Read by Stephen Fry or Jim Dale?

Edit: Already answered I see, Fry. I actually liked the Jim Dale readings better, despite thinking Fry is pretty much the king of everything forever always. I started with the Dale reads, so I guess that jaded me? I've never understood the hatred shot at his reads.

Last edited by Jdubs (2013-11-16 00:50:18)

I'm flying home for a family holiday get-together that weekend, because it's the holidays and it's a time to be around those you love.  But f@#k them!  Yes, I know Grandma and Grandpa don't have "a lot of time left", but they're going to have to hang on till next year (unless there's some other kind of FIYH marathon next year).  I'm sequestering myself into a spare bedroom with my laptop, headphones, and a bucket (don't ask) and will only emerge to fill up on eggnog and turkey.

Guess I gotta get round to finally watching these things

Finals? What finals? Don't my professors know that there are people on the internet who want to spend an entire day talking about Harry Potter?!?

While I hate missing out on these events, being a retail manager means "no marathons for you."

I wish I could call in sick

I've been having my manservant Lyle read the books to me in preparation for this, and a few things strike me:

• The first books are really closely adapted.

• Holy crap Hermione's obsession with house elf rights is weird. That and a bunch of other things (like the whole of Umbridge's character and young James being a prick) feel like her bad marriage is a demon lurking just under the surface.

• Those couple of people who told me "Hermione's not as much of a know-it-all in the books" are full of shit. Kloves should have given some of that stuff to Ron, because he is fucking useless in the middle books.

• Rowling cares a lot about character motivation, but not so much that she smoothly works in explanations as she goes. Instead, especially at the end of Order and beginning of Prince, she has one character just interrogate another about why they did or didn't do a whole list of things, and most of the answers are retcons (Snape gives Bellatrix about 5 BS reasons why he hasn't killed Harry after 5 years). You could create a FAQ just from those sections.

• The movies really should have made the magic more cinematic. The books really do have characters just get shoved around a lot.

• Leaving the trio's OWL exam results out of the movie was a mistake. It shows that Harry isn't as mediocre as the movies otherwise depict.

You're one of the people I disagree with, then, because--if you include SPEW--she's no better in the books, in my opinion. Almost every single line she has is "We can't do what you want, Harry" or "We MUST do this now, Harry" or "OMG! Studying!" What small consolation she was to Harry in 1-4 was given to Luna in 5 (not that I'd get rid of Luna).

Last edited by Zarban (2013-11-20 23:03:12)

The most annoying one is that Expelliarmus, the disarming spell, Harry's signature spell, the spell that defeats Voldemort, morphs into exactly that by the fourth movie. Why the fuck did you set it up in the second film if you were just going to throw away its effects by two films later?

Last edited by Abbie (2013-11-20 23:12:47)

Same with Snape in the Shrieking Shack in Prisoner, altho I think he gets hit by 2 or 3 at once.

If I was a wizard going into a duel, the first thing I'd do is cast a few defensive spells on myself, especially something to counter or reflect spells. Casting unforgivable curses becomes a lot trickier if you have to worry about it bouncing back at you. You would want to use more spells that affect the area around the other wizard rather than the wizard himself, etc. MUCH more interesting battle. The stuff between Dumbledore and Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic was great; why not have more of that?

Last edited by Zarban (2013-11-21 01:10:16)

True, but at least later in the movie they show Harry using it to disarm Lockhart.

Not to be too much of a nerd, but Avada Kedavra, at least, is unblockable, and that's pretty much the only one Voldy cares about using, so any defensive spells would be useless.

Eh, some of the magic duels work. I still think Deathly Hallows Part 1 is a really weak movie (they REALLY should've cut the shitty boring middle of that book and just made a single amazing movie instead of 2 kinda decent ones), but I LOVE the magic battle in the diner that's filmed like a movie shootout. When the series went for it, there were some really cool battles, they just never pushed it far enough in general. Like, imagine what someone like Terry Gilliam could've done with the concept of a MAGIC battle.

Last edited by bullet3 (2013-11-21 07:44:09)