jenny_wildcat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jenny_wildcat) wrote2007-07-11 01:26 pm
jenny_wildcat) wrote2007-07-11 01:26 pm
Entry tags:
All We Are Saying is Give Plot A Chance
Saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie last night in IMAX. As my loyal readers know (all five of you), my expectations for this movie were rock bottom, simply because there was so much for them to do right and they already failed miserably at Goblet of Fire (shut up, they did), so what was there to think that they wouldn't completely botched OotP (which is an even longer book that GoF)?
Well, they didn't completely botch it. Not remotely.
It goes without saying - Spoilers for the movie follow (of course it's long, what were you thinking?):
There's so much that I want to go into (and I haven't talked about my first Harry Potter premiere at Jordan Commons - the HP movie capital of Utah). I found people to discuss my major DH theory with(!) and that made me happy. I'll probably post more later, so tune in again.
Love from,
Jenny Wildcat
EDIT: I've finally looked at some local reviews of OotP and Sean Means at the Salt Lake Tribune hit it on the head: It's an installment of a series!!! Jeff Vice at the Deseret News pissed me off, as usual (he doesn't like fantasy movies with a large following is all).
Well, they didn't completely botch it. Not remotely.
It goes without saying - Spoilers for the movie follow (of course it's long, what were you thinking?):
Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg: I'll say it again: Screenwriter MICHAEL GOLDENBERG!!
In case you couldn't tell, this movie had a different screenwriter (his name is Michael Goldenberg) than the others, which translated into no twenty minute long dragon chasings (and no, I'm never going to let them live that down). On the contrary, he took what was a very long and complicated story and did it justice. Obviously, you can't put in everything from the book into the movie, but he did things like have Neville find the Room of Requirement, Snape's worst memory, combining the Weasley's firework display with their flight from Hogwarts, the montages of Umbridge's Inquisitor-ness and the DA (why haven't we done anything with montages before? I can think of about four or five other places they could have done that). For every major (and some minor) plot point that he had to cut, he put in something to replace it that was just as feasible. The story was a cohesive whole (which is what we've been missing up until now) and it made sense and it wasn't a big WE'RE AT A MAGIC SCHOOL SPECIAL EFFECTS FEST THROW IN ANOTHER SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER EXPLOSION WHEE!! It was subtle and it respected the original material as an amazing story to be told.
Everything in the movie that I loved/liked (to be fair, a few things that I didn't like) can be linked to the great screenplay. Can we fire Steve Kloves and hire Michael Goldenberg permanently?
Flashbacks: Between Harry's nightmares of Voldemort (handled beautifully in the cinematography and editing departments) and the Occlumency lessons, we now have a Harry Potter movie series. So far, it has only been one book and one movie at a time - treated as isolated pieces and disregarding that what happens in movie three is going to impact what happens in movie five. The movies haven't been treated like the books, that is as one huge story with seven installments (the closest we've ever come to that is Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets and that's mostly because they looked the same). But by using footage from previous movies and referring to what's happened before, we feel like we're in the middle of the story.
Montages: Why haven't we done this before? And why haven't I suggested it before? *kicks self for not thinking of it first* So much happens outside Hogwarts that they used a succession of Daily Prophet headlines to illustrate that everyone thinks Dumbledore and Harry are lying, what happened when nutty ol' Bella and company broke out of Azkaban and when Fudge pulled his head out and admitted that Voldy is back again. Also, they showed the progress of Umbridge's reign of tyranny as Inquisitor as a montage as well as the DA getting going (Filch sitting in front of the RoR door was a nice touch - and I kept waiting for his Educational Decree ladder to fall over. Though, don't they learn any spells other than Stupefy and Expelliarmus? The Patronus, but that's it - and yay for Ron's puppy!Patronus). Montages are great to show a lot of things happening in a short amount of time (they probably could have done it with Quidditch in the third movie, but I'm not one to dredge up past mistakes).
Movie!Ron Has Grown a Spine: Has anyone checked the temperature in hell lately? Harry's losing it in the angst and Ron's there to make sure that he doesn't beat up Malfoy. Hermione's getting molested by Grawp and Ron's the one to tackle the giant (he's not going to be feeling that shoulder in the morning, though). I always knew that Rupert Grint could handle the bravery in Ron's character and now he has been given the chance. He isn't *just* comic relief anymore and he can put away the Pepto-Bismol. Mucho applause from Wildcat Land.
The Kiss: Harry and Cho kiss. Cho narked on the DA. There will be no first date. Millions of hormonal pre-teen soap opera BOP subscribers are disappointed. Nothing more to see here.
