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Review: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets
Most of the cast is back again for the sophomore film. If you liked them before, you'll like them again, even if the boys voices have started changing and everyone is a little taller than they were last november.
The most substantial new character this time around is Gilderoy Lockhart played over the top and on the money by Kenneth Branagh. Alan Rickman's Severus Snape is practically a bit part here, but Richard Harris's Dumbledore gets a lot of scenes.
The general plot is as follows: Harry Returns to Hogwarts for his second year of wizarding school. He keeps getting signals and warnings that there will be trouble, but he ignores them and goes right on in anyway (Wouldn't you if you had his home life?). Anyway, at school students keep turning up petrified and the legend of the Chamber of Secrets revealed. Beyond that there's a little quidditch, rivalry with the other houses, and a mystery needing solving.
Generic, yes. But it's solidly produced and entertaining. Course I'm right in line for next year because I think the next 2 books are superior to the first 2.
As for the FX, I think they're a bit better than last time around. Especially during the Quidditch matches. The first films game sequences looked bad. Everything looked CG. This time around things are much more convincing. They also tackled Dobby the house elf and did him as a full CG character. The rendering on Dobby is just beautiful. Any still shot from his scenes would convince you that they just filmed a house elf right on set. And the fabric moves really well. Unfortunately the motion is all off. His weight feels wrong. His interaction with the set seems like he's a muppet. Hopefully they can nail him down before Goblet of Fire when there are many house elf scenes.
Anyway, I think this film is weaker than the first one, but I think that mostly this is because the book really doesn't add as much to the larger story. It's a solid movie and it stands well on its own feet, but knowing the bigger things yet to come gets me drooling for the next one. I'm hoping that handing the series off to someone besides Chris Columbus will give it a shot in the arm.
Harry found an old envelope, and inside it reads
FIRST POST!
I'm not embarassed to admit that I'm 26 years old and a fan of Harry Potter.
That makes one of us.
ILM did the FX on this one. They broke the deal with the FX firm that did the first Harry Potter Movie.
Job well done ILM.
Me sah Dobby, sah...
Wow, the resemblence was quite unsettling.
I feel much better being a fan of JRR Tolkien.
Yeah, I like that South Park commercial that's out, where Cartman and them are acting out LotR, and they pass another group of kids.
Other kids: "We're playing Harry Potter!"
Cartman: "Hahahaha--Dorks!"
Even people who know what a "plus two" sword is can have people to look down on.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I think this article does a great job of explaining why Harry Potter is a fraud.
Not to put too fine a point on it--the first movie was fun (and reminded me of my Oxford days, with good reason), but I was always uncomfortable with the messiah-like qualities given potter in the film. The article does a great job of expounding on them.
I've never read the book, so maybe someone who has could explain this..
Why where the spiders always leaving in a row just after each attack. Why where they there in the first place?
Did I miss something?
Let me start by saying I think that Chamber of Secrets is probably the weakest of the 4 released Harry Potter books. [..]But besides revelations about Harry's connection to Voldemort, I just think the other books are stronger.
My thoughts exactly. Many people (including Chris Columbus) find it the best book though. Funny that.
Most of the cast is back again for the sophomore film. [..] even if the boys voices have started changing and everyone is a little taller than they were last november.
Yeah, it's not like that actually happens in real life...:P
[..]
As for the FX, I think they're a bit better than last time around. Especially during the Quidditch matches.
Thank god, that was my biggest regret about the first film.
[..] And the fabric moves really well. Unfortunately the motion is all off.
It moves but the motion if off? That's probably worse.
[..]I'm hoping that handing the series off to someone besides Chris Columbus will give it a shot in the arm.
Yeah, maybe Peter Jackson....he shure goes a long way to get something right. I think that's what's needed.
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
Let's keep these comments as deep as: -the movie is quite entertaining -the CG was well-integrated with the live-action -it leaves a nice feeling in you when you leave Claiming that the movie is a fraud because the main character isn't as bad-ass as the movie makes him out to be is pointless really. Now, if you had claimed that the *author* was a fraud (albeit talented one) for stealing the character "Larry Potter" from a friend of hers (admittantly, she did create the whole storyline and only ripped the names) then your post might have some value.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
No, most people don't read. Most of people can.
Luckily, these books are writen for around a 5th grade reading level, so that includes most of the population.
Mod point free since 2001
I'm in my late forties and I love the Harry Potter series. But then I'm a pagan too, and when I see the "religious right" getting hugely bent out of shape over "Heathen Harry" I can actually see the world get just a little bit back into alignment again. Best of all I love the term "muggle." It describes my religious opponents so well! Some day I'm going to meet Jery Fallwell or Pat Robertson and I'll put on my Hagris accent and say, "And I suppose a great muggle like you is going to...."
--- WWSD? What Would Strider Do?
That book three was the best book.
I'm 47 and I am a Potter fan.
I'm kind of amazed at what a huge hero Harry is turning into. I mean, he's twelve and he's killed a Basalisk - Conan the Barbarian hasn't killed a Basalisk....
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Because most people don't read.
Apparently you've never heard of Harry Potter. This series has brought more people [back] to reading than any other. I almost never read books and I've read Harry Potter. I can name about 10 adults and even more kids with the same experience.
I thought this movie was great and that if the story wasn't the weakest of the series it would be much better than the first movie. My favorite book was the 3rd, so I'm really excited about next year's movie.
... don't like Harry Potter.
I watched it on Friday, and (having never read the books) was surprised at how dark and spooky the film was. I'll have to investigate the books, but if the film is representative I would not let young children have much to do with Harry Potter.
Come on, I'd hardly call writing on the walls with blood, petrification, giant man-eating spiders, plants which kill with their screams, trees which try to whack people to death who come too close and the prejudice of some characters towards those not of "pure" blood Seasame Street material.
Of course, the fundamentalists are a bit over the top in their reaction to the Harry Potter phenonemon but they do have a point.
You know why I like LotR more than Harry Potter? The Harry Potter books are elitist. You're worthless unless you have innate magical ability - just look at how people without these abilities are ridiculed time and time again. LotR is about how even the most normal, average people can make a difference
J.K. Rowling strikes me as the worst sort of snob - someone who's suffered through what many other unfortunate people have experienced, but learned nothing except contempt for those who have not managed to escape their situation.
I really enjoyed 'The Chamber of Secrets.'
:) But I won't give away any more than that.
I had two big problems with the first Harry Potter movie. Firstly, there was no plot; it was all backstory and setup and wide-eyed kids being led on a field trip through Fantasyland, and then at the very end, Chris Columbus says 'oh yeah, there's a bad guy too' and provides a meager showdown. There wasn't nearly enough tension through the first movie to drive the plot. Secondly, in the first movie (and the first book, too) Harry doesn't really do anything, he just gets towed through the events by the plot and by the people around him. He doesn't really make any difficult decisions which define his character.
But the second movie hits the ground running. All the messy exposition is out of the way; the characters are already established, so Columbus can start doing things with them right away. And there are plenty of times when the secondary characters leave the limelight for a little while, giving Harry the chance to show what he's made of.
The computer graphics are really well done. The flying car is terrific. Dobby is rendered well. The only thing they've still got to work on is movement: Dobby shouldn't bob and weave like a Don Bluth character every time the camera's on him, and birds have short quick motions, not smooth fluid motions.
There's one scene with Dobby where he looks like he's trying really hard to be Episode II Yoda.
So this film was fun, and I hope the other four I'll be seeing in the next few weeks (Treasure Planet, Die Another Day, LotR: The Two Towers, ST: Nemesis) are as good. This is a great movie season.
