[This post doesn't actually contain any spoilers. :o]

I didn’t really know how I was gonna feel about Deathly Hallows part 1, but it turns out it’s also worse the second time? I think this was largely due to the crappy continuity being so fresh from the other movies. Nothing connects. Nothing flows. Nothing makes sense, etc, etc, etc, and I still have no idea how movie-only fans get by. But I don’t really have anything to say I didn’t cover the first time.

So where does that leave us for the eighth and final movie? By now, everyone’s seen it but me. I’ve heard mixed things, but I always hear mixed things about the Harry Potter movies. I was going to write a few lists, like I did for part one, giving the things I feel Should Be Included, Should be Left Out, and Will Get Shafted, but I’m tired, and I haven’t read the book in at least two years now, and I think I’ll probably just see the movie tomorrow and be done with it.

After rewatching five crappy movies (the first two were okay), I guess I’m finally ready for my closure.

And it’s weird because for all my misgivings, I really love this series, and it means a lot to me. But I still mostly hate these movies. So I’m not entirely sure if I’m sad that they’ll be they’re over. If nothing else, I did and do have a good time bitching about them.

Theoretically, not having reread Deathly Hallows recently will make me less purist about the last movie, but instead of that, I now have all seven previous movies in my head, freshly torn apart. I’m feeling extra snarky, so I think I will probably hate it more than if I had just reread the book. I guess we’ll see.

[This post contains spoilers for the sixth book and movie.]

It might still be my least favorite book as well, though I have read it more recently than Order of the Phoenix, so I kind of feel I might like it more than the fifth book — recency bias, I don’t know. But as the second-to-last book in the series, HBP basically only needs to get one thing right: prepare Harry for the last book, for the final confrontation, and for the end of it all. The movie fails spectacularly at this singular quest, and everything else falls apart because of that. I wasn’t just overcritical the first time because I’d reread the book the month prior.

Hilariously, despite not dedicating any time to the whole “Dumbledore teaching Harry about Voldemort” and “helping him understand his enemy so that he may defeat him” thing, it really felt as if director David Yates was desperate for more material to fill the movie. We hadn’t had a Quidditch match in two movies because they simply weren’t important — we had death and trauma to fill the minutes. No time for silly sports! But here! Here with the Dark Lord’s official return, as acknowledged by the Ministry of Magic — here we have time again for another Quidditch match! And for what purpose? So Ron can grow an inflated head. So Hermione can hex McLaggan for him. So Lavender Brown can be an over-the-top, lovestruck drama device. I’m glad we have our priorities straight.

We also totally had time for the movie-only Death Eaters destroy the Burrow scene. Someone please tell me what the point of that scene was. No, seriously. Please enlighten me. Did it teach Harry anything he didn’t already know? Did it teach the audience anything it didn’t already know? Did it provide any character progression other than awkward and rushed Harry/Ginny moments? Did the Burrow even stay destroyed? (No! It’s back again for Bill and Fleur’s wedding in Deathly Hallows part 1 with absolutely no acknowledgement that it was ever destroyed.) It wasn’t even visually impressive! So why was it there? Why was it there when Yates couldn’t bother slipping in a two-second sentence where Dumbledore explains that Voldemort likes to collect trophies from his enemies, things of value, things to make into Horcruxes? #whywhywhy

It’s a wonder I managed to be so tame when I described Michael Gambon’s portrayal of Dumbledore prior to these rewatches — it was probably because I had about eighteen months between each movie originally; that’s plenty of time to forget just how awful he was last time. But trucking through all of these movies in the last month or so… I really have nothing nice to say about Gambon’s Dumbledore. He is not Dumbledore. His face and his voice never change. He is always this severe, over-serious, cheerless old man. He does not seem to respect anyone, least of all Harry, and is a contradiction of almost everything Dumbledore is supposed to be, and I vehemently reject him. Having not seen any other movies with Gambon, I can’t say for sure whether he’s a terrible actor in general, or just a terrible Dumbledore, but being a terrible Dumbledore is crime enough as it is. I’m glad this is the last movie I had to watch him in.

I’m also not sure why I offered any praise for Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy in my original review. Felton still plays a terribly stereotypical villain and has the facial range of a Figma or Nendoroid figure — if even. He is always angry. It’s either snotty/arrogant-angry, or it’s scared-angry. That’s about it. Sure, Malfoy walks around with a spotlight on him the entire movie (seriously, was there a reason he was wearing a fancy jacket suit the whole time? Was it part of his supervillain initiation requirements?), and he’s put in situations requiring a slightly different set of actions than in the last five movies, but he really just fills the bare minimum requirements. It is, perhaps, Felton’s good fortune that Malfoy was never a very interesting character anyway.

The only redeeming factors lay in various scenes with Harry, where Dan Radcliffe tries to make up for some of his colleagues’ poor acting. After some unevenness in emotion in movies four and five, Radcliffe seems to settle back into his character. Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are, for the most part, entertaining to watch as well, even if they prove to be 100% useless as supporting characters. (Really, when was the last time Ron did anything worth mentioning? He played a chess game at age eleven and it’s been downhill since then.) Evanna Lynch remains a most charming Luna, and Jim Broadbent does a great job with Slughorn.

Beyond that, there isn’t much else I haven’t already said. I hated this movie the first time. I expected to hate it less this time because time has passed and I have resigned to many things just being the way they are — but nope. I still hate this movie, and I am still pretty disgusted at how it managed to fail in its one Important task.

This film has no backbone. There is no clearly stated goal (there hasn’t been in most of them, honestly, but at this point, you can just about see the shining white line leading you to the final battle, and there needs to be focus), and the story wanders. We go from accusations of attempted murder to “Hermione’s got nice skin.” And I never got the impression that the Horcruxes were terribly important, despite Dumbledore dying for them. After all, in that last conversation about them, even Hermione interjects, “Ron’s okay with it, by the way — with you and Ginny.” Yes, we sure do have our priorities straight.

This time though? I think I did manage to enjoy it a lot more because I just didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered. It wasn’t good, mind you, but not nearly as terrible. Maybe knowing that I thought Half-Blood Prince was even worse helped?

[This post contains spoilers for the fifth book and movie and vague hints about the rest of the series.]

Order of the Phoenix is a big turning point in the series. Voldemort has been returned to a physical body and is an active threat once more. He’s killed new innocents. Harry Potter has witnessed death… and is also hitting puberty. Bigger things are brewing, and a lot more people are getting involved. So you would expect a lot of Important Things to happen in this installment and for characters to grow, change, develop.

But Order of the Phoenix is where I feel J.K. Rowling definitively loses her focus and her writing gets muddled. It happened a little in Goblet of Fire too, but it was much more obvious in book five. By then, Rowling had already taken over the publishing world, and I imagine her editors weren’t nearly as forceful about anything. Lots of things are in there that don’t need to be in there. Lots of things are in there that are later forgotten, lost in the sea of other subplots and drama. It’s kind of a mess. But a less-than-stellar source is still not an excuse for an adaptation to suck.

The beginning of the movie does its best to set a foreboding mood, but it’s over-the-top to the point of accidental hilarity, especially with the use of the Trauma Swing trope. Dudley’s torment of Harry is full of bad acting on both sides, an indication of much more to come, though to be honest, I can’t tell if they were being overly forceful and exaggerated on purpose or not. Was it bad acting or just bad directing by new director David Yates? The Dursleys’ reaction to Dudley’s later fear paralysis was also pretty subdued — Vernon really didn’t seem that angry at all, especially considering his fury over the Marge incident. I’m used to cartoons acting with more realistic emotion and consistency.