Little Substitutions: Instead of Dobby, Neville finds the Room of Requirement. Instead of Marietta ratting out Dumbledore's Army, Cho does (which serves the dual purpose of getting her out of the shipping picture for Harry). Shacklebolt telling Arthur in the elevator that Harry's hearing had been changed. A brief glimpse of Lucius Malfoy talking to Fudge outside the Department of Mysteries. There were some others, but I'll have to go see the movie again to remember what there was. And they combined a few scenes as well - like the Order meeting combined with Harry coming to Grimmauld Place combined with Extendable Ears combined with Harry finding out about the Daily Prophet's BS combined with... you get the idea. It does make for a faster pace, but there's a lot to be done here.
Sirius Black: My biggest concern for this movie was that we had no emotional connection with Sirius (which was supposed to be established in GoF... I use Mike Newell's name as a swearword now, just so you know) and that's kind of a key thing when you have a major character die. But David Yates and Michael Goldenberg (MICHAEL GOLDENBERG) took the mess that they were given and from Harry's first meeting with his godfather to the end battle ("Good one, James" - wasn't quite crying, but we were getting there) established the emotion that we needed to understand Harry's state of mind by the end of the movie. And there was no acid-trippy-SFX-intern talking coals for this movie. Praise Godric Gryffindor, they're listening to the fans!
The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black: Okay, so they kept Kreacher, but they didn't do much with him (I guess when you don't know why Jo insisted he stay and you were going to cut him out anyway, there's not much you can do). And why did they wait until Christmas to explain that Grimmauld Place was Sirius' house? I was fine with waiting until Christmas to introduce the Black Family Tapestry, but Harry spent part of the summer at headquarters so wouldn't it follow that somebody would have mentioned "Oh, by the way..."
Severus Snape: Alan Rickman as Snape=FTW, as always. Snape answering Umbridge's questions... well, Harry said it himself in the book: he didn't know which one he wanted to win (I think he actually said that about Trelawney, but it applies here). I actually was laughing about Snape's one-word sarcasm. I do have something to say about Occlumency (I guess they just had a problem with the whole Christmas bit). Why did Snape have to whisk Harry away immediately after his Snake-Attacking-Mr.-Weasley dream? He's just been through the worst nightmare-that-really-wasn't-a-nightmare (hyphens are my friends, apparently), so why subject him to one ordeal after another? A brain can only take so much invasion here. I would have liked it better if Harry was suddenly in Snape's office after Christmas with Snape explaining what Occlumency was and why Harry had to learn it (their explanation of Occlumency was pretty good for it being such a brain-numbing concept in the first place).
On a similar note: Snape's Worst Memory. I've already seen complaints about how it was handled. I have to disagree on the grounds that they were trying so hard to keep as much material as they could in this movie without making it crap. Harry breaks through Snape's defenses in the book during Occlumency lessons, so it would follow that Harry could get through to Snape's memories of his youth. Again, they have to combine a lot of stuff and I think that Snape's memories of how James treated him at school would be at the forefront of his mind when Snape's dealing with Harry. And, yeah, Lily wasn't there, but that whole "Snape Loved Lily" theory bugs me. I just don't see Snape pining over some long lost love and it's kinda cheesy anyway. I'd rather see Harry interact with the memory of his mother and father (Who saw the Mirror of Erised flashback coming? *crickets* Who was pleased to see it? *Meeee!!!*)
Dolores Umbridge: Why is it that I like the bad guys in the movies? Wha'chu doin' to me casting peoples? Well, I don't like Umbridge as a character, but I LOVED Imelda Staunton's performance as Umbridge. She was so amazing in being disgustingly sick and twisted - which is the very essence of Umbridge. She's nice and sweet to you if you are going to assist in her power-driven agenda, but she'll lock you in a room with KGB-al-Qaida-style torture if you dare oppose her (heaven help us if the terrorists ever get one of Umbridge's quills - Forget the Unforgivable Curses. The sickest thing that Jo has made up in her universe is that blood-writing quill). And that photo of Fudge on Umbridge's desk was a nice touch. Seeing Umbridge in action, I have come to a conclusion: Umbridge is a Socialist, which is pretty much a baby Communist.
Professor McGonagall: Her interactions with Umbridge were my favorite in the book and they were sadly missing from the movie. There were a few, which were great (Dame Maggie Smith was spot-on yet again), but I wanted more. I guess something has to go, but I wanted to hear more from my Head of House.
