Harry Potter: Classic Or Dud?

feel like i’m the only person on earth who likes movie 5, ice blue filter and all

goblet of fire however, more like gob(let of )shite

the tournament sucks and a homecoming dance for magic people should be way fucking cooler

btw i’m sure it’s an entirely unintended misreading of the character according to the author but: tonks is trans

3rd movie has head and shoulders the best film score of the series as well

a homecoming dance

sorry for folding down my american high school experience down over british boarding school

still it's like stiff group dancing and then teens sniping at each other while jarvis cocker "sings"

I'm still mired in the fifth book with my 6yo - she's been slow to get ready for bed so we haven't had much time to read before lights out. It's rough going. I find Umbridge to be one of the most memorable characters from either the movies or the books, and handled in a different way in each. The Umbridge abuse stuff is handled with less pathos in the books than in the films and felt in a way more real to me as a result, like closer to the way a child who had already been through abuse and neglect would endure it.

Meanwhile, just returned from Harry Potter "Wizarding World" at Universal Studios. Some of it was impressively well done - the hogsmeade and diagon alley villages are fairly convincing, beautiful attention to detail in the shop windows, hogwarts castle was incredibly impressive. The rides make an absolutely incoherent hash of things as you might expect, and weren't v enjoyable either. The hybrid real/vr broom flying stuff was nauseating and more or less traumatized my 10yo. Also, predictably, you can't twitch without brushing against something overpriced to buy. We were sports and let our kids buy Harry Potter candy at what must be a 10x markup vs its non-branded equivalent. Some of the experience is just seeing full grown adults excitedly cosplaying the characters.

uhhhh deathly hallows part 1 is an astonishing film? replace the wizard main characters and it's a travelogue art film where nothing happens, include the wizard main characters and every frame aches with a longing for what's been lost. the dance sequence and the unbelievable dramatic tension beneath the surface of it absolutely ruined my life, they're trying to access a shared childhood happiness that is gone forever

(me being mean: of course that shit isn't in the books bc it's way too emotionally complex!!!!)

easily my second favorite after 3, deserves to be as fondly thought of

Interesting. At the time I kind of had the opposite reaction for the same reasons -- i.e. that it's a plotless travelogue built on a thin and repetitive premise. I guess it would be worth rewatching with that lens.

i think it helps that i've never read the books and am not aware of any events that the movie needs to *get* to

just patiently existing in these gorgeous, empty environments where everyone is SO SAD.... movie catnip for me

It's kind of the first film in the series with exclusively high stakes, iirc. No quiddich or exams or other silliness.

I thought the rides at "Harry Potter" were OK. Def. better than most of the other rides at Universal, which are variations of "sit on this bench and put on these glasses and then we'll spit at you" simulators.

the visualizations of magic deathly hallows 1 were really weird and incredible too, cf. hermione transporting them out of the ministry toilets as they're being pursued, which causes everyone to get distended and warped; the animated deathly hallows sequence; ron fighting the enormous black whorl of the horcrux containing all of his insecurities within

On the whole I found a lot of the films visually impressive. I think Deathly Hallows Pt 2 is the only one I haven't watched. Some of them blur for me a bit.

I've read a couple of defenses of Chris Columbus, mainly that while his installments aren't that strong, they did definitively set the visual tone for the rest of the series. The sets and costumes and stuff. Cuaron added more stylized gloom and menace.

i think i referred to the columbus films as "fine" upthread but the first movie would rank somewhere in the middle for me still, it does exactly what it's supposed to do

The first one worked well overall. My biggest problem was the way the first film rushed through pre-Hogwarts to get to Hogwarts. I get that the films aren't going to cover everything in the books (thankfully in a lot of cases), but the setup in the first book is so critical to the entire series, to who Harry is, to what Hogwarts means etc.

hairy pooper more like it!

whew, I am in so deep. Took the kids to see Cursed Child as a consolation for our whole winter break trip getting cancelled. It was...fine. Heavy on the fan service, sort of a Force Awakens of the Potterverse. I felt like it couldn't make up its mind whether it was a gay love story or not (apparently this is hotly debated online so I wasn't the only person who picked up on it). I think I would have liked it better if it just allowed itself to be one, even if not overt.

Some very nice visual effects, cast was decent, some funny lines. Could not in a million years have imagined ten years ago that I'd be shelling out to see it.

Meanwhile reading the seventh book with my younger one. I actually enjoyed the sixth book a lot - it was probably my favorite since the third. And then she has them all on audible and listens to them all the frickin' time, to a degree I can't understand. She can summon up random parts of the books and quote them in response to questions.

