Harry Potter -- Observations
Harry Potter -- ObservationsI am an old man who has raised two daughter and continues the
attempt to remain young by spending time with children and their
entertainment. As an old man, I try to place the contemporary
life values into a larger perspective.
My comments on Harry Potter are comments from an old man with no literary skills but has read a lot, lived a long time, and seen many things come and go. The Harry Potter series is brilliant. The work of a genius. And this genius is a young woman. My sex bias toward authors is always visible and I mistakenly believe that genius grows with age. So complementing J. K. Rowling for her books is unusual for me. Her characters and her stories will outlive me. Her characters and stories provide a moral compass in a day and age when the need for such a compass grows every day.
And I must compliment the movies. The movies must be cut because
the book story is so complex and the books are so big. But the
movies expand upon the moral values of every day good and evil relevant
especially to the current world.
The second part of book 7 is not yet out as I write this
paragraph. The most overwhelming part of the first of the two
movies is the scenery as the trio jumps from location to
location. I hope that the person responsible for choosing these
locations is given sufficient credit. Since there is so much
computerization of these movies, I also hope that these are real
locations.
I do not have TV channels. No antenna. No satellite disk. I have
my DVD and Blu-Ray players. I get to watch movies over and
over. I have also read many books. Not as many as I should
but I need a new glasses prescription which I refuse to do until I get
my sugar level back down. And I need to do this or go blind.
OK. So I have been watching the movie made from the Harry Potter Book
Six: The Mystery of the Half-Blood Prince or something like that.
Somewhere else I complained about Book 7 being a disgrace to the
series. Book 6 is interesting. Like all of the movies from
the books, much of the book is missing. This is necessary or each movie would last half a day.
I understand that the movies are coming out in expanded editions. I
do not know but since a DVD cannot hold half a day, I presume we
are getting something like the "Director's Cut".. But that is a
different subject (greed).
As I have watched the movie over and over I have come to seriously
respect the people who wrote the screen play. This respect is for
several reasons.
The first is that I am sure that the prime directive is that the
movie follow the book. Many if not most of the viewers will have
read the book and will begrudge deviations. What works in print
does not always work on video but here due to the contemporary
popularity, they must match. I am sure the author has required
this.
The second is that, since much of the story must be pared to fit in
the time frame, every second of every scene must count for multiple items. I am sure that somewhere
there is a large wall with a time line and the image of each
scene. With each image is a list of requirements for that scene.
Each scene will cover multiple purposes or it will be dropped.
For example, the movie has a story line that fits the video
audience. Although this story line does not stray from the book,
it has its own story that must thread continuously through the movie. For
example, Ron and Harry's love lives are not expounded upon in the book
but are critical to the movie story.
There is also the requirement that the movie expand past the book in
setting up the movie (s) from Book 7. There are issues brought up
in the Book 6 movie that are not in the book but if left to the Book 7
movies, would force an unacceptable jump. Print covers
this but video needs the flow.
Another requirement is to pop things into the scenes that the book
readers would recognize, maybe necessarily recognize, but are not so
offbeat as to confuse the movie audience that did not read the
book. You want the readers to feel rewarded when they see the
movie.
We need to introduce characters in Book 6 that were in the previous
books and are again in Book 7. Maybe just a short scene but they
cannot be omitted. For example, Wormtail is living with Alan Rickman. 30 seconds but critical.
We must have character definition and development. Each major
player must have grown and learned something in the movie. The
difference between a short story and a novel is the requirement of
character development. The movie, even though short, is a novel
and the characters must grow.
Because the Harry Potter series has lasted so long, the actors
starting out as youngsters and now portrayed as 16 years old are in
fact in their early 20's. I read that the woman playing Hermione
was going to be 22 when the series ended. Book 6 and Book 7
movies were made simultaneously. Making 20-plus year old women look and
act 16 is a real miracle. It is more a miracle since these
actors were children with no acting experience when the series started.
The list of requirements of this integration goes on. I am
sure that the list of book requirements is on a separate wall and
checked off as each is fit into some movie scene. Scenes are then
expanded or dropped as the scenes incorporate list items.
Then the people for each scene must be defined. The script
written. And then rewritten until the script itself forms the
movie. Each scene must give us an increasing knowledge of each
player in the scene and maybe from the script increasing knowledge of
players not seen.
The vocabulary used must be acceptable to teenage audiences and
their parents and must be in English acceptable to the English and the
Americans. Maybe even the Canadians and Australians.