Cinematography improves under Yates — there are a good number of nice, dramatic shots, and a lot of play with camera focus. I dislike the redesign of the Dementors to look more like corpses and less like grim reapers though — I actually feel this makes them seem less threatening? More like a zombie that you can stop by blowing its brains off and less like a bringer of death and despair. I also dislike that Harry’s Patronus didn’t properly manifest as a stag. It’s still the little things. Especially little things that have no good reason for being how they are. You’d think they’d jump at every opportunity to show off more (corporeal) Patronus eyecandy!

The introduction of the Order and 13 Grimmauld Place were sloppy at best, and there were a slew of miscellaneous changes and cuts, ranging from completely arbitrary (Lupin was missing from the Guard that retrieved Harry) to favoring prettiness over canonical practicality (flying low over a busy nighttime London — great for security) to mildly aggravating (McGonagall is not shown to be member of the Order). Very little is actually said about the Order; we don’t know how they’re actually fighting back, how they worked previously, or really… anything. They are supposedly to be vague and secretive, sure, but this is made worse because of the amount of subplot material that’s cut.

It annoys me that Tonks and Kingsley are the only members of the Order to be newly introduced, and neither are explained very well. I don’t think they mentioned that the former is an Auror or that the latter works at the Ministry. (No time for informative backstory, but we do have time for an awkwardly delivered “Don’t call me Nymphadora!”) As noted in my comments on Deathly Hallows part 1 last year, failure to introduce Mundungus Fletcher (and Bill Weasley) here lead to awkwardness later, but overall, severe downplay in regards to the Order and their goals lead to the titular society playing rather a miniscule role. In fact, not much would actually be affected if they had been taken out altogether (Dumbledore and Sirius could have come to Harry’s rescue at the end, with or without the Order). Kind of sad, isn’t it?

Also, I love how the argument about Harry’s [expressedly forbidden] involvement in the Order is unceremoniously cut off as soon as Harry exclaims, “I want to fight!” It’s like… no, we’re not even going to bother with a counterargument or any sort of character development/bonding here. Oh! Sirius got to grin approvingly at Harry — this is totally a sufficient contribution to the close relationship they supposedly have! Argh! Two-hour movies too short for characters to have depth! Let’s skip to the action!

Being the Longest Book Ever, lots and lots of other things were cut. I am okay with most of this, though much of the resulting scenes of mangled together inclusion are sloppy and poorly thought out. For example, the Percy drama subplot is axed. Okay, fine, whatever — not super important — but Percy shows up alongside Ministry officials retraining members of Dumbledore’s Army and attempting to arrest Dumbledore. After being inexplicably absent for a movie, having a Weasley showing up as an “enemy” is kind of disorienting, if movie-only fans even remember him. Percy graduates from Hogwarts at the end of Prisoner of Azakaban, but this isn’t mentioned at all; he is then 100% cut from Goblet of Fire, where all the family drama supposedly starts. Then, if my memory is correct, he is again 100% absent from Half-Blood Price and Deathly Hallows 1.But he has to be in Deathly Hallows 2, so I’m sure that’s going to be amazingly awkward.

I don’t think it would have been hard to throw in a short bit with Ron shooting off about Percy’s treachery. I tend to think that wouldn’t take a lot of effort to throw in most of these missing informative tidbits though… maybe it’ll be weird and choppy, but it isn’t like the movie isn’t already slideshow of poorly-paced events anyway. What’s another one-liner added to the trainwreck?

But I’ll pass on the play-by-play this time. It gets repetitive. Here are some more disjointed lists instead.

Nitpicky remarks about cut/changed material & other stuff:

• Would it really have been that hard to explain what a Squib is?
• Seeing as they never explained who the Marauders were in movie three, how can we refer to Sirius as Padfoot? (In fact, they referred to Peter exclusively as “Wormtail” in Goblet of Fire and continue to do so…) It can be guessed easily enough that “Padfoot” refers to Sirius’s Animagus form and “Wormtail” to Peter’s, but losing the connection to the Marauder’s Map is a goddamn shame since it is the easiest proof of that generation’s ingenuity. We are also never told that James also had an Animagus form since Remus never got to explain, so… significance of Harry’s Patronus? Pff! Whatever!
• I still don’t know why they took out time for Sirius to give Harry the photo of the original Order (Moody gave it to him canonically); I suppose it provides more (totally rushed and weird) bonding time which is needed to get any kind of emotional significance from Sirius’s otherwise pointless death, but the opportunity seemed poorly utilized. Gary Oldman plays a much better crazy!Sirius.
• The over-dramatization of Umbridge’s numerous Proclamations is forgivable enough considering Umbridge’s character is so shamelessly skewed “evil” that none of the added rules seem terribly farfetched. However, I do think that this, along with various scenes with Filch watching the Room of Requirement, took up a lot of valuable time that could have contributed to developing characters that aren’t so one-sided.
• Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore is still terrible, though as he’s busy avoiding Harry for most of this movie, it isn’t as obvious. But I’m pretty astounded that Gambon’s depiction hasn’t improved at all after three different directors — why does anyone think that Dumbledore shouting “Don’t you all have studying to do!?” furiously at the crowd of students [after Trelawney gets fired] is appropriate and in character? In contrast, Umbridge, Trelawney, and McGonagall all handled that scene wonderfully.
• Dear everyone, “Expelliarmus” and “Stupefy” are not the same spell. Yours sincerely, purists everywhere. PS — “Protego” is also not the same as “Legimens.” I don’t care if it saved you another scene with a Penseive!
• I really don’t know why they even bothered with Grawp. Pointless in the books; even more pointless here, but I suppose Yates couldn’t have guessed just how pointless prior to the final book’s publication.
• Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the Weasley twins’ exit could have been more impressive?
• The CGI centaurs kind of looked like crap.
• The Thestrals also looked pretty unimpressive.
• I hated that the Death Eaters swooped around in black like the [old] Dementors and that the Order of the Phoenix swooped around in white to counterbalance them. Okay for visual clarity, I guess, but a terribly boring substitution for actually choreographing a proper fight sequence. I am so disappointed with the Death Eater VS Order fight.
• Sirius’s death was, amazingly, even more disappointingly arbitrary than it was in the book. Part of me contends that the suddenness of the death is a fair emphasis on the unpredictability and cruelty of war and battle, but most of me doesn’t believe that Rowling or Yates thought about it that much. The death in the movie really, really underscores how poorly developed just about all of the character relationships are though. There simply isn’t enough time to make all the characters that matter, matter. Throwing in some dramatic slow motion when the death happens doesn’t help either.

Things that were actually pretty okay (maybe even good?):

• Luna Lovegood. <3
• Just about everything regarding Dolores Umbridge is perfectly detestable. Imelda Staunton does an amazing job of portraying her, right down to forced smiles and oh-so-aggravating simpering and clearing-of-the-throat. The overly pink outfit and office is perfect. The kittens! The teacups! The sadistic quill punishment! All perfect!
• I’m glad they included some drama with Seamus Finnegan. It seems like a negligible enough detail, but I think the idea that the world can be so easily divided by propaganda and fear is a Very Important concept.
• The Ron/Hermione silliness in this movie was actually pretty good in that it was smooth, natural, and integrated well with the rest of the happenings (for the most part). This is somewhat surprising knowing just how hard Yates pushes Harry/Hermione in both movie 6 and 7.1. I realize that the movie-injected H/Hr is probably there to make R/Hr more “significant” somehow, or to emphasize Ron’s insecurities as are revealed by the locket, but somehow this feels like giving Yates too much credit.
• I really liked the initial interest meeting for the DA. Radcliffe and Watson did great jobs as Harry and Hermione respectively, and I think the overall atmosphere of that scene was accurate and well done.
• The DA meetings in general were good. Harry did come off as an excellent teacher… in fact, he’s so good that basically everyone got their corporeal Patronus in one lesson! <_<
• The condensing job with Harry’s dreams, the attack of Arthur Weasley, the Occulmancy lessons, and the belated reveal of what had happened to Neville’s parents worked out okay while still being noticeably rushed and mashed together. It didn’t flow well, but all the important information was still there, I guess.
• I disliked it and regarded it as unnecessary the first time, but I didn’t mind as much the bit with the Black family tapestry this time. It was a nice enough replacement foreshadowing/warning of Sirius’s fated death, and it did provide yet another opportunity for the audience to hurriedly warm up to Harry’s godfather. Eh.
• I am okay that they used Veritaserum on Cho to bust the DA instead of Marietta tattling, though this does take points away from the “division of loyalties” thing that Seamus contributed to.
• The Department of Mysteries, while inaccurate in many respects, was still pretty cool looking. Especially with all of the prophecies falling.
• The ambiguity in the prophecy is cut, among other things, for simplicity and brevity. I guess I’m pretty indifferent to this.
• Voldemort VS Dumbledore was pretty neat.

