OotP movie notes
The last few months have been probably my busiest since my last semester of grad school (when I was working two jobs, one with a long commute, and trying to finish a thesis, all at the same time). This year hasn't been that bad, but it has still been a challenge. In March and April I was trying to organize an alumni reunion for the local youth orchestra's 30th anniversary (the job involved going through 30 years of old rosters and putting together an address list), and then coordinating event details with everybody that replied (only about 20 people ended up coming-- it was a nice time for those who came, I think, but it was still a lot of work).
Once that was over, then I had to start working on my next big event-- a sort of informal church mission trip to Albania, for which I'm leaving this Wednesday morning. (So yes, I'm actually going to be on my way to the forests of Albania when Book 7 comes out. Don't worry, I promise not to let Peter Pettigrew take me anywhere to meet Lord Voldemort. But if you don't see me online next weekend, it's because I'll be out of the country.) A friend of mine and I will be doing the Bible teaching at an Albanian church's summer family camp for a week. So I've had to prepare a series of six spoken messages, which (for me at least) is not really an easy thing.
On top of this, it's also been a busy summer at work, with the work on our forthcoming 787 model; it had the ceremonial rollout a week ago (on calendar date 07/08/07, of course), but my work is focused on the certification of it with the government regulators, in preparation for first customer delivery next spring after the flight test program. So I've got a few more months of serious work still to go. If all goes well, I should be able to breathe a bit easier after Christmas or so. (I haven't had to work huge amounts of overtime, but I have had to work some, and with all the other stuff I've been doing, I haven't been able to relax much recently-- if I do relax, it's usually from lack of energy to get stuff done, rather than from saying, "Okay, things are under control, and I can take it easy for a while.")
However, I did manage to take a couple of hours off to see the OotP movie when it came out last week. I liked it, although mainly because I wasn't expecting anything truly great-- it was just a nice illustrated (and abridged) version of the books. I'm not sure how well it would have worked for someone who didn't already know the book; it kind of seemed like several things in it depended on a knowledge of the books in order to make sense. Obviously, in condensing an 870-page book into a 2+ hour film, they had to leave a lot of stuff out; and the effect, I thought, was to reduce the impact a lot, so that both the high and the low moments were less intense than they were in the book.
Things I liked, though, included the DA scenes; a few of the added one-liners (most notably the final "I must not tell lies!"); Hermione's appearance (they didn't try to make her into the hottest girl in the school, they just let her look like Hermione); and Luna's scenes (she's not quite as off-the-wall as in the books, but I thought she was pretty effective, especially for this being Evanna's first time acting the part).
I would have liked a Chocolate Library scene, of course, but one can't have everything. I did notice that they panned over to Ginny a few times in ways that suggested she didn't like the Harry/Cho business very much. Of course we lost the Ginny/Michael Corner subplot in the movie conversion, so as far as the movies are concerned, Ginny's still pining for Harry in OotP. (ETA: I do expect, of course, that she'll still get the Dean subplot in the HBP movie.) And so it seemed uncharacteristically insensitive of Hermione to be talking about Harry and Cho right in front of Ginny on the way back from the Hog's Head meeting. However, a more serious disappointment was the handling of the Harry/Cho breakup; it just seemed like the Inquisitorials trapped her and somehow forced her to give away the DA, and Harry gave her the cold shoulder after that and refused to talk to her when she wanted to (which made Harry seem, at least in that scene, like a bit of a jerk).
So anyway, here are my notebook scribblings from the movie. I started writing when Crookshanks started trying to play with the Extendable Ear and Hermione said, "No! Bad Crookshanks!", which I thought was too funny not to write down. I seem to have scribbled more heavily as the movie went on. (In the notes below, "Awww... Ewwww..." refers to the first two seconds of the Harry/Cho kiss and to the fifth through fifteenth seconds, respectively. The references to the "Veritaserum" and "Occlumency" pronunciation indicate that the accents fell on different syllables from what I'd imagined. "Nice King Kong scene" refers to Grawp meeting Fay Wray Hermione. "[Great Escape music]" refers to my attempted scribbling of the notes of the fast violin music when Fred and George are on their way out. And, by the way, if I were Peter Jackson, that scene with Merry and Pippin's Fred and George's fireworks dragon swooping low over the fleeing crowd would probably have me reaching for the nearest available copyright lawyer's phone number....) Anyway, the notebook scribblings follow:
Bad Crookshanks!
“Whinging” pronunciation
Fudge Citizen Kane portrait?
Harry in a suit?
Pretty mangy Animagus form, Sirius
when do we meet Luna?
