
> 6. "Perhaps they were in the wrong place at the wrong time
" Does
anyone else think Snape was using Legilimency in this scene? What do
you think of the interaction between Snape and DD in this movie?

Carol responds:
Did the filmmakers know about Legilimency? they would just know that
Snape looks into Harry's eyes rather frequently (Harry sees the eyes
as resembling dark tunnels leading to nothing, which perhaps suggests
that Snape is using Occlumency at the same time) and that Snape seems
rather good at reading Harry's mind in the sense of knowing what he's
up to. I do think that Book!Snape uses it rather frequently, but I'm
not so sure about Film!Snape. I don't like the way Film!Dumbledore
steps in and says that Snape isn't in charge of Harry's and Ron's
punishment (I don't recall his doing so in the book), but at least we
get Snape teaching the group Expelliarmus, Vanishing the snake, and
(to a lesser degree than in the book) exposing Lockhart as a fraud.
And, IIRC, he expresses concern for the student who has been taken
into the Chamber of Secrets in the film as well as the book. We don't
get the scene in which Harry and Ron hope that Snape has left or been
sacked, though, and Snape's delicious line, spoken from behind them,
"Or maybe [significant pause] he's waiting to see why you two didn't
arrive on the school train." Now *there's* a missed opportunity on the
part of the filmmakers.
> 
> 7.  Now that we know the diary was a Horcrux, what do you think of
Harry being inside it? Did the movie diary scene remind you of other
magical items--HP or non-HP?

Carol responds:
I suppose, like other Horcruxes, it could lure people into keeping it
close. Neither Ginny nor Harry could resist its lure (until Ginny
sensed that it was dangerous and tried to flush it away--notice that
she didn't try to burn it or tear it to pieces, or maybe she tried and
found it impossible). I don't think it hurt Harry to be inside it;
Diary!Tom was just trying to mislead him and lure him into the CoS
itself. The diary reminded me of the Pensieve scenes though it was
handled differently. (The memory is shown in black and white; arent
they doing the same thing with the Pensieve memories in HBP?)
> 
> 8. Compare or contrast movie Ron and the spiders to canon Ron. "Why
can't it be follow the butterfly?" Was that a nod to the MSN slogan at
the time?

Carol:
I think they make film Ron look like a wimp (though admittedly Rupert
Grint is quite good at comic fear and anguish--they do the same thing
with him when the flying car hits the Whomping Willow). To me, though,
the whole point of Ron's following the spiders is to show his
particular brand of courage, loyally following Harry into places where
he, more than Harry, doesn't want to go--because of the spiders, in
this instance. (Harry, of course, is used to spiders--if not
Acromantulas--from having to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs
all those years.) JKR is also setting the scene for Ron's Boggart and
other scenes with Acromantulas in the later books, but, of course, the
filmmakers don't know that and it doesn't really matter in this
instance. We didn't get to see them in GoF, but I don't see how
they'll get around Aragog's funeral in HBP.
> 
> 9. I still can't watch the spider section, so if you have any 
questions, feel free to ask them. (Oh dear, another reason not to watch 

Carol:
Why not? It's rather creepy with the spiders slowly climbing down
their webs, with a horrified Ron seeing them and an oblivious Harry
talking to Aragog, but it's not that bad. The only thing that bugs me
(no, not a pun--I know that spiders aren't "bugs" ;-) about that scene
is the made-up spell "Erenio" (or whatever) that Harry uses on the
spiders, having seen Diary!Tom use it on the young Aragog. Just what
it accomplishes, I'm not sure. Most of the film spells (except for
Petrificus Totalus, Wingardium Leviosa, and Evanesco) seem simply to
knock the opponent over with a flash of light, whether the opponent is
Draco or a spider. I have more trouble watching the Basilisk scene,
myself, in part because the film is overly long and I'm half-bored,
half horrified at that point.
> 
> 10. What did you think of Diary!Riddle's death?  How does it compare
to canon!Riddle's death in DH?

Carol:
Just as in SS/PS, the filmmakers have made Harry more vicious and
murderous than he is in the book, or at least, more intent on actually
killing his opponent. He stabs the diary multiple times as blood
gushes out of Diary!Tom, which makes it look as if Harry is
deliberately torturing as well as killing the very nearly human memory
of a wicked teenager. In the book, one stab with the Basilisk fang
(almost said "tusk") is sufficient. Similarly, the SS/PS film has
Harry deliberately burning Quirrell and turning him to dust, whereas
in the book, it's clearly self-defense and he's still alive when Harry
falls unconscious and hears voices, one of which is Dumbledore's.
> 
> 11. DD says Harry has qualities that LV valued. Do you think Harris
made a slip of the tongue or did Kloves? 

Carol responds:
Can you clarify? IIRC, the book says that Harry has traits that
Salazar Slytherin valued. Do you think that the alteration was accidental?
> 
> 12. Only a true Gryffindor could pull a sword from the hat. Does
this foreshadow Neville's role?

Carol:
Resounding yes.
> 
> 13. DD warned Malfoy about other items of Riddle's being brought to
Hogwarts. Was this our hint about Horcruxes?

Carol:
Well, that line is straight from the book, so it could be. And those
of us who've read the books know that DD has started to suspect by
that point, if he hasn't before, that Riddle made those objects he so
assiduously collected into Horcruxes. But, of course, DD is also
keeping Lucius in line just in case he really has such objects, and I
think that's what Kloves would have had in mind (especially since he
originally wrote a scene, cut from the film, with Lucius and Draco at
Borgin and Burke's).
> 
> 14. What do you think of the ending, with the whole school cheering
 for Hagrid?

Carol:
I hate it! I always stop the film before that uncanonical scene comes
on. What reason would the whole school have for cheering Hagrid? IIRC,
nobody but HRH and Dumbledore even knows that he was expelled from
school unfairly and falsely accused of releasing the monster that
killed Moaning Myrtle. And that line about "some bloody bird named
Erroll" delivering the papers is just plain silly given that Hagrid
has no way of knowing the owl's name. So the gamekeeper is back after
a stint in Azkaban. A polite round of applause will suffice, right? No
one except HRH has any kind of special relationship with him. And
Draco regards him as an oaf and "some kind of servant." Nope.
Completely uncanonical and unrealistic, if that's the right word for a
fantasy film. It violates verisimilitude if you want to get technical.
> 
> 15. Does this movie appear darker in any way than SS/PS did?

Carol:
I think it preserves very much the same tone. The opening scene in
SS/PS with Lily being killed and the confrontation with Quirrell!mort
are pretty dark, as is Quirrell!mort drinking unicorn blood. So the
spiders and the Basilisk are just a shade scarier. Diary!Riddle is a
nice new touch--a person who seems like a friend but is really a
deadly enemy. And the inept Lockhart seems harmless and comic but
turns out to have a sinister side as well. I credit JKR with those
subtleties, though. The filmmakers are just following her lead, with
no idea that the diary foreshadows develops in books 6-7 and films 6,
7. and 8.
> 
> 16. Do the costumes look magical enough?

Carol:
I love the costumes in CoS, even though Lockhart's don't look like
Wizard's robes. Maybe that was what led Cuaron to Muggleify the kids'
clothes, which in SS/PS and CoS followed the books in everything but
the emblems on the robes distinguishing the houses. But, Lockhart
aside, CoS was the last film in which the characters dressed more or
less as they do in the books. But Snape in pants? Didn't he wear robes
and cloaks in SS/PS?

Carol, thanking Potioncat for the questions, which are motivating her
to watch the films again