The Dursleys: We've missed the Dursleys for a whole movie and we've never heard Dudley speak much, but wow... his voice has changed dramatically (well, duh). I didn't think it was Harry Melling at first, but it was. I was fairly surprised that Dudley kept up with Harry when they were booking it away from the dementors (Dudley may be in shape from boxing, but heavyweights aren't exactly sprinters). The dementors looked almost the same as the ones from the third movie, but there was something different about them. Can't put my finger on it, though. It might have been their coloring.
A few things I missed: Petunia's Howler (could have done without that little sundress she was wearing, but oh well), Mrs. Figg yelling at Mundungus Fletcher, Harry wondering what the dementors made Dudley see.
Bellatrix Lestrange: I knew Helena Bonham Carter was a great choice for Bellatrix, but I didn't know how great. She is dang creepy and her taunting during the Battle at the Ministry was perfect (I'm running out of adjectives here). And then, she has the audacity to talk to Neville (Matt Lewis had another amazing performance). I can't wait to see what she does in the seventh movie (having not even read the seventh book yet).
Now, in the book, it's a little ambiguous whether it was Bellatrix's unnamed spell that killed Sirius or if it was that he just got knocked through the veil. In the movie, Bella casts the AK spell and Sirius is done. I wished they would have kept the ambiguity in the movie.
Luna Lovegood: I've said it from day one: Evanna Lynch is Luna. I liked that she introduced the Thestrals to Harry and her whole outlook about life after death and that we got it in the middle of the movie and at the end (even though she wasn't talking about socks, per se).
Heil Fudge: When I saw that Fudge poster-thing in the Ministry, I couldn't help myself. I did the Nazi-salute right there in the theater (totally in jest - no malice intended). Not insinuating that Fudge is like Hitler, but it was a little weird to see Fudge overseeing the masses of Ministry employees coming to work in the morning. Just illustrating that he wants everything under the Ministry's government control, starting with Hogwarts (and yes, I am insinuating there are larger issues addressed in this book and movie that cross over to real life. I honestly don't think that Jo intended that to happen, but it's eerie how current events can be reflected in our entertainment when you don't mean it to. I've discussed it here before and I might go into it again later).
IMAX 3D: If you get the chance, see it in IMAX. I've never seen a big feature movie in IMAX before, but it was worth it.
Midnight Showings: I love midnight releases. Only true fans go to 12:01 showings. Fans rock.
Deathly Hallows: It's interesting that it was this movie was released right before the last book. I think a lot of things from OotP are going to come up in DH. Of course, it's all outside timing that made this happen, but as I sat there watching this movie, I kept thinking about what's going to happen in DH and how events in OotP relate. Ugh, there's a week and a half left. I hope I can handle this.
In case you couldn't tell, this movie had a different screenwriter (his name is Michael Goldenberg) than the others, which translated into no twenty minute long dragon chasings (and no, I'm never going to let them live that down). On the contrary, he took what was a very long and complicated story and did it justice. Obviously, you can't put in everything from the book into the movie, but he did things like have Neville find the Room of Requirement, Snape's worst memory, combining the Weasley's firework display with their flight from Hogwarts, the montages of Umbridge's Inquisitor-ness and the DA (why haven't we done anything with montages before? I can think of about four or five other places they could have done that). For every major (and some minor) plot point that he had to cut, he put in something to replace it that was just as feasible. The story was a cohesive whole (which is what we've been missing up until now) and it made sense and it wasn't a big WE'RE AT A MAGIC SCHOOL SPECIAL EFFECTS FEST THROW IN ANOTHER SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER EXPLOSION WHEE!! It was subtle and it respected the original material as an amazing story to be told.
Everything in the movie that I loved/liked (to be fair, a few things that I didn't like) can be linked to the great screenplay. Can we fire Steve Kloves and hire Michael Goldenberg permanently?
Flashbacks: Between Harry's nightmares of Voldemort (handled beautifully in the cinematography and editing departments) and the Occlumency lessons, we now have a Harry Potter movie series. So far, it has only been one book and one movie at a time - treated as isolated pieces and disregarding that what happens in movie three is going to impact what happens in movie five. The movies haven't been treated like the books, that is as one huge story with seven installments (the closest we've ever come to that is Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets and that's mostly because they looked the same). But by using footage from previous movies and referring to what's happened before, we feel like we're in the middle of the story.
