Final Harry Potter movie about to enter theaters -- The end of an era?

I always considered the movies "optical additions" to the books. It has been written lots and lots about their flaws, the main ones being simplyfying the storylines way too much, robbing the plots of most of their suspension. I think, the movies lack the very essence of the books. Mostly of course the depth of the wizzarding world, its lovely wackiness and the the typical British humour. Compared to the books, the movies are practically without any humour.

I think that the first 4 movies are acceptable, because despite having huge flaws they somehow still capture the essence of the stories and are entertaining enough.

In my opinion, things started going downhill with the 5th movie. The 5th book is the longest of them all but the movie is the shortest of them all. That doesn't fit together. And I have no idea, why they had to cut the ending that short.

The 6th movie is clearly the worst, because they turned it into a story about teenage love and left out all the important facts about Voldemorts life. Only two of the memory flashbacks made it into the movie (I believe there are six in the book).

This all resulted in so many unexplained things and loose ends, that even with splitting the final 7th book into two movies, there is not enough time to give everything in the plot a proper sense. The first half of the 7th book is much about Dumbledores youth and his family, which contains the key to the whole sub plot of the "Deathly Hallows". Leaving away Dobby the house-elf in movies 4, 5 and 6 resulted in a kind of "deus ex machina" re-introduction in the 7th movie, only to see him die shortly after. I suppose one could go and and on and on.

However, I really like how they casted the characters. They're spot on and the only thing that kept me watching the movies.

But truth to be told, I much prefer the audio books with Stephen Fry. He is doing a better job reading those 7 books alone with one voice, than all the actors in the movies together.
 
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I think a lot of the problems of the franchise could have been fixed if they had chosen one director and tone at the beginning and stuck with them, but really nobody knew what a phenomenon it would become so it is a forgiveable error.

imo Alfonso Cuaron should have directed the entire franchise, the third film had the balance just perfect and is the best of the lot.
 
MacGuffin said:
But truth to be told, I much prefer the audio books with Stephen Fry. He is doing a better job reading those 7 books alone with one voice, than all the actors in the movies together.
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have you ever listened to the german version read by rufus beck?
back when i was freshly into pottering (around the time the 4th book wasnt quite out yet) i started following and got immensely into the audiobooks read by him. he does an amazing job of it and - yes i dare - does it at least as well as stephen fry.
sadly, he is of course bound to the german version, which in the end ruins it all, since i quite prefer the original. so i also ended up "going to bed with stephen fry" (anyone remember that siarpc segment?) every night :p
since then i probably have listened to the audiobooks 'back to back' (so to say) for countless times, of course certain books more often than others and i'm quite happy to admit i'm a big fan as well. i also rage every time a new movie comes out because something is always wrong with it. so far, i've found the third movie to be the best and would like to agree with jmsprovan: alfonso cuaron for the whole franchise, it would've been quite a bit more awesome!
 
eizbaer said:
have you ever listened to the german version read by rufus beck?
back when i was freshly into pottering (around the time the 4th book wasnt quite out yet) i started following and got immensely into the audiobooks read by him. he does an amazing job of it and - yes i dare - does it at least as well as stephen fry.
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I beg to differ. Rufus Beck is overdoing the voices too much. For example the he makes uncle Vernon sound or how he interpretes Snape, with a rolling R. Sound like a comedy version of Count Dracula to me, like the Count from Sesame Street. And he contunously spells "Voldemort" wrong. He spells it the French way, without a "t" at the end. Rufus Beck is a great actor but Stephen Fry is in a league of his own with his readings of Harry Potter.

And of course I also believe, that the German translations of the books are the second best way to "read" Harry Potter anyway (for a German), so Beck doesn't have much of a chance in the first place.
 
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MacGuffin said:
I beg to differ. Rufus Beck is overdoing the voices too much. For example the he makes uncle Vernon sound or how he interpretes Snape, with a rolling R. Sound like a comedy version of Count Dracula to me, like the Count from Sesame Street. And he contunously spells "Voldemort" wrong. He spells it the French way, without a "t" at the end. Rufus Beck is a great actor but Stephen Fry is in a league of his own with his readings of Harry Potter.

And of course I also believe, that the German translations of the books are the second best way to "read" Harry Potter anyway (for a German), so Beck doesn't have much of a chance in the first place.
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it certainly is very different to what fry does, i agree. and maybe he overdoes it, but that's part of the charm for me.
on the other hand, i haven't listened to his recordings for... well.. YEARS... so maybe i'm just falling prey to my 15-year-old self telling me how awesome it all was :p if i'd listen to it now i'd probably turn it off after less than 5min because it all just sounds so wrong...
 
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Seeing the film with the whole family next Saturday. It's been a bit part of my life and I'm sad to see it's all ended, but it really hasn't since everything has been done now and we can still enjoy it for years to come.
 
