This weekend was dedicated to
Harry Potter and
JKR. I watched all the movies from the morning till the night and finally went to the cinema hall to mark the day by completing the marathon after watching
HP 8.
The movie is good. For any fan of Harry Potter its needless to say that the movie is a must watch. That applies to any HP movie for that matter, whether they are excellent or they suck.
However, being a member of the clan that lives in the Harry Potter era, there are few things that disturbed me. And these are not great mistakes. Those of you who are into parenting will know how it feels to see your kid making a mistake at basic addition, when you know she is good at math. You are okay to accept that she fails to grasp a tricky problem. But somehow you don't like to it when there isn't a good reason to commit that kind of mistake in the first place.
Here are some such points about the movie and before you rant me about them please read the "Disclaimer" under the title of this blog.
1. 3D effectsThe movie is 3D. Cool. That helps the film industry saving losses from piracy. (25% I guess, not sure) But it didn't give a feel that there is any reason beyond this to have the movie in 3D. Seriously, it has only handful of them. They could have made it a great 3D experience.
Some of the scenes are so dark that couple of times I felt like removing my 3D glasses. (I know the recent study asks you to get your eyesight checked if this happens.)
2. Not showing important aspects of the storyI would have liked to see Teddy Lupin. But that's fine. My biggest problem is not showing the story of Albus Dumbledore, Aberforth, Ariana and Grindelwald. It explains the weaker side of Dumbledore and tells that there were times when he committed mistakes for gaining power. Those who haven't read the books and have only seen the movies are now going to take Dumbledore as perfect.
3. Showing things that were un-necessary (of course IMO)
In this department there is just too much of liberty taken to add extra spice which was
just not required. Sometimes it made the characters appear weaker/funny.
These things are
a. Olivander telling harry that he is
f-word ed if Voldemort has got the wand.
b. Showing that Neville has crush on Luna!
c. Harry telling Hermione that their fears are indeed true, he has to die etc. etc.
d. McGongall saying she always wanted to use that spell. Yeah, that naughty-ness created a few laughs, but McGongall's character won't perhaps need that.
e. Malfoys running away like cowards ???
f. Showing too much of army. We know that the death eaters escaped from Azkaban, but this was a battle and not a war. It was mostly at personal level. Why think that big and grand means best always?
g. Harry falling down with Voldemort saying "Tom, lets end it together the way it started".. or something of that sort. Seems like
Parvati Patil has taken the crew to a few Hindi movies and they are super impressed with the climax dialogues.
4. Showing Voldemort's character as weakerI love Voldemort. He is a no-nonsense villain. He means his business and he excels at it.
Remember the previous movie when he takes the wand from Lucious Malfoy? Malfoy has this nice silver handle to his wand, which Voldemort throws away. He wants just the wand and no useless decoration.
If any of you are programmers, try to recall how you feel when you see the laptops with accessories to give it different feminine looks to match the rest of the dress. The country has been on intellectual decline since the VAIOs & Dells started to manufacture these. The typical customers of these must be sending texts to their flock like "Dad got me a new lappy, its baby pink.. scho schweet"! (Very likely that the shade I mentioned is wrong, but my vocabulary doesn't go beyond basic colors and baby pink)
The way we loathe the concept and love our bare bone machine, Voldemort means his business. I was maha-impressed with this scene. We know when its a computer you talk about its processor and cores! Even if its a wand the core is what matters! You, me and Voldemort know this.
Now come to movie 8. He laughs like a comic character. I felt pain. The moment any horcrux gets destroyed Voldemort may be losing power, but lose all horcruxes on any day he is still ass-kicking powerful guy. The movie portrays him to get too weak (mentally) as if he has started losing heart in the whole business. He is trying to hide Nagini as if he knows hell will break lose on him soon. At least I felt so, and hence didn't like it.
5. 19 years later
If you don't know it, let me tell you that Prof. Flitwick and Griphook were played by the same actor. This means that the make up artists team kicks butts. No doubts.
But then, was this team serving its punishment in Azkaban when the "19 years later" scene was shot? If not they should be sent there.
Who looks of 36/37 amongst all of them? Maybe Ginny. Harry looks a bit old than usual, Ron looks like the same Ron (only clean shaven) and Hermione - are you telling us that Emma Watson will look exactly same 19 years down the line? Seriously, such a poor job at makeup!!
I am going to watch it once again for sure, and I am hoping that I don't notice anything more.
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