P.S.: I was surprised there was no 'In Memory of Richard Harris' dedication anywhere to be seen.
P.P.S.: Stay 'til the end of the credits for another laugh.
OTOH, I thought although the first book was better than the second book, as a movie, the second one is superior. Better acting, better special effects, more of a specific plot to keep things moving along. This one's definitely darker and gorier (not that there's a /lot/ of gore) than the first one too.
Actually most people CAN'T read. Look anywhere for literacy stats, it is disgusting.
Really? You must be talking about Saudi Arabia. Or "developed" parts of Africa where literacy reaches a whopping 50%.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107947.html
Because around here in the USA, functional literacy is probably as high as it is going to go... considering that some people can't be trained to tie their shoes if they don't want to.
SO... please refrain from the literacy rate argument. There are whole load of opportunities to read in the USA or most other highly industrialized nations. So for those that can't read (or refuse to sit still long enough to learn), there is either a reading disorder, or there is an issue somewhere that doesn't accurately reflect on our efforts. Don' tblame the system. It isn't perfect, but many people won't read for a thousand reasons other than the reading programs.
I'm still not sure if I'm going to bother spending money to see this Harry Potter film.
After the first few minutes of the first movie I just felt myself wanting to go read the book instead. I know that it's hard to remain true to the original material while also bringing something new to it, but this director couldn't get any closer to the source material without a restraining order. But then some of my favorite bits were cut out for time constraints.
Also, I always felt wary after finding out that the director's previous work included Home Alone.
Ah well. The books aren't that hard to read, people. They cost less than a movie admission and have much better effects if your imagination is halfway decent.
A planet where apes evolved from men? Long live the apes.
Just my opinion, nothing more.
I concur wholeheartedly, Chris Columbus shouldn't do the remaining Harry Potter movies, after all the first two were so disappointing, right? I say we should put Joel Schumacher in charge, after all think of what a stunning job he did when he took over the Batman series from that hack, Tim Burton. A blade-wielding hockey player army, brilliant! Nothing provides more of a shot-in-the-arm than removing a director from a project as soon as he's created two of the most popular films ever made. Send in the amateurs, I say!
Damn, Taco, you're going to be in line next year, when the next movie isn't until 2004? That's loyalty, folks.
"You're never ready, just less unprepared."
Which segues into
this , nicely
That's too bad about Snape. He was absolutley perfect in the first film. I loved the scene where he introduces the students to his potions class. The uncut version from the special features of the dvd is even better!
but Richard Harris's Dumbledore gets a lot of scenes.
Ahh, but good news about Dumbledore! His is probably the most interesting character in the first book, but some of his best lines got truncated.
Honestly, I don't know what the series will do without Richard Harris (he died recently). David Heyman, the producer of Harry Potter has already admitted that Harris is "irreplaceable". He's not just giving a polite eulogy either. Harris was spot on as Dumbledore. In fact his calm, reasoned, lilting interpretation added to my appreciation of the old wizard.
Richard Harris will be sorely missed.
P.S. Not to dismiss Harris's other roles in a varied and interesting career, but I don't want to stray off topic.
If electricity is produced by electrons is morality produced by morons?
The "Impatient Parents" edition would be nice. I was dragged off to see "this is the film that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends," last night, and I'm still recovering from the boredom. Two hours and forty one minutes? PLUS 20 minutes of previes and commercials at the theater? How can a parent with young children POSSIBLY expect their kids to sit still during this? The film moved along at a SNAIL'S pace, with at least half of the scenes being irrelevant to the central plotline. I understand tha there was a lot of detail that will lead up to future films, but THREE HOURS? One can't even NAP during this movie because of the screaming children in the theater, the screaming children on the screen, or the screaming voice in the back of one's head telling you to run screaming to pretect your sanity.
Trim off an hour next time, guys.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Even the "exciting" scenes such as the spider's lair or the climactic fight with the basilisk don't have quite the right energy. We're just never convinced that Harry even cares. He certainly never shows fear--just the same wide-eyed blank stare.
The biggest problem with the movie is not just that it's a sequel, but that it doesn't give us anything new. Perhaps that's an inherent problem with the series of books it's derived from--we're limited to the same setting and the same cast of characters. But contrast it to the Star Wars series, where each time we were able to see a new world, with new characters and a completely new adventure. The only new character in this film is the idiotic fraud, Gilderoy Lockhart, played with a gaming effort by Kenneth Branagh. But even Branagh's effort falls short--he's unable to convince us why anyone would have ever fallen for his schtick. Also unanswered is why such an incompetent fool would have been hired at Hogwarts at all.
The special effects were all very competently done, but there was nothing truly "special" about them. I agree with CmdrTaco's analysis of the handling of Dobby--he looks good until he starts to move. Unlike Jar-Jar, however, at least he is necessary to advance the plot of the film. The basilisk was big and scary, and the spiders were icky, but nothing made me gasp in amazement--there was no new rush like I felt with the battle on the ice planet in Empire, or even like the first time Harry used the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter I.
Apparently, I'm also one of the few people who don't fawn over the books themselves [I find Rowling's writing style overly bland and preachy. She certainly doesn't have the command of the language that Tolkein does {and I'm not a Tolkein fan either}], so maybe there's something in the film for fans. Judging from the rest of my family's take on the film [my wife and kids are all big fans], perhaps not. We all agreed that this movie was a big step down from the first film.
ScienceSeeker.org
The movie was fairly faithful to the book but there were some ommisions that disappointed me. For one in the book, Nearly Headless Nick had a bigger role and takes Harry to his Death Day party(anniversery of his death) which would have been an awesome scene in the movie but was unfortunately left out. Herminne must not of had enough lines so they let her explain Mudblood instead of Weasley. I was also a little disappointed with Moaning Mertile who sounded like a 3 year old. But all in all it was a solid movie.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Because I can't read but I love watching movies.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I find it very amusing the way Hollywood tries to sneak around Rowling's very tight control of the characters. Neither Harry nor Ron (or any of the staff) are particularly good-looking, and so they're cast as such. But for any character where there's room to maneuver -- the quidditch captain Oliver Wood in the first film, and Tom Riddle in this one -- the actors cast are really good-looking. And to judge by the number of fan sites for these actors (Sean Biggerstaff and Christian Coulson, respectively) this sneaky approach to hooking in the adolescent female market is paying off.
Not that I'm complaining, of course. Coulson is well worth the £4.50 admission.
It would have been better at 1:40 not 2:40.
Also, you should stay through the credits for a fun little scene at the end.
From last nights SNL "Warner Brothers reported tuesday that an illegal copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was leaked on line before the movie premiers this weekend. In worse news, it seems a manuscript of the book has been available for the past 4 years."
I do have to agree with the reviewer. This movie/book is probably the weakest of the whole series. The movie to really look forward to is The Prisoner of Azkaban, book 3. It is my favorite book of the series so far and I think it starts to get to a nice level of darkness in the story. Additionally, Book 4 picks up on this darker aspect well, if not a slightly sillier story.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
Columbus has already bowed out. Alfonso Cuaron has signed on to direct the third adaptation: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Filming will begin sometime in the spring so you won't see this on the screen until sometime in 2004 (Relief or disappointment? You decide.)