Then you have the special effects, stages, and budget. Even as
the script is being formed, so must be the settings. How much
computer graphics? Previous Harry Potter movies had dismal
graphics. They ruined entire movies. Not so here.
The panoramas of fictitious castles were underdone but there were not
many of them. It my be my TV but the movie is too dark.
Much of it is impossible to watch without wishing for better video
definition. Maybe is is the Blu-ray to LCD TV mechanics. I
think. WIth a fair amount of tinkering I greatly improved the
video definition. I should not need to do this and I have not
needed to with non-Potter movies. I wonder if the Blu-Ray player
requirements of downloading new software is designed to cover these
problems and, since I have no Internet connection, maybe an update would
make it better. If so, Blu-Ray should not have entered the market
until this kind of error did not need correcting by the customer.
I have seen other movies and either admired or condemned the script,
directing, and film cutting. In the case of the Half-Blood
Prince, I regret what must be omitted but admire greatly the effort put
forth to present this movie. I am literally overwhelmed at their
creation.
Oh. I am also pleased that the disk set comes in English and
Spanish. The Potter series teaches family values for which the
Latin community is famous and is a large part of the American
population. I get so tired of DVD's with French just so that they
can sell the same DVD in Canada. There are not enough
French-speaking people in all of the USA to justify substitute the
Spanish language and subtitles with French.
I am not a writer. I am not a recognized critic. My opinion does not count. But I do have an opinion as a reader of all 7 books. I have watched all of the movies. I have read the first 6 books multiple times. My only serious critique of the first 6 is that they were written by a woman and I do not like women writers. These books were so good that I put this bias aside.
But book 7 is different and is a great disappointment. I can buy the story line as a whole. I think that the story line is as good as the others. But her actual story writing jeopardizes the entire series. No, not jeopardizes -- ruins.
She wrote like Steven Spielberg was going to direct the movie. She jumped from one frying pan into the next frying pan. Character development is necessary in a novel -- we do not see it here except in jumps of insight that are more out of character than development. What little growth there is was imposed upon them and not learned and formed by their existing personalities and new experiences. Oh. They grew older in the last two chapters. And the second was 19 years older.
The jumping outside of the story for book excerpts, Snape's memory, and other tricks to juxtapose history are excuses for not writing good text. And the entire end of the book is about Harry's dying. Again we get the ghosts anticipating that he will join them. Are we to believe that we are getting ready to see him die? I think not. First off, the TV news has told us that he survives. Second off, the entire book expects him to live. The hopes and works of hundreds of people are waiting for him to make two touchdowns in the last two minutes of play. Rowling should listen to the Ice Bowl -- Bart Starr against Dallas. Then she would understand both how we know Bart/Harry must win the game and how he must feel about doing it. A little of walking into doom goes a long way. The last segment of the book with Harry walking in doom is not the act of a hero or a winner. In this book Harry wins over Voldemort solely by means of the mechanical invention of the author. This is not creative writing. It is more like the science fiction story where the hero wakes up after a bad dream.
The real loss on Voldemort was that this greatest evil wizard of all time accidentally created a 7th horcrux when he killed the parents and this has made him defective and unstable. This is OK in the first books as she claims that the books have developed in complexity along with her intended audience. I might have even bought it in the 7th book if it were the first time that a curse caused a serious deviation -- but it is not. I dislike when an author runs out of tricks for their hero and reuses old tricks. I mean if it is a trick that the hero has learned from experience that is something else but here it is the author's trick and not a trick of one of her characters. I do hate the idea that for 7 books he has been defective to the degree that the entire series changes from dealing with an evil genius to dealing with a defective mental midget.
The most serious plot (?) let down is that there is this evolution of ownership of the Elder Wand that Harry has figured out on his way to die that Voldemort has not figured out. Harry has been portrayed as an analytical genius nowhere in the 7 books up to this point. Hermione may have been able to figure this out with a discussion among the three of them but Harry? Come on now, give us a break. And if Harry could have, how come Voldemort did not? The evil genius of the wizard world seems to have become stupid in his search for the wand and the requirements of ownership. That the book ending should come down to a matter of evil genius being evil stupidity just does not cut it. Even the bible gives the devil credit for intelligence.
