I'm going to Harry Potter Land (totally not it's actual name) next week, and I have not seen the films. To me, this seems like a problem, and one I'm going to remedy starting tonight by watching The Philosopher's Stone- a film I have seen a couple of times, and which I pretty much ate. So this is going to be fun!
So. FIRSTLY there will be Harry Potter spoilers. So go away now if you've somehow missed out on this cultural phenomenon. Secondly! It's an almost live blog cause I just going to record all my thoughts here and post it once the film's done because the other way is effort. To be clear- this is the only way I'm going to get through the films without killing things. Hold on to me, internet.
21:18- Ah good, it's starting. *tries not to relive bitter 12 year old experience* *fails* That's still bloody good music though.
21:21- "I would trust Hagrid with my life." Awwwwww, yay!
21:22- You don't maybe want to put baby Harry in a basket? Something he won't be able to crawl away from really easily? Nope? Ok then.
21:26- Wow, Dudley's a really terrible actor. BLOODY KIDS.
21:29- Why is Uncle Vernon so anti-Harry going to Hogwarts though? Gets him away from them, and it's surely difficult to deny magic exists when there are zillions of letters zipping down your chimney!
21:33- Ughhhhh, line delivery. So so so bad. WHY CAN'T CHILDREN ACT?!
21:38- KESTER! I mean, Quirrell! We know all about HIM, of course. *knowing face*
21:41- There's no safer place than Gringotts to keep stuff except Hogwarts, huh? That could be important...
21:44- Olivander seems very much like a man who should not be left alone with children.
21:49- A lot of the soundtrack seems fairly unnecessary. Maybe because there's NO SOUNDTRACK IN THE BOOKS.
21:51- Ah, the Weasleys. BUT WAIT- shouldn't Harry have already met Malfoy in Diagon Alley? SHOULDN'T HE?
21:54- Fucking Emma Watson's face and also voice. Why are they all so posh? None of these are even actual accents anyone has.
21:56- Hogwarts does look quite cool though.
21:58- Tiny Malfoy has hella charisma. No wonder I loved him when I was teeny. Also, Neville has a real accent! Of course he does.
22:00- WHERE IS THE SORTING HAT SONG?! WHY DOES HERMIONE GET SORTED FIRST?! WHY IS THE SORTING HAT SO CHATTY?!
22:04- Holy shit, the ghosts are terrible. I would honestly rather they had left them out. Fucking awful.
22:09- I would like to take Alan Rickman's potions class. Oh yes. Mmmmmhmmm.
22:13- "Mount it. And grip it tight. You don't want to be sliding off the end." OOER I thought this was a children's film.
22:15- Good God, the flying is even worse than the ghosts. How OLD is this film now? (Really really old?)
22:19- Even their screams are unconvincing. I wonder if the director would rather have worked with lumps of clay...
22:22- "You catch this Potter, and we win." That is a blatant misunderstanding of the Quidditch rules. BLATANT.
22:24- Why does Seamus keep blowing things up? He isn't Neville!
22:27- I was about to say the bathroom bit was ok, but then Harry literally became an animated character for a minute there. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!
22:29- Snape and Harry need to stop eye fucking. This is just uncomfortable.
22:31- They literally just acted like they didn't know what was in a broomstick shaped parcel. WHY IS EVERYTHING SO STUPID?
22:33- There's a girl on the Slytherin Quidditch team. This is clearly bullshit. Also, fuck Quidditch.
22:36- Gosh, aren't Slytherin EVIL. Does everyone know how evil Slytherin are? So evil they even talk like villains.
22:38- Quidditch is really boring. Hey, shouldn't we have been to Hagrid's house by now? Hagrid's going to be forgotten a lot by the movies, isn't he?
22:41: It's snowing! That means it must be Christmas! Even though it never snows in the UK at Christmas but NEVER MIND.
22:44- No spells to keep you out of the Restricted section of the library then. Just a lock anyone can open. Ok then.
22:46- Alan Rickman's face, man. Alan Rickman's face.
22:49- The Mirror of Erised makes me feel wet in the eye area. Damn. (Unfortunately James Potter looks about 40 in the mirror when he was about 21 when he died. But, then again, JK is bad at maths...)
22:53- Ah good, a mere 50 minutes to go and our first mention of the Philosopher's Stone. Amazing pacing.
22:57- RON DOESNT EVEN GO ON THE RIDICULOUS FOREST DETENTION. Neville has been so crazy written out of this, when he's actually the best. Sort it out.
23:00- Harry and Draco alone together in the woods must be the stuff of fan fictions (wet) dreams
23:07- Do they even go to McGonagall to ask for help in the book? Cause... That seems unlikely.
23:08- Oh look, Neville! Oh yeah. He's a character.
23:16- Damn iPad went all funky. Never mind. WIZARD CHESS. It's pretty epic. I thought they missed out the keys, but it's possible that they miss out the potions instead. DAMMIT.
23:18- "NO, YOU CAN'T! THERE MUST BE ANOTHER WAY!" Please stop being terrible at acting, Emma. Please.
23:20- Right, so, Ron has to stay behind because, unconscious; and Hermione has to stay behind because... Ron needs a mummy? HERMIONE IS NO ONE'S MUMMY, BITCHES.