It's been rumoured that Christopher Lee will step into the late Richard Harris's shoes as Dumbledore in the third film, although he has emphatically denied this. I'd prefer Ian McKellan myself.
ancarett, historian and zombie gamer
The scene changes are schizophrenic. Aside from a single one-minute laugh scene for each class, there's no indication that Harry Potter is at a school whatosever! For the remainder of the movie he might as well have been in a boarding house. Furthermore, the time changes are handled very ineptly, as in where it's halloween and then pretty much suddenly changes to christmas. Surely the kid's been doing something in the mean time? A little bit of exposition showing that he and Ron have been poring over books or doing their studies would be appropriate, yet why wasn't it done?
The whole movie feels like that in order to cram the high points of the plot into the movie they made a few too many excisions--and tried to squeeze the remaining story elements into time segments too small and disparate. Another great example is quidditch. In the book Harry Potter has to practice quidditch--and House Griffindor also plays a lot more games than just one against Slytherin. This would have been great to see on film, yet no extra sequences were shown ... and more damningly not even any mentions of Harry's grueling practice sessions or the other games whatsoever!
And I'm not normally hard of hearing, mind, but am I the only one who's having trouble hearing Dumbledore?
I hope the second movie addresses my complaints with the first. I'm going to wait for the DVD.
Damn, talk about screwing that one up.
From last nights SNL "Warner Brothers reported tuesday that an illegal copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was leaked on line before the movie premiers this weekend. In worse news, it seems a manuscript of the movie has been available for the past 4 years."
I do have to agree with the reviewer. This movie/book is probably the weakest of the whole series. The movie to really look forward to is The Prisoner of Azkaban, book 3. It is my favorite book of the series so far and I think it starts to get to a nice level of darkness in the story. Additionally, Book 4 picks up on this darker aspect well, if not a slightly sillier story.
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
but if you haven't read the book, why do you care about the movie?
:-) was better than the first. :-)
I just wanted to get a clue : why was ti so overhyped and so on.
Actually I love the ambiences, the story is quite entertaining and I think the 2nd one (I saw it in switzerland yesterday night : we were around midnight, 300 adults in a movie theater
I for sure will go and watch the following when it's out
But I still don't want to read the book...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The first movie was riddled with errors.
Here are the mistakes that fans have picked out for Harry Potter II courtesey of Movie Mistakes:
When Harry and Ron are sitting in the hall doing work and Hermione comes up to them she swings her leg over and it is bare. Then 2 seconds later as she is sitting down she is wearing tights.
When Harry Potter and Tom Riddle are talking inside the Chamber of Secrets, notice the bridge of Harry's nose. There is a small piece of duck tape under the bridge of the glasses to hold them in place.
When Ron and Harry are escaping from the spiders in the flying car the passenger's side window that broke earlier hitting the willow tree is not broken, you can see Ron's reflection. A minute later you see that the window is broken again.
During the final moments in the Chamber, Harry overcomes Tom Riddle (Voldemort) when putting the Basilisk tooth through the diary. If you watch carefully, you will notice that Harry is keeping his right arm idle, as it has also been posioned by the tooth. He keeps striking the diary and finally closes it for one final attack on the cover. Right before he closes it, you see his left hand still poised in the air with the tooth, but as they cut to the closing of the book right away, they show Harry's left hand closing the book with no sign of the tooth. Now they cut back to Harry's face and his left arm is still up holding the tooth.
At the beginning of the scene near the end of the movie with Lucius Malfoy fuming at Dubledore in his office, Malfoy's hair is fanned back behind his shoulders. The lighting in the room illuminates the back of his neck, where you can see his real, short brown hair.
When Harry first meets Dobby, Dobby is bouncing on the bed. There is a bulletin board of some kind with a Gryffindor flag thing on it. A couple of minutes later, the flaggy thing is still there, but the board itself is gone.
In the second to last scene when Dumbledore is talking to Harry and Ron, Ron's hair is a bit roughed and has a big cowlick. In the next shot, the cowlick is gone and both Ron and Harry's hair is neat.
In the scene where Harry has the bones in his arm regrown, we see him move his hand just before he sees Dobby, although he later claims that his arm has not healed yet. He also never shows any pain in this scene, while Madame Pomfrey told him the regrowing process would be painful.
In the scene when Harry, Ron, and Hermoine find Mrs. Norris petrified, the rest of the school comes rushing to them. How does the rest of the school find out about the attack? They couldn't of heard the Bastilik because they don't speak parsel-tongue. Harry, Ron, and Hermoine were also the first ones to discover the attack.
When Harry goes through the second door to get into the heart of the Chamber where he sees Ginny, the door closes slowly behind him. Then somehow Fawkes manages to fly though a solid two foot thick wall with the hat, how does he do this?
When the girl's restroom is flooding, Harry and Ron are going there and in the hallway, the water is about an inch high. In the bathroom, there are drains and the water hardly comes up to 1/4 inch. This is easy to see when Harry picks up Riddle's diary.
When Ron and the Weasley twins come to pick up Harry from the Dursleys in the flying car, they fly over hundreds of houses. How is it then that we and Harry can hear the car when it is quite a distance away, but the people who live in the houses that the car flies over can't? The car isn't even invisible at the time.
When Harry first meets Dobby, Dobby is moving all about, yet Harry is just focused on one spot.
When Harry is looking at the journal, a bright light appears right in his face and eyes, yet his pupils don't shrink.
When Hermoine takes the Polyjuice Potion, she takes on characteristics of a cat. Note that she took it before Harry did, yet Harry's wore off first. The Polyjuice Potion lasts for 1 hour no matter what you take the form of.
After the basilisk is killed, and Harry talks to Dumbledore, the sword used is lying on the desk, covered in blood. Harry picks it up, and it's clean and shiny. Later, when it's back onthe desk, it's all messy again.
The basilisk shown in the movie must be at least sixty feet long and 5-10 feet across. It would NOT be able to fit through pipes of any kind.
When Lockhart falls down the hole into the Chamber of Secrets, we hear him hit the ground a second or two later. When Ron and Harry jump down, not only do they take longer to get down, they also slide down the pipe, rather than fall straight down.
In the Quidditch scene, Harry breaks his right arm, but as he sits up after he falls off his broom, he leans directly on it.
In the first film, we see that Susan Bones (the red haired girl) is sorted into Hufflepuff, however throughtout the Chamber of Secrets, Susan not only has her classes with the Griffyndors BUT is also wearing a Griffyndor tie
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
Serious response ... because I enjoy a good fantasy movie like anyone else but I have a huge backlog of books to read (I just consumed the Ender's quad in about 2 months of spare time reading) and I just don't see myself putting these books into the list.
The first movie by most accounts was pretty spot-on, so watching the movie in 2 hours saved me at least 2 hours for reading something else.
Plus, most of the books I do want to read will not be made into movies, and those that are maybe 5% will be good adaptations. If this series is getting those 5% adaptations, then it's that much more of a joy to watch.
I bought my wife the first 4 books in hardback for the holidays last year and while she loved the gift (and it was what she asked for), she hasn't had time to read them, either (though she reads less than I do).
I certainly don't see myself sitting at the airport with a large hardbound of Chamber of Secrets (and I'm not going to buy -2- copies of the book) ... I get enough ridicule for going to see the movie at the theater when I waited to see Episode 1 (which was a far worse movie) on DVD :)
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Side Note here: My favorite part of this movie?? Simple the Star Trek and LOTR previews, it's going to be a nice winter with some movies that deal with deep plot and character developement, but wait would that be because the age span for those movies starts at 13 not stops!!??
Back on to the Potter Flick. Basically you get some key values expressed here that adults don't understand. One acceptance of others even if they don't have as much money or if they aren't 'pure bloods'. Two, run away from home if your gaurdians are jerks. and Three, shoot first ask questions later.
