Escape to the Movies: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Yeah, for the perspective of a fan of the books and not a fan of the movies, go check out my review (shameless plug)

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.300718-The-Guitarist-Reviews-Harry-Potter-Year-7#11980220

It's on the Escapist Review section, so promoting it is a-okay!

My basic points of contention for these movies are:

Emma Watson is not a good actress
Starting with the third movie, if you haven't read the books you will known progressively less and less important stuff
The directors for most of these movies are idiots
When the directors aren't idiots, the scriptwriters are.

Steve Kloves can suck a big one.

 

[Ren3004]

I just hope its good. I haven't really enjoyed any of them since the third one to be honest. Having read the books, I found the fourth one to be insulting when they changed important aspects of it.

Because the third one totally didn't lack an important conversation that explains who four mysterious characters actually are and why they are important towards the end. The fourth film cut some secondary plotlines, but they didn't take out anything that was important for the overall plot of the series, as far as I remember.

Well, I'm probably going to watch this next week with my friends, hopefully I won't be disappointed. I found the previous film to be one of the most faithful to the book.

Oh, and I did that thing Bob said with the Dark Knight Rises poster and... Wow... Just Wow... The revelations...

 

[road_to_dawn]

I was a huge fan of the books, and barring personal bias, I was mildly disappointed with the movie. It's the best "big movie" in about the last month (well, all it's really had to compete against was Transformers and Green Lantern), but watching it on the big screen made the parts of the books that didn't work all the more obvious. And they missed the chance to show possibly the best special effects shot in the movie, which really disappointed me. (I'd put it here, but I'm not sure how to do spoiler tags)

And don't worry if you don't catch them right away -- they're all fridge logic moments that I noticed a few months after I read the book.

You don't need to go into detail (I can't do spoiler tags either), but would the shot you're talking about have involved fire and a hat? If not, you're free to ignore me, I'm just really curious.

Yes, it did. For those who still might not be clear on it, in the book,

Spoiler

When Neville confronts Voldemort, he is held in place with a body-bind curse, has the sorting hat put on his head, and is set on fire. He breaks the curse and cuts the snake's head off while still on fire. Why they didn't do that scene like that is beyond me. It's not like the version in the movie really was any better.

Captcha was "The Holy Grail of Pants". What?

I don't get why they didn't do that either. The only thing I can think is the fact that the film is rated PG-13 and that probably wouldn't have gone over well. I don't know. But I completely agree with you. Plus, I must admit that

Spoiler

when I saw Hermione with a fang in her hand, looking at Nagini and then Ron going toward the snake, I had to hold back becoming irrationally angry. I know they were probably trying to build tension or some nonsense, but Neville is in my top 5 characters and killing Nagini is HIS moment. If they'd given it to Hermione or anyone else I seriously would've walked out of the theatre.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I stopped watching them after the third film.

My sister had the fourth one on the other day. (She was watching all the films leading up to this one.) So I sat through it and watched the thing.

I'm certainly not going to bother catching up with the rest or see this one.

If they're on TV at somepoint and there's nothing else on I might catch them. I just think Rowling has to take the cake for most undeserved megggggga success ever though.

Stephanie Meyer begs to differ.

I know that there's a lot of argument to be made for either side of this, but really I think Stephen King summed it up pretty well:

'The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a damn. She's not very good.'

Also, JK has very little to do with the films, so you can't blame her for those.

 

[uberhippy]

Saw it today v.early, I thoroughly disliked it.
I'm a fan, books and films alike,, but this one is just one Massive third-act, which makes for an unenjoyable experience.. (It seems that its going into Michael Bay territory :s )

 

[daxterx2005]

So who wants to bet we're going to get some movie exclusive prequels or spin offs or something?

 

[sir.rutthed]

Thank god the series is over. Never before has such a popular book series been so completely bastardized over so many years as Harry Potter has. After the first two movies I saw the whole series go down hill with what amounts to "YOU NEED TO READ THE BOOKS FIRST" almost emblazoned on each frame due to the movie's nonsensicle plot-holes, sudden drop-in characters that appear out of context and the shear frustration of how horrible the films were.

Thank god it's over.

As someone whose read the book, that doesn't bother me in the least. Besides, the books are better anyways.

OT: Ya, seeing this movie or not is pretty much a foregone conclusion for most of us. I'll probably see it some time this week or so.

The lakeside dressing scene for camerawork we are treated to Michael Bay circling the characters in a most nauseating manner....
And I hate those kid actors. Maybe there good by British standards because I see people talking about that, but here in the states, you can't get away with that garbage.

Um, you do realize Michael Bay is American and wouldn't recognize good acting if it slapped him in the face? And those "kids" are now in their early/mid 20's. Also, YOU LEAVE EMMA ALONE!!!

 

[FinalHeart95]

I read all the books, and they're fun reads. Not my favorite books of all time, but definitely worth the read, even with some of them being quite long. The movies got better around Goblet of Fire and from then on have been really good, Deathly Hallows Part 1 actually being my favorite so far. Can't wait to see this movie, although I'm not anticipating it enough to have been one of the people who saw it midnight release. And there were a lot of them.

 

[breacher18]

I got my tickets for Sunday cant wait have to say every time I have watched the trailer it has given me goose nipples!

 

[road_to_dawn]

I just hope its good. I haven't really enjoyed any of them since the third one to be honest. Having read the books, I found the fourth one to be insulting when they changed important aspects of it.

Because the third one totally didn't lack an important conversation that explains who four mysterious characters actually are and why they are important towards the end. The fourth film cut some secondary plotlines, but they didn't take out anything that was important for the overall plot of the series, as far as I remember.

