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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire


avadakedavra

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Hitting theatres November 18th, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the next in the (to be) seven book series turned movies by J.K. Rowling.

Based in Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, we find our scarred hero attending the Quidditch World Cup (and running into trouble), as well as taking part in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. In this movie we will meet several new characters, as well as see the rebirth of the Dark Lord Voldemort (played by Ralph Fiennes)

I imagine everyone has read this book, at least everyone will before seeing the movie. I'm pretty much guessing it'll be a lot like the third, where you had to have read the book to have ANY idea what was going on. Thoughts anyone?

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I agree about having had to have read the book first. I still think people who haven't read the books will enjoy it though. They removed a lot of the stuff that made the book so good, but the core story is great and should be able to keep those people who don't read the books entertained. And hopefully it's good enough to get the people not reading to start reading the books, because they really don't know what their missing.

Can't wait to see this though, I'm all giddy!! :D Just finsihed re-reading the book a week or so ago, and I've already forgotten it, gonna have to re-read it again before I see the movie. :p My memory is shot.

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Yeah, that was a major omission in Azkaban, and it really wouldn't have taken them much time to explain just a little about the backstory of the map.

They will undoubtedly leave out some important things in this one. The book is so full of subtle important things though it's a shame that they just cut out these things which are pretty important to the story. :( I read somewhere that they are cutting the SPEW bit out of the movie. :/ May not be the most important thing, but It would have been nice to see it in the movie seeing as that's how JK wrote it.

Usually when I have read a book before I see the movie, it ends up ruining the movie for me. I always notice all the things they cut, or completely screwed up, (Queen of the Damned is a prime example of totally botching the story), but the HP movies never really disappointed me at all, I know they have to leave stuff out, but overall they seem to have done a pretty good job bringing it to life, which is why I continue to watch them. :)

They should make some kind of set when they are all finished, adding in all the deleted scenes and stuff, like they did with Lord of the Rings, make it a more complete story and make some fans extra happy that they took the time to do the series justice.

Anyways, to get myself back to topic a little, I'm just hoping this movie does well in theaters, don't want anything jeopardizing the other 3 from eventually getting made.

One thing I know I can't wait to see is the rebirth of Volde, that's gonna be pretty good.

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man i couldnt comprehend watching the harry potter movies without reading the books first. My friend did that and i dont even know how she can be a fan its confusing. Anyway book four was my favey book by far so god damn they better not mess this up! Im so excited tho! i saw the preview for the first time at the start of Charlie and the Chocolate factory! i nearly peed my pants i was so excited

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  • 1 month later...

Went to the midnight showing of HP on Thursday/Friday. Guys, it was awesome! The house was packed and they played it on three screens. People laughed, clapped, and just really got into the movie. It was funnier than I thought it would be and although I disagreed with a few things here and there, all in all, it was awesome! Although they leave out what what happens to BCJ at the end. You just see him turn back into himself and they play him off like he always fully admitted to being bad. They don't show him begging and saying he's innocent. They leave out Winky and Dobby as well and Ludo isn't in the movie at all. They replace his bits and give them to Fudge/BC instead. Still, the effects were the great, the movie was packed full of excitement, comedy, and the effects done on VD were stellar! I was slightly disappointed that he didn't come off a little scarier and if you are a fan of Snape/Rickman (like me!), he doesn't have many lines at all. Although he does have a few comedy bits that are very priceless and steal the scene. Ron however in my opinion, along with the twins, steals the comedy completely in this movie. It's really well humored but dark in all the right spots. Go see it, you won't regret it! lol

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problem is there were too many subplots in the book and they couldnt very well add everything....the book was over 700 pages, the original script called for it to be two parts which would be released in a 6 month period and would include a lot more but the director was convinced to make it into one movie.

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They deviated too much from the book. I understand they had to leave things out due to time constraints, but simply changing things that they did leave in from the book, made it somewhat painful to watch.