I was a bit dissapointed to see 'Eight Legged Freaks' AGAIN. And lets face it the book/movie started to get into death even more so, with a young girl dying. And of course the whole snake thing. So if anything this is going to do wonders for the nightmare department.
Personally I'd stick with a matinee showing of this movie if you plan on taking children. And definantelly wouldn't hurt to talk with your kids afterwards to reassure that this is just a movie. And definantelly be prepared for a bathroom break, this thing is more than 2 hours long.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
when it comes to "elitism". OK, a few lowly hobbits gets to save the world; but have you looked at the human society? Humans are divided in different branchs of different purity, valiour ect. Not only is the inate superiority of Aragorn and his kind taken for granted all along, but I clearly remember at least one passage where Aragorn explicitly states that the humans groups can be divided in three... barbarians (the Southerners for exemple), more noble humans but still figthing for fighting's sake (such as the Rohans), and the true nobles races like his, who only fight to defend freedom ect. Worse, take the whole royality thing... In Tolkien's world, the Intendants of Gondor do not become, ever. Only the "true heir" whose ancestors left the kingdom ages ago is fit to do that. OTOH, in HP there is a very clear difference between having inate magical powers and being good, and it is perfectly possible to become a great wizard while coming from a muggle family. True, either you are gifted or you arent... but that's true of life as well in many domains. HP would only be "elitist" if it implied that being a muggle, or having muggle parents, is bad in itself. Not only is that never said, but the problem of racism is tackled head on, and is a central part of some of the books. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the LoTR. But some aspects of it are clearly elitist. And no, HP is not elitist, rather the contrary. Just my 0.02
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Wow, nice troll. And it's scoring 5, Insightful.
You do have a (weak) point, though, about Tolkien's characterization (although, *cough* I find it laughable that you'd suggest that Rowling does anything other than caricatures). I would argue that the richness of Tolkien's world is not in the characters but in their vast history, which is only barely hinted at in LOTR. Not to mention, Tolkien's work is fundamentally preoccupied with heavy theological issues, like good and evil, whereas the charactizations are of secondary importance.
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
Tolkien translates better to film because all his characters are so completely two-dimensional."
I disagree. Firstly the character depth in the LotR novels is amazing. Character complexity is what made reading LotR such an amazing experience for me, and conversely the complete absence of such themes from the film resulted in my absolute disappointment. I personally love the bond Gimli and Legolas form despite the greater hatred between the two dwarves and elves, and this was not hinted at even slightly in the film.
In regards to Harry Potter, the characters are complex but in a local scope, and this is what differentiates the two. Harry Potter is of the low fantasy genre and LotR is of the high fantasy genre. Typically low fantasy is fantasy of local scope and few central characters undergoing the one central plot together, whereas high fantasy consists of epic scope, multiple central characters with different (and usually inter-connected) plots, and elevated language.
J.K.Rowling and J.R.R.Tolkien are uncomparable.
...but if you haven't read the book, why do you care about the movie?
If I can enjoy the gist of a good author's book in two or three hours, great!
What geek has time to read more than the latest door-stop-sized tech. book and, uh... Slashdot?
Anyway: if you liked the first movie, you'll like the second. If you didn't like the first movie at all, you'll feel the same about the second -- it's not qualitatively different.
The movie was actually fairly scary, and the action scenes were done quite well. If I was taking small children I would be a bit concerned. Considering that the third and fourth books were both darker and considerably more scary than the first two books, I'll be interested to see where the movies go. And if the Chamber of Secrets goes 2:40, is the Goblet of Fire going to be a six hour long epic? There will have to be more adaptation for the later books, and the director and script writer are going to have to put their own voices into those movies.
And if you haven't read the books, just read them before you see the movies. The books are easy and enjoyable reads, and there's so many copies about you should be able to borrow one easily.
The close-ups of the phoenix made it look like a prop from a 60's monster movie. Very disappointing considering ILM was involved.
Anyway, I think this film is weaker than the first one, but I think that mostly this is because the book really doesn't add as much to the larger story.
In this interview J K Rowling states that "Key things happen in book two. No one knows how important those things are... yet. There's a lot in there. And I know how difficult it was to get it all in there without drawing too much attention to the clues."
And let me be probably one of the few people that disliked it.
The personalities of the characters were different (Hermione isn't cool under pressure in the books, for instance; Dumbledore isn't just a nice grandfather type - he's actually quite amusing, making his character carry more weight when he occasionally DOES get serious), the quiddich match was ALL wrong (quiddich and flying are about freedom to Harry - do you ever get that feeling from the movie? Not really) and the sorting het didn't even sing. There's more than that, but I could come up with a list of things that I think fundamentally flaw the movie that's literally pages long. As my girlfriend said, it was like someone did a quick book report, and made it a movie.
I'm pretty amenable to Book-to-Movie conversions, but the movie was a pale shadow of the book. I LOVED LotR. I even liked Johnny Mnemonic. I'll probably never rent Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone again, let alone buy it, which is dissapointing to me.
I'll see the second one, but I've got the same expectations of it. I hope I'm wrong.
Stephen Notley (Bob the Angry Flower cartoonist) seems to think similarily to me, though. You can read his review of the second movie here.
Kids, don't try driving your flying car at home.
Um, the central story in LotR is about a hobbit named Frodo. And there is no mention of God in LotR. You appear to have J.R.R. Tolkien confused with another fabulous fantasy writer, namely C.S. Lewis.
That said, I prefer LotR in book form to Harry Potter in book form, but Harry Potter in movie form (based on the first movie from each set) is (so far) better than LotR. The Harry Potter folks seem to be sticking better to the book, and considering how LONG both movies were, the HP movies did a much better job of having fewer boring spots. Maybe the LotR people can cut about 30 minutes from the TT films by not having full minute pan shots in between each scene.
I do not have a signature
"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. They tell children that dragons can be beaten"
Test your net with Netalyzr
I think they did a really good job with the car. When it was on the ground. When in the air, inertia seems not to apply. It should look more like it is driving on an (invisible) icy road in the sky.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
The replies to the parent post seem to run mostly in the vein of "it's a fantasy flick, get over it". Given that the parent poster did say that the movie was fun and that misgivings about the movie were on the level of discomfort, I find most of the reply posts to be oddly over-reactive. If the parent had said that nobody should feel good about this movie, or that he was unable to enjoy fantasy movies anymore, then THAT might have warranted a "get over it" reponse.
:)
Suppose a child came up to you and confessed to feelings of inadequacy because of how dissimilar Harry P's life was to the child's. Some kids would be talking about the fact that they couldn't fly and turn invisible, and those kids would benefit from a talk about reality vs fantasy. But other kids would be talking about their inability to relate to the mindset and achievements of Harry... questions like: how does Harry know what to do all the time, or how can I be more popular like Harry? In these circumstances it would not be beneficial to lecture on the distinction between brooms and gravity. What's called for is an articulation of motivation, achievement, and what measures of worth should be applied to a person. Maybe the referred-to article went further than a broom-vs-gravity person would like, but to dismiss it altogether is to miss a real (like it or not) psychological dimension of the movie that has the potential to shape young minds. And if people at our age can't discuss it, even with a nod to having enjoyed the movie, then we're setting ourselves up to be empty handed when someone comes to us for advice.
Now I can't enjoy fantasy movies ever again.
