Bit of Ivory

Well, RJA posted her rant on the HP movie on her blog, so I’m going to post mine here. For those of you who are on the AtE list, sorry, you can skip this part. RJA was saying that Daniel Radcliffe can’t act. Personally, I think he did a pretty good job, considering that he was 11, it was his first real part in a movie (I don’t count David Copperfield, he was little more than an extra), and that Chris Columbus did a terrible job of directing and couldn’t even get Richard Harris to deliver his lines right (his “Alas,
Earwax” was, frankly, pathetic. I wanted Patrick Godfrey–Leonardo Da Vinci in Ever After–to be Dumbledore. He would have done the slightly-mad but very-wise Dumbeldore PERFECTLY). I expect Daniel to get better in the next movie, as I’m hoping the whole thing will. Chamber of Secrets is a much better book (my fav. in the series, actually), and more easily adapted to a movie.

No, the thing I’m upset about was that the deleted scenes were deleted. Pah! I understand the need for some things to be taken out of the movie, you can’t film the whole book. But when things like Snape’s potions class and Neville’s Leg-Locker curse are cut out, and things like the whole scene with Harry sitting at the window stroking Hedwig (whose name we never hear, except in a DELETED SCENE), which has nothing to do with the story, are put in, it really ticks me off. The scene with Harry and Hagrid on the subway explains SO MUCH, as does the EXTREMELY short scene where Ron and Hermione become friends after the troll thing, which I can’t figure out why it was cut in the first place. It’s 15 seconds long! It wouldn’t have added more than 5 or 6 minutes to the movie to keep ALL of the scenes in, and the movie would have made so much more sense! Also, they way you have to jump through all those hoops in order to get to the scenes at all on the DVD annoys me. It’s fun the first time, but every time you put the disc in, you have to do it again. That gets really old.

The other thing that was cut out that really bothers me was Snape’s potion logic-puzzle on the way to the Sorcerer’s Stone. They made a big deal about the fact that Snape helped to protect the Stone, and then they don’t even SHOW it? Plus, that’s how Hermione gets her points– “Cool logic in the face of fire.” Sheesh.

Oh, and the fact that in the Quidditch game, Slytherin obviously cheats, but no one calls a foul. It makes it look like Quidditch is a free-for-all, with no rules.

But Oliver Wood is still really cute. That accent. . .*melts* And the whole movie is worth it for Alan Rickman. He does an excellent job as Snape. Ron is really cute too. My family almost died when he said “I’m Ron, by the way”, because it sounded like he was Ron Bytheway! Then he says “This is Scabbers, by the way” and Hermione says “You have dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?” This rapid succession of “by the way”s always makes me giggle.

Here’s hoping Chris Columbus doesn’t make the same mistakes on Chamber of Secrets. Oh, and that SOMEONE at Warner Brothers realizes how perfect Jeremy Northam would be as Lupin for Prisoner of Azkaban. I’ve always imagined Lupin as Jeremy Northam, ever since I first read the book. I’m going to cry if they cast anyone else. *Emily takes a deep breath*

There, I feel better now.