Jul 15 2011
Harry Potter was good…
The opening night audience was somewhere between overjoyed and ecstatic. If you liked the previous Harry Potter movies, you’ll probably love this one. I liked it, but it never felt like a great movie. Currently, it’s scoring a stratospherically high 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I don’t think it’s close to the same level as classics like Up, The Godfather, Casablanca, Terminator 2, District 9, The Matrix or the like.
Most awesome moment: McGonagall quipping “I’ve always wanted to cast that spell.” Also, there was a cool scene with a basilisk made out of fire.
Most ridiculous moment: 19 years in the future, everybody has more hair than Charlie Sheen. I bet Ron’s parents would have killed for some of that magical Rogaine.
I lost my appetite for Harry Potter when the movies started coming out. I could go on about how they miss chunks of the books out but they had to do that so people didn’t die from exhaustion.
The main reason is ever since the first film, one of the first things people say to me is,
“You look like Harry potter!”
It wouldn’t be so bad if I actually had the magic, or you know, the money.
Maybe I’m just bitter…
I would of thought in the future, the’d have less hair or at least the men. Or is there a spell for that?* Seems odd, they would have more.
*Or a magic hair tonic?
“The main reason is ever since the first film, one of the first things people say to me is,
“You look like Harry potter!” P. Mac gets that a lot… in Japan!
Did you cryyyy, B. Mac?
…I did. A lot. It was pretty intense.
I cried a bit during Schindler’s List and Flight 93 (two movies based on true events), but I don’t believe I’ve ever cried during a purely fictional film. So I don’t hold that against Harry Potter–it’s just a fiction vs. nonfiction thing for me.
*SPOILER* I felt from when Harry BLANKEd onwards should have taken about twice as long. They cut out several memorable lines and it just felt rushed to me. Still a very good film though.
You’ll always find a strong bias for anything with a heavy emotional (Twilight films) or nostalgic connection (Duke Nekuem). The harry Potter films, for better or worse, thrive on both emotion and nostalgia.
After watching the Philosopher’s Stone in 7th grade, I took a nine-year hiatus from the series, returning to Chamber of Secrets in my sophomore year at university. After 2 years, 6 books, 7 (I’m seeing at Tuesday) films and a million discussions, I can analyze the series more critically than most fans. Harry Potter is good, at times great, but I’ll never understand the nigh-godly status, long-term fans gave it.
When’ve I addresses the problems with the series or movies, however, I’m openly criticism for challenging the genius of Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a rare thing, outside politics, where people challenge my character, lifestyle and even intelligence for “not getting it”.
Still a very enjoyable series, maybe I’ll never ‘get it’.
“Harry Potter is a rare thing, outside politics, where people challenge my character, lifestyle and even intelligence for ‘not getting it’.” I have the opposite policy with regards to Dragonball Z. (Namely, if a work is inspired by Dragonball Z, please do not send it to me).
Some other examples that come to mind:
–Some people regard disinterest in a particular sport as a great reason to introduce the disinterested person to the sport. IE: “You’d like [sport X] if you gave it a chance!”
–I think it’d raise a few eyebrows if a prospective fantasy author were not a fan of Tolkien and/or were a fan of Eragon. (Unless the author is a young adult).
–The Watchmen, among comic book & graphic novel fans.
–James Joyce, among the literati.
–Philosophy, among philosophers.
–The Dark Knight, particularly Heath Ledger’s role.
–Superman, among DC fans. I don’t get the appeal, personally. I bet even Batman’s drycleaner has more interesting encounters than Superman does.
–Pixar movies. Many of them are incredible (particularly compared to every other studio’s animated pictures). I’ve probably never gotten as much friendly fire over disliking a movie as I did for hating on Wall-E.
Quality Superman stories vary with the creative team. I can and have recommended near a dozen good to great superman stories, but they vary too much by author and time period. I can understand why people dislike Superman, but the unparalleled hate he gets, particularly from Marvel “zombies” who’ve never read a Superman story, blows my mind.
I’m that odd, aspirating fantasy writer that respects and studies Tolkien’s work, but can take or leave the Lord of the Rings. Eragon was awful…I should finish it at some point.
Add Sandman to that list with Watchmen and possibly The Dark knight Returns. All fantasy stories, but have lost their impact and ‘groundbreaking’ atmosphere over the last decade.
I actually know a young author who self-published a series a trilogy heavily inspired by Dragon Ball. Not her best idea.
The Harry Potter movies were almost entirely missed for me, mostly because I preferred the books. Still going to see the last one to find out if it lives up to the praise.
I’m not even a fantasy writer* and I want to read Eragon as an example of what not to do.
– Wings
*Falling out of love with the genre fairly early will do that. Still, if asked to name my favorite fantasy novel, I can easily answer (It’s The Sword of Good by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky).
I rather like the new Harry Potter film, and had a lot of fun watching it. There might have been some things that were a bit off, but I haven’t read the book in a long time.
However, I found that near the end, some things dragged on and became slightly Narmish. (Namely, Harry and Voldemort’s final duel, which was also slightly bromance-y sadly).
I thought that Harry using the Elder Wand could have been more dramatically impressive. They certainly had the special effects capability to do something better with it than a Dragonball Z-style move where two guys are firing a laser at each other and have to overcome the other.
PS: Is the Elder Wand actually the most powerful wand in the world? In the battles we know about, the person using the Elder Wand has a 66.6% loss rate in battle. (Dumbledore lost to Malfoy and Malfoy got disarmed by Harry, but Harry won against Voldemort).
I wouldn’t have missed the movie, but there were some things which I was disappointed with (No scene where Percy comes back? Maybe 5 seconds for Fred’s death? Me left wondering if they mentioned the whole Grindelwald subplot in the first movie, allowing them to leave it out of the second one entirely?)
– Wings