Well, I'm probably going to watch this next week with my friends, hopefully I won't be disappointed. I found the previous film to be one of the most faithful to the book.

Oh, and I did that thing Bob said with the Dark Knight Rises poster and... Wow... Just Wow... The revelations...

I admit that I have issues with some of the plotholes in the PoA film, because it's my favorite book of the series. I mean, really, why couldn't they write a couple lines of dialouge to explain how Sirius escaped from Azkaban? But in terms of the overall plot of the series, the holes in it don't affect much. And regardless of all that I still have insane amounts of love for the PoA, as little sense as that might make.

And I probably shouldn't talk about GoF, because I hated that book. However, most of what was cut wasn't important to the overall story, you're right. OotP and HBP are a totally different story though as some pretty critical plot points were cut from both. I can kind of forgive OotP, but there was no excuse for HBP to be the mess that it was. By that film they knew how it all ended. There shouldn't have been any holes in the HBP at all.

 

[Madara XIII]

Thank god the series is over. Never before has such a popular book series been so completely bastardized over so many years as Harry Potter has. After the first two movies I saw the whole series go down hill with what amounts to "YOU NEED TO READ THE BOOKS FIRST" almost emblazoned on each frame due to the movie's nonsensicle plot-holes, sudden drop-in characters that appear out of context and the shear frustration of how horrible the films were.

Thank god it's over.

I'll drink to that! I got tired of the movies ever since the 3rd movie (Which was IMO the best)

Well I can laugh and finally say it's over.

[HEADING=2]What do you think about this Noob?[/HEADING]

 

[starwarsgeek]

It was pretty good. The characters get reduced to nearly plot-hole inducing stupidity on several occasions, and there are a few things they changed that I thought would have worked well in the movie. Overall, not the best thing I've seen, but it was good.

 

[Madara XIII]

Sorry bob but the LoTRO trilogy owes no thanks to the harry potter movies in any way shape or form.

Yeah, I didn't really get that either.

Both the LotR movies and the first 3 Harry Potter movies were made practically on the same time schedule. So how exactly did the Harry Potter movies pave the road for LotR?

THIS THIS THIS and more of THIS!

LoTR really didn't need Harry Potter to pave the way for it.
Then again no young wizard can simply just walk into Mordor.....I know I'm lame

 

[Steefness]

Dont feel bad Bob, you get blindsided with those two points in the last book anyway so you're right there with us.

 

[Phototoxin]

Hope it was better than the vomit on a plate that was part 1. It was like the 3rd LOTR film where ham and dodo are running around some mountains and swamps for the 89390490th scene in a row. Now its Larry and Harmonica running around random pieces of wilderness.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I honestly stopped watching the films after hearing about how stupidly melodramatic the final book was. No, Rowling, killing major characters off-screen/at random does not make me automatically feel anything or make me think that this shows that "war is HELL", it makes me annoyed because you make their deaths mean NOTHING. Oh, and good job killing ANY tension by leaving the decision of the final battle not up to Harry's resolve and conviction as a character, but up to the deus ex machina of the "ultimate wand of ultimate destiny". I will say this, it at least gave me tips on how NOT to write my own final battle in my own fiction

 

[lord.jeff]

I don't really care for the movies they were just to directly translated to the screen and I think it lost a lot of the wonder that the books had; hear about a giant maze with moving stairs and talking pictures=awesome, see it and suddenly it didn't seem as special. The movies would of held up better if they changed the scripts a bit so it had it's own moments plus that would of let the movies take care of the plot holes that they skipped over by just making it something different, or it could of used a more auteur director.

 

[Ren3004]

And I probably shouldn't talk about GoF, because I hated that book. However, most of what was cut wasn't important to the overall story, you're right. OotP and HBP are a totally different story though as some pretty critical plot points were cut from both. I can kind of forgive OotP, but there was no excuse for HBP to be the mess that it was. By that film they knew how it all ended. There shouldn't have been any holes in the HBP at all.

For me, those two have bigger problems than the cuts. OotP tried to cram everything that happened in the largest book into the shortest film in the series, so major themes in the book get condensed in one scene, taking away any weight they had. It seems like it's trying to rush to the end by glossing over the rest of the book. HBP had the opposite problem, the film was huge, but most of it focuses on the teen romance. I mean, they could at least have thrown in a couple more memories.

 

[ewhac]

Dumbledore's family isn't really mentioned until the last book, either. So the movie was consistent in at least that respect. However, the book covered the issue in far more depth, whereas it's mostly handwaved in the film.

Spoiler

I saw both of the Deathly Hallows films this week (part 1 via Amazon rental, and part 2 yesterday). Part 1 did an excellent job of conveying a sense of bleak inevitability. However, that sense pervaded Part 2 as well, even in areas where it didn't really seem appropriate. As a result, scenes that may have benefited from faster pacing instead feel inexorable, presumably to maintain the sense of bleakness.

The final confrontation between Potter and Riddle in the film is very different from the book. In the book, it was written as a Battle Royale in Hogwarts' main hall involving hundreds of people at once, whereas in the film it's mostly just Potter and Riddle one-on-one, with occasional cut-aways to various other fights throughout the castle. In one sense, the film is an improvement, because the book has this long piece of exposition between Potter and Riddle as they circle each other in the main hall surrounded by everyone else waiting to see what happens. For me, it was easily the most awkward part of the book and clearly needed to be re-worked. However, the film is also almost anti-climactic, as there's essentially nobody present to witness Potter defeating Riddle. Even Potter's victory feels bleak.

Still, if you've seen the other films, this is still definitely one that's worth going out of your way to see.