December 3 movie: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Last night we saw this with Shayne, and sat in decent seats this time. And now that I've had a chance to really appreciate it, for my money this is the best movie of the four. Don't read further if you haven't seen the movie yet.
I feel very conflicted about the Goblet of Fire book. Structurally I agree with Georg that it's the weakest. It's sprawling and needlessly complicated, and by the time you get to the end you're like "Huh? what? who?" Like a bad mystery novel. But there are so many great scenes in this book, so many details to love. Like the way the relationships develop among all the kids, and the house elfs, and all the stuff about the joke shop. Of course I was sad to see so many of those details dropped, but I knew going in that they would have to do it. And it made the movie so much more focused that the plot hangs together better. So I have to acknowledge that the revisions improved the movie.
I did miss some of the elements that were dropped. For instance Winky, the joke shop, the conflict between Hermione and Rita Skeeter. And some of those omissions may cause problems in future books. I guess they can pick up the joke shop without missing a beat next time, but how will they get Rita to do the story on Harry if Hermione isn't holding anything over her? And since we lost everything about Percy's officiousness about his job working for Mr. Crouch, Percy's split with the Weasley family will seem kind of out of left field. On the other hand, there were a few scenes that worked better in the movie. For instance when Harry comes back from the cemetary with Cedric's body, before anyone realizes what happened, and he's lying there crying while everyone cheers and the band plays. That was deeply affecting, while I found the book a bit, I don't know, flat in that scene. I guess because it was strictly from Harry's point of view, and he was in shock at that point.
I don't know if I would recommend this movie for kids though. It's dark, both literally -- lit very grey, only a few tiny patches of sunlight in the entire film -- and figuratively. By the end it's more or less a horror movie. Which, of course, is very true to the book.
I only have a couple of quarrels with the movie. First, I didn't like that they had Voldemort give that speech about the magical power of love. I believe that speech was originally Dumbledore's, and the whole point is that Voldemort is so emotionally crippled that he doesn't understand how love could have power. That's supposed to be Harry's one advantage over Voldemort. To have Voldemort give that speech seemed like a big mistake to me. I would think that Voldemort would have no idea how Harry survived the attack. But maybe I'm remembering things wrong. I'll have to reread Voldemorts scenes in the fourth & fifth books.
Second, I was crushed that Mad-eye Moody never said "Constant vigilance!" I had been looking forward to that one line for months. I guess I'll have to do it myself. CONSTANT VIGILANCE! You couldn't see me banging the table, but it scared the dog.
2 Comments
I enjoyed it too. Missed the Rita Skeeter subplot more than anything -- I thought it was kind of important. It'd been long enough since I borrowed the book that I wasn't sure what else was gone, but I knew they'd trimmed it down. Jeez, all I can do is agree here -- I thought there was something wrong with the projector for a while.
What I especially liked about this is that they didn't keep going, "Hey look! The pictures are moving! Wow, this is some kind of wacky place, huh? And check out the staircase! Bet you never saw anything like that before, eh?" Starting without Harry's wretched Muggle life was a bold stroke, too. At first I wasn't sure, but I soon decided it was a fine idea. I guess the whole Quiddich match was important for some reason, but it seemed kind of tedious to me.
I agree very much with you that I appreciated the lack of "gee whiz" tone about basic elements of the setting (moving staircases, magical books, etc). I think that was the main problem I had with the second movie. That tone was appropriate for the first movie but in the second it came off as saccharine for me.
I loved the Quidditch World Cup in the book, it was one of my favorite parts. But I can see why the movie had to strip it down to only its necessary function: to explain how Portkeys work and to show us Death Eaters and the Dark Mark. Another regrettable but necessary cut.
Also, I was tickled that the owlrey really looked like a place where hundreds of owls lived. In other words, owl poop everywhere. I bet Chris Columbus wouldn't have done that.