PoA MOVIE DISCUSSION

[Carol]

Carol earlier:
<snip> And there was no reason to make the kids dress like Muggles beyond giving them school uniforms under their robes. (We wouldn't have wanted to see Ron dragged by "the Grim" wearing nothing but a school robe and underwear.) But where does Harry get Muggle clothes other than Dudley's castoffs? Where does Ron, whose parents are wizards with no idea how Muggles dress and not much money, get them? And what about Draco, who never steps outside the WW and wouldn't be caught dead dressing like a Muggle? 

Cabal or md (not sure what to call you, sorry!) wrote: 
> In the books they wear "jumpers" (sweaters) and "trainers" (sneakers) obviously Muggle attire. Plus, with a good deal of the children not being "pure blood" it stands to reason that a good deal have at least one muggle
> parent.

Carol responds:
Good point about the "jumpers" and "trainers." However, in the books, we never see the kids changing out of their robes into anything except pajamas at school (never into Muggle clothes that I recall), and witches and wizards in or out of school wear robes unless they're trying unsuccessfully to dress as Muggles. (Muggle-borns, as you say, are an exception to that rule.)

Cabal (md):
>  Since Columbus did not address the Dudley clothes early-on it couldn't suddenly be an issue in the third film.

Carol responds:
Nevertheless, Harry does seem to be wearing something like hand-me-downs in the first film when he's still at the Dursleys'--not as exaggerated as in the books, of course, but obviously Dudley doesn't *really* take up the whole side of a table and isn't *really* as wide as he is tall (yes, I know he's a fictional character, but the narrator is engaging in comic hyperbole nonetheless). I can't recall how Harry dresses at home in CoS, but suddenly in PoA he's dressing normally at home and the kids at school are suddenly wearing normal (to us) Muggle clothes outside of school. It takes away from the "wizardliness" of the WW (IMO) to have everything about their life the same as ours except wands (and Animagi and werewolves and hippogriffs). Even Potions class has disappeared from the films by CoS. (Okay, the candies that the boys eat are a nice touch.) Instead of Wizard robes and Witch hats we get shrunken heads and electric(?) trains and Victrolas. Instead of a vaguely medieval WW, we have a vaguely 1920s version. Where did it come from? Cuaron's imagination, apparently. It has nothing to do with the WW as JKR depicts it--and yet some of those details, including professors in Muggle clothes (Umbridge, anyone?) and Victrolas (McGonagall teaching the Gryffindors how to dance) are continued into later films. 

Cabal/md:
> Also, it stands to reason that since there is a way to trade wizard gold/silver/bronze from muggle cash that Harry would buy his own damn clothes, actually annoyed me that JKR didn't have him do that, why wouldn't he??? 

Carol responds:
Because he has no opportunity to do so. He's either at home or at Hogwarts most of the time. Besides, don't you think that the Dursleys would wonder where he got the money to buy the clothes and take it--and the clothes--away from him?

Cabal/md:
> The people that wouldn't be caught dead dressing like a muggle are usually older wizards, plus Harry is raised by muggles, Hermoine is born to muggles and Ron's dad is obsessed with muggles, so at least on those three it makes sense. 

Carol:
What about Draco and his friends, who are obsessed with being Pure-Bloods who look down on Muggle-borns--and, by extension, Muggles? They wouldn't be caught dead in Muggle clothes. As for Ron, his parents don't have enough money to buy him decent dress robes and they don't know how Muggles dress. Where are they supposed to get decent Muggle clothes for five kids (not counting Bill and Charlie, who earn their own living).

Cabal:
> Plus the "school uniforms" under the robes are MUGGLE CLOTHES!!! If anything I think it was JKR that was inconsistent and the films made things a little more logical.

