Harry Potter and the Same Movie As The Last One - Page 2

Then maybe you should take that up with whoever's been telling you this instead of throwing all the stuff you didn't think to say at the time at people who aren't making the same claims.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but from post #1 here, you've assigned an argument and attitude to anyone who disagrees with you that really doesn't fit. Maybe there are people out there claiming these things, but it's not anyone you've responded to in this thread.

i would love to know who is comparing harry potter with lord of the rings.

This smells like trolling. Play nice or be removed.

Well, technically, "I think the font should be bigger" is a legitimate criticism, too, and one with about the same merit. Wanting these books to be Lord of the Rings is missing the point. These are coming-of-age books set at an unorthodox school, and that's pretty obvious right off the bat. They're not epic quest books, nor is there really anything about them that should lead one to believe that they should be. The only thing the two works have in common is the element of the fantastical.

In some ways, they stretch more than the Lord of the Rings (and I'll admit to only having seen the movies, and I'll readily concede that they'll probably wear better than the Potter movies and probably even the Potter books, but for quite different reasons); there's noticeable emotional growth among all three main characters, the quite large supporting cast is surprisingly fleshed out, and even the villains have some shades of gray. The notion of good vs. evil is treated with a lot more nuance in Rowling's book than in the LOTR trilogy. In fact, I think this last point is the key difference. In LOTR, the key struggle is external - while evil may sink its claws into Frodo via the ring, it's not something inherent to his person that's driving the main conflict - it's Sauron. In the Potter books, Voldemort is certainly important, but that's not what keeps the books moving. It's Harry learning about himself, specifically about what it means to be heroic and, more importantly, imperfect and human (which becomes more obvious as we see his father's interactions with Snape in flashback).

Well, no, you're certainly not - they're basically kids/young adult adventure books. But they're really enjoyable and pretty dense considering the genre, and I think a lot of their impact comes from the detail work. For obvious reasons of running time, those don't quite carry over into the films. What's most impressive about the films to those of us who have read the books is how much they do include, though.

I'm willing to bet that most people who criticize the Potter books aren't reading Great Classics of Modern Literature (a few potshot taking lit critics aside). Anyone who regularly reads Great Classics of Modern Literature (and I've noticed that a lot of the folks who regularly post in the Potter threads on this board have sort of highbrow taste otherwise, interestingly enough) recognizes each Potter book as a couple days' worth of light reading, probably not worthy of the ire it inspires in people who probably spend most of their time reading genre stuff that's equally unlikely to be regarded as Great Classics of Modern Literature.

That sounds like a highly redeeming aspect. One thing that I would expect the movies can't help but get right is the mystery of "what the fuck IS Snape's issue?" Which from what I've heard should be resolved in the final book.

You didn't start this to have an objective discussion about the merits of the series. You started this because you wanted to instigate an argument with "the regulars", and had a prepackaged response to the points and attitudes you anticipated. And when nobody nobody played along, you just carried on like they had.

To make this completely clear, you're not an dumbass because you don't like Harry Potter. You're an dumbass because you're the only one who didn't see that your transparent flamebait didn't elicit the desired response.

But hey, you actually did elicit an intelligent conversation about the series between the people completely ignoring you.

Oh, and to touch on this - I found Prisoner of Azkaban to be the best of the 4 so far, and I think a large part of that was that Cuaron DID get a lot of the detail work into the film. So that is not mutually exclusive. And if what makes the books best IS that, the films are doing a great disservice to them - like I said above, they seem "samey", relying on the formula myers put out in his first post - Harry deals with Muggle relatives, off to Hogwarts, new DDA teacher, etc etc, new spell learned during the film is used to defeat the new threat which rears its head. It reads like "book (n)'s greatest hits."

A greater focus on the nuts-and-bolts character work would either subvert the formula somewhat or make the differences from the previous film more obvious and bolster the framework.

Are we certain that eric isn't just taking his time in revealing to us the secret of The Hero's Journey?

I found the battle at the Ministry and the death of Sirius to be quite epic, and very much an escalation from the happenings in Goblet.

up front I will say this: I just read the entire series last month. I had seen the movies and avoided spoilers for 5&6 (except for a key death).

I really enjoyed the stories. mainly, Rowling has used the mystery format to create momentum. I think book 5 can be viewed as a commentary on political intervention in education (i won't go so far as to say Rowling is commenting on No Child Left Behind since she is British, but there are connections that could be made for fun).

Ultimately, there are a lot of silly things that happen, but the stories worked for me. I do think that the films don't represent the books that well, except for the first 2 books which are shorter and more precise. Book 4 has the whole House Elf storyline that doesn't really go anywhere, but it's at least a comment on freedom that seems relevant to any fantasy story about good vs. evil. In this case, the good guys use slave labor and don't seem to care (and the slaves don't seem to mind either until people start looking closer).