Finally started this with my 7 year old and I'm not hating it. Ok the prose is mostly pedestrian but it's still a zillion times better than all the rainbow princess unicorn garbage. Worst thing so far is maybe the dursley's, straight out of dahl's the twits - pure cardboard villains, and vilified for being fat and ugly.

still a zillion times better than all the rainbow princess unicorn garbage

horrid Adventure Time slander

report back when you're halfway through book 4 and see how you feel then

well yes i am really dreading that.

if I've learned anything from these books it's the importance of a good editor

well, they did cut out the scene in the book where you have to put on the sorting hat every time you need to use the bathroom

"I'm a Hufflepuff but my poops are Slytherin"

Christ, imagine if she started the books now, in the full grip of the brainworms. possibly she is trying to do exactly that and is being carefully told not to by her publisher.

idk, I think she's more interested in the Cormoran Strike series now.

Well someone has to be interested in them

lol otm

finished the second book, what an uninspired retread of the first. an unknown villain, a secret chamber, a useless trip to the forest, harry alone saves the day. oh and as tiresome quidditch match of course. this one though takes over 100 pages to get going, sets things up that never pay off (though I guess they may still) like harry's embarrassment at the weasley's poverty and his own wealth - and dobby, who is strange and entirely pointless. the writing is worse, packed with awful adverbs said ron dully / harry distractedly, and she loves repeating words in the same sentence - "landing in a crumpled heap on the landing", "the clever handsome boy who was once head boy". obviously kids lack all discernment but it's impossible to see why adults ever fell for this.

Well the good news is that the following books are not so much retreads of the first (in fact book 3 might be the best in the series, maybe)

The bad news, well, where to start?

the "Harry not helping out the poor Weasleys with his vault full of gold" thing was discussed in one of the videos above. It is strange that they are poor anyway, considering the family are bringing in three high-level government salaries, own their house and, you know, can just conjour up almost everything they need from thin air. and there is absolutely no reason Harry can't just find a way to gift them some money, he simply can't be bothered to. this all of course reflects JKR's worldview, that trying to change anything important is wrong and dangerous. which book has SPEW? Think that may be the single most objectionable part of the entire series.

Ron ejaculated a lot

Finished the third. Add cruel and unusual prison system to the list of things that need fixing in the potterverse. Felt like a real slog towards the end - in the two chapters where we have to wait ages for the entirely expected sirius black reveal my daughter said 'how long have they been in this room? about 50 hours!?'. The back of my copy has a sunday express review quote: 'jkr has created a world in which anything might happen, yet everything abides by its own tightly constructed, impossibly wonderful rules'. lol wut. They hardly ever use magic to get out of or do anything - e.g. hermione fetching a dustpan and brush to clear up a smashed milk jug, ron writhing around with a broken leg for the aforementioned 50 hours, or the endless references to lugging heavy trunks around long after they've learned the levitation spell - yet snape can effortlessly conjure stretchers out of thin air. When we do get to see magic being performed, half the time it requires the silly latin, half the time they just point their wands silently.

Harry hadn't got to sleep till daybreak. He had awoken to find the dormitory deserted, dressed and gone down the spiral staircase...

I know it's easier to be wrong-footed when reading aloud, and it's not technically wrong and I could be accused of nit-picking, but I was very confused by the idea of a dormitory getting dressed and going down stairs.

It's a magic dormitory, you see

who doesn't love reading action in the past perfect

what I've always found annoying about the series is the insistence that LOVE saved Harry, leaving a mark on him and making him the only person who could defeat Voldemort, and this being the ONLY reason he was able to defeat him really

this just based on casual observation not ironclad statistical evidence but it's suddenly standing out to me in book four that whenever rowling refers to an indeterminate student she always uses "he or she" never "they".

That was standard until very recently, though. I'm pretty sure I used to tell my comp students that "they" was too informal for academic writing. So that could easily have been the work of an editor.

what editor that book is endless

Good point, that book was the one where they stopped bothering to edit her, wasn't it? But I still don't think it means anything in particular except that the book was written 20+ years ago. I'm not denying that Rowling is transphobic; obviously she's awful. But I think most writers in 2000 would have written "he or she" in something intended for publication.

That was standard until very recently, though. I'm pretty sure I used to tell my comp students that "they" was too informal for academic writing. So that could easily have been the work of an editor.

― Lily Dale, Tuesday, September 5, 2023 1:45 AM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was brought up to be clear about gender when writing- pretty sure that was the standard curriculum at the time. i remember people asking why they can't just use "they" or "them"... and it was just laid down as this flat "formalities" sort of thing that it had to be.

My English teachers were adamant about not allowing the singular they, it was a crime on par with y'all, ain't and the passive voice.

Vague memory that we were instructed to default to male as the gender-neutral pronoun but English was a long time ago.

i'm another in the 'book 4 drove me away for good' camp

Feel like there's a hard line around October 1 1983 where no one born before read the Potter books as they released and everyone born after did.

sadly this holds true for my current students. i always suggest other books!