Carol responds:
I already conceded that the uncanonical school uniforms are Muggle clothes. Apparently, Columbus et al. didn't want to follow JKR in having the kids wear only underwear under the robes, or they didn't know what they wore. (Columbus also had the robes indicate the different Houses through insignias. How the first years knew to buy the right robes is not addressed.) IMO, the robes should look more like academic gowns, closed front and back, not long coats that reveal Muggle-style school uniforms underneath, and the kids should wear them even when they're out of school because that's how people dress in the WW. If medieval people and people in biblical times and even some modern-day Arabs can live without trousers, so can Witches and Wizards. But, say that we concede the point about modern kids being awkward and uncomfortable in such clothes and need school uniforms under their robes. At least let them wear the school uniforms on evenings and weekends and not uncanonical Muggle clothes. They're not us.
> 
Carol earlier:
<snip>(Can you link me to an article stating JKR's approval of that uncanonical and unnecessary addition to the story? Why not leave Stan and Ernie as they're written? BTW, the shrunken heads seem to me like an intrusion by the director into the scriptwriter's territory. I doubt that Steve Kloves would have added shrunken heads with Jamaican accents had he not been asked to--and, possibly, he didn't write those lines himself.) You like it. I don't. No point in arguing because neither of us will change the other's mind. <snip>


Cabal/md: 
> As for JKR I believe it's on a behind-the-scenes on a DVD for the film that she talks about the heads. It was YEARS ago when the film came out now, I read articles all over the place at the time you can't expect me to remember where I read everything I read several years ago. Either way, I'm certainly not lying, thanks for respecting that if I say I read something I'm not full of BS. <snip>

Carol responds:
Of course, I'm not accusing you of lying or inventing the remark. I just asked whether you could provide the link. (I can try Googling it, but I thought you might have it bookmarked.) Please don't take offense where none is intended. :-)

Carol earlier:
> I have no complaint about the clock tower, which was an effective addition. And even if JKR accepted the shrunken heads, for some fans, including me, they're a distracting and *un-English* intrusion into JKR's world. (Yes, I know that Hogwarts is in Scotland, but most of the teachers and students are English.)
 
Cabal: 
> Who gives a crap about whether it's "English?" Not me.
>
Carol responds:
*I* care. The setting of the books is specifically the Britain and most of the characters are specifically English. (Seamus is specifically Irish, McGonagall specifically Scottish.) Just as Beauxbatons has a French flavor and Durmstrang (despite its German name) a Slavic one, Hogwarts is very, very English, as is the WW as we see it represented in the books and onscreen. The Shrunken heads are a foreign intrusion, as foreign as if an American school started serving bouillabaisse to its students. (And please watch your tone. I would never phrase a question to you in that way.)
> 
Carol earlier:
> <snip> Do you have any specific complaints about the way the scene was written and any specific improvements to note in the filming? (The rock throwing seems pointless to me. Hermione knows that they left. Also, the Patronus is not clearly the same as the shining stag, which doesn't return to Harry as in the book. I think that a filmgoer would be confused and think that the Patronus is just a shining light shield.) 

Cabal/md: 
> I don't have complaints about how it was written, I just liked that the movie made everything they did relevant and by showing the scenes from different perspective, I think it's the sort of thing that works better visually than in writing and I think Cuaron made that visual experience clear and interesting. I like the rock-throwing because it's funny, and Hermoine's "is that really what my hair looks like from the back" comment. I felt that in the book it was just the next chapter where in the film the overlap was obvious and it showed that them in the future had effect on several moments in the past.
> 
Carol responds:
It did work well visually, I agree, but I'm not so sure that they *changed* the future. I think the point JKR made was that it always only happened that way because the present and future were simultaneous. (Of course, if they hadn't gone back, it wouldn't have happened that way, but nothing was actually *changed.* Hermione's rock throwing made no difference. She *knew* that they had left! (I didn'tn't care for the girly-girl comment about her hair, either--out of character for Hermione and the last thing she should have been thinking about. Again, it's just a matter of taste. You like it. I don't. It's Hermione, not Hermoine, BTW. 

Carol earlier:
> <snip> Carol, who had high hopes for PoA based on the trailer and still likes parts of it, including the music and some of the CGI

Cabal/md: 
> The only thing I took issue with CGI is the werewolf looks nothing like man or beast, but some third bastard offshoot. Don't understand why? In the book they "ran" with him, but in the movie he's not very animal at all.

Carol:
Hooray! A point we can agree on.

Carol, who is finally reconciled to Lupin's funny little mustache, at least