Montages: Why haven't we done this before? And why haven't I suggested it before? *kicks self for not thinking of it first* So much happens outside Hogwarts that they used a succession of Daily Prophet headlines to illustrate that everyone thinks Dumbledore and Harry are lying, what happened when nutty ol' Bella and company broke out of Azkaban and when Fudge pulled his head out and admitted that Voldy is back again. Also, they showed the progress of Umbridge's reign of tyranny as Inquisitor as a montage as well as the DA getting going (Filch sitting in front of the RoR door was a nice touch - and I kept waiting for his Educational Decree ladder to fall over. Though, don't they learn any spells other than Stupefy and Expelliarmus? The Patronus, but that's it - and yay for Ron's puppy!Patronus). Montages are great to show a lot of things happening in a short amount of time (they probably could have done it with Quidditch in the third movie, but I'm not one to dredge up past mistakes).
Movie!Ron Has Grown a Spine: Has anyone checked the temperature in hell lately? Harry's losing it in the angst and Ron's there to make sure that he doesn't beat up Malfoy. Hermione's getting molested by Grawp and Ron's the one to tackle the giant (he's not going to be feeling that shoulder in the morning, though). I always knew that Rupert Grint could handle the bravery in Ron's character and now he has been given the chance. He isn't *just* comic relief anymore and he can put away the Pepto-Bismol. Mucho applause from Wildcat Land.
The Kiss: Harry and Cho kiss. Cho narked on the DA. There will be no first date. Millions of hormonal pre-teen soap opera BOP subscribers are disappointed. Nothing more to see here.
Little Substitutions: Instead of Dobby, Neville finds the Room of Requirement. Instead of Marietta ratting out Dumbledore's Army, Cho does (which serves the dual purpose of getting her out of the shipping picture for Harry). Shacklebolt telling Arthur in the elevator that Harry's hearing had been changed. A brief glimpse of Lucius Malfoy talking to Fudge outside the Department of Mysteries. There were some others, but I'll have to go see the movie again to remember what there was. And they combined a few scenes as well - like the Order meeting combined with Harry coming to Grimmauld Place combined with Extendable Ears combined with Harry finding out about the Daily Prophet's BS combined with... you get the idea. It does make for a faster pace, but there's a lot to be done here.
Sirius Black: My biggest concern for this movie was that we had no emotional connection with Sirius (which was supposed to be established in GoF... I use Mike Newell's name as a swearword now, just so you know) and that's kind of a key thing when you have a major character die. But David Yates and Michael Goldenberg (MICHAEL GOLDENBERG) took the mess that they were given and from Harry's first meeting with his godfather to the end battle ("Good one, James" - wasn't quite crying, but we were getting there) established the emotion that we needed to understand Harry's state of mind by the end of the movie. And there was no acid-trippy-SFX-intern talking coals for this movie. Praise Godric Gryffindor, they're listening to the fans!
The Most Noble and Ancient House of Black: Okay, so they kept Kreacher, but they didn't do much with him (I guess when you don't know why Jo insisted he stay and you were going to cut him out anyway, there's not much you can do). And why did they wait until Christmas to explain that Grimmauld Place was Sirius' house? I was fine with waiting until Christmas to introduce the Black Family Tapestry, but Harry spent part of the summer at headquarters so wouldn't it follow that somebody would have mentioned "Oh, by the way..."
Severus Snape: Alan Rickman as Snape=FTW, as always. Snape answering Umbridge's questions... well, Harry said it himself in the book: he didn't know which one he wanted to win (I think he actually said that about Trelawney, but it applies here). I actually was laughing about Snape's one-word sarcasm. I do have something to say about Occlumency (I guess they just had a problem with the whole Christmas bit). Why did Snape have to whisk Harry away immediately after his Snake-Attacking-Mr.-Weasley dream? He's just been through the worst nightmare-that-really-wasn't-a-nightmare (hyphens are my friends, apparently), so why subject him to one ordeal after another? A brain can only take so much invasion here. I would have liked it better if Harry was suddenly in Snape's office after Christmas with Snape explaining what Occlumency was and why Harry had to learn it (their explanation of Occlumency was pretty good for it being such a brain-numbing concept in the first place).
