logicbutton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
logicbutton) wrote2004-06-04 09:23 pm
logicbutton) wrote2004-06-04 09:23 pm
The Obligatory Prisoner of Azkaban Post
I did not hate this movie. In fact, I think I liked it. It's a bit early to tell. However, I do have many things to say about it. So...my thoughts.
First of all, I suppose there was no way I was going to be completely satisfied. Prisoner of Azkaban is by far my favorite Harry Potter book, and one of my favorite books in general. There were simply too many small things that I loved about it that I knew just weren't going to make it into the movie. And I was willing to let it go. I was willing to look at it as a movie standing alone.
That said, it was still too short. I understand why they cut the scenes they cut, like Christmas dinner and two of the three Quidditch games. But the whole thing was still incredibly fast-paced. A lot of important emotional plot points that needed time to sink in just didn't have the impact they should have. Some examples:
--Aunt Marge shows up at the very beginning, apparently just in time for the dinner where she bad-mouths Harry's parents. Wow, Harry sure loses control quickly. This would make perfect sense if we were shown just how much animosity there is between the two of them, how far back it goes, how long she's been hanging around insulting Harry before she moves on to his parents. But instead, it just doesn't work.
--The Three Broomsticks Exposition Scene. It began, it was over, Harry ran away and cried under his Invisibility Cloak. Why are you crying, Harry? What just happened? Who is Madam Rosmerta, again, and why are McGonagall and Fudge telling her all this stuff? It was also kind of disappointing that Ron and Hermione didn't get to hear any of it--on the other hand, they really didn't miss much.
--The Shrieking Shack. The rest of the events that day were all right, it was just that all the exposition that takes place in the book in the Shrieking Shack not only doesn't come up here, it doesn't come up in the rest of the movie. There's no explanation whatsoever of the Marauder's Map, why "Moony" is apparently now spelled with an e*, how Sirius broke out of Azkaban, or why they became Animagi. No foreshadowing or reason is ever given for Harry's stag Patronus.
Crookshanks, meanwhile, has no part in the Shrieking Shack scene, and since Sirius doesn't even try to break into Gryffindor Tower a second time, he has no reason to exist beyond giving Ron and Hermione a non-excuse to have a non-fight, in which Ron presents no evidence that Crookshanks may have been anywhere near Scabbers ever. Again, if we had ever been shown that Crookshanks and Scabbers do not get along, this might make more sense. And really, how hard would it have been to include Crookshanks in the Shrieking Shack scene? Anyway, he's the one who's supposed to get Harry and Hermione into the Whomping Willow.
Speaking of the Whomping Willow, I noticed some consistency issues here. For one thing, the Willow would not just throw Harry and Hermione in when it had just spent several minutes trying to keep them out. I don't remember whether Lupin and Snape froze it up when they were going in, but if they didn't the tree shouldn't have let them go, and if they did, there was never any explanation for how they knew how to do it (though maybe one could just assume Hogwarts teachers are told how to get past it). (Edit:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
clodia_risa has just reminded me that Lupin did, in fact, use the immobilizing charm on the tree, and suggested that it stayed immobilized throughout the scene. I accept this as an explanation for what would otherwise be an inconsistency, but still think it was really, really lame that the Whomping Willow could be disabled that easily--almost as lame as the door-unlocking charm being in the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1.) It would not have let everyone out at the end, and it really wouldn't have let Lupin and Pettigrew just sit there at the mouth of the entrance and argue over whether Pettigrew should go to Azkaban or not. For another thing, Harry was doing magic in his room at the very beginning of the movie. I wouldn't complain, but it's obviously magic, and magic outside of school is obviously illegal, since Harry says so himself when he's talking to Fudge at the Leaky Cauldron.
Right, now I'll say some good things about the movie. Okay. Good things. Oh! I loved Sirius. I loved Lupin. My God, I loved Sirius and Lupin. And I didn't think there was too much or too little of them, either. Gary Oldman was absolutely brilliant, even if it was only for fifteen minutes--he really had the whole crazy-yet-oddly-sane-person thing down. Lupin was so incredibly endearing, while not crossing any teacher-student boundaries or being anything other than the wonderful character from the books. All the acting in this movie was quite satisfying. There was simply not enough of Emma Thompson, because she was so very enjoyable as Trelawney, and unfortunately Trelawney's scenes were all extremely condensed or cut altogether. Alan Rickman, too--granted, he wasn't a particularly important part of the book (until the Shrieking Shack scene, during which Snape's character was only one of many things heavily toned down), but I was always so excited to see him that I wish he had been around a little more. Also, Dawn French was great and very funny as the Fat Lady.
