![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Those of you I've corresponded with via LJ will have noticed I've been rather quiet recently. This is why.
Less than a week to go now, and I'm in the final mad throes of realising that there are some things (including, sadly, my planned costume for the ball) that I have no chance of getting done by Wednesday. And I was most amused last Sunday when my Dad found a box at the side of the house addressed to me - even on Sunday I'm not immune from receiving intriguing parcels! Sectus has doubled my ebay feedback score (not that it was particulary impressive, but considering I registered for ebay back in 2004...)
So, I guess I wanted to add my comments about Movie!OotP to the general clamour. I saw it in Little Whinging's bland cinema, with my parents, on the 12th, and was a litle underwhelmed. In fairness to the movie, the children behind us munching popcorn throughout didn't help, nor did my general stress about Sectus (Why oh why did we go for a Ministry theme when the film is going to fix an unobtainable image of the Ministry in everyone's head? (And yes, I know that was my fault.) And now I want some extendable ears - I'm hoping ebay will provide on time.)
Still, the more we see of the movies, the more I feel they really should have waited until the seventh book had come out so they could write them more coherently. This one felt rushed, with a lot of background detail that wasn't relevant to the plot and was potentially confusing - though visually it was stunning and the sound/music worked well for me. And yet, and yet... on reading OotP - my first book since immersing myself in the fandom - I remember saying to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kennahijja that I couldn't wait to see them film the MoM scene. So if I was set to enjoy any movie, it was this one. But it didn't add anything to my appreciation of the books - seeing things from a more neutral PoV than Book!Harry's didn't add anything, unlike with movie!Gof where the celebratory mood of the Hogwarts spectators brought home the dissonance with Harry's experience in the graveyard much more strongly than as seen by Harry.
I suppose there was a lot I liked about it, but those moments didn't gel together to make it a great experience for me. Perhaps, knowing that Lucius was going to feature, my expectations were too high. Perhaps I'll enjoy Movie!HBP more because I won't care as much. And probably I'll enjoy it more on a second viewing when I know what cuts to expect. Though I'm also wondering whether I wouldn't enjoy it more if I stayed away from movie spoilers and let the film work its magic fresh.
My overriding impression is that there should be a load of good deleted scenes on the DVD. I've just seen_lady_narcissa_ mention a scene with Lucius at home, and there are those Harry/Bella scenes from the trailer and the end scenes filmed near the fake Roman ruins at Virgina Water.
What I liked
- Crookshanks playing with the extendible ear. Yes, it was completely irrelevant to the plot, but sooo catlike...
- Umbridge's kitten plates - I loved the background mewing everytime we were in her office, and especially the cat that disappeared through the catflap when Harry entered to use the fire.
-Umbridge and Luna - Umbridge was thinner than I'd imagined and Luna cleaner, but both had their characters down to the proberbial 'T'. Although, with the loss of the interview-with-the-Quibbler plot, Luna seems rather superfluous.
-Lucius and Fudge in the Ministry - a pleasant surprise, that, as I'd heard that we wouldn't see Lucius in the Ministry. But my Lucius-obsession aside, I felt it was effective: for non-Potter obsessives it clearly showed someone who was a Death Eater (it didn't particularly matter that Lucius was Draco's father in the context of this film, though they'll have some explaining to do in the next one) talking to - and by implication influencing - Fudge. Not that I'm at all biased by my own fanfic interpretation of the Lucius/Cornelius relationship, of course. ;)
- Lucius in the MoM... oh my, what an entrance! Excuse me while I go find somewhere to drool...
- Sirius punching Lucius - it brought home the Sirius/Harry bond more strongly than in the book, I felt
- The visuals, especially the Ministry, the Prophecies (makes Sectus's 40 seem very puny, but at least ours exist outside of a computer) and the Patroni
- Occlumency lessons - not so much a 'wow, isn't this great' - but I felt that combining Harry's Protego and Snape's Worst Memory made sense. And the interaction between the two felt true to canon.
- Dumbledore's exit - I was *so* glad they kept in his line about not going quietly, though I'd have liked to see him do his 'well, I could break out of Azkaban, but it's such a waste of time...'
