Harry Potter 7 (probable spoilers)

[Santa's Boyfriend]

The new trailer is out, and it looks like they're not holding back on any of the big action sequences in the book, which is a relief!  For those who spurn Harry Potter, this book bares very little resemblance to the first two books (or films), and a lot of kids who loved the first book had real trouble with this one because it's so dark.  There's a very strong sense of despair and horror running through the first half of the book, turning ultimately to resignation and grim determination in the second half.  I think the films might well end up being very intense experiences.

Oh yeah, they're splitting the final book into 2 films because there's simply too much stuff in it to fit into one.  (They've left a lot of stuff out of the previous films, but there's very little in the final one that can realistically be cut.)  Even a 3 hour film would leave a lot of loose ends.

Here's the trailer, but be warned - it contains spoilers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp5IggAXBa4

And the one-sheet, pretty much giving away what's going to happen to Hogwarts:

[biggytitbo]

Did they bluescreen Rigsby's nose out?

[gigolo aunts aren't gentlemen]

Well they've done their best to obscure the sub-Lucas cheese of Rowling's dialogue with some arresting if unoriginal setpieces, and hopefully most of the tedious mythology will be cut. I might try and see it in another country so I don't have to hear the awful writing, and I can just look at the pretty 3d pictures. The previous film was at its best in its departures from the book, hopefully this one will follow suit.

It's a real shame that His Dark Materials, which is actually a proper, fantastic modern epic, was so ill-served by its film version, while the Harry Potters are being improved upon. Imagine if this sort of respect and budget was given to the films of Pullman's books. Especially upsetting since you'd never catch him writing anything close to the nauseating pap of Rowling's epilogue.

[mjwilson]

Oh yeah, they're splitting the final book into 2 films because there's simply too much stuff in it to fit into one.  (They've left a lot of stuff out of the previous films, but there's very little in the final one that can realistically be cut.)

Sorry, but that's just silly. One of the main complaints about the book is that it's horrifically padded, and could do with being chopped down significantly

Spoiler alert

(all the camping stuff, for example)

[close]

.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Warner Brothers deserve throwing on a fire for their ultra cynical decision to put this into retrofitted shit 3D. Could it be where the 3D backlash begins?

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Sorry, but that's just silly. One of the main complaints about the book is that it's horrifically padded, and could do with being chopped down significantly

Spoiler alert

(all the camping stuff, for example)

[close]

.

It's a strange thing, but there's really not much

Spoiler alert

camping

[close]

in the book at all, but people seem to remember that as being half the book.  I ended up reading it twice, and it's not really padded at all, but people remember it that way because

Spoiler alert

Rowling writes about them hiding out for months on end without any real plan

[close]

- but when you read it back you realise she doesn't actually write that out in tedious detail, you're just made to feel their dispair.  They could cut it down by removing a plotline or two, but that would mean something would ultimately end up unresolved.

Regarding 3D, I think the retrofit backlash started with Clash of the Titans, didn't it?  I'd be interested in seeing it in 3D, but will check the reviews first.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Regarding 3D, I think the retrofit backlash started with Clash of the Titans, didn't it?  I'd be interested in seeing it in 3D, but will check the reviews first.

That did come in for a fair bit of criticism, but the 3D in The Last Airbender is supposed to be appalling, and is being ripped in to at the moment. That said, the film as a whole seems to be a monumental disaster, with even die hard M. Night Shyamalan fans despising it.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Only retrofit 3D film I've seen is Alice in Wonderland and it was a jarring effect that ruined the film for me. All the elements looked like flat 2D layers, pretty much cardboard-cutouts, no protruding extremities etc. Reminded me of games like Doom, where the enemies were 2D sprites. It made me vow to never watch another 2d-to-post-prod-3D movie again. I watched Up, Avatar and The Final Destination in 3D, and say what you want about the movies themselves but the 3D was pulled off very well, natural and seemless.

[Ginyard]

I'd love to feel in some way excited by it but I thought the last two films were drivel compared to the books and I'm utterly sick of action sequence trailers with two-steps-from-Hell music behind them. I'll go to watch it but I'm not holding out much hope.

[mjwilson]

It's a strange thing, but there's really not much

Spoiler alert

camping

[close]

in the book at all, but people seem to remember that as being half the book.  I ended up reading it twice, and it's not really padded at all, but people remember it that way because

Spoiler alert

Rowling writes about them hiding out for months on end without any real plan

[close]

- but when you read it back you realise she doesn't actually write that out in tedious detail, you're just made to feel their dispair.  They could cut it down by removing a plotline or two, but that would mean something would ultimately end up unresolved.

OK. I still think that they can do it in one film just as well as they did Goblet of Fire.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Fair enough.

Spoiler alert

Avada Kedavra!

[close]

[CaledonianGonzo]

It's a real shame that His Dark Materials, which is actually a proper, fantastic modern epic, was so ill-served by its film version, while the Harry Potters are being improved upon. Imagine if this sort of respect and budget was given to the films of Pullman's books. Especially upsetting since you'd never catch him writing anything close to the nauseating pap of Rowling's epilogue.

Wheeeee!




