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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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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
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 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.
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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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.
"Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. They tell children that dragons can be beaten"
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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
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
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.
The problem with Tolkein's work is that what you are born is what you are. Elves are good, orcs are bad, and so forth. Given that axiom, it's difficult to have really meaningful character development. Say you're a hero, born or heroes, you do heroic things, and that's they (Aragorn, for example). Further, the moral problem is that, given that orcs have no choice about what they are, they haven't made any moral decision to act as they do. If you have to kill one in self defence, that's OK, but killing them because of what they are is ethically very dubious. That's the logic that has justified slavery and genocide throughout history. Of course Tolkien was a product of his time, but that doesn't excuse his work from a more modern appraisal.
Rowling's message is different. What you are born matters, but not as much as what you choose to do with it. Characters have to make choices, and the outcomes are often ambigious, reflecting the complexity of the scenarios in which they find themselves. And they can develop as characters, because they aren't locked into predestined fates like Tolkein's characters are.
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.)
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
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.
However, I take major issue with you over the suggestion that there are heavy theological issues in LOTR. The view of good and evil there is so simply black and white that even a Southern Baptist hellfire preacher might take pause. All the baddies start bad, proceed badly, and end bad. Everyone else plays a fixed part. This is the nature of epic and tragedy (in Greek tragedies, it is often the character's lack of flexibility or development that brings on the inevitable dreadful events.) Just to make the vestige of a point, consider Terry Pratchett's world which is now if anything as big and complex as LOTR. Compare Aragorn to Captain Carrot. Compare Gandalf and Saruman to the faculty of Unseen University, especially the development of characters like Ponder Stibbons. I am sure that by now Pratchett readers will see what I am on about. Now explain to me why Pratchett can handle characters who develop, interact, and furthermore develop as a result of that interaction (just as with heavyweight novelists like Anthony Powell ) in a complex imagined world, while Tolkien can't. I suspect the answer is because JRRT never really lived in the real world but was an Oxford academic steeped in Nordic myth. This qualified him to write an epic within that tradition, but it was not actually his tradition.
Of course Rowling does caricatures, she is writing books for children and there has to be simplification to get the point over. But they are caricatures of people we recognise, instead of abstract cardboard sheets labelled "Wisdom","Kingliness","Nasty piece of work","Evil bastard no redeeming features". In Rowling's world the good guys turn out to have had badly behaved pasts, the bad guys may not be beyond redemption, and some characters are morally confused.
My point, however, was intended to be serious. LOTR can be made into an epic film because the characters are 2-D. For the same reason, I suggest, you can make a good Old Testament biblical epic but you can't really make an epic out of the New Testament. As soon as characters start to get complex, you cannot have an epic. Books are different, because the timescales on which you read them are such that they can range from epic to up close and personal, whether it be Doctor Zhivago or (still my favorite) Moby-Dick.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
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.
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.