Prisoner of Bad Transitions
Jun. 4th, 2004 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaWell, we went to see Prisoner of Azkaban tonight.
Note: Here Be Spoilers, both for book and movie. Read no farther if you haven't read the first, or seen the second (unless you don't plan on seeing it at all).
Okay. I got half my dream cast for Moony and Padfoot, and I think Oldman did a great job with what he was given. I still want to see what Tim Roth would have done with Lupin, but Thewlis did a perfectly adequate job. Spall was not what I imagined Pettigrew to look like, but I think he nailed the part. It'll be interesting to see what he does with the graveyard scene in Movie IV.
However, a non-trivial part of the reason I wanted Roth as Lupin was cut from the movie! Dammit, ever since Rickman was picked to play Snape, I've been waiting to see him completely lose his shit just after they've freed Sirius. There's no hint that the scene was even filmed. It had better be a godsdamned DVD extra, or I'm going to have to kick Kloves from here to Alaska.
In fact, a lot was cut from the book to make the movie. I understand why - I know that some sequences simply wouldn't film well, and others just had to go to cut the run time down to less than LotR epics. In most of the cases in which two similar scenes were compacted into one, I think it was done well. However, I think what they chose to cut altogether was poorly chosen. An awful lot of Snape was cut, for instance. So was everything involving Fudge after Buckbeak's "execution." So was the entirety of the Secret Keeper plot, which is going to make parts of Movie V a bitch to explain. So was Cho Chang, ditto. We barely got a glimpse of Cedric Diggory, and never got his name. Oliver Wood doesn't appear at all, and the Quidditch Cup plot has disappeared. The scene in which Sirius startles Ron in the middle of the night is cut to absurdity and then changed beyond recognition. Sir Cadogan makes a couple of cameo appearances in paintings, but we never learn his name, and he plays no role in the plot.
And, in their place: a goofy thirteen-year-old-guys-goofin'-off sequence; too much Knight Bus, including a wisecracking Rasta shrunken head (?!?); a chorus; a group of caroling short people; lots and lots of atmosphere shots; a giant clock that tells us that Time is Important in This Movie but serves no purpose other than symbolism; cheesy transitions; and an bizarre sequence in which Draco folds a paper crane and flies it onto Harry's desk. Harry unfolds it to find an animated pencil stick-figure sketch of himself being struck by lightning and hit by a bludger.
Okay, this Draco clearly wants Harry and sees Hermione as his rival. If there's one thin Cuaron can do, it's bring the HoYay!, or in this case BiYay!. I enjoyed Felton's performance, although I kind of would have liked to see more of it. (Oh, and the kid who plays Gregory Gole - Josh Herdman, I think, and IMDB appears to agree with me - is growing up to look too good to play a heavy.) I also wanted to see more Percy.
Dementors do not fly, dammit! They're manifestations of depression - they can glide across water, but they could no more float than low could become high. In this movie, they're really more manifestations of fear, which is utterly untrue to Rowling's vision of them, I think.
That is so not what the Marauder's Map looks like! There is a very detailed description in the book, and they weren't anywhere close! Also, the werewolf effect sucks. After transforming, Lupin looks like a large grey wolf - period. Not this sort of skinny Crinos thing.
The thing that disturbed me most about the movie, I think, is that Cuaron's Potterverse is much more real than Columbus's. It's got a lot more grime and grit to it. Also, being more real, and being magical, it's more Pagan. This Potterverse is full of standing stones, springs, and sacred trees. It is, in fact, rather close to the world I inhabit. And it's clearly fictional. My making the Potterverse closer to mine, it feels as if my world has been called less real in the same proportion as the Potterverse has been made more realistic. It's vaguely insulting.
A few good things:
Cuaron's Ron is a lot closer to book-Ron and spends far less of his time making funny faces for no discernible reason.
No shots of children screaming at the camera.
Matthew Lewis, the kid who plays Neville Longbottom, is looking sharp!
No lingering shots of Emma Watson's blossoming bosom, despite what must have been great temptation, as the paparazzi have been snapping nothing but.
While their Trelawney didn't look like the one in my head, I think this is a valid interpretation of the character.
Fiona Shaw nailed Aunt Petunia's reaction to Aunt Marge's complete dissing of her side of the family.
The Twins look like a strawberry-blonde Tom Petty and his mirror.
Alan Rickman in a dress.
Overall, I was disappointed in the extreme. I'll get it on DVD because I'm a completist, and because I'm hoping for cut scenes for some of what we didn't see, but I doubt I'll see it in theaters again. Better luck with Goblet of Fire, I hope . . .
