Comments | buttercup31: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

buttercup31

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Jun 04, 2004 20:08

This review is for those of you who have read the books and know what’s going on. If you haven’t read the books…well, then, you really shouldn’t be seeing the movie (pet peeve).

( Harry Review )

movies, harry potter

Comments 13

caernarvon June 4 2004, 19:43:49 UTC

On the whole, I was actually pleased with the movie...Yes, they didn't have everything in there, and yes it was the same screenwriter and Columbus was producing...but you have to remember that they had to squeeze 115 or so more pages of material into roughly the same running time. While it is not a more literal translation than the previous two movies, it still did a good job keeping the plot together and flower and keeping everything congent...Could they have added another 1/2 hour (or more) of material? Of course they could have, but they would be pushing the attention span of their supposed audience..

buttercup31 June 4 2004, 22:47:11 UTC

See, I hate that though. If you are going to base a movie off of something, especially a book, then do it right. I don't want you taking liberties with the plot. If you found this incredibly sucky book and turned it into this incredible movie that may be one thing. But taking a book as good as these and then slopping together a movie for cash is not acceptable. The same thing bothers me with movies, "based on a true story." Fine, you have to cut things or tweak things as a time saver because people won't sit through a 4-hour movie, I get that and it is a necessity. They were able to accomplish that with the first two and they were longer films for shorter books. This was only around 2 hours and people still bitched about it being too long ( ... )

caernarvon June 5 2004, 09:40:42 UTC

Ali, Check out this story: http://jam.canoe.ca/JamHarryPotter/jun4_potter-sun.html

You may want to pay particular attention to what Rowling says...Found it kinda interesting...

Im still not sure how the hell they're going to do Goblet of Fire and Order of Phoenix and squeeze it into the time frame...especially Goblet of Fire with the Tournament...

buttercup31 June 5 2004, 12:26:45 UTC

That actually makes even less sense. She had trepidation about the movies in the first place because she was worried about the perversion of her books. Now all of a sudden she's okay with a total rewrite? Which is strange for any author, let alone one who has already voiced that concern.

It's not like I wanted not to like the movie. Which I shouldn't even say I didn't like it; I didn't want to be disappointed with it (I mean just looking at my journal now, It's nothing but HP all over the place). Like I said, it had its good moments, some of them even great. And I will try watching it again to see if I can really move beyond the story changes, because if I can, then it would be a pretty great movie. But when I went to see it I was going to see the movie version of my favorite book and what I got was Alfonso Cuaron's version of my favorite book. It just wasn't good enough for me.

I did love how the kids were dressed this time. It was a good call by JK. Especially in the Care of Magical Creatures scene with all of them looking ( ... )

Thread 8

hipchick June 5 2004, 01:29:47 UTC

yea i thought that it was weird how Hermione taking a million classes was weird because it didn't really stress the importance of the time piece, it just kind of "appeared" out of nowhere. i was dying when ron was doing the "they want me to tap dance! i don't want to tap dance!" thing. that was funny as hell.

and yea i thought the scene in the shack was anticlimactic too. and funny how people appeared out of nowhere -- like the random appearance of Ginny Weasley during the fat lady picture slash -- and how they didn't really explain much of why Harry was with everyone at the Leaky Cauldron, or who everyone was, and that Hermione and Ron knew what was up and Harry didn't.

also if they were going to end it without Quidditch Cup and the final dinner then they should have alluded to it in the end credits or something, it didn't seem final, i dunno.

overall though, i enjoyed the movie. though i wonder how are they going to do the 900 page book?

spicybubbles76 June 5 2004, 07:18:28 UTC

I believe the discussion on the 900 page book has been to break it at least into two movies, at least I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.

buttercup31 June 5 2004, 12:04:38 UTC

Oh man, I was dying at that part too! "You tell those spiders, Ron!" Hahahahahah

sampants June 6 2004, 10:14:31 UTC

I saw the movie last night with Sam. I read the book to him about 9 months ago, so I have not read it all that recently ( ... )

buttercup31 June 7 2004, 00:02:37 UTC

I've been wrestling back and forth over this movie. I keep trying to think of the really great moments that it had and sometimes I can get myself pumped up to see it again (especially if I can see it in IMAX) but then I go back to thinking about things and come up with more things I didn't put in the initial review i.e.-The single greatest moment of the book (amidst all the others) was when Harry received the permission slip from Sirius. They left that out (which will kind of be important in the 4th movie unless they cut out Hogsmeade all together even though that's where they meet up with Sirius, do you see the huge problems they've created for themselves?), and in that scene is when Ron gets Pig. So he'll be left out of the next movies too, which is not surprising since they decided Wood and Quidditch weren't important ( ... )