.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Anyone who made a claim like that must not have kept up with the news. The 'friend' made up the claim to try to cash in on JK's success. Go read the court transcripts, they're very informative.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Price of movie: Popcorn: $1.50
Expression on parents faces after the two-legged horse dies from an arrow with its eye hanging out and the elf maid "up front and in close": Priceless! (And the kids loved it.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I haven't read the book, but I went to see the movie the night it came out (I was interested in the spectacle of people dressing up, and was sadly disappointed that there weren't more people in costume) and what surprised me the most was the way that this one played with european folklore in a way that the first one did not. For one thing, Chamber of Secrets followed the structure of a fairy tale in a way that I didn't see in the first movie. It had the hero/object-saught axis and the helper/villain axis pretty clearly defined, which is not something that you see in a film very often, even a film that does pay homage to the fairy tale. Also, Dobby and the manner in which he can be freed comes straight out of a European legend involving a household spirit who is presented with a set of clothes in appreciation for all his work, and then takes the set of clothes and leaves. Historically, clothes were often the payment at the end of a servant's term of service, so it was interesting to see that reflected in the movie. I had a whole list of other explicit references to folklore, but now I forget. Anyway, for me (as a folklorist I suppose), that was the most interesting part of the movie.
By the way, this movie got me excited to read the books (and for the next movie) in a way that the first did not.
Adam
Chris Columbus says he wishes he could have included the Deathday scene in the film version of Chamber Of Secrets.
"It was one of my favourite scenes in the book. But we just felt we would push it in terms of structure".
I'm not going to quote the whole thing. Getting votes by proxy is just kind of embarrassing, and I won't want to be a copyright terrorist.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Was I the only person who thought that the scene with Malfoy in the Quidditch match was like the Death Star trench scene in Star Wars?
I kept on expecting Dobby's voice to break in, saying "Harry Potter must use the Force, sir!"
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
This AC said just what I was going to say.
His family is ridiculed, but not because they are Muggles, it's because of the way they behave - they themselves ridiclue "freaks" and those they don't understand, and are portrayed like the buffoons they are. If they were kind, Harry wouldn't have a problem with them.
The characters in the books who hate "ordinary people" are the villains. It shouldn't take much to see that!
It's Mandrake Root that kills with it's scream, not Nightshade.
Minor error, but your point is still valid. Children's stories ARE violent, and have terrifying things in them. You can't just have a story about generic "flat" villians all the time and have it become popular. Sometimes things go bad, and having such things in children's books is not necessarily a bad thing. Show children that evil DOES exist, but that it can be conquered by ordinary people. I would say that is the real message of the Harry Potter books/movies.
Erioll
You cared much for Dune, if you thought HP has Messiah-like qualities...
<p>Beyond that the story has several classical elements and Rowling is a *big* fan of <i>Deus ex Machina</i>.</p>
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Goblet of Fire is easily three times the size of Secrets
That's true, but GOF is kind of modular. For instance, the whole "Quiddich World Cup" section at the beginning of the book could probably be omitted without damaging the story too much, or at least reduced to a couple of lines of exposition later. I love that section and I wouldn't want it cut, but it could be if it were necessary. Some of the Triwizard challenges are the same way. They're really cool, and I'd love to see 'em on the big screen, but they're not completely integral to the plot.
Of course, the right way to do GOF is to film two three-hours movies simultaneously and release one in October (ending with a cliffhanger) and the other in December. If the next two Matrix flicks do well, there's a chance Columbus might choose to do just that, rather than cutting too much of the novel for time.
I write in my journal
Not only did that scene make it, it was practically the "money shot" of the film. The action sequence in the Chamber is the literal climax of the movie, but the quiet little exchange between Dumbledore and Harry at the end is the emotional resolution. All the moreso when you realize that this was Richard Harris's last performance as Dumbledore. Pretty darned good ending, all around.
I write in my journal
here: http://www.zilch321.org/article.php?story=20021115 090551692
unfortunatly, people seem to explain away what I said, by "its a kids fantasy movie!" Thats not really an excuse, thatbecause it is for children there is no reason not ignore pacing elements of a movie!
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
In all events, it's nice that HP has little kids and certain 20-somethings reading books!
;-), "Lord" Valdemort the pretender. It is symbolic that chess was so central to the first movie.
Yeah, Star Wars tends towards monarchistic themes ("Princess Leia" isn't just because she's prissy) with a vague nod toward representative democracy in the vile (IMHO) prequels. But then monarchies are the stuff of romantic legend, and Star Wars is very romantic. Luke is the lost knight, etc.
Star Trek always *acted* like it was a meritocracy (kind of like America) but I had to wonder. Rarely did we get to see a washout, and while we were assured everyone was the best of the best they didn't seem to work at it very much -- too many adventures to take. Yet they were always innovating things in the field that "had never been done before" even by the weenies back at the labs.
Also, did you ever notice how everybody in the power circles knew each other, even though they were flung across the galaxy? It seemed very buddy-buddy. Don't tell me there wasn't an elitist component, and that Starfleet ran in families without the effects of influence.
Well, uh, back to Harry Potter -- what happened to all the wizard-wannabes "not good enough" for Hogwarts or its sister schools? Do you really want a bunch of magic school dropouts hanging out and causing trouble? Rowling should lok at this more in a later novel -- "Sorcery and its Discontents." At least in HP, unlike SW or ST, you really do see people STUDYING!
HP has monarchistic themes, too. Dumbledore seems very much like the King, McGonagal the window-dressing Queen (I think Dumbledore is gay
How does Christianity fare in these three epics? Poorly. No wonder the fundies are holding bookburnings. (Really, the religions ought to be strong enough not to worry what isn't said about them in these fables. It's just for fun.)
50 years ago Hagrid, true to his nature, had a dangerous pet that was blamed for the death of the original child (Myrtle). This pet WAS the giant spider. Hagrid HIMSELF thought that the spider may have been the cause of the current attacks... he was probably nearly convinced himself of his guilt during his trial 50 years ago.
So Hagrid THOUGHT the giant spider was the cause... he was wrong. However, the spider itself provided a clue, as did the fact that the spiders ran away. There was not a whole LOT of plot relating to the spider scene, but it was not gratuitous.
The kids don't know either. It's a semi-ntelligent magical item. The book never explained it either really, why the car chose to help them. It's just magic.
The first petrification, with the cat, the floor was wet due to being just washed. The other occasions were due to it being at a bathroom.
It's a kids book... everything has to end up happy. Yes it is contrived.
Obviously in any translation from a book to a movie, something is lost. The movie was VERY true to the book, very little was lost, but this also means that some items were not linked as clearly, not explained as fully as perhaps they should have been.
An example of something not explained fully in the movie. Dobby knew of the plot the Malfoy's were hatching, and tried to warn Harry off... extremely ineffectually. Perhaps because he has lived for so long among the Malfoys, he only sees trickery and violence as a solution to problems. Maybe he's just stupid.
The movie makes more sense if you've read the book, because things that were glossed over are given the full treatment in the book, so you have more background for every character and scene. As a translation of the book? It's magnificent. As a standalone movie? Merely good, with problems.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
The following is based on my reading of all the books which qualifies me as well as anyone else to describe what Harry is and is not. It also is written with the assumption that the article linked is not merely a joke of some sort.
"Simple: He's a glory hog who unfairly receives credit for the accomplishments of others and who skates through school by taking advantage of his inherited wealth and his establishment connections"
As anyone who has read the books knows Harry has always been uncomfortable with his fame. He also happens to be very sympathetic to Ron's and others financial situations and hardly worships money. If there is one thing that is central to the entire series and that Harry learns is the value of friendship and how wrong excluding and judging others is. He never asked to be favored by Dumbledore, but he also happens to not have a father since his was Murdered. You'll excuse him from wanting to form a tighter relationship with the one adult figure in his life that he knows truly looks out for him.
