Potter, GoF

[mneme]

We just saw it.


Spoilers Ahoy!

The Good

The visuals. Hogwarts come to life.
-Most- of the cuts were of things we really didn't miss. The house-elf stuff doubly so.
The Duel
The Return (and consumate mourning)
The way the Polyjuice was handled. Sublte -and- cool.
The Quuddich game -- what we saw of it, anyway.
Hermione's set down of Ron. Also, her ball appearance.
Myrtle. She was so cute.
The "entrance" of the other schools. Sure, they showed a lot of it in the previews, but not all, and it was very pretty.

The Bad

Damnit -- Bernie (fake Moody) should have gotten his say after he was captured. That was one of the best parts of the book -- the fanatic showing his contempt of the mere supporters.
Dumbledore. So flat. Not warm. Not in control. Not imposing. Not Dumbledore.
The costumes. wtf? Since when do Hogwarts kids wear school uniforms instead of robes that just -look- like school uniforms? Ron's dress robe just made this more painful, since it reminded us of the robes they weren't wearing.
The houses. You might be able to tell Cedric's house on a third viewing, if you hadn't read the book. I'm more skeptical about being able to tell Cho Chang's.

The Ugly

Viktor Krum. Wasn't he supposed to be Eastern European -flashy-, not strong and silent? He's a bit big to be a seeker, at that. Still, it worked well enough.
The Dark Lord. So ugly. I'm hoping he'll have hair in later movies once he's taken a chisel to his features.
Wormtail. Um. Yes.

Oh, we saw TG, TB, & TU a few weeks ago. Perty good, if a bit slow for a modern eye.

Comments

[sammywol.livejournal.com]

I aggree on most points, esp. Myrtle, she was delciously pervy. I also liked Neville (in spite of scary teeth - please let them be prosthesis!) and his mastery of the dance and hot date with Ginny Weasley.

Dumbledore I gather was supposed to seem fallible and older in this film and he did. I guess they have to work up to his total inexplicableness in the next one. i didn't like it either though. The lack of fake Moody's rant though was a big weakness. They didn't even make it clear that it had been Crouch who turned Draco into the ferret (sweet!) and not the real Moody - they never established when the switch happened at all. Oh and I would have liked scores for the dragon test; the concept of scoring wasn't even mentioned until after the swimming event.

I did like the lack of robes though. I always felt that they detracted from the boarding school feel in the other films. The houses though were indeed largely invisible and while I hate loathe and despise the school house system it is kind of important to the book.

I really wanted to hear Krum say 'Her-mee-own' - he wasn't ugly enough either.

[avram]

Since when do Hogwarts kids wear school uniforms instead of robes

Since the third movie, I think.

Wasn't he supposed to be Eastern European -flashy-, not strong and silent?

No, I don't think so. "Strong and silent" matches how I remember him from the book, and I haven't seen the movie yet so it can't be distorting my memories.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

Viktor Krum. Wasn't he supposed to be Eastern European -flashy-

No--in the book, he was slope-shouldered and duck-footed. The only time that he was anything approaching beautiful was when he was flying.

Yes, Stanislaus Ianeski(sp?) looked like Orlando Bloom on steroids, but it didn't exactly ruin my cinematic experience :-) If the PTB want to populate all the HP movies with Euro-Hotties, who am I to complain? :-D