Harry Potter- round 6-who's ready?

[innerSpaceman]

Hahah, loved a review I recently came across in the New Yorker.

Originally Posted by Anthony Lane

Why is that, from Gotham City to Hogwarts, the official word has gone out that anything dark and edgy is a de-facto guarantee of weight and impact? Just what is so serious about horny adolescents cooking potions? We get one lovely, cheering sequence of a trashed room putting itself in order, like the untidy nursery in "Mary Poppins," but the rest of the magic here feels randomly grabbed at - there is something called a vanishing cabinet, whose narrative purpose is wholy redundant - and, as if in response to such silliness, Yates tries to stiffen his story with borrowings from "The Lord of the Rings." We get a dead spider named Aragog, which is a breath away from Tolkien, plus Gandalfian flourishes from Dumbledore, and a rock pool that crawls with a hundred Gollums.

TeeHee. In all fairness, it's hard not to imitate Tolkien in fantasy. It would be like complaining every pirate movie ever made is ripping off the ride at Disneyland.

But the vanishing cabinet critique is spot-on. I understand they deleted the big battle scene lest the next movie seem repetitive, but then the entire reason for the vanishing cabinet is rendered moot and is a gaping plot hole of stupidity.

If the death eaters that come through the cabinet aren't going to attack the school, why go through all the trouble, that apparently takes the whole school year, to work out the bugs and transport through the cabinet? They went to great lengths to have the assassin, Draco, and his back-up, Snape, already installed and part of the accepted people at Hogwarts. If death eaters were going to come through the cabinet, why did they need these key players in place?

Gotta be careful when you eliminate some things from the book .... other things have to go also, or you risk making NO SENSE.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

In all fairness, it's hard not to imitate Tolkien in fantasy. It would be like complaining every pirate movie ever made is ripping off the ride at Disneyland.

[movie snob]

Pish-posh. It would be like complaining every pirate movie ever made is ripping off Captain Blood!

[/movie snob]

[Alex]

Thinking about it some more I wonder if the muted audience reaction (at least for people who haven't read the book) to the final events might be because

Spoiler:

the scene before going to the whore-crust where Harry heard Snape and Dumbledore talking made it pretty obvious that Snape was a double agent and therefore the assumption would be that Dumbledore is not really dead in the time honored movie tradition of the fake-bad guy fake-killing the good guy before the real-bad guy can do so.

So their expectation is that the next movie will opened with Gandalf back from the flames and purified into having a much nicer looking beard.

And if that is what really happens (because I have not paid attention to spoilers in great depth then shame on J.K. Rowling.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by Alex

Thinking about it some more I wonder if the muted audience reaction (at least for people who haven't read the book) to the final events might be because


And if that is what really happens (because I have not paid attention to spoilers in great depth then shame on J.K. Rowling.

Well, if you can stand the spoiler -

Spoiler:

That's not what happens - Dumbledore is really dead.

[Gemini Cricket]

During my second viewing, I was noticing some similarities to LOTR. The Gandalf style fall, the touch the ring and something scary happens, the Gollum monsters coming from the lake, and it looked like they used the same perspective trick they used with Frodo and Gandalf on Hagrid while Slughorn and Harry talked to him by the dead Aragorn, I mean, Aragog...

And why couldn't Dumbledore just teleport to the quartz locket bowl? No need for the boat...

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

During my second viewing, I was noticing some similarities to LOTR. The Gandalf style fall, the touch the ring and something scary happens, the Gollum monsters coming from the lake, and it looked like they used the same perspective trick they used with Frodo and Gandalf on Hagrid while Slughorn and Harry talked to him by the dead Aragorn, I mean, Aragog...

And why couldn't Dumbledore just teleport to the quartz locket bowl? No need for the boat...

I have a vague memory from the book that you could not apperate inside or into the cave. In fact in the book I believe they had to swim from the rock to the cave.

[bewitched]

No comment about the plot really except to say it was good, not great...but good. Olivia and her friends all really like it and have declared it "the funniest" of the movies.

In other news, Ron is kinda hot.

[BarTopDancer]

The scene with Aragog was entirely way to long. That could have been cut completely.

[lashbear]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

I have a vague memory from the book that you could not apperate inside or into the cave.

Unless you're a House Elf...

Originally Posted by bewitched

In other news, Ron is kinda hot.

You just noticed ? I'm getting the Stoat to dye his hair red from now on...

[innerSpaceman]

Fvck Spoilers. The movie's been out 2 weeks.

To address Alex's point .... in the book, it's even more strongly hinted that Gandalf, er, Dumbledore's death is a movie-death fake. Yet, his death comes of shocking and sad in print.

Next book spoiler:

Spoiler:

As it turns out, once we get to the next book, Dumbledore never re-appears, so the hints he wasn't dead were really a cheat ... a good one though, since the obvious thing is to hint he's not dead and have him turn up alive because everyone just loves him so darn much.

Interestingly, Seriously Black's death in the prior book was also very indefinite, with the possibility of him coming back to life ... but that never happened either. I don't credit J.K. Rowling for much, but I like these deaths that left people wondering and like it even more that she did not pander to bringing the beloved characters back to life - when technically she could have.