So I think I did end up enjoying the movie more because I was resigned to the fact that many of the problems it faced are permanent, perhaps unsolvable, problems. At this point in the series, the relationships between the characters are as important as ever, but because there are just so many characters, and so many relationships between them, it is impossible for someone watching the films to achieve the same level of emotional attachment as someone reading the books. This makes just about everything less meaningful. Sirius’s death feels doubly arbitrary here because Harry has a grand total of five “moments” with his godfather scattered through three movies. And five is actually a lot, all things considered, but it still isn’t enough.

But even more important than Harry’s relationship with Sirius, in my opinion, is Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore. The trust, hope, pride, confidence, and forgiveness — and lack thereof — the pair of them invest in each other builds up so much in these first five installments, and it accumulates to so much in the sixth. And it puts strain on so much in the seventh. That Dumbledore’s explanation for his coldness in this movie is reduced to a two-minute scene of little note at the end of the shining battle at the Ministry is sad. The significance is sidelined, and it’s just… so disappointing.

The theatrical film sacrifices so much in character growth and relationship depth for visual splendor, and it is infinitely frustrating to know that it can’t be any other way. This is what bothers me the most — something that can never be changed. Though at just over two hours, including the credits, Order of the Phoenix is actually the shortest movie… It could have at least tried to be more than that.

Next up: let’s see if Half-Blood Prince sucks less than it did the first time! And then I get to rewatch Deathly Hallows part 1 again! AND THEN maybe I’ll finally drag my butt to the theatre and watch the grand finale like three weeks after it opened!

One day, I’ll actually blog about Japanese cartoons again.

[This post contains spoilers for the fourth book and movie.]

As the longest book to be adapted at the time, new director Mike Newell, for the most part, had excellent judgment in deciding what could be discarded and what needed to be filmed. To be honest, since it’s been a year or three since I last read this particular book, there were a good handful of story elements and subplots that I forgot about during the course of the movie and didn’t remember until after it was over. Nevertheless, with all the cutting, pasting, and merging of plot points, plenty of scenes are awkward and rushed, with transitions not making a lot of sense. It still blows my mind that there are Harry Potter fans that have only ever seen the films and who have never referred back to the books — how these people manage to follow and understand anything that’s happening is beyond me. The films don’t really make it easy.

The opening sequence did well to set the mood. It’s only fitting that someone dies in the opening minutes — it’s a forewarning, for sure. This is the first installment where Harry witnesses death at the end, a trend that continues in the next two parts before accumulating in numerous deaths in the finale. (And yes, seeing David Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr. after having seen his entire run as the Tenth Doctor is both delightful and hilarious.)

The Dursleys are completely absent from this film and Harry wakes at the Burrow with no explanation. From a literary standpoint, this is disappointing, as the Dursleys literally shield Harry from danger and adventure and serve as a point of consistency. From a practical standpoint, yeah, yeah, they don’t contribute much here and the decision to axe them makes sense. That there’s no mention of the Quidditch World Cup until after they get there is kind of annoying though. It’s the little things.

The entire World Cup itself is also cut, and while I don’t mind this, I think the transition could have been infinitely smoother. If you weren’t paying attention, it would have been easy to miss the fact that Ireland won, though of course, there’s no note that that was in spite of the fact that Bulgaria caught the Snitch (which would provide more basis for Viktor Krum’s fame). Along with the Cup, Ludo Bagman and Winky are both cut in their entirety. Bagman was unimportant anyway, but while I do think it was a good decision to axe Winky as well, I also think that something (not necessarily the whole, long-winded story, but something) could have been said about how Crouch Jr. escaped Azkaban. … Then again, they never told us how Sirius Black did it either.

Indeed, the fact that the mystery bad guy in all this is related to Barty Crouch Sr. is downplayed a lot. Crouch Sr. isn’t a particularly memorable character, especially considering Percy is absent the entire movie (was he even at the Cup? I don’t think so) and that entire familial drama subplot spanning all subsequent installments is killed from the start. This isn’t important, per se, but it does make these relationships less relevant, which I think is a damn shame because interesting relationships make for interesting characters, which are what make for interesting stories, even if they aren’t required for interesting plots.

The Triwizard Tournament is poorly introduced, but I would blame this almost entirely on the fact that Michael Gambon proves to be a terrible Dumbledore. Never does this man smile. The tournament is described as a treacherous, dangerous, and even wretched thing — any glory associated with it is taken away by Gambon’s somber, and sometimes threatening, tone. The darkness and foreboding comes off far too strong, and even Fred and George Weasley can’t manage to make you forget how awfully serious Dumbledore was.

It is true that Dumbledore’s morality and motives are called into question in later books, but for now, the character remains serene, trustworthy, matter-of-fact, and with an pervasive cheerfulness. Gambon’s Dumbledore is none of these things. Dumbledore might express some shock when Harry’s name is spat from the Goblet of Fire, as Bagman is not there to play that part, but in who’s deranged headcanon is it ever appropriate for calm and collected Dumbledore to grab Harry by the shoulders and shake him for answers? It was disturbing to watch, and I think that may be my one biggest complaint with the entire movie.

Meanwhile, Brendan Gleeson is a pretty awesome “Mad-Eye” Moody, even if I think the eye itself is rather over-the-top. Robert Pattinson as Cedric Diggory was not very noteworthy, but Pattison plays a plot device more than he plays a character anyway. Miranda Richardson is a suitably aggravating Rita Skeeter, but her subplot as an unregistered Animagus is also sacrificed, so there’s not much left worth mentioning. And if you were wondering, Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy does not improve, but his greatest contribution to this movie is as an amazing bouncing ferret, so. If the Dursleys can be cut for being repetitive aspects that contribute little in the way of story, then why couldn’t Malfoy?

The fact that Harry is exchanging letters with Sirius made for an amazingly awkward segway while the trio is on the Hogwarts Express (also, yes, let’s totally address letters to a mass-murderer fugitive without disguising them at all, but hey, does anyone even remember he’s a mass-murderer fugitive? much less Harry’s godfather?), but his appearance in the fireplace was doubly awkward. Honestly, Sirius doesn’t tell Harry he doesn’t already know, so the inclusion of Sirius at all was pretty superfluous. This is the slippery slope with cutting scenes though — Harry’s relationship with Sirius is already poorly established because of scenes missing from the previous movie, so removing Sirius here altogether would have probably made subsequent happenings less meaningful. But I don’t think the one scene did much to help that either. Interesting relationships make interesting characters make interesting stories. Two and a half hour movies, then, are very poorly suited for stories with sprawling ensemble casts — a pointless observation, no doubt.