I love how the author also sides steps the 12 years of mental abuse and terrible living quarters Harry had endured. The fact that he isn't an Arsonist or Molester is a credit to him.
Harry while being full of natural talent is NOT a showoff. He also would risk his life for another without hesitation and actually does so in the books. How are these qualities not worth emulating?
"Harry Potter is a fraud, and the cult that has risen around him is based on a lie. Potter's claim to fame, his central accomplishment in life, is surviving a curse placed on him as an infant by the evil wizard Voldemort. "
Umm, every story has to has a beginning. To harp on that one point is to ignore future meetings where he actually does do battle with Voldemort and many others standing on his own two feet not knowing if any assistance is forthcoming. That is real courage.
"But thanks to the revisionist histories of J.K. Rowling, Lily's son is remembered as the world's savior."
Why? Its Harry who goes on to save the world over and over in future books, just like any hero in a series does. Assisted or not Harry is the one who is the driving force behind seeking out and fighting new threats as they come up. Its obvious to anyone with even basic reading comprehension he'd rather hang out with his friends and play Quiddtich then fight evil. He never asked to be hero.
"Being a wizard is something innate, something you are born to, not something you can achieve. As a result, Harry lives an effortless life. "
More of the same. I don't know what books this person has been reading, but Harry's life is hardly "effortless". Any Privilage granted to Harry later in life doesn't take the place of action, and Harry's actions speak for thmeselves. What's with this person's need to find a mortal flaw with Harry? Fantasy is called Fantasy for a reason. Is he supposed to die or something? Is someone here too jaded or jealous or something?
Lastly, I just don't get adults complaining or criticizing Harry Potter. This particular book series does something that not many others have. 1) it gets kids to read, which is incredibly important. 2) it give adults a series which while aimed at children, respects the adults who will be reading it. 3) it forms common ground between adults and children which when competing with MTV and the Internet isn't so easy anymore.
I'm sorry but people who criticize Harry Potter are looking way too much into it. These are the same people who look back into classic children's works and want to find sexual innuendo.
Sorry wackos, but Harry Potter has done way too much good to be brought down by people like you.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Yes, but this blockbuster is based on a book that has had more book sales than most BLOCKBUSTERS.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Even though even though I responded as if the article were a serious essay and not a joke, keep in mind there are people actually feel that way. Even more crazy are the people who condemn the witchcraft in the Harry Potter series. Talk about deranged.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Gandalf could kick harry potter's candy ass clear into the next time zone...
Assuming, of course, he got the chance, and Gimli doesn't just lop the annoying little prat's head right off beforehand.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
It is exactly for this reason that you probably liked *cough* *cough* Star Wars when you were small -- Luke Skywalker is exactly the same character and plays to the same wants and desires.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Moreover, I think it was poorly edited and could be vastly improved with a directors cut edition.
This is the director's cut. Chris Columbus, being executive producer, gets the absolutely final say in the cut of the film. There are scenes that were shot but ultimately cut-- which have been saved for the DVD, by the way-- but it was Columbus himself who made those calls.
This is the one-and-only "director's cut" of this film.
I write in my journal
And I thought it was better than the first one. It was darker and had more action and was hence much cooler IMHO. There were even a couple of times when it scared me out of my seat. (I'm 20 by the way.) I haven't read any of the books but when I got back after seeing the second movie I went and got all four on audio tape. I've already listened to the third book and I think its going to make a much better movie than this one did, and I can't wait till it comes out. The only thing that bugged me was the fact that I couldn't shake the feeling that Gilderoy Lockhart was a rip off the Great Saya Man from Dragonball Z (Videl's dad). All in all, a great film, even better than the first.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
What do the spiders have to do with the movie?
They're kind of a red herring. Seeing spiders fleeing the scenes of the attacks naturally raises the suspicion that they have something to do with what's going on. But as it turns out, the giant spider in the forest, Agragog, has nothing to do with anything. Spiders are deathly afraid of basilisks, and that's why they're seen running away whenever the basilisk struck.
What was up with the car? It was never cleared up. No motive, etc.
The car was enchanted. Enchanted things tend to have minds of their own at times. There's really not much more to it than that.
How about the water? Why does it keep showing up?
The basilisk travels through the water pipes. When it comes out, water gets all over everything.
The attacks seem a bit contrived. Contrived in the lethality.
The basilisk legend is actually real. A real legend, I mean. According to legend, a basilisk was a serpent whose gaze was lethal. The reflected gaze of the basilisk, though, paralyzes rather than killing.
Why? To keep the body count down, of course. In a book written primarily for 12-year-olds, it doesn't do to have characters dropping dead every few chapters.
Mee'sa Dobby? I guess he will be explained in the sequel, which I will probably need to see to resolve a few loose ends.
What loose ends are those? Dobby's a house-elf, and he knows that the Malfoy's have it in for Harry Potter. He tries to warn Harry, but in perversely roundabout ways. At the end of the story, Harry tricks Dobby's owner into giving Dobby a sock, which sets him free-- house-elves are enslaved (quite willingly) until their owners present them with clothes. Your average house-elf takes pride is his work, and would consider being given clothes a shameful failure. But Dobby, because he worked for the slimy and horrible Malfoy family, was happy to be dismissed.
I write in my journal
The first movie was entertaining because we got to see Harry Potter and Hogwarts on the big screen. The story itself was nothing special. Harry didn't know much if any magic, they beat a troll by dumb luck, and nabbed the Sorcerrer Stone from Voldemort by Dumbledore's clever charm on the mirror. The first movie, like the first book, was designed to introduce the main characters and display some of the fantastic world of the magical. The Sorcerrer Stone was telegraphed from the moment Hagrid told Harry he probably shouldn't tell anyone at Hogwarts about the small package in the you-know-where vault.
The second movie, by contrast, was able to gloss over nearly all the character introductions and get to a storyline which was much more mysterious and suspensful (at least in the book) than anything the first movie/book could muster. Granted the location doesn't change, but it's hard for me to believe we've explored all the rooms and grounds of Hogwarts in the first movie!
While I do not think the second book or movie is as good as the stories to come, I think it has a much more interesting story than the first film. Unfortunately, due to time constraints (don't want to keep those kids immobile for more than 2h45m), there was a lot of material left out of the second movie that was in the second book. Particularly the fear and suspicion surrounding Harry after he speaks Parseltongue to the snake during the duel, and a fair amount of hilarity from Ron's broken wand that just didn't make it to the final film. While reading the second book, it almost made you doubt whether or not Harry was the heir of Slytherin, but that was not brought out in the movie much at all.
Perhaps part of the reason people think the first movie is so much better is because more of the book was able to be shown in the film. Even though parts did get cut out (like the entire Norbert story and the whole reason why it was important that Neville stood up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione), the book was shorter and more easily compressed without losing substance. I think one of the downfalls of every book after the first (getting worse as you progress) is that there is more book and more story to fit into the same amount of space.
I'm looking forward to the next movie, but I'm afraid it may get hacked up even more than this one did simply to keep the film under 3 hours long.
Cheers!
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Let me preface this by saying that I did quite enjoy both the HP movies, and the books for each.
However, something that always bothered me about the HP stories is the seemingly complete lack of responsibility by any of the adults.