Anyway, i think this thread was started by someone who just had no right to start a thread about the books. It's easy to trash the movies, but to trash the series without getting to the books that really broaden the scope is self-defeating. I think that book 5 is actually overlong and the ending is a mess -- how is it that Death eaters can't kill a bunch of kids? But whatever -- the ultimate storyline is still interesting. And, I think the best part is the mystery behind Snape. I don't even really care about Harry, to be honest.

that's just what I was thinking. Rowling definitely puts story elements in there that are way too dark and "grown up" to be in an "ordinary" children's book. She awakens interest in people who would love to see more of that side, but instead of fully realizing it, these elements have to fight against the "for children" side of Potter and become a little bit silly.
In that way it's as if the series is afraid to grow up. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's just a little dissappointing for those that thought, the tale would grow more over the course of 6(!) very long books.

A world where a shill goes to this much effort...is too scary to imagine.

Tell you what, Myers, why don't you just go and read the books you haven't read and then get back to us? You're arguing from the indefensible position of not actually knowing what you're talking about.

And don't bother calling me a fanboy of a Pott-head. (Although I think that JK Rowling has great boobs, but that's another story.) I've read all the books and I think they're prefectly reasonable for what they are (young adult adventure books). If older people want to read them, then that's fine as well - just don't expect anything on the level of Pynchon.

Either read the books, or decide that your want to discuss only the movies, or get off the soapbox.

And aside from Azkaban, the films have be uniformly horrible adaptations of the books.

What about the first movie? I thought it followed it pretty closely. I still thought it was boring, but I thought it was faithful.

There's a difference between faithful and good.

I don't think I'd claim all the movies are the same, but I do admire rather than love the franchise. If I'd seen them in elementary school I'm sure I'd be a big fan. It's great family entertainment for sure, but I can only get into it so much.

Some lurker you are.

To me film 3 & 4 are like the greatest hits of the books, all they key and big stuff is shown and the rest of the stuff in the book happens just not on captured on film. And will be be from here on out. I have only heard really good thing about Phoenix, plus Alfonso might come back for 6 or 7. And I am sure in 25 years or so a new series of film or a mini series will be made that will put everything in the books onto film.

That opinion of yours would be downright wrong. JK Rowling had a plan for SEVEN books before she wrote one book. In fact she has had the final chapter of the series written for about the last 13 years.

I am a huge fan and I respect that it isn't everybody's cup of tea but I cannot respect opinions based on falsehoods.

WTF!!??!! Hary Pottter iz awzome!!! U SUK! Stoopid TROLL!!!!! Teh Ban!!!

Sorry. Hate for the guy to go through all that trouble and not get what he came for.

And my love of the series, particularly the last few books, is well documented in other threads. Thanks to DaveB for saying what I would have said if I were smart enough to put those words together in my head.

The last one was pretty good, too, I thought - thoroughly entertaining, if much less detailed than the book. Since much of the detail work mentioned above would be all-but-impossible to include in a film with a running time under four or five hours (remember that Cuaron had less of a challenge in that respect - the fourth and subsequent books are much longer than the first three), I think the emphasis is switched somewhat to the visual, and both of the last two movies have looked great.

I guess what rubs me the wrong way about myers' criticism is that it's a criticism of plot - plot is only one of many factors that defines a piece of narrative fiction. It's an easy aspect to criticize by people who haven't really done a lot of thinking about storytelling - "hey, this plot is just like another one!" And I can sort of see why Rowling's formula is more grating in the movies, since a lot of what justifies the narrative formula is jettisoned for the sake of the medium (though I think there's still plenty to like).

The problem is that myers is viewing this plot re-purposing as a cheat. It's not. It's a means to hang new ideas on the old framework. By re-using it, Rowling is stressing how the characters and their circumstances evolve from book to book, as we see Harry and the rest react somewhat differently to similar plot points over and over again (which is entirely appropriate - that's roughly how the education system works, and these are books about school and growing up).

It's obvious to the fans that these books/movies are formulaic - figuring out the common template for these books is like figuring out the template for a Three's Company episode or a Bond movie. Most genre fiction is formulaic, which is why boiling anything down to plot is missing the point in a huge way. Storytelling is more than plot. In fact, the only people who put this much emphasis on plot as the sole means of evaluating a text probably read stuff that makes Rowling come off like Faulkner.

If this guy can't see the difference between the film versions of SORCEROR'S STONE and GOBLET OF FIRE, I'm not sure what he's smoking. The mood, scope and thematic elements of the latter are so far removed from the former that the structure - which in and of itself is pretty radically changed, too - is the only real comparison point.

As a shameless fan of the book series and books 3-6 in particular, theres not a lot I can add to this thread that many of you - especially DaveB - haven't said already.

I must say tho, I find it pretty interesting that if erik was starting this thread as a topic of discussion rather than some pathetic attempt at flame-seeking attention, that he not only leapt to insulting people and got as hyper-defensive as quickly as he did, but that he failed to actually engage in any serious dicsussion with people who were making some pretty prescient points - like DaveB. I don't think he even responded to a single one of DaveB's posts.