My HP experience: I disregarded the books as childrens books, I rented the first film and thought it was fine, it wasn't until I was encouraged to buy the first book that I really became a fan. I bought and read the first book in one day, then the next day I went back to the store and bought books 2, 3 and 4. I had to wait a year for book five to come out, and you can bet the first four were read many times. I bought the first four in paperback; the colors are getting worn down from me holding them. Though not a very deep or intellectual series, they are well written, and much like the LOTR series, have such a wealth of information to provide your imagination

I never looked to the movies for good dialog or character development. What I do enjoy with the movies is the cinematography and the special effects. The third movie was so revolutionary and imaginative (visually) for such a mainstream film, and I am glad they stuck to that rather than the Christopher Columbus style of directing which, while warm and fuzzy and pleasant to view, did not really reflect the whole story's dark undertone.

But I separate the film and books worlds; the world I conjure up in my mind is vastly different (and much better) than the films, and I feel both have their place as the films are for the general populace who want to escape reality for a few hours and be entertained at the same time.
 
This thread has inspired me to see if I can find the audiobooks, I have a long-ish commute and would never get around to actually reading the books again, but I don't remember nearly as much as I'd like to.
 
I'd do the same if I could find the UK-market Stephen Fry ones; I don't know about his Jim Dale guy who narrates the US-market ones, but I doubt he can compare to Mr. Fry.
 
I began my Harry Potter film marathon last night!

Philosopher's Stone really did feel, and sound, like a Chris Columbus movie.
Totally got a Home Alone vibe from it!
 
I realized something funny the other day. I only actually read one of the Harry Potter books the old fashion way. The rest I listened to on audiobook, the Stephen Fry versions. The only audiobook I couldn't get was The Half-Blood Prince. And I couldn't wait when I got through the other audiobooks, so I picked up the paperback and read it.

But there was something off about it. I realize now that the voice in my head can't do a British accent well at all. But all the books were meant to be British. I even heard JK insisted on the cast of the films being entirely British. So it never sounded quite right in my head. At least with characters like Fleur, JK would force the reader to pronounce it with a French accent. For example, instead of saying, "Harry, it has been too long!" she types, "'Arry, Eet 'as been too long!". But I never quite got that with the British dialog.

So anyway, I recommend the Stephen Fry audiobooks, it just sounds more natural when being read aloud by a Brit. They're unabridged, so it's not like you would miss out on anything.
 
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I totally agree. I'm usually not such a fan of audio books -- mostly because they are read way too slowly for my taste -- but in this particular case Stephen Fry kinda created an "ultimate version" by reading those books. He has a way of bringing that wizzarding world to life, that is unique.

I read the books, when they first came out but I haven't picked them up again after that.
 
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LP said:
Prequels? Sequels?
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I'd bet all my money on it. Nowadays people rarely know when to stop milking franchises dry.
 
A prequel would be hard, because it would have to be without Harry Potter, duh...

But I think, that the wizzarding world has the potential for lots of sequels. I somehow hope, that J.K. Rowling's self-declared abstinence from the world she created, will crumble and fall, when she gets bored not doing more than administrating her Potter empire.

Has anyone seen the documentary about her on the 6th movie BluRay disc? Where she goes back in time and visits her former apartment, where she wrote the first book, when she was living from social welfare? That was quite touching and I cannot imagine her simply quitting on it all. She is still young enough to tell whole loads of new stories about the Potter universe.
 
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MacGuffin said:
A prequel would be hard, because it would have to be without Harry Potter, duh...

But I think, that the wizzarding world has the potential for lots of sequels. I somehow hope, that J.K. Rowling's self-declared abstinence from the world she created, will crumble and fall, when she gets bored not doing more than administrating her Potter empire.

Has anyone seen the documentary about her on the 6th movie BluRay disc? Where she goes back in time and visits her former apartment, where she wrote the first book, when she was living from social welfare? That was quite touching and I cannot imagine her simply quitting on it all. She is still young enough to tell whole loads of new stories about the Potter universe.
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Its not really about whether or not she can do more books, its whether people really want to buy more.

After she went on for so long about the 7th being the last if she came out with another so soon after people would just see it as an obvious money ploy. As for movies just about all the primary actors in this original franchise have said they won't do any more.
 
Well I think it's safe to say the Harry Potter story has been told and is over. That's not to say other stories can't be told in the same universe though. Perhaps a book (or 6) about the founding of Hogwarts. Or a story about the students from one of the other wizarding schools. There are lots of possibilities.
 
Personally, I can only think of one thing that would be successful for an eighth book, which would be a prequel, despite prequels usually being worse than sequels. This is mainly because there is no real way of bringing Voldemort back, and we would be able to relate to a number of things, such as the Order of the Phoenix, James Potter, Lily Potter, etc. I can't wait to see the new one, Rotten Tomatoes has it at 100% so far - sure, there's only been one viewing, but there are quite a lot of reviews. Apparently it's supposed to be a good quality film, and I've seen a few clips which show that it's brought back the humour which was unfortunately missing - for the most part - in Deathly Hallows, Part 1.
 
I do not have a source, but I recall her being quoted as saying Harry Potter was done, but side projects in the same universe would be possible in the future.
 
95% on Rotten Tomatoes. That is ridiculously high. :|
 
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