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Monday
Dec062010

Napiamous!

DateMonday, December 6, 2010 at 12:00AM | AuthorTravis

Last week was Kris’s birthday, but it was also Thanksgiving, so everybody was out of town so we couldn’t properly celebrate. Instead, we celebrated this weekend by grabbing dinner at Freebirds, seeing Harry Potter, and then going to The Chocolate Bar so Kris could eat a piece of cake the size of his head. I didn’t enjoy the movie too much because, well, I’m dead inside.

I’ve never really gotten the Harry Potter phenomenon. I mean, I like magic and fantasy books, but that special something that made everybody else fall in love with these seven massive tomes has never been there for me. I tried reading the first HP book four times over the years before finally giving up and jumping to the fourth book. (The first three movies had already come out by then, so I figured I knew enough to get it.) Rawlings had definitely improved as a writer by the fourth book, but whether that’s from having the experience of writing three other books under her belt or whether she really matured her writing style with the ages of the readers, I’m not sure I can say for sure. I read books four, five and six back to back and finished them a couple of weeks before book seven came out, but I never bothered to pick up book seven. There were so many elements that were very predictable (Seriously, who didn’t think Dumbledore would die somewhere in the story? I was surprised it took all the way until book six.) and I never really empathized with the characters.

While I didn’t actually fall asleep watching Deathly Hollows Part 1, I definitely found it boring. There were lots of scenes that I felt were a little too long or were just unnecessary in general. It felt like most of the movie was Harry staring into space, looking pensive. Yes, they were trying to demonstrate how lost and alienated Harry/Hermione/Ron were but there are ways that movie-makers can show that confusion and loss without losing the interest of the audience. I’ve also been told that several of the other scenes that I thought were too long or unnecessary didn’t make sense to me because I hadn’t read the book and didn’t understand the deeper subtext being conveyed. If that’s the case, then the movie is definitely a failure because it should be self-contained entertainment in and of itself. I shouldn’t need a 784 page crib sheet to understand it. I’m all for having subtle nods that are more meaningful to people who have taken the time to invest the books, but it shouldn’t be to the detriment of the people who have not.

I’m by no means saying that the movie is total rubbish. In general, the cinematography is very well done and the acting has been as good as the previous stories have been. When the story did progress, I thought it progressed well and was compelling, I just think there were too many spots where the movie lagged. It’ll be interesting to see what Part II is like when it comes out this summer.

Travis, what’s on your pull list?

  • Secret Six #28 - A well written ending to this arc. It’ll be interesting to see the changes in the team dynamic based on the ending. PICK OF THE WEEK!

Kris, what’s on your pull list?