- Aberforth's goat - such a complete sop to the fans, but one that hopefully wasn't out of place for those who didn't get the significance
What I wasn't so keen on
- The lack of Draco - though considering how 2-D he is in book!Ootp, it's hardly a great loss
- 'Pace' at the expense of character development - was it really necessary for Tonks to grow a snout? Will her metamophmagus abilities be plot-relevant in Book7, or was this just a nod to 'what the kids will want to see'? Because with no explanation it seemed a bit silly.
- Likewise, the lack of explanation of the context of the prophecy - so we lost the fact of Snape listening in, which became significant in HBP, and lost the fact that Sybil made it, which makes the focus on her in this film and in PoA completely superfluous.
- The Weasley twins' exit - this was one of my favourite scenes in the book, and while the movie version wasn't bad I didn't feel it did the book justice. Even the twins weren't so inconsiderate as to disrupt exams in canon, and to see them planning to leave before seeing them do so robbed the scene of its power and humour for me - I missed that moment when Umbridge is puffing herself up to punish them and they just shrug before demonstrating that she has no power over them by withdrawing themselves from her sphere of authority.
- The Death Room battle - I'm hoping that scene, which I've been anticipating for 4 years, will grow on me. But on first viewing it was too rushed. Maybe realistic for a battle scene, but not easy to follow. And I really didn't like Sirius dying by AK - perhaps the filmmakers felt it was clearer that way, but to my mind it would have been clearer to have him falling through the veil and have Remus saying 'no, he's dead', as he does in the book. That said, I felt the lack of sound at this point was effective.
- The lack of Weasley-Malfoy strife, which the posters appeared to promise. Well, this time next week I'll know if there's anything more to the Arthur-Lucius enmity, or whether we'll have to make it up...
I don't suppose I'll post again until after Sectus. It's an odd state of mind in which to be reading the last book - I have so much to do in the next few days that the organisation is overshadowing any excitement (or dread) about DH. If anyone's reading this who's going to Sectus, do come and say hello (I'll either be running around like a snidget on speed or collapsed in a corner.)
And to everyone - see you on the other side of The End. :)
Less than a week to go now, and I'm in the final mad throes of realising that there are some things (including, sadly, my planned costume for the ball) that I have no chance of getting done by Wednesday. And I was most amused last Sunday when my Dad found a box at the side of the house addressed to me - even on Sunday I'm not immune from receiving intriguing parcels! Sectus has doubled my ebay feedback score (not that it was particulary impressive, but considering I registered for ebay back in 2004...)
So, I guess I wanted to add my comments about Movie!OotP to the general clamour. I saw it in Little Whinging's bland cinema, with my parents, on the 12th, and was a litle underwhelmed. In fairness to the movie, the children behind us munching popcorn throughout didn't help, nor did my general stress about Sectus (Why oh why did we go for a Ministry theme when the film is going to fix an unobtainable image of the Ministry in everyone's head? (And yes, I know that was my fault.) And now I want some extendable ears - I'm hoping ebay will provide on time.)
Still, the more we see of the movies, the more I feel they really should have waited until the seventh book had come out so they could write them more coherently. This one felt rushed, with a lot of background detail that wasn't relevant to the plot and was potentially confusing - though visually it was stunning and the sound/music worked well for me. And yet, and yet... on reading OotP - my first book since immersing myself in the fandom - I remember saying to
kennahijja that I couldn't wait to see them film the MoM scene. So if I was set to enjoy any movie, it was this one. But it didn't add anything to my appreciation of the books - seeing things from a more neutral PoV than Book!Harry's didn't add anything, unlike with movie!Gof where the celebratory mood of the Hogwarts spectators brought home the dissonance with Harry's experience in the graveyard much more strongly than as seen by Harry.I suppose there was a lot I liked about it, but those moments didn't gel together to make it a great experience for me. Perhaps, knowing that Lucius was going to feature, my expectations were too high. Perhaps I'll enjoy Movie!HBP more because I won't care as much. And probably I'll enjoy it more on a second viewing when I know what cuts to expect. Though I'm also wondering whether I wouldn't enjoy it more if I stayed away from movie spoilers and let the film work its magic fresh.
