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Jul. 21st, 2007 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthWeee, it was a fairly decent birthday in the end. Got to see HP:OOTP, have copy of HP:DH, got home around four in the morning and got too little sleep. But right now I'm taking a break from book (at ~160 pages or so, so I'm not reading reactions yet) because soaking up some computer lab AC seemed like a good idea.
OOTP review:
The Good:
Most of it. It was incredibly faithful to the book, but of course quite condensed, they did cut out a lot of what I would consider important to the book universe, but the movie universe is a slightly different animal.
Harry: I don't know that DR is a great actor but I generally only notice acting when it's pretty far to one side of the good or bad scale (part of the DW S3 problem, noticed DT was brilliant, noticed FA was not), I tend to put most of the emphasis on the writing, and I really like the way the character was portrayed here. They really sold to me the Harry as natural leader concept that even in the books sometimes is hard to understand. Considering they were really doing Harry and the backup crew this time it was important to understand why everyone followed him.
The sextet: I remember loving it in the book and I still loved it here. I don't know, something about having a bigger team just gets me, but then I really love superhero teams far more than individual ones, so this is probably pinging the same way.
Most of the adult characters: And man there are a lot of them these days. Sirius, Tonks, Mdm. Bones, McGonagall, Umbrage all shown even if some of them had about two minutes of screen time. And when did Gary Oldman get sexy to me?
The pretty good:
The shippy subtext: Really, I felt there was very little and what there was was pretty balanced between the big sides. Except that if I was working off movie canon, particularly if I hadn't seen previous ones much/at all, I think I'd be shipping Harry/Luna right now. As is I kind of am anyway.
Luna: She really was only sometimes how I pictured her, but I adored her. She did manage to capture the 'should be annoying but is really really nice and sweet' concept. And she looked adorable riding a Thestral.
The not as good:
Cutting all the important stuff around Christmas: The shippy stuff, the emo-Harry stuff, the Arthur stuff, the Neville stuff, the Sirius-Snape conflict (and Sirius feeling useless) stuff that fed into the end in the book.
I really don't think anyone would understand what was up with Kreacher if they hadn't read the book, particularly how he figured into the end.
Dumbledore: I have just never connected with movie-Dumbledore. Somewhat better here than in GoF, but still...
The funny to me in a completely unfunny way:
Ginny: She had what four lines in the movie? Half of which were to show us that she is so amazingly super-powered that she alone destroyed the Department of Mysteries. Look, I don't even like the character and I feel they cut out anything remotely important to her character development. And is it just me or did she kill someone with her super-awesome Reducto-ing?
DH thoughts, not review.
I think *not* rereading the series before this one came out is helping me a lot. I'm invested, but not as overly invested as I probably would be if I'd just come off a reread. I have, if not a fresh mind for accepting wherever the story going in terms of character, at least a bit fresher. Though it could also be that I haven't been hanging out in HP fandom for a while, so even if I had reread them I might have been in this frame of mind. We'll never know.
Oh and thinks to all the people who wished me a Happy Birthday yesterday.
OOTP review:
The Good:
Most of it. It was incredibly faithful to the book, but of course quite condensed, they did cut out a lot of what I would consider important to the book universe, but the movie universe is a slightly different animal.
Harry: I don't know that DR is a great actor but I generally only notice acting when it's pretty far to one side of the good or bad scale (part of the DW S3 problem, noticed DT was brilliant, noticed FA was not), I tend to put most of the emphasis on the writing, and I really like the way the character was portrayed here. They really sold to me the Harry as natural leader concept that even in the books sometimes is hard to understand. Considering they were really doing Harry and the backup crew this time it was important to understand why everyone followed him.
The sextet: I remember loving it in the book and I still loved it here. I don't know, something about having a bigger team just gets me, but then I really love superhero teams far more than individual ones, so this is probably pinging the same way.
Most of the adult characters: And man there are a lot of them these days. Sirius, Tonks, Mdm. Bones, McGonagall, Umbrage all shown even if some of them had about two minutes of screen time. And when did Gary Oldman get sexy to me?
The pretty good:
The shippy subtext: Really, I felt there was very little and what there was was pretty balanced between the big sides. Except that if I was working off movie canon, particularly if I hadn't seen previous ones much/at all, I think I'd be shipping Harry/Luna right now. As is I kind of am anyway.
Luna: She really was only sometimes how I pictured her, but I adored her. She did manage to capture the 'should be annoying but is really really nice and sweet' concept. And she looked adorable riding a Thestral.
The not as good:
Cutting all the important stuff around Christmas: The shippy stuff, the emo-Harry stuff, the Arthur stuff, the Neville stuff, the Sirius-Snape conflict (and Sirius feeling useless) stuff that fed into the end in the book.
I really don't think anyone would understand what was up with Kreacher if they hadn't read the book, particularly how he figured into the end.
Dumbledore: I have just never connected with movie-Dumbledore. Somewhat better here than in GoF, but still...
The funny to me in a completely unfunny way:
Ginny: She had what four lines in the movie? Half of which were to show us that she is so amazingly super-powered that she alone destroyed the Department of Mysteries. Look, I don't even like the character and I feel they cut out anything remotely important to her character development. And is it just me or did she kill someone with her super-awesome Reducto-ing?
DH thoughts, not review.
I think *not* rereading the series before this one came out is helping me a lot. I'm invested, but not as overly invested as I probably would be if I'd just come off a reread. I have, if not a fresh mind for accepting wherever the story going in terms of character, at least a bit fresher. Though it could also be that I haven't been hanging out in HP fandom for a while, so even if I had reread them I might have been in this frame of mind. We'll never know.
Oh and thinks to all the people who wished me a Happy Birthday yesterday.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-21 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-21 10:13 pm (UTC)