I also agree with the movie critic in my hometown newspaper that while the filmmakers cut a lot of stuff from the book, they captured its spirit. I agree that Hogwarts seemed much more like a hidden part of the real world than a hidden part of some fairy-tale neverland that the first two movies made it out to be, and that it was a positive change. And I liked the occasional banter between the kids that really brings them to life, which I hear is Cuaron's specialty.
Okay, one more thing that really isn't either good or bad, but just interesting. JKR said recently that she was watching this movie and noticed some things that apparently foreshadowed Book Six, if I remember correctly. It was implied that she had not mentioned any of these things to the people actually making the movie, that they simply had shown up unexpectedly and given her goosebumps, and that when Book Six comes out, people will think they had been placed in the movie deliberately, which just isn't the case. So I was thinking about this as I watched the movie, and really, there aren't a lot of things it possibly could have been. It seemed like they mostly just took stuff out. The few things that were added just seemed a bit too shippy to me to give JKR goosebumps. One possibility would be Lupin's description of Harry's mother, which was kinda shippy ("oh-please-not-a-love-triangle" was my exact thought) but not completely, and has certainly never been even hinted at in canon. Lily helped Lupin through a "really difficult time"? What? Luckily, this really intrigued me, otherwise it probably would have just annoyed me, because of course Lily is hardly mentioned in the third book at all; it's all about James. And Lupin talks about James only briefly. More shippy was the Ron/Hermione stuff: the hand-holding thing and the "should we get closer? To the Shrieking Shack, I mean?" thing. However, I doubt JKR would think anyone was particularly perceptive for noticing a possibility for Ron/Hermione. The slasher in me was very appreciative of Snape for referring to Lupin and Sirius as an "old married couple" in the Shrieking Shack**. So hey, maybe that was what JKR was referring to! W00t! Well, probably not. But I can dream, right? Seriously, there really was hardly anything that I could imagine would foreshadow something in the sixth book, but I guess it'll be obvious sometime in the next ten years or whenever she's planning on finishing it.
Well, I guess that's my review. I'll just leave you alone now, shall I? Ohhh I'm hungry...
*Okay, okay, right, movie standing alone. It just unsettles me that now there are two canon spellings of Lupin's nickname. On the other hand, your average non-stupid Harry Potter fan will still go by the book, and when your average stupid Harry Potter fan calls Lupin by a nickname, it's usually "Remmy".
**And of other things. Aww, Sirius is so cute when Lupin is transforming!
First of all, I suppose there was no way I was going to be completely satisfied. Prisoner of Azkaban is by far my favorite Harry Potter book, and one of my favorite books in general. There were simply too many small things that I loved about it that I knew just weren't going to make it into the movie. And I was willing to let it go. I was willing to look at it as a movie standing alone.
That said, it was still too short. I understand why they cut the scenes they cut, like Christmas dinner and two of the three Quidditch games. But the whole thing was still incredibly fast-paced. A lot of important emotional plot points that needed time to sink in just didn't have the impact they should have. Some examples:
--Aunt Marge shows up at the very beginning, apparently just in time for the dinner where she bad-mouths Harry's parents. Wow, Harry sure loses control quickly. This would make perfect sense if we were shown just how much animosity there is between the two of them, how far back it goes, how long she's been hanging around insulting Harry before she moves on to his parents. But instead, it just doesn't work.
--The Three Broomsticks Exposition Scene. It began, it was over, Harry ran away and cried under his Invisibility Cloak. Why are you crying, Harry? What just happened? Who is Madam Rosmerta, again, and why are McGonagall and Fudge telling her all this stuff? It was also kind of disappointing that Ron and Hermione didn't get to hear any of it--on the other hand, they really didn't miss much.
--The Shrieking Shack. The rest of the events that day were all right, it was just that all the exposition that takes place in the book in the Shrieking Shack not only doesn't come up here, it doesn't come up in the rest of the movie. There's no explanation whatsoever of the Marauder's Map, why "Moony" is apparently now spelled with an e*, how Sirius broke out of Azkaban, or why they became Animagi. No foreshadowing or reason is ever given for Harry's stag Patronus.
Crookshanks, meanwhile, has no part in the Shrieking Shack scene, and since Sirius doesn't even try to break into Gryffindor Tower a second time, he has no reason to exist beyond giving Ron and Hermione a non-excuse to have a non-fight, in which Ron presents no evidence that Crookshanks may have been anywhere near Scabbers ever. Again, if we had ever been shown that Crookshanks and Scabbers do not get along, this might make more sense. And really, how hard would it have been to include Crookshanks in the Shrieking Shack scene? Anyway, he's the one who's supposed to get Harry and Hermione into the Whomping Willow.
