(no subject)

[calzephyr]

Now that I have finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I don't know if I could watch any of the movies. I'd love to know J.K. Rowling's secret for putting a lot of action and vividness into the economy of a short book :-) I think somehow the movies would spoil things for me, they might be a little too whiz-bang and Hollywood for me to enjoy!

Again, I like how the ending wrapped up and I feel so dumb. Years of watching British mysteries on PBS should have trained me a little better to see the obvious. I hope J.K. Rowling goes on to write some adult mysteries. She'd be really good at it!

Comments

[fledchen.livejournal.com]

Rumor has it that Rowling has been spotted in cafes working on a mystery novel. :)

The first two movies were good, the rest have ranged from mediocre to crappy.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

Oooh! That's intriguing news, I hope she can keep writing.

Maybe I'll wait until I'm finished the books and then have a movie marathon one weekend!

[wolfebyte.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with Fledchen, though the only movie I really thought did the book absolutely zero justice was The Triwizard Cup - so much of the book was about harry not being the super-boy wizz-kid, but actually struggling to compete with wizards far more experienced then he, yet the movie pretty much was trimmed down to the bare-bones of the events of the tournament itself.

So while the books all are based loosely around some event or thing (like the Stone, the Chamber, the Tourney, etc.) as the 'gimmick' or premise to build the story and characters around, the Triwizard movie was the only one so far to make the 'gimmick' the focus instead of merely the premise. I was terribly disappointed (tho' folks who hadn't read the books thought it was wonderful... :P). The other movies did a much better job of leaving the gimmick as what it is, and focusing on the development of the characters and plot as the actual meat of the story.

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

That's really neat that you pointed out the "gimmick" aspect because I hadn't thought about it before. They're barely visible macguffins aren't they!

[wolfebyte.livejournal.com]

I had never heard the term 'macguffin' before, but yeah, it's pretty much spot on.

The important part of book one isn't whether or not Voldemort gets the Philosopher's stone - and indeed, I can't even recall exactly what Dumbledorf says he does with it, because by the end we don't even care - what's important is Harry and his friend's development as characters growing up in this new wizarding world Rowling's created.

The same stays true throughout the series of books, but in the Twiwizard movie, so much time is spent on the tourney itself, that what happens at the end (not saying what, since I don't want to give it away at all) seems completely disconnected from the rest of the film (even if it does fit with the series/previous movies actual plot).