The First Task was pretty awesome, really. My complaints are petty and purist: they did not mention that all the dragons were nesting females, which would have taken half a second and added a lot more perceived danger and ferocity, even if all the actual footage remained the same. They did not place the golden egg in a clutch of actual eggs, either. Maybe they wanted to avoid the animal cruelty aspect of this canon?

The Yule Ball, being the first official instance of lulzy romantic drama, went very well in the movie because I think every Harry Potter director believes that this is what keeps the shippers in the theatre. I’m kind of surprised Newell didn’t push the Harry/Hermione angle more, considering Skeeter’s contributions, but I guess David Yates more than makes up for that later. I think bits like Neville being a super awesome ballroom dancer (contradicts canon, btw), Ron dancing awkwardly with McGonagall (also contradicts canon), and Hagrid’s relationship with Madam Maxine were unnecessary (the latter since Skeeter’s subplot is cut and since Grawp is also cut from later movies), but I guess we can have some random fun now and again. (But if fun’s the excuse, I would have liked to hear Krum stumble over “Herm-own-ninny” instead.)

Without a half dozen subplots to distract you, the hints the movie gives regarding Polyjuice potion are much more obvious, so that’s one part of the mystery they did right. I do miss the most obvious hint — the Marauder’s Map showing Crouch in Snape’s potion stores — but I suppose they pre-preemptively used that trick in the previous movie, hm? And you know, Alan Rickman as Snape also manages to be a lot clearer in his speaking in this movie, particularly when he and McGonagall are discussing whether Harry should be able to compete in the tournament — it was very refreshing. Snape is cooler when he isn’t trying so hard to… be cool… by… pausing awkwardly between… every other… word.

The Second Task must have been a pretty boring spectator sport from the bleachers, but, with the magical movie camera, it was also pretty cool, even if it transitioned oddly to finding Crouch Sr… dead? Unconscious? They kind of just find a body and never say, lol. And then we get three Pensieve memories in one! But that worked out well enough, despite that Gambon’s Dumbledore still lacks any semblance of light-hearted charm.

And then suddenly the Third Task! It was pretty anti-climatic without the Sphinx, the Acromantula, the Boggart, or anything other than man-eating roots/bushes and a Imperius’d Krum (who did not use the Cruciatus curse) to stand in their way, but I guess we maxed out the budget on the dragons.

The encounter in the graveyard was better than expected and probably made up for the pathetic Third Task, which too obviously served as nothing more than a transition. I’m glad they didn’t draw out Cedric’s death too long — it needs to be sudden and inconsequential — he is nothing to Voldemort, and the ease at which he is discarded makes it all the more traumatic for Harry.

I always felt that the ritual in the fourth book was pretty lame though, and the film only makes this more apparent. Seriously, Voldy, if all you needed was a little pinch of Harry’s blood, you could have had Crouch Jr. give him a papercut at the beginning of the school year and saved the guy a lot of needless plotting. And then you would have returned to power a whole year earlier! And hell, even if you really wanted to give your villainous monologue to Harry, was there a particular reason Crouch Jr. couldn’t have made anything else into a portkey? Like, I dunno. Harry’s DADA textbook? A quill? Anything? The whole convoluted plot kind of falls to pieces when you see how absurdly simple the ritual that (supposedly) required it is.

Moving on, Voldemort’s duel with Harry was… frustrating because they once again managed to explain nothing about it. How Harry survived the Dark Lord’s initial attack thirteen years prior is still attributed vaguely to “love” and “Lily’s sacrifice,” which is fine, I guess, since honestly, this is one of the most annoyingly inconsistent and amazingly convoluted aspect of the entire series — but logically, this explanation would make any other time Harry survives Voldemort’s attacks all the more mystifying seeing as Lily Potter is already dead. More clarification is needed! The first movie did, in fact, mention the detail about the phoenix feathers in Harry and Voldemort’s wands — would it have been so hard to remind us of this?

The light show wasn’t bad though.

The unmasking of Moody as Barty Crouch Jr. was fun too. And the end of the movie… well, it had the usual rushed feeling about it, but it was appropriate this time. Despite Dumbledore’s efforts to emphasize Voldemort’s return along with Cedric Diggory’s murder, sweet goodbyes with the visiting schools were in order, and then the credits were rolling. The Ministry will have no trouble scrubbing He Who Shall Not Be Named from the minds of the audience in time to feed them propaganda at the beginning of the next movie, hm?

[This post contains spoilers for the third book and movie.]

Know me at all and it’s easy to guess that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite book of the series. It includes two things I enjoy across all fiction — werewolves and a closed time loop. It introduces some of my favorite characters, and, I didn’t realize it until much later, but it’s also the only installment that doesn’t accumulate in a big boss battle with Voldemort. It ends in suspense. It ends in both hope and dread. It’s awesome.

Of course, the more you love the source material, the more critical you’ll be of any adaptation, and so I think this was where I started getting very, very purist about the whole movie thing. I didn’t really think the seven years it’s been since I last saw this movie would change my mind about it, and ho! I was right. But that’s not for lack of trying. I’ve not disliked any of these movies for lack of trying.

The film opens with the first obvious sign that continuity between the screen adaptations is going to be an uphill battle from here on out. Because Harry’s time with the Dursleys is always so abbreviated and abrupt, he was never warned for his (ahem, Dobby’s) underage use of magic in Chamber of Secrets. This wouldn’t have been an issue to me if Harry didn’t insist on worrying about his potential arrest over his accidental “blowing up” of Marge. I mean, in the very first scene, he’s using magic under his bed covers (poorly, I might add; it annoyed me that a third-year Hogwarts student couldn’t manage a proper Lumos, you know?). Sure, making light isn’t as severe as blowing up your aunt, but magic is magic, right?

This really has nothing to do with purism at all. It doesn’t matter to me that the events here don’t play out as they did in the book. But you can’t just show the audience one thing and tell them something different five minutes later! Unfortunately, the new director, Alfonso Cuarón, does a ridiculous number of times in this movie.

I had enjoyed Dan Radcliffe’s acting as Harry in the first two movies, but Harry doesn’t really get angry in the first two movies, and it would seem that Radcliffe took pointers from Tom Felton in regards to this particular emotion. Harry goes from a flippant and sarcastic kid to OMG I’M GONNA BLOW YOU UP WITH MY RAGE in half a second. This isn’t unrealistic necessarily, but Harry’s outburst comes off as unnatural and forced, lacking sincerity. This is made worse by the dramatically slow rate at which Marge’s size increases. If Harry’s rage was truly explosive, I would imagine that Marge would have grown very quickly for a very short time, stopping as soon as Harry realized what he was doing. That would make too much sense, huh?

It also really bothered me was that they had dog!Sirius snarl and bare his teeth at Harry in the following scene. That takes away the ambiguity that needed to be there. I don’t care that they changed up the Knight Bus a bit (Stan Shunpike managed to be entertaining enough), but I think they spent too much time there — especially as the next couple of scenes at the Leaky Cauldron felt hurried and mashed together. They did cover everything I felt needed to be covered, though Mr. Weasley’s chat with Harry seemed a tad awkward, and the rushed pacing served as more of a forewarning than the actual warning did.

The casting of a mustached David Thewlis as Remus Lupin didn’t bother me nearly as much this time around, possibly because my shameless bishounen headcanon of the character isn’t as insecure anymore? He plays the part well enough, after all. Dumbledore on the other hand…

Physical appearance aside, the main reason I prefer Richard Harris to Michael Gambon as Dumbledore is his demeanor. I think Harris always managed to capture the headmaster’s serenity very well — he exuded calmness and wisdom, and it was easy to see why just about every other character took comfort in his presence, his words, and endearing quirkiness. Gambon is simply too serious. His Dumbledore rarely smiles, and he seems more weary and tired, less inspiring and reassuring. This might be unfair since Gambon takes over the role just as things get “darker,” just as a murderer is on the loose, just as dementors are sent to the castle. He has reason to be serious, but still.