Speaking of the Whomping Willow, I noticed some consistency issues here. For one thing, the Willow would not just throw Harry and Hermione in when it had just spent several minutes trying to keep them out. I don't remember whether Lupin and Snape froze it up when they were going in, but if they didn't the tree shouldn't have let them go, and if they did, there was never any explanation for how they knew how to do it (though maybe one could just assume Hogwarts teachers are told how to get past it). (Edit:
clodia_risa has just reminded me that Lupin did, in fact, use the immobilizing charm on the tree, and suggested that it stayed immobilized throughout the scene. I accept this as an explanation for what would otherwise be an inconsistency, but still think it was really, really lame that the Whomping Willow could be disabled that easily--almost as lame as the door-unlocking charm being in the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1.) It would not have let everyone out at the end, and it really wouldn't have let Lupin and Pettigrew just sit there at the mouth of the entrance and argue over whether Pettigrew should go to Azkaban or not. For another thing, Harry was doing magic in his room at the very beginning of the movie. I wouldn't complain, but it's obviously magic, and magic outside of school is obviously illegal, since Harry says so himself when he's talking to Fudge at the Leaky Cauldron. Right, now I'll say some good things about the movie. Okay. Good things. Oh! I loved Sirius. I loved Lupin. My God, I loved Sirius and Lupin. And I didn't think there was too much or too little of them, either. Gary Oldman was absolutely brilliant, even if it was only for fifteen minutes--he really had the whole crazy-yet-oddly-sane-person thing down. Lupin was so incredibly endearing, while not crossing any teacher-student boundaries or being anything other than the wonderful character from the books. All the acting in this movie was quite satisfying. There was simply not enough of Emma Thompson, because she was so very enjoyable as Trelawney, and unfortunately Trelawney's scenes were all extremely condensed or cut altogether. Alan Rickman, too--granted, he wasn't a particularly important part of the book (until the Shrieking Shack scene, during which Snape's character was only one of many things heavily toned down), but I was always so excited to see him that I wish he had been around a little more. Also, Dawn French was great and very funny as the Fat Lady.
I also agree with the movie critic in my hometown newspaper that while the filmmakers cut a lot of stuff from the book, they captured its spirit. I agree that Hogwarts seemed much more like a hidden part of the real world than a hidden part of some fairy-tale neverland that the first two movies made it out to be, and that it was a positive change. And I liked the occasional banter between the kids that really brings them to life, which I hear is Cuaron's specialty.
Okay, one more thing that really isn't either good or bad, but just interesting. JKR said recently that she was watching this movie and noticed some things that apparently foreshadowed Book Six, if I remember correctly. It was implied that she had not mentioned any of these things to the people actually making the movie, that they simply had shown up unexpectedly and given her goosebumps, and that when Book Six comes out, people will think they had been placed in the movie deliberately, which just isn't the case. So I was thinking about this as I watched the movie, and really, there aren't a lot of things it possibly could have been. It seemed like they mostly just took stuff out. The few things that were added just seemed a bit too shippy to me to give JKR goosebumps. One possibility would be Lupin's description of Harry's mother, which was kinda shippy ("oh-please-not-a-love-triangle" was my exact thought) but not completely, and has certainly never been even hinted at in canon. Lily helped Lupin through a "really difficult time"? What? Luckily, this really intrigued me, otherwise it probably would have just annoyed me, because of course Lily is hardly mentioned in the third book at all; it's all about James. And Lupin talks about James only briefly. More shippy was the Ron/Hermione stuff: the hand-holding thing and the "should we get closer? To the Shrieking Shack, I mean?" thing. However, I doubt JKR would think anyone was particularly perceptive for noticing a possibility for Ron/Hermione. The slasher in me was very appreciative of Snape for referring to Lupin and Sirius as an "old married couple" in the Shrieking Shack**. So hey, maybe that was what JKR was referring to! W00t! Well, probably not. But I can dream, right? Seriously, there really was hardly anything that I could imagine would foreshadow something in the sixth book, but I guess it'll be obvious sometime in the next ten years or whenever she's planning on finishing it.
Well, I guess that's my review. I'll just leave you alone now, shall I? Ohhh I'm hungry...
*Okay, okay, right, movie standing alone. It just unsettles me that now there are two canon spellings of Lupin's nickname. On the other hand, your average non-stupid Harry Potter fan will still go by the book, and when your average stupid Harry Potter fan calls Lupin by a nickname, it's usually "Remmy".
**And of other things. Aww, Sirius is so cute when Lupin is transforming!