(I've got neither the time nor energy to get involved in yet another Pullman vs. Rowling debate again, having stated my case on the subject here manay, many times - however, Pullman is just as guilty of sloppy prose and hamfisted writing as Rowling, a writer who started out with not much in her writer's arsenal, learned to write in public and, by the end of it all, wasn't disgracing herself, and wasn't writing anything as clunky, hamfisted or just plain bad as The Amber Spyglass.)

[Lookalike Mark Chapman]

Yeah I always loved Pullman's imagination, but thought his actual writing was atrocious. Good stories badly writen (I understand this is the problem people have with Dan Brown books too). Rowling's writing is serviceable at worst, and at its best she really pulled it off. I think the fact that she knows so much about that universe that we never get to hear really comes through - the world, the bigger picture, is very detailed and (dare I say it) convincing in its minutiae and relationship to 'the real world' - plus of course she has a Dickens-like gift for great character names.

[copylight]

All the elements looked like flat 2D layers, pretty much cardboard-cutouts, no protruding extremities etc. Reminded me of games like Doom, where the enemies were 2D sprites. It made me vow to never watch another 2d-to-post-prod-3D movie again.

Unintentional or not, Beck's E-Pro does it brilliantly with or without the spex->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIrG6xBW5Wk

[Santa's Boyfriend]

One of the things that really impressed me about the Potter books (which sadly hasn't carried over to the films as well) was how well prepared the whole thing was in advance.  Although you inevitably put stuff in stories as you're going along (the journalist in book 4 was an obvious reaction to her newfound fame) it's remarkable how much is already in place in book 1.  (Sirius Black is mentioned near the very beginning of book 1, for example.)  I think this is what makes the Potter books special for me, that it's such an enormous undertaking that she managed to pull off.  But also that she deliberately designed the books to become more mature and adult with the reader, in other words the readership of book 1 was 10-12, and about 18 for book 7.  That was the intention, anyway - in the end she wasn't able to write 1 per year, but the principle is a good one.  It's a shame nobody seemed to realise that was what she was doing though.

The films achieved something similar I think.  The first two are awful, ham-fisted kids films with an Americanised view of Britain.  But as soon as you get to film 3 (which is where the books take off as well), the films kick into gear and become quite compelling, as well as portraying a recognisable version of Britain, with the wizarding world just around the corner. 

The Deathly Hallows, if it's anything like the book, will be bleak as fuck for most of the first film.

[gigolo aunts aren't gentlemen]

Wheeeee!




(I've got neither the time nor energy to get involved in yet another Pullman vs. Rowling debate again, having stated my case on the subject here manay, many times - however, Pullman is just as guilty of sloppy prose and hamfisted writing as Rowling, a writer who started out with not much in her writer's arsenal, learned to write in public and, by the end of it all, wasn't disgracing herself, and wasn't writing anything as clunky, hamfisted or just plain bad as The Amber Spyglass.)

This is a very silly thing to say. Pullman's prose manages to combine CS Lewis excitement with the gravitas of Milton (seriously - this is a comparison I've heard one of the leading Milton scholars in the world make). Rowling has to resort to 'he, Harry' about nine times a page and her speech adverbs are embarrassing. The Pullman books will form part of the 1830-Present Day paper in the Cambridge English course very soon. Can you imagine a grown-up critical analysis of Harry Potter beyond Harold Bloom's dull Kermode-style bullying? There isn't a single line in the seven books that wouldn't stand out like a neanderthal thumb in a work by a literary author, which is certainly not true of Pullman. His writing is mimetic and euphuistic at once - I'm really surprised anyone would accuse him of clumsiness.

But anyway, the point isn't that Pullman is better, it's more about how clearly embarrassed the film makers are by Rowling's dialogue. As well they should be - the one exchange in that trailer is cringeworthy.

[gigolo aunts aren't gentlemen]

Also I don't go along with the praise for making something expansive, just as it doesn't make the Lord of the Rings films good art, it doesn't make for a good book - it's the difference between a technical drawing and a golden ratio painting.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

it's more about how clearly embarrassed the film makers are by Rowling's dialogue.

That's a very silly thing to say.

You're also missing the point on the expansive thing.  Making something expansive is not praiseworthy in itself, obviously.  But what Rowling managed to successfully achieve is, I think.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Rowling has to resort to 'he, Harry' about nine times a page.

This is a very silly thing to say.  I re-read Deathly Hallows about 18 months ago after someone on here - probably yourself - made mention of this.  She doesn't do it once in the entire book*.

I agree that her dialogue attribution is woefully bad, but then Pullman isn't beyond "she whispered silently" and "he ejaculated forcefully"-style crimes against adverbs.

Milton often crops up in discussion of Pullman's work as it's deliberate stab at a work on Miltonic scale, with all sorts of Blakean allusions and Paradise Lost-style themes.  Maybe that gives it more gravitas - for those that are looking for it.  It's antecdents are the great works of English apocalpytic fiction, so it's thematically apt that His Dark Materials should be mentioned in the same breath. 

Those wheeled elephants, though.