Classes at Hogwarts go by at breakneck speed, desperate to cram in all the necessities in as little space as possible so as to leave room for an overdose of premature Hermione/Ron drama. The boggart lesson with Lupin begins well enough (though I have no idea why all four Houses are present; there should only be two Houses per class — these discrepancies with canon aren’t important, no, but they’re mystifyingly pointless). We get our Snape in a dress and the class proceeds… but Harry is at the front of the line with his friends, rather than in the back. This means that Harry does, in fact, face the boggart and it manages to change into a dementor before Lupin intervenes. Then, five minutes later, in another scene, Lupin correctly guesses that Harry wants to know why he didn’t let him face the boggart! Lupin answers that he feared that the boggart would turn into Voldemort, despite having already seen it turn into a dementor instead!

Good job! Strike two, Cuarón! Let’s continue to show the audience one thing and then tell them another!

The first time I watched this movie, I remember thinking Buckbeak’s flight sequence was very superfluous, especially since so many other things are terribly rushed. This second time though, I recognize that especially with so many other rushed scenes, the audience really needs some time to breathe, and that’s what Buckbeak’s flight provides — I think basically every movie has it’s own version, with some flying creature (Hedwig, the dragon, etc) giving the audience a nice overview and fly around the castle grounds. It’s a good break to enjoy the scenery and maybe not think about how so many things are already wrong. (The hippogriff’s foreleg anatomy bothered me, but hey, weird mythical creatures, what can ya do.)

Then Buckbeak touches down and we’re faced with Felton’s awful acting again. Draco’s kind of hot now appearance is a sharper and more richboy refined in this movie, but his overbearing, shallow, and unnaturally forceful portrayal of the character is just… painful to watch, honestly. There is no variation to Draco’s emotions — he is either a shamelessly arrogant snot or he is a cowardly wuss. There is nothing in between and transitions between them are sudden and cheesy. Draco is nearly as useless as Ron! (But Ron is more entertaining to watch — you tell those spiders, Ron!)

Fred and George introduce the all-revered Marauder’s Map in a cliche twinspeaking fashion, but it’s all in good fun. The map itself looks amazing. In fact, I would say that the map is the most impressive visual element in the film, ahead of Buckbeak and certainly above that other mythical creature later on… So Harry sneaks into Hogsmeade and overhears the game-changing conversation. Many details are omitted here. I suppose most of them aren’t really that important, but it’s very disappointing to me that basically everything about the Marauders in general is cut. :c Radcliffe’s emotional outburst in the snowy clearing could have been better, but his anger there is much more convincing than it had been in the Dursleys’ kitchen.

Harry spotting Pettigrew on the map is the first of two notable story changes that Cuarón makes in his movie. Shockingly, I don’t actually mind either of them. For this, it gives Harry reason to be suspicious much earlier, which is good for convincing purposes, since Lupin and Black have much less time to actually explain things later on. However, after Harry is caught, despite his various other insinuations, Snape does not seem to imply that Lupin gave Harry the map. The Marauders’ identities are never revealed in this movie (or any subsequent movies, as far as I can recall at the moment), which is, again, terribly disappointing. If nothing else, I think would have highlighted the idea that James Potter and Sirius Black were bffs, which I feel is important considering how quickly Harry comes to trust Sirius later, and for establishing the basis of Sirius and Harry’s relationship in general. In any case, explaining the Marauders couldn’t have taken more time than injecting all of that hilariously awkward Ron/Hermione romantic drama.

This is me favoring long-term continuity and understanding over short-term entertainment though, and really, that preference probably summarizes every negative opinion I have regarding these movies.

Because the mystery elements of Prisoner of Azkaban are severely downplayed in the film, the climatic reveal of Peter Pettigrew felt…  anticlimatic. I’m glad the foreshadowing with Scabbers and Crookshanks managed not to get cut, but Harry’s rage towards Sirius did not have long to fester, and well… we’re not treated to a delightful tale of the Marauders’ youth, are we? The trio is far too easily convinced given the complete lack of explanation of anything — even with Pettigrew hiding out as a rat for twelve years, the biases stacked against the mass-murderer and misleading werewolf. The trio, and the audience, are surely owed a better explanation?

Indeed, I think all of the juicy tidbits about James and Sirius and Lupin and Snape are what make this part of the story so satisfying. Till now, we’re very focused on the current state of affairs — on Harry’s present — rather than all that happened before. But all that happened before is important; the relationships of the characters that came before, and how they played into the grander scheme of things: Voldemort’s rise to power. These are the things that emphasize that the story of Harry Potter is, in fact, bigger than Harry Potter.

The decision behind cutting these details probably falls into the category of “it can’t be helped” (しかたない!), and I suppose I can accept that well enough, but that doesn’t dammit, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. This resignation leaves the rest of this post rather abbreviated though.

I’m… just not even going to get into how much I hate the CGI werewolf and argsdasdghajsh, why doesn’t he have a goddamn tail!? He looks like an deformed man-rat with mange. /cry

Cuarón’s other notable story change is the details of the time loop, specifically where Hermione calls Lupin away from Harry and Sirius. To me, the addition of the “werewolves only respond to the calls of other werewolves” line stuck out like a sore thumb in Hermione’s earlier exchange with substitute Snape, but whatever, it works! Seven years ago, I recall feeling it was actually a little clever, but now I’m mostly indifferent. But hey, here we are again emphasizing the Hermione saves Harry’s life every day while Ron is useless time and time again: “Sorry Ron, but you can’t walk!”

Funny thing though, the last time I read the book, I picked up this canonical plot hole: if Lupin had been studying the map while the trio met Hagrid in his hut (and that’s where he saw Peter on the map), then he reaaaaally should have seen the time-traveling doubles of Harry and Hermione too since they were right there. Whoops!

Other miscellaneous complaints:

• Lupin’s weird, awkward and out of place monologue about Lily. I think it’s kind of funny when director’s try to insert their own ships though.
• “You have your mother’s eyes, Harry!” I’m half-convinced they actually had characters say this to mess with me. Yes, yes, yes, it isn’t hard to just say that Lily has blue/slate eyes in movieland. Shush.
• Why does “Expelliarmus” send Snape flying against the wall when it properly disarms everyone else by sending the target’s wand flying out of their hand?
• Missing: “What we need is more time.” I just really liked that line.
• Oh yeah, that Firebolt. Might need that. *inserts awkwardly*
• That Trelawney’s prediction comes true isn’t reflected upon. Peter reuniting with Voldy kind of important. A lead-in for movie four? We don’t need that!
• Oh, whatever. I give up on this movie.

Convention last weekend threw me off this rewatch schedule, sadly. As such, it seems I’ll be seeing Deathly Hallows late again because I want to finish my rewatches before going in for that last hurrah. Not entirely sure why. This is what I remember about the four movies I still need to rewatch:

• Goblet of Fire: it’s boring
• Order of the Phoenix: hatehatehate worse movie yet
• Half-Blood Prince: HATE new worse movie yet
• Deathly Hallows, part 1: it’s okay

Ah, masochism.

And you know what’s funny? Chamber of Secrets is the second shortest book… but with a run time of 161 minutes, it is the longest movie, period. It is longer than every subsequent movie where Much Worse and More Complicated Things Happen, but while I do feel that the pacing and general storytelling improved a little from movie one, other aspects dragged it down. It’s never fun being the second installment. You have a lot to live up to, and as part of a longer series, you also have a lot to build up to. Chamber of Secrets as a book is already probably the least thrilling, the least memorable, the least favorite — it is debateably the least important too, despite laying the groundwork for many later concepts and themes.