Anyone notice how angry this new actor portrays dumbledore, and how rash he seems? Richard Harris always portrayed Dumbledore as a very calm character, deep thinking. New Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) always seems tense, and too loud and that's not the way he ever was in the books. Case in point, after reading Harry's name from the Goblet, he says Harry's name twice, and then screams it angrily. Then once they got into the chamber behind the great hall, he nearly tackled Harry into the furniture, and was visibly shaking him. That's not how that scene should have unfolded, and for anyone who read the book, that sure didn't feel like that is how JK wanted that scene to be interpreted. Some people might say,"Oh times are getting more dangerous, and everyone is tense in the book" yet no matter what Dumbledore has been faced with in the 6 books he has never gotten crazed like that in any of them. Richard Harris could portray a dramatic scene without having to force it.

More things that irked me, the fact that it felt like the first 30 minutes of the movie were on fast forward, or just hastily put together in chopped up pieces. I understand again that pieces needed to be removed, but they could have done a better job at putting the pieces they had to work with together in a way that doesn't make people feel like they missed something major.

Quidditch World cup, great nice stadium and all, apparently there was no game played. :blink: I mean the closest anyone ever got to saying the Irish won the cup, was Fred or George, mentioned that the sounds they heard must be the Irish celebrating, turns out it was Deatheaters of course. We never got to see Krum's Wronski Feint, not a big deal in itself, but still something, along with the actual Quidditch game, which could have been included instead of a few other things which were also not as important. Now I watched a bootleg, and it felt like possibly something happened during that sequence and the recorder had to be hidden, possibly losing that piece in the movie. So if the Quidditch game was actually in the movie, just not in my version, disregard that above bit. ;)

Seriously thought the list goes on and on. Removing Dobby from the film entirely completely destroyed the whole Gillyweed sequence, and I don't feel they did a good job of pushing Neville in that scene to fill in for Dobby. I understand that the gillyweed itself is what mattered, but again, straying from the book proves to be an unwise decision.

The band at the Yule Ball, if I'm not mistaken was supposed to be female if I remeber correctly, yet they replaced them with men, or at least a male frontman. I could be wrong about that, I can't remember that part too well even though I just recently re-read the book.

First task, I didn't mind the fact that we never saw Harry waiting too much as the other champs went out for the trial, simply some music, and Harry sitting there, you get the idea without the 10 minutes it would have taken to do it the other way. When Harry faces the Horntail, this actually turned out better than the book, because, personally I never imagined they even left the stadium, yet they interpreted it differently and allowed free roam outside the stadium, which set up the dramatic dragon chase which makes things much more exciting than Harry just trying to dodge the dragon in the small confines of the stadium. Overall not too bad though, after reading all the books, I still have no idea, what exactly the dragon smashed into when chasing Harry, to fall to it's doom. And another bit in the same area, I don't remember the Owlery ever being where it is in this movie, and I believe in POA, you get a clear shot of that area, and there is no tower to be seen, in fact, I'm not sure the hill is even there. But who knows, I may have misread the books as to where the owlery is relative to the castle.

Overall, I liked the Yule Ball sequence, I thought the tension between Hermione and Ron was pretty believable, better than I expected it to be at least. As I said I liked this scene, not much else to say about it. Although there was one spot of some interest I liked, Madeye, sitting off to the side of the dance floor, drinking his potion, you'll notice a feret asleep in a pouch around his waist, the Ferret being Malfoy I have no doubt. Again probably something I missed in the book, but maybe something the studio threw in. Hagrids hand on Madamme Maxine's ass, got a laugh out of that. :laugh:

Second task, Dumbledore is too loud again, Richard Harris why did you have to go? :( When he silences everyone, he sounds angry, wheras Richard Harris commanded the same kind of silence though in a much kinder tone. I thought they did a good job on the Grindylows, I could never quite imagine what they would look like, but I think they did a good job coming up with something unusual. They cut the part where Dumbledore speaks with the Mer-person, about Harry's heroism, Dumbledore just seems to magically know, what went on down there.

They find Crouch while walking through the woods, Hermione, Hagrid, Ron and Harry, yet in the book, again if I remember correctly, it was Harry, and Krum who were there, and Krum ended up getting stunned, which they completely changed.