Rowling, to me, is more human.  Dickens is the name most frequently drawn into any debate about her.  IIRC, you hate Dickens too, so maybe it's a stylistic thing you're unable to get past.  The literary tradition to which Rowling belongs would also include people like Smollett and Thackeray.  Great, demotic comedies.  She belongs in that type of company.  Not at the same level, obviously, but so it is with Pullman and Milton or Bunyan.

At any rate, both are ultimately works about totalitarianism - for me, Rowling manages to wrest her often-unweildly narrative to a more satisfactory conclusion.  Pullman starts in exhilarating fashion, but the waters soon get muddied and ultimately he's unable to reconcile his philosophical points with his plot.




*Curiously, though, Tolstoy does it all the time - "He, Levin"; "She, Anna", etc.  Is it  just not allowed any more?

[gigolo aunts aren't gentlemen]

Tolstoy's dreck, and his translators are worse. He hated Shakespeare the beardy little jerk.

Yeah fair enough it is entirely a matter of taste, it just makes me sad that the Golden Compass film was such a waste, whereas this looks to be quite pretty.

[CaledonianGonzo]

I actually thought The Golden Compass was a pretty creditable stab at the first book.  Granted, it's a bit underwhelming, but on a relatively-recent viewing I was left with the impression that part of the blame resides in the fairly uncinematic source material.  Castwise all the elements were in place, and the CGI is fine - it's just that despite being pretty faithful to the source material, it just feels somewhat lacking and unexciting and I do wonder whether any 'blame' actually resides with Philip P.  The novels could be accused of just being a skeleton on which Pullman hangs his particular take on gnosticism, but pared down to said skeleton and with the essentials whipped through at breakneck pace, it's a bit uninvolving.

Maybe it is the aforementioned pace that's to blame.  The movie never hangs about, never lingers long on the world it's created, and so robs the viewer of any chance of building up any empathy with Lyra.

Oh well - it's a better movie than the Philosopher's Stone - not that that'd be hard.

[jutl]

This is a very silly thing to say. Pullman's prose manages to combine CS Lewis excitement with the gravitas of Milton (seriously - this is a comparison I've heard one of the leading Milton scholars in the world make).

Milton's prose or poetry? Personally I've tried and failed many times to read the first HP and HDM books. They just seem poorly written and uninteresting. Of course, Lewis wrote some awful shit too (try staying awake through Perelandra) and Milton's prose is probably his least accomplished area of literary expertise.

[gigolo aunts aren't gentlemen]

Poetry, Milton doesn't have a whole bunch of gravitas in his tracts, it's mainly froth and ideals. Although Pullman is a bit pamphlet-ish at his worst.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Yeah fair enough it is entirely a matter of taste, it just makes me sad that the Golden Compass film was such a waste, whereas this looks to be quite pretty.

It is a shame, there was clearly a great film to be made of Northern Lights.

I have to say, the design in the Harry Potter films, really from film 3 onwards, is absolutely stunning.  Film 3 was the Alfonso Cuaron one, who seems to have a real knack for spot-on design in his films.  (Before then the design felt too chocolate boxy to me - again, an American aesthetic of Britain.)  Whilst I still think that one was the best designed, the standard has remained high for all of them.

[Cambrian Times]

Tolstoy's dreck, and his translators are worse.

Philistine! You ought to be stoned with hardback editions of "War and Peace" you cultureless twerp.

Seriously though, I like Rowling, Pullman, Pratchett, Tolkien, Lewis (even though "The Last Battle" was a bit shite) King, Barker, Dickens, Austen, Maguire etc etc.  If it's a book I'll read it.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

As long as it's not Dan Brown!

[Santa's Boyfriend]

BUMP.

Interesting news about the upcoming Potter movie.  It now WON'T be released in 3D!

This is presumably because the 3D conversion is as shit as all the other conversions they've done.  I've nothing against 3D - in fact, I'd quite like to see Avatar in 3D again - but retroactive 3D is in my opinion no different to colouring in black and white movies.  If it isn't filmed in 3D, it's never going to look right.  I remember scratching my head when they said they were going to do this, thinking to myself "how the hell do you convert a 2D movie into a 3D movie without it looking like a bunch of cardboard cutouts running around?"  The answer seems to be that you can't - at least not with any degree of success.

http://twitchfilm.net/news/2010/10/someone-finally-makes-the-right-choice-on-3d-warners-cancels-post-conversion-of-harry-potter-and-the.php

Meanwhile the new trailer for Deathly Hallows part 1 is out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzfEH0UPEBo

[sirhenry]

Apparently it's because there isn't enough time to convert it before the release date. Meaning that only the very last in the series (Deathly Hallows pt.2) will be in 3D. If only... surely they'll rerelease them all converted to 3D when they've all been released to try to milk as much as possible from the franchise.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Ahh, perhaps I've jumped the gun.  I suppose they're not really going to stop retrofitting 3D if people are still willing to pay for it.

[Maybe Im Doing It Wrong]

Does anyone still give a shit about Harry Potter? I was under the impression that its core audience had largely forgotten it. When my kid's school had a "dress as your favourite character" day there were a dozen doctor whos and not a single Harry Potter.