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Yesterday, Today, and Harry Potter
Yesterday I played D&D for like 7 hours with Tal's group. Which is a good thing because upon coming home I learned that Ragnarok is disbanding for the semester, since we've had such trouble meeting and doing stuff anyway. Bleh. Gaming wasn't bad, but I don't think my character really fits into the party. I'm the only LG player-character; we have a LG character that's really Tim's (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tesposit, but Tim doesn't live in Pittsburgh so it's basically an NPC. It's frustrating because the other players are two CG and one NG, and my character is basically supposed to be a wannabe paladin (what I am really is a cleric with all fighting feats and stats). Also, part of my character's background is that I sort of dislike halflings and most other races besides humans, elves, and dwarves. I know you're thinking it sort of goes against being LG to be that way, but I think it makes perfect sense. The problem, of course, is that the two CG characters are also halfling mages. Yuck.
Anyway, I dunno. After the game I came home and wasted time doing random things like DDR, Simcity, writing more Java code, etc.
Today, because there was no D&D, I just hung out, finished rereading The Crystal Shard, and played DDR, and stuff. In the evening we bought chairs at Target and food at Geagle (I'm having a party Tuesday, as I keep mentioning... you all are invited if you want to be) and inbetween that we got dinner at Cap City and went to see Harry Potter.
Oddly, we had tickets for 8:30pm but we got to the theatre at 7pm and they let us switch to the 7:20pm show. Whee!
I will say this in mini-review: I liked the movie, but:
1) it needed more quidditch!
2) i wish i'd been in the room where the producers were going "ok, this movie is 5 hours long. which parts can we take out without ruining it?"
I will now go into a, spoilers-enhanced, nitpick on it. Keep in mind I do want to go see it again, and did enjoy it, but:
Some scenes were done really, really well. The beginning stuff was pretty good, and Diagon Alley was great, but there needed to be more of it. And what was up with Harry not meeting Malfoy until right before going into the great hall? Sure, they set up Malfoy pretty well afterwards for being mean and awful, but...
Also, the Norbert scenes, and Hagrid's house in general, was underplayed. The only reason I can think of them keeping Norbert in was basically because they needed it as the reason Hagrid had told someone about Fluffy, and they did need some excuse for the detention in the dark forest. (However, a lot of the other events leading up to that were cut out, and the Norbert stuff itself was underplayed)
Quirrel/Snape were underplayed as well. If I hadn't read the books there's no way I'd really have suspected strongly enough about Snape being the bad guy to be surprised by it being Quirrell. They were done well as characters, just I didn't think they came into the movie strongly enough.
I will agree withmadmadammim that Oliver Wood was quite attractive. He was also a good Quidditch player. That's not the only reason I was hoping for more Quidditch, though :). Since I sort of feel like we get to know the Gryffindor Quidditch players pretty well in the books, but they were barely shown at all in the movie, I was sort of disappointed.
I mean, given how much Quidditch is a part of Harry's life... oh, and Harry getting onto the team being special was also underplayed. Ron says something like "First-years never make the team", and they never mention that first-years simply aren't ALLOWED onto the team. There was no fuss made over Harry getting a broomstick - I don't think they mentioned no first-years having broomsticks, either.
Oh, and they also left out two of the trials to get to the mirror. Snape's Potions one and Quirrell's troll (Yes, although we forgot, Quirrell did have one - but in the book by the time they get there the troll is dead). I guess I can see those as "reasonable" things to cut out, though, when pressed for time.
It also bugged me how much the Weasleys were underplayed. Percy became simply "ron's older brother who's a prefect", not "Ron's older brother who is a pompous fool continually getting practical jokes from Fred and George". Heck, Fred and George barely came into the movie. That was a shame, as they are two of the most vibrant side characters in the book.
Oh, yeah, and the house points are never really mentioned all that much. When the trio loses 150 points in the book everyone is pissed off like hell, but that barely comes out in the movie. Dumbledore in general barely comes off being the person you'd think he is in the books. I dunno.
Oh, and Ron was priceless, I thought he was the best of the trio. Harry was pretty good - I mean, he was totally believable as Harry Potter, but it's a hard role to live up to. Hermione was decent as well, if a little too cute. Not that they really showed much of any of the other female students to compare to, anyway.
more stuff (added in the morning after rereading most of the book last night): They also didn't include the Hogwarts song or the Sorting Hat song! Hmm, and to lend more to the "Neville wasn't built up enough": I'd forgotten it was originally Neville in the dark forest with them instead of Ron. Hey, did you notice that they never actually had a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, nor a *real* transfiguration class? And I swear that I never actually saw Peeves, although an actor is credited with playing him, in the IMDB. Maybe it was such a short appearance I just mistook him for another ghost.
I really liked the detail in the paintings, I forgot to mention. They were probably the strongest point of the set - the painting in the infirmary was of a woman tending her patients, or the paintings on the walls who would always wave or make faces at the students, and the fat lady was exactly what I thought she'd be like.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. It's a shame that even with everything they cut out it took 2.5 hours. I wonder what they'll do with the next one... or if there will be a "5-hour director's cut" of this one.