Neville can’t see thestrals?
Nice kittens, Dolores.
Hermione looks more like herself.
Thestral foal!
Good scene w/Luna
Minerva-Dolores smackdown
(still no Percy?) (oh, there he is)
Trelawney sacked earlier?
Difft. sort of fire-head
“no worse than old toadface”
“thx Ron”
(Nice shot of Hogsmeade.)
(who cares? ?!)
Camera to Ginny when Cho mentioned
nice accent by C/G on “Longbo’om.”
cool to see Neville open the door
uh-oh, Filch….
Love the DA scenes!
Ginny worried about Cho
Cedric’s picture-nice touch.
Mistletoe growing?!
Awww….. Ewww….
teaspoon-didn’t you people read the books?
Attack on Mr W
Occlumency now?
(will we see Frank & Alice?)
read, control, unhinge….
Oc’clumency?
Black fam. Tree
sp. “Phineus”?
Interesting scene w/ Sirius: “what if becoming bad”
(should’ve told us re. Regulus)
Hagrid’s back!
Bellatrix in Azkaban!
Neville-parents?
Patronuses: Ginny horse, Luna rabbit?
Percy?
Kingsley: “Dumbledore’s got style!”
(lots of storms….)
Cho?
Grawp….
(no Firenze)
nice King Kong scene
Just stay away from her
Feeling sentimental?
Interesting spin on Worst Mem.
F&G: no Great Escape?
[Great Escape music]
Nice remake of M&P’s dragon
Flitwick fist-pump
uh-oh-kitten messenger
Ve’rita ser’um?
Improvising!
Really hate children!
Tell them I mean no harm
I must not tell lies!
Clever, Ron-known to happen
(no Chocolate Libr.-too bad.)
Prophecy….
Better now th. abt. to be avenged!
Impressive prophecy destr.
Veil room.
Nice duel, Albus & Tom….
AK on Sirius?
He’s back…. Vindicated!
Anyway, I may or may not find time to post any final thoughts on expectations for Book 7. I won't really have anything new and exciting to say, I don't think; most things I could discuss about the book are in one of three categories: (1) things everybody sort of knows (like Regulus and the Locket); (2) things where I don't even have any intelligent speculation (like what the Ravenclaw horcrux will be, assuming that there is one); (3) things where I know what my guess is, but most of you seem to be guessing differently, and there's not really anything more to say (like Harry probably returning to school, at least for most of the year).
There may still be a few interesting things I can manage; but time may not permit (I've spent too much time on this post already!). If not... happy Book 7 release, everybody!
Once that was over, then I had to start working on my next big event-- a sort of informal church mission trip to Albania, for which I'm leaving this Wednesday morning. (So yes, I'm actually going to be on my way to the forests of Albania when Book 7 comes out. Don't worry, I promise not to let Peter Pettigrew take me anywhere to meet Lord Voldemort. But if you don't see me online next weekend, it's because I'll be out of the country.) A friend of mine and I will be doing the Bible teaching at an Albanian church's summer family camp for a week. So I've had to prepare a series of six spoken messages, which (for me at least) is not really an easy thing.
On top of this, it's also been a busy summer at work, with the work on our forthcoming 787 model; it had the ceremonial rollout a week ago (on calendar date 07/08/07, of course), but my work is focused on the certification of it with the government regulators, in preparation for first customer delivery next spring after the flight test program. So I've got a few more months of serious work still to go. If all goes well, I should be able to breathe a bit easier after Christmas or so. (I haven't had to work huge amounts of overtime, but I have had to work some, and with all the other stuff I've been doing, I haven't been able to relax much recently-- if I do relax, it's usually from lack of energy to get stuff done, rather than from saying, "Okay, things are under control, and I can take it easy for a while.")
However, I did manage to take a couple of hours off to see the OotP movie when it came out last week. I liked it, although mainly because I wasn't expecting anything truly great-- it was just a nice illustrated (and abridged) version of the books. I'm not sure how well it would have worked for someone who didn't already know the book; it kind of seemed like several things in it depended on a knowledge of the books in order to make sense. Obviously, in condensing an 870-page book into a 2+ hour film, they had to leave a lot of stuff out; and the effect, I thought, was to reduce the impact a lot, so that both the high and the low moments were less intense than they were in the book.
Things I liked, though, included the DA scenes; a few of the added one-liners (most notably the final "I must not tell lies!"); Hermione's appearance (they didn't try to make her into the hottest girl in the school, they just let her look like Hermione); and Luna's scenes (she's not quite as off-the-wall as in the books, but I thought she was pretty effective, especially for this being Evanna's first time acting the part).