[This post contains nonexplicit spoilers for the second book/movie -- I reference various plot points and themes and commentate but don't ever say exactly what happens.]

In particular, lackluster acting on the part of most antagonists annoyed me greatly. As I mentioned in the first rewatch post though, this is probably as much a fault of the book as it is the movie. Tom Felton’s Draco Malfoy is aggravating. Yes, yes, Draco is canonically trapped in a schoolyard bully stereotype at this point, but Felton’s portrayal does nothing to help this — it seems that Draco is always hiding just off camera so that he can burst in awkwardly at the first opportunity, over-emphasizing every other word that comes out of his mouth. He’s just so too forceful. The way he says “Potter” was especially irritating. He tries far too hard to say it with disgust and it almost sounds like a stutter as a result. There’s nothing natural about any of it, least of all his expressions. Surely Draco would have learned some subtlety from his dear father?

Not that Jason Isaacs’s Lucius Malfoy was great at being subtle, but at least he didn’t almost-shout half his insults to the Weasleys.

Meanwhile, Alan Rickman’s Snape continues to be terribly, terribly awkward. I have realized this: Snape doesn’t actually have any facial expressions. He is always staring blankly off into the distance; his eyes don’t focus on anything, and the way he delivers his lines is toneless and empty. The should be contempt and bile and general disgust in his voice, but there isn’t. He should be sneering across the room at the wonder team after their run-in with the Whomping Willow, but instead he kind of looks like he’s about to cry. No, seriously, what’s with this face? Does he look disdainful to you?

Pure blood supremacy is introduced here, laying the foundation to many later events and themes. It has its roots in Salazar Slytherin’s ideals… which doesn’t make a ton of sense, in retrospect. If Slytherin was fanatical enough about blood purism to leave the school over it, and if the Sorting Hat really does remain true to each house founder’s wishes, why would half-bloods and Muggleborns ever be sorted into Slytherin? The House would have withered to a handful of crazies ages ago. Sure, Slytherin had other ideals, but no one ever talks about those. Ambition and loyalty? Cleverness and determination? What? Then again, I guess this makes about as much sense as all the Death Eaters being fanatical blood purists and following a half-blood tyrant. Power does trump hypocrisy. That’s a theme too.

The acting on the part of the trio was quite all right, though I think it’s much more obvious in the movie than it is in the book that Ron is basically useless. Scrubbing him out of the movie would have changed nothing, as the only thing the youngest Weasley son was good for was making hilarious faces, making hilarious squeaky noises, and being hilariously terrified of everything. But I guess it’s good he’s around for comedic effect. Kept my mind off the dumb, nitpicky things, except not really, because here’s a short list:

• Pretty much every spell used in the dueling scene did the same thing — send off a minor explosion and throw the opponent off their feet. Expelliarmus and whatever the first spells Draco and Harry threw at each other all did this. In fact, did the Disarming Spell actually disarm Lockhart? His wand was not shown flying off, he did not spend any time looking for it, and he seemed to have it again when he walked back towards Snape. Sure, I’m also a little sad that Harry didn’t use Expelliarmus at any point in the movie, but would have been impossible for Chris Columbus (or anyone else) to guess the significance of the spell this early on.
• No one has mentioned Bill at all in these first two movies; Ron mentioned Charlie in Philosopher’s Stone, though he didn’t make an actual appearance, but no one has mentioned Bill, hahaha. I suppose it’s obvious enough already that there are a billion Weasleys, but I would expect them to do a quick summary to introduce them all or something…? How long would it have taken for Ron to mention that he has five older brothers and let us do the math ourselves?
• I am miffed that Errol’s name is mentioned at least twice, but Hedwig remains nameless still! I know it isn’t important, but it bothers me.
• It also bothered me that the blinded basilisk depended entirely on sound. That’s not how snakes work! I don’t recall if this was specified in the book though, so I’m not sure if this is a movie-only complaint… well, given that the basilisk’s fang doesn’t really work like a snake’s fang anyway, I don’t know if there’s a point in being fussed that a giant, mythical snake monster isn’t actually like a real snake.
• Harry still doesn’t have green eyes.

On the plus side, I did continue to enjoy Chris Columbus’s vision in regards to many aspects of Hogwarts, such as Dumbledore’s office and the Chamber itself. More positives:

• Christian Coulson was the perfect Tom Riddle. He was sufficiently handsome, proper, and I think the flashback did well to both portray him in a deceptively positive light and highlight his similarities to Harry. Riddle showed contempt and arrogance in a manner the Malfoys and Snape could never achieve. His blatant disregard for Ginny as the wheels in Harry’s head slowly turn was lovely.
• Kenneth Branagh as Lockhart was also pretty awesome, but hey, it’s gotta be fun acting like a pretentious git. :D
• The Quidditch match was fun, if a bit long. The rogue Bludger did make for some fantastic action flying though.
• John Williams’s score was much more distinct and unique this time — no longer a remix of Home Alone 2!
• Molly Weasley sends a damn entertaining Howler.

One thing I wish that could have been touched on more in both the books and the movies is the idea that not everyone in Slytherin is automatically a bad guy. At the end of Chamber of Secrets especially, the bias towards Gryffindor and against Slytherin is pretty bloody ridiculous. Harry’s choice to go to Gryffindor instead of Slytherin is implied to be the difference between he and Riddle/Voldemort, as if Harry choosing to go to Slytherin would automatically have proved that he had all of Voldemort’s worse traits. To be fair, this early on in the series, there is still a “for kids” aura about the whole thing, so black and white, good and evil extremities isn’t all that surprising. But really, it isn’t until the very last installment that the good and evil polarity of Gryffindor and Slytherin begins to dissolve.

All in all, Chamber of Secrets was pretty… whatever? There were annoying purist bits and some bad acting, but nothing too serious. There were enough good things to balance it out still. I suppose I wouldn’t say that I disliked it, but I felt indifferent — I didn’t enjoy it the way I did the first movie. But I didn’t like the second book as much as the first either? Poor second installment indeed.

Don’t worry though, the indifference can’t and won’t stick around for the third movie rewatch. Let’s see if the Prisoner of Azkaban hurts me as much now as it did seven years ago…

I’m rewatching all the previous movies to mentally prepare, but also because I’ve been meaning to anyway. I’ve only seen each movie only once, and the routine had been thus: I’d reread the corresponding the book within a month of the movie’s release, and then I’d see the movie opening night, and gradually, I grew into one of those crazy purists. It’ll be fun to see how those opinions hold up though; after all, it’s been just about a decade since the Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone hit theatres, and I won’t be rereading each book prior to the viewings this time. I have kind of a crappy memory, so maybe this matters.

[This post contains no explicit spoilers for any book or movie, though I suppose you might consider the implied existence of certain characters, events, and later plot developments as spoilers if you're really hardcore about that stuff.]

Not gonna lie — it was pretty exciting watching the first movie again. It was like reading the first book again, and as many times as I’ve read that book by now, it hasn’t lost its magic yet, and I hope it never does. The movie opens on a puzzling note, but slowly, all the endearing little quirks of J.K. Rowling’s amazing world make their way in. Actually, my dislike of the films didn’t start until the third movie, which is predictable because the third book was, and still is, my favorite. I remember thinking that the first two movies were pretty all right — probably because first two book are comparatively short, so a lot of the later movies’ issues with pacing, clarity, and continuity shouldn’t apply.

