Han=Ron
Years ago someone convinced me to read the first Harry Potter book. It was okay, but I felt no need to continue in the series. I suppose it's good that J. K. Rowling got kids excited about reading, but the book did not impress me as great imaginative literature. (Though I think I liked it more than Harold Bloom.)
I have been keeping up with the Harry Potter films, though. The latest, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, seemed pretty weak. The critics like it, but I feel the whole series is running out of steam. Sure, the kids are getting older, and the plots are getting darker (and sexier), but haven't we seen all these tricks before--the mix of boarding school and magic, the new professor with secrets, the climax that tests Harry's mettle?
Before the movie, the theatre showed a trailer for the next Twilight film. The audience booed. An audience of Harry Potter fans booing Twilight? Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black?
What surprised me most is Hermione going after Ron. Has this been made clear earlier and I forgot? It seemed to me that in the first story, just as Leia and Luke were meant to be together, so were Hermione and Harry. Then as things went along, the plot moved in a different direction and Han was the guy, as is Ron.
I have been keeping up with the Harry Potter films, though. The latest, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, seemed pretty weak. The critics like it, but I feel the whole series is running out of steam. Sure, the kids are getting older, and the plots are getting darker (and sexier), but haven't we seen all these tricks before--the mix of boarding school and magic, the new professor with secrets, the climax that tests Harry's mettle?
Before the movie, the theatre showed a trailer for the next Twilight film. The audience booed. An audience of Harry Potter fans booing Twilight? Isn't this the pot calling the kettle black?
What surprised me most is Hermione going after Ron. Has this been made clear earlier and I forgot? It seemed to me that in the first story, just as Leia and Luke were meant to be together, so were Hermione and Harry. Then as things went along, the plot moved in a different direction and Han was the guy, as is Ron.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:24 AM
8 Comments:
The weird thing is they're almost done yet no Voldemort in this one.
Apparently Rowling had never intended Hermione and Harry to get together, and she settled on Ron and Hermione early on. The first time I picked it up was when Ron was jealous of Hermione going to a dance with someone else in the fourth book, but it wasn't really major until book six.
Harry's romance with Cho Chang was written very badly: he was obsessed with her in book four and five, but then she just gets dropped. The movie of book five actually made Cho the person who betrayed Harry's secret army, which supplied a reason for their estrangement that was absent in the book. I suspect that Rowling decided late in the game to put Harry with Ginny (which always seemed a bit incestuous to me) and then dropped Cho from the story.
Anonymous wrote: The weird thing is they're almost done yet no Voldemort in this one.
A big part of book six is Dumbledore narrating Voldemort's backstory to Harry. Was this dropped from the movie?
Once the books got ridiculously long, I felt that the movies became less and less satisfactory, because they had to drop so much stuff.
As the series progreses, it becomes two parallel stories: the adventures of the kids at school, and the conflict between the two factions in the political/magical adult world. Even in the books, I felt that the two stories tended to be loosely connected at best.
Of course, the three main kids and several teachers participate in both stories, but that isn't sufficient to unify the two stories. Why should we care about their stupid soccer game or what grades the kids get when a fascist magical dictatorship is looming?
This latest movie had less school hijinks and almost no muggles, but the mix still seemed weird. You're right, there's this huge battle in the world of wizards, yet they continue on as if it's still business as usual. For that matter, you've got this whole concept that everyone openly talks about where Harry is The Chosen One--so he's the one who'll take on Voldemort (already has, in fact) but he's just a schoolkid taking potion classes? Shouldn't they at least give him a special room to sleep in? Harry and Draco are fighting to the death in the school halls--should they either close down the school, or at least kick one of them out?
Also, along with Ron and Hermione being together, which is not satisfying, you've got Snape revealed as a bad guy. He was always the good guy who seemed like a bad guy. Making him a bad guy just switches him back to the cliche I thought they were trying to avoid.
Have to think the appeal of HP was largely the anticipation of what happens next (and the fact that for a while everyone was talking about it). At least in the books which are enjoyable if not the instant classics as the commentariat seeks to classify them. The movies are fairly pedestrian but OK whose whole appeal comes from the prior popularity of the books.
In 10 years or so, we wmight be wondering what all the hoopla was about
NEG
There have been high and low points in both the books and the films. Someimes the film is a better film than the book was a book. Half-Blood Prince struck me as not as good a film as the book was a book.
First, the most powerful kick-off to the book was dropped - and that was the revelation that the Minister of Magic was in contact with the Prime Minister of England - that is, that the top levels of the muggle world knew witches still lived and thrived in their lands. Great scene with the departing Minister Fudge meeting with the PM to explain Voldemort was back. The film, however, said absolutely nothing about what happened after the climatic events in the previous book/film.
The film also completely ignored the important question of who the Half-Blood Prince was." If I hadn't read the book, I would have left the film wondering why that was the title of the film. And as noted above, the best part of the book, the revelation as to who Voldemort was, how he became so evil, etc., was largely dropped in favor of an added scene of mayhem atthe Weasley's house.
I think the film was actually trying to cater to the Twilight crowd by focusing way too much on teen-age romanticism. The whole love potio theme, though in the story, could have been dropped imho in favor of more on the greater battle taking place over Harry's head. They didn't even explain how Dumbledore's hand had been multilated, which was a key point in the book.
In short, I think you should give the books a try - they are an easy and enjoyable read, and got much better after the first book (1st film was better than the first book). Read them before the final movies come out, to preserve some of the mystery for yourself.
In short, I think you should give the books a try - they are an easy and enjoyable read, and got much better after the first book (1st film was better than the first book).
I felt that book 2 was the weakest.
Book 3 is the best.
Books 4 and 5 were too long, but the last 20% of each of them was excellent.
Book 6 as a stand-alone is very weak, but as a prequel to book 7 it works pretty well.
I think that Diana Wynne Jones is a better author of children's fantasy than Rowling (Rowling has never written anything that comes close to Charmed Life).
Nonetheless, Rowling did a very good job of having her characters gradually age.
And Rowling also has characters who have enough depth that the reader can form a different opinion of them than the author seems to be conveying. I grew to strongly dislike both Sirius and Harry's father, even though I didn't think the author intended that. In books 6 and 7 there were additional instances of this (I can't give details, since spoilers for 7 are bad here!)
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