I would have liked a Chocolate Library scene, of course, but one can't have everything. I did notice that they panned over to Ginny a few times in ways that suggested she didn't like the Harry/Cho business very much. Of course we lost the Ginny/Michael Corner subplot in the movie conversion, so as far as the movies are concerned, Ginny's still pining for Harry in OotP. (ETA: I do expect, of course, that she'll still get the Dean subplot in the HBP movie.) And so it seemed uncharacteristically insensitive of Hermione to be talking about Harry and Cho right in front of Ginny on the way back from the Hog's Head meeting. However, a more serious disappointment was the handling of the Harry/Cho breakup; it just seemed like the Inquisitorials trapped her and somehow forced her to give away the DA, and Harry gave her the cold shoulder after that and refused to talk to her when she wanted to (which made Harry seem, at least in that scene, like a bit of a jerk).
So anyway, here are my notebook scribblings from the movie. I started writing when Crookshanks started trying to play with the Extendable Ear and Hermione said, "No! Bad Crookshanks!", which I thought was too funny not to write down. I seem to have scribbled more heavily as the movie went on. (In the notes below, "Awww... Ewwww..." refers to the first two seconds of the Harry/Cho kiss and to the fifth through fifteenth seconds, respectively. The references to the "Veritaserum" and "Occlumency" pronunciation indicate that the accents fell on different syllables from what I'd imagined. "Nice King Kong scene" refers to Grawp meeting Fay Wray Hermione. "[Great Escape music]" refers to my attempted scribbling of the notes of the fast violin music when Fred and George are on their way out. And, by the way, if I were Peter Jackson, that scene with Merry and Pippin's Fred and George's fireworks dragon swooping low over the fleeing crowd would probably have me reaching for the nearest available copyright lawyer's phone number....) Anyway, the notebook scribblings follow:
Bad Crookshanks!
“Whinging” pronunciation
Fudge Citizen Kane portrait?
Harry in a suit?
Pretty mangy Animagus form, Sirius
when do we meet Luna?
Neville can’t see thestrals?
Nice kittens, Dolores.
Hermione looks more like herself.
Thestral foal!
Good scene w/Luna
Minerva-Dolores smackdown
(still no Percy?) (oh, there he is)
Trelawney sacked earlier?
Difft. sort of fire-head
“no worse than old toadface”
“thx Ron”
(Nice shot of Hogsmeade.)
(who cares? ?!)
Camera to Ginny when Cho mentioned
nice accent by C/G on “Longbo’om.”
cool to see Neville open the door
uh-oh, Filch….
Love the DA scenes!
Ginny worried about Cho
Cedric’s picture-nice touch.
Mistletoe growing?!
Awww….. Ewww….
teaspoon-didn’t you people read the books?
Attack on Mr W
Occlumency now?
(will we see Frank & Alice?)
read, control, unhinge….
Oc’clumency?
Black fam. Tree
sp. “Phineus”?
Interesting scene w/ Sirius: “what if becoming bad”
(should’ve told us re. Regulus)
Hagrid’s back!
Bellatrix in Azkaban!
Neville-parents?
Patronuses: Ginny horse, Luna rabbit?
Percy?
Kingsley: “Dumbledore’s got style!”
(lots of storms….)
Cho?
Grawp….
(no Firenze)
nice King Kong scene
Just stay away from her
Feeling sentimental?
Interesting spin on Worst Mem.
F&G: no Great Escape?
[Great Escape music]
Nice remake of M&P’s dragon
Flitwick fist-pump
uh-oh-kitten messenger
Ve’rita ser’um?
Improvising!
Really hate children!
Tell them I mean no harm
I must not tell lies!
Clever, Ron-known to happen
(no Chocolate Libr.-too bad.)
Prophecy….
Better now th. abt. to be avenged!
Impressive prophecy destr.
Veil room.
Nice duel, Albus & Tom….
AK on Sirius?
He’s back…. Vindicated!
Anyway, I may or may not find time to post any final thoughts on expectations for Book 7. I won't really have anything new and exciting to say, I don't think; most things I could discuss about the book are in one of three categories: (1) things everybody sort of knows (like Regulus and the Locket); (2) things where I don't even have any intelligent speculation (like what the Ravenclaw horcrux will be, assuming that there is one); (3) things where I know what my guess is, but most of you seem to be guessing differently, and there's not really anything more to say (like Harry probably returning to school, at least for most of the year).
There may still be a few interesting things I can manage; but time may not permit (I've spent too much time on this post already!). If not... happy Book 7 release, everybody!