The most glaring was the Malfoy-Potter duel in the Chambe of Secrets. If I were a teacher, and had told two students to use magic to "disarm only" and one sent a poisonous snake after the other - no matter how well the other could talk to it - that student would be expelled and probably face criminal charges. I mean, come on, he (at least partially) tried to kill someone!
Or with the quidditch match - Harry is chased after by a modified bludger that is obviously trying to seriously hurt him, and the adults don't do a damn thing! I mean, Hermione says that she can't zap it because she might hit Harry - but certainly someone like Dumbledore could? But none of the adults do anything!
I mean, it's not sending the best message to children - it's something akin to "You're on your own, and don't rely on the adults to help you." Grrr.
(Although I was pretty upset with the "deus ex machinae" endings of the first two. Harry's going to face certain death with - right in the nick of time, the car drives up. Or the phoenix flies in with the hat. Or his mom sacrifices herself, or or or...ugh.)
Heh. After rereading that, I realize it sounds pretty bad - but I swear I did like the movies. I just had some serious reservation about them...
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
I can't wait for these to come out:
Harry Potter and the Affectionate Sailor
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Bone
Harry Potter and the Brown Accident
Harry Potter and the Small Dark Hole
Harry Potter and the Misplaced Gerbil
Yeah, I know, groan...
Isn't that the whole point of why it's so succesfull amongst the over 26's. In everyones adolescent fantasy, we all want to be rich, a jock and have lots of admirers. Sure its a "Hollywood" , but so what.
P.S. I am more than 2x 26 years. so I enjoyed it twice as much.
Semper ubi sub ubi
... but if you haven't read the book, why do you care about the movie?
Because I'm a cinephile. *smacks you on top of the head* That was a silly thing to say...
- I am made of meat.
Thanks for the link but what do you think he means by we would push it in terms of structure?
I suspect it would be a very expensive scene to shoot with all the ghosts but then again the movie was long enough. Too bad as John Cleese is fantastic and I'd like to see more of him.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I'm looking forward to the next movie, "Harry Potter and the Mystery of the Training Bra".
Yes, shamelessly ripped from Mr. Cranky.
And yet Tolkien's creation is one of the most profoundly Christian stories written in the last couple of centuries. Too bad fundamentalists can't get past their shiboleths to recognize that.
Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan, ROC
besides, making Saruman into Dumbledore is like making Mr. Smith into Elrond. Oh, they did that didn't they?
Elrond needs sunglasses.
catgirls and fairies
This presumes that children are incapable of "resonating" with adult themes, something I think is certainly not true. While children may not be able to articulate their intuitions, I think we sell them short if we assume that children can only relate to a sanitized, morally two-toned imaginary world like HP.
In that way it's much like LOTR or Dune
I disagree. HP is not at all like either LOTR or Dune. What HP lacks is not the moral certitudes -- both LOTR and Dune are pervaded with crystal clear notions of good and evil -- but the moral ambivalences which make people so human, and characters like Harry Potter so much less than that. The reason Frodo stands (figuratively) head and shoulders above Harry is because, in the end, he fails, or more, because he tries and fails. In LOTR, it is the struggle which makes Frodo a hero, despite his failure. In HP, it is circumstances which turn Harry into an accidental hero. But Harry never really struggles.
Harry is primarily a hero by happenstance. Frodo's heroism is, precisely because of his struggle, much more human than Harry's, and therefore much more compelling. Even for children.
Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan, ROC
As for John Cleese, he might be busy writing that alternate Superman comic "True Brit". What, you didn't know? Oh, that's right, my submission didn't make it in. I'll take pity, here's the link. :^)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Huh? I'm sorry but that's just stuuuupid. First of all, there a whole ton of stuff in Tolkien about individuals overcoming their racial dispositions (Hobbits are sedentary; humans are greedy; dwarves hate elves, elves trust only elves, etc.)
Whatever. You could be forgiven for not realizing this if you didn't read the books.
What shocks me is that HARRY BUTTHOLE POTTER is somehow superior in this regard. I find it shocking exactly because this "determinism by birth" is my single biggest problem with Harry Potter. Basically, Harry Potter, on his own merits, is a below-average student that breaks whatever rules he pleases, and gets away with it, and everybody still wants to kiss his ass... why... because of his PARENTS. Just because he has some fancy-ass parents, Harry Potter is some sort of living legend. He did nothing to deserve this honor. Hermione, for example, is a much more talented and diligent student, but why does nobody bow befor her? Because she doesn't have the right parents. And all the while, the movies encourage us to think that this is all OK. That we should think that the sun sets in Harry Potter's ass. Why? What the fuck did he ever do on his own merits?
I can tell you, if I were at a school and one of my fellow students was automatically the pet of the whole faculty (especially the dictatorial director), and it was all because of who his parents were... well, I would kick his ass every single day and take his lunch money. Especially if I saw that I was a much better student while nobody noticed and kept talking about how "golden child" is like some fucking baby Jesus. Well, fuck that. I mean, some of us might even remember kids who were treated this way by your schoolteachers. Their glasses were "mysteriously" broken at least once a week. Because even children understand what justice demands! Well, except in Hogwarts, apparently. That really pissed me off. I wanted to like Harry Potter, but I found myself only feeling this burning sense of injustice about how he doesn't get his comeuppance. So I wanted to punch him, maybe give him a swift kick in the balls, just so he maintains his perspective amid all the "so this is The Famous Mr. Potter" swooning.
Alas, this is only in my fantasy, so consider this post to be my first work of Harry-Potter-Related Fan Fiction.
so basicly you're teeter-tottering between internal and external loci of control...either the kids should not be on their own, or they should not rely on exterior help? Maybe I don't get it. BTW where's the Deus Ex Machinae ending in the first movie?
Check out my sysadmin blog!
If you watch a movie based on a book before you've read the book, then the book will fill in details and often provide an alternate plot or story.
If you watch a movie based on a book after you've read the book, then the movie will often bastardize the book and ruin the whole story for you from that point forward.
So I rarely read books if I know there is a movie -- I only read them (like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter) after the fact in order to fill in details.
Probably this is a waste of time. Did you even read the books? Harry's an orphan who was raised by mean, stupid people. Once he gets to Hogwarts, he's treated exactly like any other student, no better and no worse. It's true that some of the faculty and a lot of the students respect Harry for the role he played in Voldemort's defeat, but he doesn't get any special treatment.
He sure wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth, except that his parents left him a lot of money (unusable in the non-magical world, however). As for what he deserves, Harry's got a strong sense of justice and keeps trying to help other people in various ways. He's a good kid, he picks good kids to be his friends, and accomplishes a lot sometimes against great odds. Pretty good role model, I'd say; I hope my kids will read these books someday.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
...but not until then.
The most excellent R-rated parody book, "Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody," has a couple of real good slams on quidditch, mostly based on the scoring rules and the fact that catching the snitch is the only thing that matters.
In the 4th book (the good one, IMHO) is a game which brings home the fact that while catching the snitch 1) ends the game, and 2) gets you 150-odd points, that only matters if you're less than 150-odd points behind the other team. You can still get the thing and lose.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Unlike:
- Elves (and Elrond half-elven), who are born magical, and are immortal unless killed
- Dwarves, who are born magical and massively outlive humans
- Strider, who's a born king with "better" blood (and likely to long outlive any normal human)
- Gandalf, who's a sort of demi-god despite appearing human
- Treebeard, who's a walking talking tree, who can smash stone with a grasp-and-pull, and who lives almost as long as elves
- And the hobbits, who are about as ordinary as any character gets - although Frodo and Bilbo are semi-special, elite elf-friend ring-bearer mithril-wearing hobbits.
