Potter 5 (the film)

[altivo]

Saw it tonight. I didn't expect much, which was just as well. Stunning visuals, as usual, and some very good character acting also as usual. Dolores Umbridge played by Imelda Staunton is perhaps even more brainwashed, toady and disgusting than she was in the book.

However, as a whole, it's disappointing. Anyone who sees it without having read the book (perhaps more than once) is either going to miss at least half the story or be left wondering WTF these people are talking about and doing. It's all visuals and no substance. The plot has been hacked up so completely that it would be utterly unintelligible.

It occurred to me on the way home that this may be why I think anime films are so frigging bad. Most of them are based on books. Most of those I've seen, I had never read the book. Consequently, the storyline becomes unintelligible to me when chopped up into visuals the way movie directors always seem to think.

Mind, I'm not entirely left brained. I can draw fairly well, I'm quite good at music for a non-professional, and I appreciate art generally. But telling a complicated story in pictures just doesn't cut it with me. A picture is not worth a thousand words, no.

Comments

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

There is a constant bell ringing in my head surrounding Potter and movies (among many other movies and anime based upon books):

In any piece of art, you can tell if it was written from the heart, or not. Those things that are written from the heart capture your soul in a way that cannot be falsified, for the artist has drawn a true connection to you. That connection is broken the minute the artist no longer writes from the heart.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. I said something like that for years as the explanation for why the Lord of the Rings never made it all the way to film. And, honestly, despite the belief of so many people, it still hasn't made it all the way to film.

The first couple of Potter books were short enough to work, but it was predictable that the idea would break down by book 4, which it did. This one is a travesty. Bad enough when they cut half the book or more out, but worse when they start making things up that weren't in the book at all just because "they look good on screen."

[calydor.livejournal.com]

I saw a pretty good explanation for this somewhere, but I can't recall where right now:

"A book adapted to the big screen runs at about 150 pages an hour. A movie usually lasts for two hours. Therefore, any book of 300 pages or more is going to lose something somewhere."

Order of the Phoenix was what, 600 pages?

[altivo.livejournal.com]

800+ pages, actually. Yeah, I knew they'd be cutting stuff. They left out almost half of book 4. But this one even departs so far from the original that it would seem to be telling a different story if it actually were telling a story at all instead of just presenting a disconnected series of flashy images. Brain dead, attention deficit hyperactive disordered, with amnesia. That appears to be what we get from film makers today. And people still rave about this garbage, usually because, well, "the special effects were good."

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

Saw that with Rex Tuesday whilehe was here. I must say I was somewhat disappointed, but then i expected to be given the length of the book and the length of the movie. The effects were good, but too much was cut out. I did enjoy the Patronus Teaching scene and the Weasleys' torture of Umbridge though.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I need to go back and look, but I don't recall that business with the Weasley twins totally disrupting the OWL exams being in the book at all. I agree that Umbridge deserved worse than that, but I object strenuously when filmmakers rewrite the plot.

The patronus scene was visually stunning but greatly exaggerated from what actually happened in the book. Worse, I know without even having read book seven yet that they cut away far too much of the necessary detail about Sirius Black's background and household, and the Order itself. Those missing details are essential building blocks to the resolution that must take place in the last volume. At this rate, the final film will just be one flashing series of special effects with no plot line at all, because they can't possibly present the backstory required to develop the plot.

The climactic scenes at the Ministry's Department of Mysteries were a total jumble, built entirely on bang and violence and without any intelligible plot underlines. Someone who has only seen the film is not going to really know what that was about. The gateway, the disappearance of Sirius, the involvement of Lucius Malfoy, the tens of thousands of prophecies in their glass balls... none of that got any explanation or background at all. It was just a lot of imagery without interpretation. Like the extremely compressed version of the World Cup quidditch match at the start of film four, it was so condensed as to become meaningless, just a lot of puzzling pictures.

[marzolan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if they disrupted the OWL's or not, but they did give Umbridge a rather stunning display of their future business and when she tried to expel them they informed her they dropped out anyway.

[dongstyle-ltd.livejournal.com]

I watched Philosopher's Stone out of curiosity, Chamber of Secrets because my sister wanted me to go with her, and parts of Prisoner of Azkaban because, again, I was asked to. I don't really wish to see any more, and having read the entire series of books I can only say that most of the latter films would be a fairly futile exercise in reduction, extracting snippets and slick presentation. Why? Because imo, the scope of the books extends far beyond that which a feature film can cover adequately, both depth and length wise (even if, say, it ran for longer than Return of the King, and at least that was relatively well paced the entire way through, unlike a large section of Deathly Hallows). However it just might also be an inevitable exercise, seeing the way things are going.

I think you're onto something with the whole anime thing as well. In terms of depth and...pithiness I tend to prefer by far the manga versions (not to mention I find a lot of traditional animation rather...lazy for the most part). Text and animation/film have their own separate strengths and weaknesses and to try to adapt one to the other is fraught with danger, and for that reason I tend to avoid book/film adaptations (which happens to be the major focus of mainstream film these days).

[altivo.livejournal.com]

to try to adapt one to the other is fraught with danger, and for that reason I tend to avoid book/film adaptations (which happens to be the major focus of mainstream film these days)

Yep. That is, when they aren't just doing "remakes" of previous films. I felt I had to see the Lord of the Rings films, though I knew they would anger me (and they did.) I may not bother with the rest of this series, just as I have no intention of seeing The Golden Compass. Film makers can't possibly grasp the complexity of that trilogy and are bound to reduce it to a bunch of cute or horrifyingly violent scenery without any plot or motivation. I'm rather glad we have heard no more about the rest of the Narnia books being produced after the distortion that was introduced even in the very short first volume.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Quite agree with all your comments (except that I never watched the LotR films).

And yet... I will watch Northern Lights/The Golden Compass. My money's virtually already in their pockets. I know I'm a sucker, but... *mumbles* shapeshifting animals.

Umbridge's actress played her wonderfully, but didn't look like her. I imagine a squat, simpering woman.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Staunton is squat and stout. Only Flitwick (Warwick Davis) was shorter than she. And she simpered well in the right contexts, I thought.

I like shapeshifting animals too, but there is no way they will ever do Pullman justice in film. The concepts are just too complex, and will be washed away and oversimplified until the entire thing makes no sense and is just a vehicle for violence, special effects, and no doubt a much stronger romantic interest between the two young characters than the books justify.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

B-but there's never any hint of anything other than friendship with Roger! They wouldn't? *Mutt's brain kicks into gear* Darnit, they would.

Mind, I did think the later romance with Will came from nowhere, although that could be my innate asexual bias.

Staunton is good-looking, and most of Rowling's baddies follow the "evil = ugly" route, so it sort of jarred for me. Expected something slightly more cartoonish. I thought the film played up the sadism much more than the simpering (could be remembering wrong, though), and with stronger hints of... uh... undertones. In the books she seems straightforwardly, clinically, non-sexually cruel, like a James Bond baddie. (In fact very like Rosa Klebb.)