My overriding impression is that there should be a load of good deleted scenes on the DVD. I've just seen
_lady_narcissa_ mention a scene with Lucius at home, and there are those Harry/Bella scenes from the trailer and the end scenes filmed near the fake Roman ruins at Virgina Water.What I liked
- Crookshanks playing with the extendible ear. Yes, it was completely irrelevant to the plot, but sooo catlike...
- Umbridge's kitten plates - I loved the background mewing everytime we were in her office, and especially the cat that disappeared through the catflap when Harry entered to use the fire.
-Umbridge and Luna - Umbridge was thinner than I'd imagined and Luna cleaner, but both had their characters down to the proberbial 'T'. Although, with the loss of the interview-with-the-Quibbler plot, Luna seems rather superfluous.
-Lucius and Fudge in the Ministry - a pleasant surprise, that, as I'd heard that we wouldn't see Lucius in the Ministry. But my Lucius-obsession aside, I felt it was effective: for non-Potter obsessives it clearly showed someone who was a Death Eater (it didn't particularly matter that Lucius was Draco's father in the context of this film, though they'll have some explaining to do in the next one) talking to - and by implication influencing - Fudge. Not that I'm at all biased by my own fanfic interpretation of the Lucius/Cornelius relationship, of course. ;)
- Lucius in the MoM... oh my, what an entrance! Excuse me while I go find somewhere to drool...
- Sirius punching Lucius - it brought home the Sirius/Harry bond more strongly than in the book, I felt
- The visuals, especially the Ministry, the Prophecies (makes Sectus's 40 seem very puny, but at least ours exist outside of a computer) and the Patroni
- Occlumency lessons - not so much a 'wow, isn't this great' - but I felt that combining Harry's Protego and Snape's Worst Memory made sense. And the interaction between the two felt true to canon.
- Dumbledore's exit - I was *so* glad they kept in his line about not going quietly, though I'd have liked to see him do his 'well, I could break out of Azkaban, but it's such a waste of time...'
- Aberforth's goat - such a complete sop to the fans, but one that hopefully wasn't out of place for those who didn't get the significance
What I wasn't so keen on
- The lack of Draco - though considering how 2-D he is in book!Ootp, it's hardly a great loss
- 'Pace' at the expense of character development - was it really necessary for Tonks to grow a snout? Will her metamophmagus abilities be plot-relevant in Book7, or was this just a nod to 'what the kids will want to see'? Because with no explanation it seemed a bit silly.
- Likewise, the lack of explanation of the context of the prophecy - so we lost the fact of Snape listening in, which became significant in HBP, and lost the fact that Sybil made it, which makes the focus on her in this film and in PoA completely superfluous.
- The Weasley twins' exit - this was one of my favourite scenes in the book, and while the movie version wasn't bad I didn't feel it did the book justice. Even the twins weren't so inconsiderate as to disrupt exams in canon, and to see them planning to leave before seeing them do so robbed the scene of its power and humour for me - I missed that moment when Umbridge is puffing herself up to punish them and they just shrug before demonstrating that she has no power over them by withdrawing themselves from her sphere of authority.
- The Death Room battle - I'm hoping that scene, which I've been anticipating for 4 years, will grow on me. But on first viewing it was too rushed. Maybe realistic for a battle scene, but not easy to follow. And I really didn't like Sirius dying by AK - perhaps the filmmakers felt it was clearer that way, but to my mind it would have been clearer to have him falling through the veil and have Remus saying 'no, he's dead', as he does in the book. That said, I felt the lack of sound at this point was effective.
- The lack of Weasley-Malfoy strife, which the posters appeared to promise. Well, this time next week I'll know if there's anything more to the Arthur-Lucius enmity, or whether we'll have to make it up...
I don't suppose I'll post again until after Sectus. It's an odd state of mind in which to be reading the last book - I have so much to do in the next few days that the organisation is overshadowing any excitement (or dread) about DH. If anyone's reading this who's going to Sectus, do come and say hello (I'll either be running around like a snidget on speed or collapsed in a corner.)
And to everyone - see you on the other side of The End. :)