Indeed, the pacing throughout the Philospher’s Stone is pretty decent, though even this early on, there seem to be a number of awkward scene transitions, such the shift from Hagrid showing up on Harry’s birthday to the pair of them walking around London. I think what bothered me the most about that was the Dursleys’ abrupt departure though. I realize that even canonically, it takes a while for the family to grow out of their fairy tale “wicked stepfamily” trope, but I do still wish it was more obvious that they’re actual characters and not just a background element meant to emphasize Harry’s unfortunate childhood. Later jumps to and from Harry’s various trials, especially at the end, were also a little jarring, but I suppose there’s only so much a movie can do in lieu of a chapter break?

The visuals do well to distract you from these things anyway, though it’s a lot easier to pick out the CG bits ten years later. The bricks parting to reveal Diagon Alley? Running through the wall for Platform 9 ¾? And all of those owls? It’s so obvious now! But seriously, it is the high point of all the movies to be able to see such a careful rendering of this rich fantasy world. Chris Columbus did a beautiful job in this regard — who doesn’t want to wander through and explore Diagon Alley? The ceiling of the Great Hall looked beautiful, as did all those floating candles. The ghosts were a little cheesy, but hey, that’s canon.

I really, really wish they had kept the Hogwarts uniforms through the later movies. They did so much to separate the magic from the mundane, and dammit, they looked good! …Except for certain details, namely those ridiculous little dunce cap hats. Those were just stupid. They should have at least had brims like Dumbledore’s or McGonagall’s hats! But no! They’re stupid little dunce caps!

You know what else was great about the first movie? The trio’s acting was pretty good! Young Daniel Radcliffe’s Boy Who Lived is innocent, curious and relatively easy to relate to. Might I suggest that he’s actually a little endearing? Rupert Grint’s Ron Weasley is a huge loser and has hilarious expressions of exasperation and incredulousness. I don’t think this changes much in later films, actually. But best of all, Emma Watson’s Hermione Granger has the most incredibly annoying introductory lines and it is awesome.

“Are you sure that’s a REAL spell? Well, it’s not very GOOD, is it?” Oh my god, Hermione, I just want to smack you. It is wonderful.

And I miss Richard Harris as Dumbledore. Sorry, Michael Gambon, but in addition to not having the perfect long, white beard, you just don’t exude the same… serenity? Harris is the Dumbledore that’s in my head. His way of speaking — especially at the end of the movie as he is recounting his experiences with Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans — is just flawless in portraying Dumbledore’s confident quirkiness. I wish I could see how he would have portrayed Dumbledore in later movies, when he becomes more severe and morally ambiguous as a character.

On the flip side, it would seem that Alan Rickman as Severus Snape has never impressed me. He looks the part, absolutely, but the way… Rickman has Snape… pause awkwardly in the middle of… all his… sentences… doesn’t do it… for me. He comes off as more mentally handicapped and confused than creepy or menacing or evil. Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy is also pretty laughable, but this could be as much thoughtless scripting as it is bad acting. Malfoy is nothing more than a schoolyard bully, and Felton’s acting accentuates the bland over-exaggeration of the stereotype. Honestly though, even considering canon, I would be hard-pressed to say that Malfoy as a character ever amounts to much else. (Burnnnn.)

But hey, Quirrel was pretty good? Even if the CG effects of Voldemort’s head are pretty hilarious.

I noticed the music a lot more watching this movie a second time. I have always liked John Williams and the main leitmotif for the series, but I don’t think I ever noticed how similar some of the other tracks were to music Williams composed for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. In particular, a lot of the music in scenes introducing a new magical area or thing — like Diagon Alley — reminded me of music in similar scenes in Home Alone — such as when Kevin enters the gigantic toy store for the first time. After I made the connection, I kept noticing it. I think both movies’ soundtracks are fantastic and very fitting, and similarities are bound to happen when you’ve composed as many soundtracks as Williams, but it’s still a little… weird? Disappointing? I dunno. Maybe it was a just side effect of working alongside Chris Columbus again?

In the end, I did enjoy this first movie quite a bit. Ten years later, nostalgia probably factors in a lot, hey, it’s also the first movie — who knew what they were doing? The acting wasn’t bad. The pacing wasn’t bad. I feel it’s hard to criticize most storytelling and staging choices because they couldn’t take later installments into account, but we’ll see how much my nostalgia buffers the blow on the rest of the movies though. …I can’t say I’m looking forward to rewatching the third movie.

Miscellaneous nitpicky bits:

• James and Lily Potter died at age 21, but in the Mirror of Erised shows them in their thirties at the very least! I was going to let this go as they would have been in their thirties had they lived, but at the end of the movie, Hagrid gifts Harry a photo album… which depicts them at the same age they were in the mirror. Bah and humbug!
• Snape’s contribution to the various enchantments protecting the Stone was kind of relevant. I’m not sure why they felt the need to axe this, especially since it also axes Hermione’s equal contribution to helping Harry along. C’mon, Columbus, we need to establish that the boys are screwed without Hermione! This is a repeating theme! (I suppose the Devil’s Snare kind of established this too though…meh.)
• Charlie Weasley is mentioned, but is never physically introduced because the Norbert subplot was very abbreviated. This is understandable, but it does also mean that Charlie never appears properly in any of the movies. He might get a cameo in the last movie, but I’m still not sure how they’re gonna awkwardly shove in Percy, if at all, and contending with one forgotten Weasley might be less embarrassing than dealing with two? No clue.
• I was kinda sad that Hagrid didn’t drop Sirius Black’s name at the beginning of the movie. I remember it being a point of “omg, awesome! Foreshadowing! Continuity and stuff!” when I got to flip back to the first book for that mention after reading the third book. Oh, well. Continuity in movies is hard!
• It bothered me ten years ago and it bothers me now: Harry never mentions Hedwig’s name, despite having two whole scenes where it’s just the two of them.
• Harry also doesn’t have green eyes.

This is so going to turn into a Harry Potter blog for the next month. Deal with it.

Magical girls? Yeah, okay, whatever. Even if Sailor Moon was my first and only, I don’t have a problem with magical girls — but my opinion towards the genre probably wasn’t necessary to factor in anyway, considering everyone was liking Madoka because it was “different” from what you’d typically expect from a magical girl series.

But the first two episodes bored the hell out of me. I didn’t see anything different. It wasn’t bubbly and shoujo enough to be typical magical girl, I guess, but it wasn’t groundbreaking in any way or even halfway intriguing. The characters were flat and uninteresting, wholly good and moral. Homura was a question mark, but did not provide a lot of excitement. Kyuubey was creepy though. Clearly he has an ulterior motive! The collage element in some scenes were kind of neat, but not neat enough for me to watch on that basis alone. And boy, was that opening theme fan-pandering or what.

So I thought about dropping because hey, when was the last time I actually ended up liking a series that I almost dropped early on? Oh, right, never. (The only halfway case was when I almost dropped Dennou Coil near the midpoint because it was slow, but I wasn’t bored at the beginning of the series.) But I was goaded into watching episode three because it’s such a short series anyway, and episode three was the first instance of Puella Magi Madoka Magica being different.

(Spoilers for the entire series beyond this point.)

Well, I guess one of the girls dying horribly when a monster witch thing bites her head off is kind of unexpected, yes.

But even still, the series didn’t seem to pick up. There is drama, but the characters continued to be flawlessly moral with every bit of negativity justified with a tragic and uninspired backstory, and I just didn’t care. Here is another series that failed completely at getting me to sympathize with the characters. All of them could have died and it wouldn’t have been interesting because I wasn’t emotionally invested at all. It might have been a little surprising, but it wouldn’t have been interesting. The backdrop for the series is not unimaginative, but without characters that didn’t suck, none of the events mattered to me.

