When it comes to the movies, I have an opinion that is not common, well it wasn’t as common when they came out. But I do not like the movies, and it is because of how they don’t feel like the books. At least to me, anyways.
And I didn’t enjoy all of the books either. Well at least one of the books, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I never hated the book, but it wasn’t my favorite. That was because of Harry himself in the book. He was not a nice person. In fact Harry wasn’t a nice person really, he was sort of a jerk. He just never said things out loud. In fact this video on youtube got me thinking about this. As well as this video. All of the characters were smoothed out in the films, all of their flaws were taken away, or given to Ron.
It is interesting to think that my first reaction to the Harry Potter films is starting to become the norm. Also I want to say this does not include the Fantastic Beast movies, at least the first one, due to me not seeing the second one either. I quite enjoyed the first Fantastic Beast film. Especially the companionship between the four leads.
Now having said I didn’t like the films, I want to walk back a bit, and that is to say how I actually do like the third film of the Harry Potter series. In my opinion Alfonso Cuarón was a fantastic director. Of the films of his that I have seen, they are fantastic. He is a wonderful director and I wish he had a larger film list to his name. If he wanted to, really it is up to him what films he decides to work on, but if it’s because Hollywood refuses to give him work they really should reverse that. Hollywood does tend to have that problem, and when I say Hollywood I mean the production companies who make films. Production companies can be selective in who they hire, and selective in the wrong way, or at least a morally questionable way.
The only thing that I disliked about the third movie was the werewolf design. To me it looked weird, a little to human, but perhaps that was what they were going for. To me it didn’t work, at least not at the time. I am a little more open to it now. Another video from youtube covers the good things about the film. And I also agree that this film started the modern era of film making that the video points out. Sometimes that is what I think happens, one film, or a couple, can start a precedent. Sort of like one game can start a whole trend in other games.
Like the films had an opportunity to fix things that the book missed. As much as I like the series, there are some problems with them. Like Harry wasn’t as proactive, or like that powerful, at least the book never showed how he was powerful. Also his relationship with Ginny could have been flushed out better. But they seemed to want to hint at a relationship with him and Hermione. To be fair they really did ruin Hermione, by making her perfect, characters are not supposed to be perfect. Flaws make better characters.
I understand that changing things is a necessity between media. Heck even historical events, because movies really only have so many minutes to tell a story. Books, television, history don’t have restrictions on them for time. Things need to be cut, film has to be structured tightly, or they don’t have cohesive stories. Granted that is my opinion. But I have seen films that meander around, bring up things that are never resolved, and they are pretty bad. Sometimes really fun to watch, so bad they are good, and it is true they stay around more so than films that are brilliant. Mainly because they are so much fun to watch.
The thing about film three, getting back to it, is that it made the universe feel real. That was the thing, the kids, felt like kids. The world felt lived in. That was the thing that the third film did, it didn’t just regurgitate the books back at you. And it had layers to it, I honestly feel, that if they continued to let Alfonso Cuarón direct the other ones, I may actually have enjoyed them more. He really did add to the story of Harry Potter, and I wonder what the films would have been with him helming them. But I learned that producers sometimes know what they are doing, and sometimes they do things that they think will make them money. Honestly making money is important, and letting artists do whatever they want can created really bad things, but balancing passion with money making can make spectacular things. That is pretty much the Renaissance. A rich man paid artists, to spread the message he wanted, but it created a period of artistic beauty.
Matthew William Lindquist 