Trailer, si! Tapes, no!; End of an Era; Final Report: Dale v. Fry

[Haggridd]

No: HPFGUIDX 21696

I had thought that when I had finally heard all four books by both 
readers, I would do some enormous recapitulation of each character and 
compare each one in light of hearing all the extant recordings.  
Sadly, I no longer think it as important as I previously believed.  
For better or worse, will he, nill he, the voices associated with the 
HP characters will be those portrayed in the movie.  The combination 
of the visual, the vocal, the special effects and the score will 
drive these impressions inexorably into our minds, even if the movies 
are not completely faithful to the books.

So, I just have some housekeeping chores left to do.

In GoF, we are quickly introduced to a number of new voices, and I 
regret to say that Fry disappoints with his handling of each of them.
If any characters were designated to speak in dialect, they would be 
Mad-Eye Moody, Fleur, Mme. Maxime, and Karkaroff.  For JKR has 
provided textual evidence in their dialogues, not merely painting the 
characters as French, Scots, etc.  Fry has attempted to do them both 
as different voices, rather than simply reading their speech, and to 
have them speak in dialect.  He therefore is obligated to keep the 
voices distinct and to be consistent.  Say what you will about Dale's 
overbroad portrayal of his voices, he is consistent.

Mad-Eye Moody must have a Scots burr.  As with too many of his 
characters, Fry has him speak with the same proper educated English 
intonation, albeit in a deeper register.  He also does a nice thing 
when he uses an echo chamber for Moody's speaking the commands under 
the Imperius curse, but as I have said previously, he overuses this 
effect so it loses its effect somewhat.

Mme. Maxime should speak in a deep register.  Dale does this, but her 
voice is rather muddy, in my opinion.  Fry should have scored easily 
here, but he did not, because Olympe kept going higher and lower with 
every bit of dialogue.  Good French accent, though, as was Fleur's.

Fry's Karkaroff is a dismal failure.  The man is Slavic, and Fry 
introduces him with a Slavic accent, but immediately changes to a 
bloody awful Low German or Austrian accent.  He had Karakaroff 
sounding like Walt Disney's Ludwig van Drake!

I like Fry's Rita Skeeter.

I much prefer Dale's Winky.

To wrap up, I would have preferred that Fry did all the narrating, 
Snape, Hermione Ron and Harry.  I also prefer Fry's pronunciation 
of the various spells, of animagus, of Durmstrang, and of Beauxbatons. 
All the other voices were done better by Dale, to varying degrees.

IMHO

Haggridd

"Lights, Camera, Action!"