23:21- Dammit. No potions. FFS.
23:22- Oh Quirrell. You're pretty hot.
23:24- Ewwwwwwww, Voldiehead. So not pretty. I would have kept the turban on, tbh.
23:26- "There is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it." I like it!
23:27- Voldiedust. Pretty weird. Also Harry has basically just killed his first man?
23:31- Ah, Dumbledore. The perfect blend of sincerity and silliness. 'Alas, earwax', indeed.
23:34- Aw, Neville's little face just hit me right in the feels. NEVILLE WON THE HOUSE CUP, NO ONE ELSE. (Ah, the days when the House Cup mattered...)
23:37- No drama, no suspense, no better than I thought it was going to be... And yet it still tugged at my emotions. Damn me and my damn feelings. Damn everything.
I have a friend with almost the exact same accent as Emma Watson. My dad's accent is quite similar as well, actually. But yeah, they could have mixed it up a bit with the accents, rather than making only giving the "stupid" character a Northern accent. As a Northerner (albeit one with only a slight hint of a northern accent) I am offended!
ReplyDeleteThe films get better, if that's any kind of consolation!
But it's soooooo posh though! I can't even deal with it. Harry and Hermione sound posher than Malfoy, even, and that doesn't seem right. Northerners are AWESOME, don't you worry!
DeleteI have heard that the films are awesome, so I'm keeping on going, don't worry! #2 will probably be tonight :)
Ummm, sweets, if by 'Harry Potter world' you mean the studio tour, you do know it's ALL ABOUT THE FILMS, right? And there are rabid fans in there who own every single piece of Potter merchandise including a lanyard with their house on it JUST BECAUSE, and have spent £400 on robes and a full Hogwarts uniform, and you might get killed if you say you hate them? Also I'm fairly sure that some of the points you didn't like about the movie were also in the book. Also the kids were TEN YEARS OLD and definitely get better. Admittedly Harry's animated moment was a bit obvious, but dude, have you SEEN Legolas in pretty much every Tolkien movie so far? There's ALWAYS an obvious animated stunt in there somewhere. I thought it was quite funny. :P
ReplyDeleteBreathe, Laura. Focus on the combined talents of Rickman and Hart and Smith and Harris and Griffiths and remember, they totally wouldn't be there if this wasn't a film worth watching. :)
I do know that the studio tour is all about the films, hence the actually watching them lol! I have resisted going there for ages because of my apathy towards the films, but then everyone was going and it looked kind of awesome so now, the films. BUT DAMMIT I'M GOING TO SNARK ABOUT THEM!! :D
DeleteSome of the things I didn't like were DEFINITELY in the book. Some of the things I did like weren't in the book (Quirrell's face). I still don't really like the first film, it has to be said, but at least I watched it. Again. Foolishly. Hahaha.
I need to watch the last two films still, but I don't want to because THAT IS WHERE ALL THE DEATH HAPPENS and I know I'll be a mess. But I do need to watch them before we finally go to the studio. If we ever go. We were meant to go months - January? Mid February? - but we had to switch our tickets to gift tickets for some unknown future date because HELLO DEPRESSION. Mostly I'm going because I want to see the castle model at the end and then buy a chocolate frog. :)
DeleteYeah, I totally fancied Quirrell in this first one too. Until he took the turban off, then I was like "... actually, maybe not."
I loved reading this! The first movie was rubbish, to borrow a British phrase. So was the second one, come to that. They only got good with PoA.
ReplyDelete"22:09- I would like to take Alan Rickman's potions class. Oh yes. Mmmmmhmmm." <--- This.
"22:13- "Mount it. And grip it tight. You don't want to be sliding off the end." OOER I thought this was a children's film." <---- I don't think this particular part was pointed out during our epic readathon, so is it just in the film, then? Not in the books?
It's funny to me how the first two films tried to be so true to the book plots that they actually lacked any magic at all. Whereas starting with Cuaron and movie #3, the directors started taking more liberties with the books and they turned out to be SO MUCH BETTER. Also, maybe by that time they were figuring out that the movies weren't just for children, so we didn't need all of those moments where the camera is lingering on the trio's faces for awkward lenghts of time, etc .
I don't remember the flying bit being so dirty in the book... So it probably wasn't! I felt like that scene WAS fairly accurate though.
DeleteI was literally thinking last night that if the film hadn't been so like 'this is what happens in the book and in this order and I must get it perfectly right', and had been more CINEMATIC like, I don't know, a film, then it would have been much better. Not that it's an unpopular opinion that Chris Columbus did a bad job, I understand.
I'm sooooo dreading Dobby though. Fucking Dobby.
"Olivander seems very much like a man who should not be left alone with children."
ReplyDeleteBahaha, so true!
He's really creepy! I am not a fan.
DeletePlease don't take it out on Emma Watson. She is a true star, with an unmistakeable aura and extremely intelligent to boot. There is nothing wrong with speaking properly.
ReplyDeleteEYEROLL
DeleteI LOVE the ghosts! How can you not love the ghosts?! :)
ReplyDeleteThey are so terribly animated! And just thrown in there willy nilly! And just neeurgh!
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