Note: Here Be Spoilers, both for book and movie. Read no farther if you haven't read the first, or seen the second (unless you don't plan on seeing it at all).
Okay. I got half my dream cast for Moony and Padfoot, and I think Oldman did a great job with what he was given. I still want to see what Tim Roth would have done with Lupin, but Thewlis did a perfectly adequate job. Spall was not what I imagined Pettigrew to look like, but I think he nailed the part. It'll be interesting to see what he does with the graveyard scene in Movie IV.
However, a non-trivial part of the reason I wanted Roth as Lupin was cut from the movie! Dammit, ever since Rickman was picked to play Snape, I've been waiting to see him completely lose his shit just after they've freed Sirius. There's no hint that the scene was even filmed. It had better be a godsdamned DVD extra, or I'm going to have to kick Kloves from here to Alaska.
In fact, a lot was cut from the book to make the movie. I understand why - I know that some sequences simply wouldn't film well, and others just had to go to cut the run time down to less than LotR epics. In most of the cases in which two similar scenes were compacted into one, I think it was done well. However, I think what they chose to cut altogether was poorly chosen. An awful lot of Snape was cut, for instance. So was everything involving Fudge after Buckbeak's "execution." So was the entirety of the Secret Keeper plot, which is going to make parts of Movie V a bitch to explain. So was Cho Chang, ditto. We barely got a glimpse of Cedric Diggory, and never got his name. Oliver Wood doesn't appear at all, and the Quidditch Cup plot has disappeared. The scene in which Sirius startles Ron in the middle of the night is cut to absurdity and then changed beyond recognition. Sir Cadogan makes a couple of cameo appearances in paintings, but we never learn his name, and he plays no role in the plot.
And, in their place: a goofy thirteen-year-old-guys-goofin'-off sequence; too much Knight Bus, including a wisecracking Rasta shrunken head (?!?); a chorus; a group of caroling short people; lots and lots of atmosphere shots; a giant clock that tells us that Time is Important in This Movie but serves no purpose other than symbolism; cheesy transitions; and an bizarre sequence in which Draco folds a paper crane and flies it onto Harry's desk. Harry unfolds it to find an animated pencil stick-figure sketch of himself being struck by lightning and hit by a bludger.
Okay, this Draco clearly wants Harry and sees Hermione as his rival. If there's one thin Cuaron can do, it's bring the HoYay!, or in this case BiYay!. I enjoyed Felton's performance, although I kind of would have liked to see more of it. (Oh, and the kid who plays Gregory Gole - Josh Herdman, I think, and IMDB appears to agree with me - is growing up to look too good to play a heavy.) I also wanted to see more Percy.
Dementors do not fly, dammit! They're manifestations of depression - they can glide across water, but they could no more float than low could become high. In this movie, they're really more manifestations of fear, which is utterly untrue to Rowling's vision of them, I think.
That is so not what the Marauder's Map looks like! There is a very detailed description in the book, and they weren't anywhere close! Also, the werewolf effect sucks. After transforming, Lupin looks like a large grey wolf - period. Not this sort of skinny Crinos thing.
The thing that disturbed me most about the movie, I think, is that Cuaron's Potterverse is much more real than Columbus's. It's got a lot more grime and grit to it. Also, being more real, and being magical, it's more Pagan. This Potterverse is full of standing stones, springs, and sacred trees. It is, in fact, rather close to the world I inhabit. And it's clearly fictional. My making the Potterverse closer to mine, it feels as if my world has been called less real in the same proportion as the Potterverse has been made more realistic. It's vaguely insulting.
A few good things:
Cuaron's Ron is a lot closer to book-Ron and spends far less of his time making funny faces for no discernible reason.
No shots of children screaming at the camera.
Matthew Lewis, the kid who plays Neville Longbottom, is looking sharp!
No lingering shots of Emma Watson's blossoming bosom, despite what must have been great temptation, as the paparazzi have been snapping nothing but.
While their Trelawney didn't look like the one in my head, I think this is a valid interpretation of the character.
Fiona Shaw nailed Aunt Petunia's reaction to Aunt Marge's complete dissing of her side of the family.
The Twins look like a strawberry-blonde Tom Petty and his mirror.
Alan Rickman in a dress.
Overall, I was disappointed in the extreme. I'll get it on DVD because I'm a completist, and because I'm hoping for cut scenes for some of what we didn't see, but I doubt I'll see it in theaters again. Better luck with Goblet of Fire, I hope . . .
