ABC Family Presents: Harry Potter and the Commercial Interruptions
ABC Family is in the middle of one of its weekend Harry Potter-athons, allowing diehard fans to watch all the films in a row with commercial interruptions. Oh goodie!
If I happen to be free on a Sunday afternoon and if I happen to be flipping through the channels, I still don’t bother stopping on these films when they’re on…every weekend. In the past, it’s usually been because I always stumbled upon Half-Blood Prince, which I hadn’t seen yet and wasn’t about to watch on TV for the first time. There was a time when I was trying to get through these movies that Half-Blood Prince was also all over HBO – it was really difficult to avoid.
Nowadays, I don’t really have a legit excuse, other than I don’t see the point of watching movies with commercials. But that didn’t stop me from lingering a tad too long on Goblet of Fire this afternoon. I almost forgot that Goblet of Fire is a really shitty film. Don’t worry – it didn’t take me long to remember.
I guess I’m spoiled by Deathly Hallows, but do the earlier films annoy anyone else in their childishness? Maybe going back and re-reading the books (which is on the schedule) is going to seem the same way. For all that goes wrong at the end of Goblet of Fire, the whole thing is pretty immature. Yes, yes, I know, I know. It’s for kids! But if Prisoner of Azkaban took two steps forward (specifically away from Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets), Goblet of Fire took two lazy steps back.
Also, does Dumbledore in Goblet of Fire strike anyone else as a little…uh…spastic? He’s flailing around, darting and screaming. He’s scary! It’s unnerving.
I didn’t last much longer than Harry’s name popping out of the goblet. That’s about all I could stand. Suffering through Mike Newell’s misinterpretation of the book is one thing. Doing so with commercial interruptions is just too much for anyone on a lazy Sunday.
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My comment as a 62 year old, for what it is worth: I have ceased to care about the childishness of movies in general. I think the most childish point in Goblet of Fire was the attitude of the director that we would all *love* having the dragon-chase-scene that had nothing at all to do with the plot. Unfortunately, in Deathly Hallows part one there was also a certain amount of childish craziness in having the wizards fly low on a busy highway…. Was there any reason for that except director’s appeal to childishness?
I really loved part one, though.
It’s really hard for me to read through books 1-3 nowadays, because of the child factor. But I guess it’s important because once you reach the end, you realize that you can’t start the journey to adulthood at adulthood, haha.
My mom is going to start reading the books this Christmas break! (She’s read 0 books, seen 0 movies, knows what Hogwarts is and inferred what “muggle” means.) I’m very excited for her!
I’m excited for your mom, too. I would also be excited to hear of anyone who is anywhere close to my age reading Harry Potter.
My mom is… 52. I don’t know if that’s close to your age or not, haha!
It’s close enough. My husband is also 52, and for the sake of the Harry Potter “children’s books” being “too juvenile” issue, I think that is best seen from the perspective of someone who was at least 30 years old when they read them for the first time. My husband, with limited time on his hands has read them all–the latter half as they came out, and has re-read all of them at least once.
I truly expect that one day the series will be revered as “classical literature.”
Probably genre-bending, but not classical. It’s too long to explain here, but I just wrote a piece on this exact idea on my blog.
I don’t think I mean genre-bending at all. I don’t mean breaking the rules for something better. I mean:
“When traditional literary scholars refer to classical literature, they usually mean that this literature is widely acknowledged as having outstanding or enduring qualities.”
So, what I expect is that the Harry Potter books will be on the list of top ten books teachers would like their students to read.
That’s where I disagree. I love HP, but I don’t think teachers in 25 years will see outstanding or enduring qualities in Harry Potter. (Though if I were a teacher 25 years hence I might put HP on the book menu, but just out of nostalgia
)
Well, Avromie, we may just have to agree to disagree…
Personally, that is the reason I have read and re-read Harry Potter: I find more outstanding and enduring qualities in that series than in most of the other “classical literature” I have read. Les Miserables and Tale of Two Cities, however, come close to the excellence I find in Harry Potter.
“Maybe going back and re-reading the books (which is on the schedule) is going to seem the same way.”
I wondered if and when you were going to read them again! The depth of a fan’s obsession can be determined by the number of times they’ve read the books.
Personally, I’ve lost count.
Rumor has it I’m receiving the hardcover collection for Christmas (and by “rumor has it”, I mean my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas and being an adult with a paycheck whose prone to just buy whatever I want throughout the year as the need arises, said “I’m too cheap to buy the Harry Potter books. That’ll work!”)
So yes I will be reading them soon!
To be honest, the childishness makes Harry Potter. He’s only 13-going-on-14 in GoF.
14 going on 15 actually, but that’s just me being petty.(remember he starts book ‘n’ turning 10+n
)
Having recently re-watched all the movies, GoF really sticks out as the dud of the bunch to me. I think Mike Newell just got the tone wrong in a bunch of places, including pretty much everything that has to do with Dumbledore. And, if there’s any movie that needed s thorough “Dumbledore explains it all” moment in the end, it was this one, because Harry had no idea what was going on with his wand in the graveyard while it was happening. Seriously, the explanation goes by in like two lines. Thank God for David Yates.
Could not agree more.
Yeah. I remember when Prisoner of Azkaban came out with the new director. I thought, “Yeah! They’ve finally got it right!” Then came Goblet of Fire. Oy.
And thanks for not mentioning the sixth movie as a saving grace. That movie blew so hard. Everything I went to see was cut from the movie. Minimal action, a tiny amount of special effects. WTF is going on?! A kid with a decent imac could’ve made Dumbledore’s funeral cool. Ugh.
What a coincidence! I found myself watching GoF on YouTube recently (yes, for some reason, that movie is on YouTube in its entirety). For some reason, it sat better with me this time than the last time I saw it. It was refreshing to see scenes that actually had dramatic beats, albeit often communicated by obvious close-ups and hokey musical cues. It made me realize how devoid of drama and plot momentum a lot of the Yates installments are. Note to Yates: stasis and silence does NOT NECESSARILY equal subtlety.
You put Newell’s work above Yates’? I find GoF to be the most difficult of the series to get through. The whole thing seems forced and the film itself doesn’t seem to fit into the series very well. Yates can be pretty heavy-handed, but Newell didn’t seem to know what he was doing with that installment.
Regarding Dumbledore: I didn’t think of him as being spastic…just NOT like the Dumbledore I adore.
I think you can truly see the changing of directors through Dumbledore. You expect some alterations when the actor himself changes, but you don’t want to see such drastically different takes when the directors rotate. You can SEE the director in the choices, and that’s not a good thing.