When Harry was inside the Pensieve, need I say anything else, they strayed from how the book was written, since when was Barty Crouch Jr, just hanging out in the seats of the tribunal room, If I remember correctly he was brought in with three other people from where ever he had been kept. Yet they changed it into him being confrontational towards his father instead of screaming for his help, when he tried to escape, which is again astray from the book, also frustrating is that they melded the two sequences together into one. I mean that was one of the major pieces in the book, the diversion that Crouch JR, was innocent of being a DeathEater. JK makes you feel in the book that he is wrongly imprisoned, until of course he is unmasked later in the book. Dementors brought Karkaroff into the chamber and chained him to a chair, he was not brought in on an elevator inside a perforated iron maiden.

When Karkaroff, gives them Snapes name in the chamber Dumbledore stands and in a tone which only conveys that he is annoyed with the fact that Karkaroff even said something like that, Dumbledore defends that Snape is no more a DeathEater than himself. Those of you who have seen the movie know what I'm talking about, the way he responds to Karkaroff, is not Dumbledore like. In fact in the book it states he said "Calmly" that Snape was vouched for, another misinterpretation of the book by the actor or the screen writer, you pick. The minor quirks they get wrong about Dumbledore irk the shit out of me, because to anyone who has read the book even once, these minor things are unbelievably noticable. In the end of the sequence, Harry just falls out of the Pensieve or whatever, in the book, Dumbledore came into the Pensieve to retrieve him.

Third Task, If again I'm not mistaken they took good sized chunks out of the obstacles in the maze, though this falls under time magangement more so than butchering what they have left after time management. They completely left out Harry's use of the Four-Point Spell, as well as the obstacle of the world turning upside down as harry went through the mist after hearing Fleur scream. The Skrewts, another obstacle slashed from the maze. And the major change in this task, is that in the movie Harry comes across Krum and Cedric, sort of battling. Whereas in the book Krum had Cedric under the Cruciatus curse, and Harry Stupefied him to stop him attacking Cedric. I guess they decided it was better if Harry, just took a spill and Cedric knocked out Krum using Expelliarmus, which I thought was used to disarm but apparently in the last two movies, it actually throws you across rooms, and knocks you out. No Sphinx in Harry's way. And instead of facing a giant spider just before getting to the cup, they just threw in some nasty vines to attack Cedric. If you look at it the way I do, the only thing they really kept from the book in this task, was the maze, the cup and the champions, everything else was either discarded, or changed completely from the original book.

I liked the Graveyard sequence, though it felt a bit short too, though that's understandable. I thought Wormtail cutting off his hand was a bit easy, must have been a damn sharp knife to cut that sucker off with no leverage, either that or his arm was made of butter. I thought they did a good job on Voldemort, a perfect mix of human and inhuman characteristics, and just about how I myself imagined him after reading the books. I liked his transformation from the cauldron to stable form, that was a nice added bonus of getting to see it transpire on film instead of having to imagine it happening. Malfoy seemed to have more of a hiss to his voice than Voldemort, which should have been the other way around.

I thought the end battle between Voldemort and Harry was actually quite well done, I felt they should have shown James and Lily's faces with a little more detail, but that's trivial. I liked how in the center where the wands beams connected you could see, like chunks of magic or whatever falling to the ground. :p

And then of course the bit with the unmasking of Crouch JR, in which none of the back plan, what happened to get Crouch JR to the point is ever mentioned, which is unfortunate, considering it's a rather important plot point in the book. No explanation of how Harry's name got into the cup in the first place, just that Crouch did it. I don't know exactly what the point of the next part was. Crouch pulls up his sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark, and says "I'll show you mine if you show me your's" at which point Dumbledore says, "Give me your arm Harry" then proceeds to show Crouch the nasty cut on Harry's arm. What was that supposed to symbolize? I understand Crouch was showing Voldemort was in fact back, but what did that have to do with Harry's arm being cut and showing it to crouch? A bargain, he got to check out Harry's arm in return for showing them his DarkMark? They could have just as easily just pulled up his sleeve, and not put Harry's arm on display for Crouch.

Now the scene with Dumbledore and Harry in the Griffondor tower is more how I would expect Dumbledore to act at all times, and it was nice to see him not being completely irate and overly intense as he was through most scenes in the rest of the movie.

Overall I thought the movie itself was quite good, I definitely liked it, though I really do hate the fact that they cut a lot of things. Most of all though the things which they changed drastically are the things which I hated most to see. A lot of the things they had no reason to change, time constraint is one thing, but changing major plot points for whatever reason is unacceptable.

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