On a similar note: Snape's Worst Memory. I've already seen complaints about how it was handled. I have to disagree on the grounds that they were trying so hard to keep as much material as they could in this movie without making it crap. Harry breaks through Snape's defenses in the book during Occlumency lessons, so it would follow that Harry could get through to Snape's memories of his youth. Again, they have to combine a lot of stuff and I think that Snape's memories of how James treated him at school would be at the forefront of his mind when Snape's dealing with Harry. And, yeah, Lily wasn't there, but that whole "Snape Loved Lily" theory bugs me. I just don't see Snape pining over some long lost love and it's kinda cheesy anyway. I'd rather see Harry interact with the memory of his mother and father (Who saw the Mirror of Erised flashback coming? *crickets* Who was pleased to see it? *Meeee!!!*)
Dolores Umbridge: Why is it that I like the bad guys in the movies? Wha'chu doin' to me casting peoples? Well, I don't like Umbridge as a character, but I LOVED Imelda Staunton's performance as Umbridge. She was so amazing in being disgustingly sick and twisted - which is the very essence of Umbridge. She's nice and sweet to you if you are going to assist in her power-driven agenda, but she'll lock you in a room with KGB-al-Qaida-style torture if you dare oppose her (heaven help us if the terrorists ever get one of Umbridge's quills - Forget the Unforgivable Curses. The sickest thing that Jo has made up in her universe is that blood-writing quill). And that photo of Fudge on Umbridge's desk was a nice touch. Seeing Umbridge in action, I have come to a conclusion: Umbridge is a Socialist, which is pretty much a baby Communist.
Professor McGonagall: Her interactions with Umbridge were my favorite in the book and they were sadly missing from the movie. There were a few, which were great (Dame Maggie Smith was spot-on yet again), but I wanted more. I guess something has to go, but I wanted to hear more from my Head of House.
The Dursleys: We've missed the Dursleys for a whole movie and we've never heard Dudley speak much, but wow... his voice has changed dramatically (well, duh). I didn't think it was Harry Melling at first, but it was. I was fairly surprised that Dudley kept up with Harry when they were booking it away from the dementors (Dudley may be in shape from boxing, but heavyweights aren't exactly sprinters). The dementors looked almost the same as the ones from the third movie, but there was something different about them. Can't put my finger on it, though. It might have been their coloring.
A few things I missed: Petunia's Howler (could have done without that little sundress she was wearing, but oh well), Mrs. Figg yelling at Mundungus Fletcher, Harry wondering what the dementors made Dudley see.
Bellatrix Lestrange: I knew Helena Bonham Carter was a great choice for Bellatrix, but I didn't know how great. She is dang creepy and her taunting during the Battle at the Ministry was perfect (I'm running out of adjectives here). And then, she has the audacity to talk to Neville (Matt Lewis had another amazing performance). I can't wait to see what she does in the seventh movie (having not even read the seventh book yet).
Now, in the book, it's a little ambiguous whether it was Bellatrix's unnamed spell that killed Sirius or if it was that he just got knocked through the veil. In the movie, Bella casts the AK spell and Sirius is done. I wished they would have kept the ambiguity in the movie.
Luna Lovegood: I've said it from day one: Evanna Lynch is Luna. I liked that she introduced the Thestrals to Harry and her whole outlook about life after death and that we got it in the middle of the movie and at the end (even though she wasn't talking about socks, per se).
Heil Fudge: When I saw that Fudge poster-thing in the Ministry, I couldn't help myself. I did the Nazi-salute right there in the theater (totally in jest - no malice intended). Not insinuating that Fudge is like Hitler, but it was a little weird to see Fudge overseeing the masses of Ministry employees coming to work in the morning. Just illustrating that he wants everything under the Ministry's government control, starting with Hogwarts (and yes, I am insinuating there are larger issues addressed in this book and movie that cross over to real life. I honestly don't think that Jo intended that to happen, but it's eerie how current events can be reflected in our entertainment when you don't mean it to. I've discussed it here before and I might go into it again later).
IMAX 3D: If you get the chance, see it in IMAX. I've never seen a big feature movie in IMAX before, but it was worth it.
Midnight Showings: I love midnight releases. Only true fans go to 12:01 showings. Fans rock.
Deathly Hallows: It's interesting that it was this movie was released right before the last book. I think a lot of things from OotP are going to come up in DH. Of course, it's all outside timing that made this happen, but as I sat there watching this movie, I kept thinking about what's going to happen in DH and how events in OotP relate. Ugh, there's a week and a half left. I hope I can handle this.
There's so much that I want to go into (and I haven't talked about my first Harry Potter premiere at Jordan Commons - the HP movie capital of Utah). I found people to discuss my major DH theory with(!) and that made me happy. I'll probably post more later, so tune in again.
Love from,
Jenny Wildcat
EDIT: I've finally looked at some local reviews of OotP and Sean Means at the Salt Lake Tribune hit it on the head: It's an installment of a series!!! Jeff Vice at the Deseret News pissed me off, as usual (he doesn't like fantasy movies with a large following is all).