Not elitist? Hmm.
Disclaimer: I don't necessarily even *dislike* elitism.
Throughout the books, Legolas and Gimli become the best of friends. You can start to see the respect they're beginning to foster for each other throughout the movie. You have to establish their mutual disdain for each other before the fact that they begin to form a bond becomes powerful.
The Harry Potter books have brought many people back to reading Harry Potter. There is a marked difference, and being that the books are not particularly well written, I'm not really sure how this is commendable in any sense of the word.
levine
Sure they are! They both use initials and their last names as their pen names! :)
(Actually, I agree with your points. Rowling just isn't epic.)
slashdot did a review on this series. I highly recommend the "Dark Materials" series to kids and adults that liked Harry Potter, or just like good fantasy.
Anarchists never rule
This was the central theme in the training of Ender in Ender's Game. Numerous times he was in mortal danger, and adults could have helped him, but they let him fend for himself so that when there really wasn't anyone to help him, he wouldn't be expecting it. Seems to me Harry Potter:Ender::Voldemort:Wooly Ants makes sense.
Hey... since we're gonna play Comicbook-guy...
Actually. No. Harry Potter isn't some great and powerful wizard. But he is famous. Famous for a single act: surviving a direct attack by the most powerful evil wizard in history. And in surviving, Harry ended Voldemort's short reign of terror... and perhapse even Voldemort himself in some manner. AND Harry did this all as an infant. As Snape likes to point out - this doesn't make Harry an instant great and powerful wizard. But it would be no suprise if the wizard community sees this as a portant for Harry's future success.
So if Harry is destined to become so great and powerful, what about those friends saving his ass? It is simply one of Harry's abilities. Great people are rarely great on their own. They often bring out the best qualities in people around them. They are leaders. They inspire others to perform at their best towards a common goal. Harry performs admirable feats on his own, but he would be nowhere without friends. And he doesn't get those friends through self-gratuitious behavior like Lockhart or back-stabbling like Malfoy.
To me quality adult is REALLY good pr0n.
Wait, quality adult doesn't really exist does it.
"Entropy is the bad-guy, and he is everywhere"
I wasn't at all impressed by the first film, but the second one was much better! I do agree however that the second book is the weakest, but this movie is darker, funnier, and much better paced.
Jeremy
It is also, in the end, was makes the evil in LOTR so much more terrifying. Harry Potter may be superficially threatened by evil, but we just wink and smile, knowing that it will never really touch him. The only suspense is in the details of how Harry defeats it.
In LOTR, evil can -- and does -- triumph over good -- in the fall of Boromir, the succumbing of Saruman and of Denethor, the self-doubts of Gandalf and Galadriel when offered the Ring (Gandalf -- even Gandalf -- says he would fail; and we believe him). And, most poignantly, in the figure of Frodo, who, for all his goodness, casts aside his quest and claims the Ring.
And therein lies the terror. Harry Potter's Voldemort is scary in a Halloweenish sort of way, but we never feel threatened by him. Sauron terrifies, because we see ourselves in Frodo.
Lee Kaiwen, Taiwan, ROC
Only problem is, your child stars would age 3-4 years during the making of the movies...
Oh, don't be silly. Even the monster shoot for The Lord of the Rings only lasted 16 months. Remove most of the makeup, post-production, and locations and you could easily shoot two epic-length films in 6-8 months.
I write in my journal
You know, we really need a moderation topic: "-1: just plain wrong"
dave
Stouffer has a resounding failure with a book which has been described as 'worse than "Eye of Argon"' and 'reads like a reject from a publishers slush pile'.
Rowling and Stouffer certainly weren't friends and the character of Larry Potter was proven in court to have nothing to do with Rowling's creation.
dave "now I think we also need a '-2: put *down* the crack pipe' moderation choice"
>Apparently you've never heard of Harry Potter.
/. crowd to present Real Facts and then support it with anectdotal evidence...
>This series has brought more people [back] to
>reading than any other. I almost never read
>books and I've read Harry Potter. I can name
>about 10 adults and even more kids with the same
>experience.
You can always trust the
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
He killed a Basalisk... after something else blinded it. For all intents and purposes, he killed a big blind snake - a challenge, because it was a really big blind snake and snakes have pretty good senses - but it was still just a big blind snake.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
What do you expect from a Dark Ages-era castle?
The Romans, on the other hand, did have fully functioning indoor plumbing.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
It's only partially a paradox. Yes Harry provided a way to get the stone out, but what if Harry hadn't shown up at all? Valdemort and Quirrell would have spent a few hours puzzling over the mirror, and maybe figured a way to get it out. And if not, they would have said fuck this, and dragged the mirror out and taken it somewhere where they could study it at their leisure.
Dumbledore never explained how exactly he set that up in the first place, or where the hell the stone was before it showed up in the mirror or Harry's pocket or wherever it was. It would be naive to suppose that given unlimited access to the mirror they couldn't have figured out some other way to get it out given enough time. If the mirror was 100% fullproof, why bother with all the other traps?
And even if they didn't figure it out, you'd still have them out their causing mischef and possibly finding yet another way to give Voldemort a new body. All in all, although this case is really simplified, you have to take risks if you're going to win battles. Confronting Voldemort then gave him an advantage he wouldn't have had otherwise, but he needed to be confronted at some point.
Second thing, i agree with you on why Dumbledore did what he did with the points. However i'm still not entirely sure how fair what he did was. I'm not sure if there are specific guidelines for how the points work, but for the most part they're supposed to be rewards for doing good in classes or quidditch, or penalties for misbehaving. I'm not sure that saving the world really qualifies. Sure, it's a good thing, and they should be comended, but why should they get points?
And besides, i'm not sure that telling the rest of the students "If you do something really dangerous and reckless, and almost get yourself and your friends killed, but you somehow manage to survive and something good happens, then we'll give you lots of points!" is really the best attitude to be encouraging :)
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It's been awhile since i've read LotR, however i seem to recall that things didn't start getting _really_ bad for Frodo until the third book, about two thirds of the way through. So you're looking at a series thatis just barely over halfway done, and loudly pointing out much easier Harry has it than Frodo.
As best as i recall from the end of the fourth book, things had just started to go straight to hell. There are a lot of merits and flaws about both HP and LotR you can debate, but perhaps you should wait until HP is finished before trying to compare the overall plot and who had to suffer more than who.
I don't really expect HP to reach the depths of despair that LotR did, but let's be fair about it and not judge what hasn't been written.
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Nowhere near as pitiful as those who feel the need to deride others' religious beliefs.
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I can concede your point, but by reading the book after I see the movie, not only to I get what the author really intended, but I often get a correction to the story. Since I generally always prefer the book over the movie, I only increase my enjoyment (and my understanding) of the story being told.
This is leftover from my school days when I was incapable of (or too lazy for) reading into the literature very well on my own, so I required other interpretation(s) before I really understood what I had read. Watching the movie first saves me the trouble of reading a book twice, which -- no matter how good it is -- I never have time to do.
(A glimpse at my bookshelf would make this obvious; I have about 600 books, most of them nonfiction, and I have read only about 50 of them. But I am on chapter 2 or 3 of around another 100 or so. I love being able to pick up where I left off -- in any of a hundred stories -- and still know exactly what's going on!)
And cars don't fly either. So what??? It's a children's story (primarily) and meant to be entertaining. No need to nitpick.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.