Good thing I bought the soundtrack two weeks ago... it's pretty good to listen to now.
tesposit, but Tim doesn't live in Pittsburgh so it's basically an NPC. It's frustrating because the other players are two CG and one NG, and my character is basically supposed to be a wannabe paladin (what I am really is a cleric with all fighting feats and stats). Also, part of my character's background is that I sort of dislike halflings and most other races besides humans, elves, and dwarves. I know you're thinking it sort of goes against being LG to be that way, but I think it makes perfect sense. The problem, of course, is that the two CG characters are also halfling mages. Yuck.Anyway, I dunno. After the game I came home and wasted time doing random things like DDR, Simcity, writing more Java code, etc.
Today, because there was no D&D, I just hung out, finished rereading The Crystal Shard, and played DDR, and stuff. In the evening we bought chairs at Target and food at Geagle (I'm having a party Tuesday, as I keep mentioning... you all are invited if you want to be) and inbetween that we got dinner at Cap City and went to see Harry Potter.
Oddly, we had tickets for 8:30pm but we got to the theatre at 7pm and they let us switch to the 7:20pm show. Whee!
I will say this in mini-review: I liked the movie, but:
1) it needed more quidditch!
2) i wish i'd been in the room where the producers were going "ok, this movie is 5 hours long. which parts can we take out without ruining it?"
I will now go into a, spoilers-enhanced, nitpick on it. Keep in mind I do want to go see it again, and did enjoy it, but:
Some scenes were done really, really well. The beginning stuff was pretty good, and Diagon Alley was great, but there needed to be more of it. And what was up with Harry not meeting Malfoy until right before going into the great hall? Sure, they set up Malfoy pretty well afterwards for being mean and awful, but...
Also, the Norbert scenes, and Hagrid's house in general, was underplayed. The only reason I can think of them keeping Norbert in was basically because they needed it as the reason Hagrid had told someone about Fluffy, and they did need some excuse for the detention in the dark forest. (However, a lot of the other events leading up to that were cut out, and the Norbert stuff itself was underplayed)
Quirrel/Snape were underplayed as well. If I hadn't read the books there's no way I'd really have suspected strongly enough about Snape being the bad guy to be surprised by it being Quirrell. They were done well as characters, just I didn't think they came into the movie strongly enough.
I will agree with
madmadammim that Oliver Wood was quite attractive. He was also a good Quidditch player. That's not the only reason I was hoping for more Quidditch, though :). Since I sort of feel like we get to know the Gryffindor Quidditch players pretty well in the books, but they were barely shown at all in the movie, I was sort of disappointed.I mean, given how much Quidditch is a part of Harry's life... oh, and Harry getting onto the team being special was also underplayed. Ron says something like "First-years never make the team", and they never mention that first-years simply aren't ALLOWED onto the team. There was no fuss made over Harry getting a broomstick - I don't think they mentioned no first-years having broomsticks, either.
Oh, and they also left out two of the trials to get to the mirror. Snape's Potions one and Quirrell's troll (Yes, although we forgot, Quirrell did have one - but in the book by the time they get there the troll is dead). I guess I can see those as "reasonable" things to cut out, though, when pressed for time.
It also bugged me how much the Weasleys were underplayed. Percy became simply "ron's older brother who's a prefect", not "Ron's older brother who is a pompous fool continually getting practical jokes from Fred and George". Heck, Fred and George barely came into the movie. That was a shame, as they are two of the most vibrant side characters in the book.
Oh, yeah, and the house points are never really mentioned all that much. When the trio loses 150 points in the book everyone is pissed off like hell, but that barely comes out in the movie. Dumbledore in general barely comes off being the person you'd think he is in the books. I dunno.
Oh, and Ron was priceless, I thought he was the best of the trio. Harry was pretty good - I mean, he was totally believable as Harry Potter, but it's a hard role to live up to. Hermione was decent as well, if a little too cute. Not that they really showed much of any of the other female students to compare to, anyway.
more stuff (added in the morning after rereading most of the book last night): They also didn't include the Hogwarts song or the Sorting Hat song! Hmm, and to lend more to the "Neville wasn't built up enough": I'd forgotten it was originally Neville in the dark forest with them instead of Ron. Hey, did you notice that they never actually had a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, nor a *real* transfiguration class? And I swear that I never actually saw Peeves, although an actor is credited with playing him, in the IMDB. Maybe it was such a short appearance I just mistook him for another ghost.
I really liked the detail in the paintings, I forgot to mention. They were probably the strongest point of the set - the painting in the infirmary was of a woman tending her patients, or the paintings on the walls who would always wave or make faces at the students, and the fat lady was exactly what I thought she'd be like.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the movie. It's a shame that even with everything they cut out it took 2.5 hours. I wonder what they'll do with the next one... or if there will be a "5-hour director's cut" of this one.
Good thing I bought the soundtrack two weeks ago... it's pretty good to listen to now.