The terrible wishes all of the characters were making also annoyed me. I mean, really, guys. First rule of wishing-making: say it right. It isn’t like you have a time or 140-character limit. The show isn’t even hinged on interpreting your wishes wrong, and it was established that Kyuubey isn’t really trying to trick you. You can be as specific as you want, right? If you’re selling your soul to the creepy white alien bunny, you should at least make sure that you get exactly what you want in return. Who’s to say you can’t have a compound sentence in there too?

We didn’t hear Sayaka’s wish specifically, but really? You wished his hand magically perfectly well again, but not his legs? I get that his hand was more important and that his legs were probably gonna heal anyway, but come on. We’re making miracles here! Kyoko’s wish is forgivable, I guess, since she was depicted as very young at the time. But Madoka’s? Man… Madoka, you could have fixed everything, but you didn’t. (More on this below.)

I was ready to drop it again around episode nine. At that point, I would have been fine if someone had just spoiled the rest of the series for me. It’s always a bad sign when I stop caring about spoilers. I normally hate spoilers, no matter how minor. But man. It’s such a short series. Twelve episodes! Just three more to go. How bad could it possibly be? And maybe I’d get some pay off finally?

So fine, I watched ten. Ten revealed a lot of things. Ten also made me make instant comparisons to Higurashi, which I had (surprise!) dropped for boring the shit out of me. (Umineko, too.)

Episode ten did make me care a little more about the outcome of the series though. With Homura’s motivation finally clear, I could almost kind of care about whether she succeeds or not! And I love time shenanigans. Time shenanigans are cool. But time shenanigans also opened the floor to a bunch of questions and possible plot holes:

1. What was the contractual wish of original!Madoka if current!Madoka is having such a hard figuring one out?
2. Is Homura actually retconning/rewriting all previous timelines by physically traveling back in time?
   1. But that doesn’t make sense since she never meets a younger version of herself.
   2. Kyuubey implies that she’s been traveling into parallel universes, but in this case, she’d still need to deal with duplicate versions of herself??
   3. It’s conceivable that she’s merely transferring her consciousness into a past/alternate version of herself, but in this case, I feel like her physical skills/prowess wouldn’t transfer as smoothly.
3. Other than Homura’s knowledge of previous timelines, is anything else changing between timelines?
   1. Obviously, because Madoka is apparently having her fate twisted by the universe?
   2. And also, if nothing else had changed, Madoka would already be a magical girl in each timeline since she’s already one when she meets Homura and it’s implied that Homura restarts at the same place every time.
   3. Not knowing what Madoka’s contract wish was originally (since they hadn’t met at that point), I’m not sure how Homura could go about preventing Madoka from making that original contract. I guess Madoka could have told her, but
   4. Given all this, why does the mere fact that Homura is messing with time screw up these other things?

I didn’t expect the series to actually answer any/most of these. It’s actually pretty easy to be forgiving with timefuckery plot holes because it’s such a complicated plot device. But seeing as this turning point reveal was the only thing I found interesting in a series full of disappointments and that it took ten damn episodes to get there, well.

My brother had been amongst the people singing praises for the series and had specifically recommended it to me. He was disappointed that my final thoughts were basically “MEHHHHHH.” We usually have similar tastes, but it seems that every time we disagree, it’s me disliking a series that he likes. Rarely does he dislike a series that I like. He went through my MAL to make sure. The following is the conversation I had with him on Facebook about the conclusion of the series, and then the series in general. It’s unedited except to replace our names and his profile picture.

I like to think I won that debate. :3

Amongst worry about the fates of dozens of unfinished series, much of the reactionary concern is with the lost in limbo comics of OEL creators, which TOKYOPOP has held fast to. Will the rights revert automatically? Many of these series have already been drawn in their entirety — will they finally see print elsewhere? It remains to be seen, but S.Girl points out that the answer to the first question is “no.” The rights won’t autorevert. And TOKYOPOP isn’t going away completely — their New Media division remains, so there’s still an entity to hold the rights. But with their Publishing division gone (at least in the US; TP Germany will continue operations), what incentive is there for TP to hold on to the publishing rights?

In “coming weeks,” the fates of TP’s vast catalog of titles are supposed to be announced. Hopefully this will mean the fates of the OEL titles will be revealed as well. I doubt Viz will ever start the original comics initiative it announced in spring 2009, and with TP out of the game for good, it might seem as if OEL is dead in the water. And yet… and yet, it’s thanks to TOKYOPOP that all of this started. It’s easy to forget, but many of the new creators it nourished and challenged with its Rising Stars of Manga program are still working in the industry today. The creators that found their start with TP are still making manga, and other companies are actually publishing it.

TOKYOPOP ushered in a wave of Japanese comics monstrous enough to affect and influence an entire generation of fans and artists. Traditional US comics companies couldn’t really ignore it. Everyone was drawing in this damned manga style because that’s what they were reading and that’s what they wanted to read. TOKYOPOP took a chance on that and tried to capitalize on this new crop of artists. It didn’t really work out, and that’s the part people remember. A decade and a few years later, there are still many prejudices in the industry and still many walls for artists to break down, but with so many more people turned onto comics in general because of manga specifically, companies have slowly come to understood that rejecting manga is losing money…

There’s a dirty irony to the idea that the artists that TOKYOPOP harbored and subsequently screwed over with overbearing contracts are still surviving because of TOKYOPOP’s overarching influence on the industry, but it is what it is.

Having graduated from the SCAD Sequential Art department, the anti-TOKYOPOP sentiment was shared amongst many of the students and just about all the professors, who had explained on multiple occasions that TOKYOPOP was, in fact, banned from the department’s annual Editors’ Day because they “want[ed] students to get hired, not screwed.”

It’s disappointing when, as an artist, the company offering your biggest chance to succeed is also the company most likely to use and abuse you. No one else has stepped up to specifically fill in the shoes as a big OEL publisher, but maybe it isn’t really necessary anymore. Ideally, in a few more years, the style really won’t make the difference anymore. We won’t need a specific “OEL” initiative because good comics are good comics, no matter how they’re drawn. Ideally.

No, I don’t believe the “manga revolution” has been won yet. It’s sad to see that the effort is winding down, but I’m not sure how relevant TOKYOPOP has been to the fight in the last few years.

For my part, I gave up on the idea of ever publishing with them (or anyone else, really) when the OEL fiasco went down. Self-publishing has become the most viable option for creators, in my opinion. Just about all the manga I read currently is put out by Viz. In fact, with Borders shutting down, I’ve picked up a great big stack of Viz manga, but there’s not a TOKYOPOP title amongst them. I know that’s just my preference though, and I do still own a lot of TOKYOPOP’s older gems. A lot of good series that are going to be stranded now. With one less publisher out there, the manga shelves at the bookstores will continue to shrink. The number of new readers caught in our market will be lessened…

Well, who knows. But it’s a sad thing, to be sure. Why TP has decided its lackluster New Media division should survive while their core business collapses, I’ll never understand. (And honestly, I’m calling it now, the remnants of TP will probably be gone by 2013, if not earlier.) But for all the things that the company’s done over the years that I’ve disagreed with, there is no joy in saying, “I told you so.“

Originally, I was on the over-ambitious bandwagon and planned on watching and reviewing all three of their possible choices in time for Christmas. Obviously this didn’t happen. I ended up going with Place Promised mostly because it was the shortest. I still kind of intend to watch the rest of Tatami Galaxy eventually, but the longer I wait the more I feel indifferent to it. I’m not sure that I’m ever going to get around to Gunslinger Girl unless someone gives a particularly passionate recommendation.

But here is the review for Place Promised. And here is the MAL mirror.

Merry Christmas!