The ploy of the 19 years later is a cheap trick that accomplishes many things. None of which are good. People who read the last page first do not get any idea of the story line. You do not write to these people. These people will always exist. People will cheat on their taxes and cheat at cards and cheat on their wives. These are no reason to compromise tax laws, card rules, or marriage vows. Here Rowling cheapens the concept of literature.
Than again maybe she wants to make sure that the wizardry book world will continue. She leaves the 19 years available for future stories: she has guaranteed it. This to me is sad and seems to contradict her claim that the 7th book provides some closure. During the 19 years, Harry can have some new adventures with or without his other musketeers. During these 19 years, his children can have some adventures with or without a father to guide them. This is not closure. It is certainly not the grieving process that we would expect an author to have when a book is competed.. She says she is finished with Harry but she has done the contrary. Or maybe by writing such an abortion she knows she cannot recover by further abortions.
I enjoyed re-reading the first 6 books because I wanted to see nuances that I missed and to see how the author moved from scene to scene in the development of the story line. I reread book 7 not for these reasons but because when I finished book 7 the first time, I was still pasting the pieces together.
I can buy the story line. I just cannot buy her writing a consortium attempting to tie every knot and thereby leaving her critics to have no story to criticize -- just the poor execution. It seems that she has walked around her timeline, story line, character maps, and made sure that every possible reference anywhere in any of the books has been regurgitated. She has bent to the lowest class of critic to do this. Lower than me. She has seriously insulted her loyal readers.
One line: her insulting the intelligence of her audience by this childish collection of anecdotes on the first six books will cause the entire series to be removed from the annals of literature. It could have been great. What is the line: "Not with a bang but a whimper?" But then the guy who wrote that WAS a great English author.
I had a psychologist tell me one time that my evaluation of people was faulty. I do not give credit to what a person does. I give credit for the attempt -- credit for the analysis and credit for the endurance. Rowling gets no credit here for anything. Maybe her next books will have lots of pictures and print in big letters.
The book 5 movie reviews are so bad that I doubt I will even buy the
DVD until its second release. I understand that books 6 and 7 were filmed
concurrently -- this gives the actors, insulted by movie 5, no chance
to leave a bad product line. If the same actors do the book 7
movie, they
are adding their names to the list of those who will do anything for
money -- and by book 7 I do not think they need more money. It
takes a great total effort for a movie to be better than the
book. Neither the great screen writing of movies 1 through
4 nor the familiar faces of Watson and Radcliff will save movie 7.
Mr. Rickman has been one of my heroes for many years. He has a
natural arrogance and pride that makes him the ideal choice for Severus
Snape. I often wonder how an actor influences those on the
set with lesser experience. I hope that Mr. Rickman, off
camera, is supportive of his fellow cast members,. He came into
this series with experience that none of the young cast had. I
wonder if he befriended them or kept the distance portrayed in his role.
Several years ago a church minister asked me about being lonely
after some years of being single. I answered that now I am
alone. When I was married, I was lonely. Loneliness is a
state of mind. Alone is a state of being. They are
different.
When I was 15 and a couple of weeks until 16, I walked out of my
home with my backpack and nothing else. I hopped a freight train
south. It did not take me long to realize that I was lonely and
things were about to get much worse. At the next stop, I got off
the train and walked home. Getting home that night got more
complicated but I realized that being alone is not a problem.
Loneliness is such a problem that I was willing to return to the home
of my parents than continue my train ride to nowhere.
But I watch the Deathly Hallows movie and, although I think the
director has done a good job, the majority of the audience has no
concept of how Hermione Granger feels as she walks out of her home,
down the street, and alone into a life that .has not just great dangers
but has a high probability of killing her in the very near
future. This will be done with others but the loneliness in her
heart cannot be overstated. She has removed all traces of her
existence from her home and even obliviated the minds of her
parents. If anyone comes to the home or interrogates her parents,
she never existed. She has chosen to erase herself. An
impossible choice that few of us will ever need to make.
The hole that this would leave in my heart would put me on
anti-depressants for the rest of my life -- and you have no idea how
much I hate anti-depressants. How would a movie director give any
idea of the pain in her heart as she walks down that lonely
street? She has just erased herself from the real world
that she has known and loved all of her life. I know -- it is
just a movie. But the idea of a movie such as this is to release
your emotions through the characters and introduce you to feelings that
you would never otherwise know.
This one scene is worth the admission price if you have ever walked
down Lonely Street and know the hole in Hermione's heart. I
suspect few people will ever know how lonely Hermione feels,