Current Events > *watches Harry Potter* ((Spoilers posted freely for all related media))

(+) Yeah! (+)

After years of going to Universal and not understanding all of the references in the Harry Potter rides, I've decided to go ahead and watch the movies while they're available on HBO Max. I can't say for certain if I will get through all of them or peace out partway through. Anyway, I'm halfway through the first one.

My thoughts so far:

• I always thought Hagrid, the tall guy with the dark beard, was Dumbledore.
• They really captured lightning in a bottle with the worldbuilding and wish fulfillment aspects of the story.
• I could never make it as a wizard. The severed head of Oogey Boogey Man from The Nightmare Before Christmas would tell me I was going to Huff'n'Puff School and I'd ragequit over how stupid the name sounds.
• Why does Hogwarts have an Evil School, anyway? You look like a candidate for Satanus Snakington! That's where all our bad wizards come from.
• It seems kinda cheap that Magic Football can be won by catching a flying ball. That'd be like if American football gave an automatic win to any team who intercepted a football from halfway across the stadium.

I'll be back with additional thoughts after the second half.

The team that catches the golden snitch does not automatically win. It ends the game and gives your team X amount of points, but not necessarily wins you the game. Its like a player can end the game on their terms

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DD Divine posted...

The team that catches the golden snitch does not automatically win. It ends the game and gives your team X amount of points, but not necessarily wins you the game. Its like a player can end the game on their terms

Isn't it worth like 200 points or something vs ten for a normal goal?

Imagine hockey had a random golden puck that could drop from the ceiling and it was worth like 20 goals if you grabbed it.

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1 and 2 are pretty damn good as far as world building.

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Okay, I finished the first one.

• Warwick Davis as a magic teacher? I'm just gonna count this one was a sequel to Willow.
• The CGI is pretty inconsistent. Some effects were impressive for their era. Others looked like they'd escaped from a PS2 game. I'm pretty sure I killed that centaur in Rygar.
• Filmmakers interested in "shared universes" should revisit this movie. It does a good job of hinting at things that are on the way. We see a dead unicorn and a baby dragon. You know live adults are gonna be in the sequels.
• Harry Potter can turn the bad guy into stone because his mother loved him? Makes sense.
• Wait, Hagrid giving that kid a pig's tail was permanent? That's pretty fucked up. Imagine suffering a life-altering transformation because you dared to eat cake at an inappropriate time.

Halfway through the second film. I'm stopping here since I go to work shortly.

• The car/train scene was pretty effective. I liked the monster tree too.
• I love the Troy McClure wizard. I don't even care what his name is. I'm just calling him Troy McClure.
• The special effects have improved immensely since the first film.
• That slug scene is one of the worst exposition distractions I've seen. (Ick.)
• The wizard football game, while better than the first film, loses points for having literally the exact same ending. It would've been better had Potter failed to catch the plot device and lost the game.

So far, I think I may like this one better than the first film. I'll just have to see whether or not that changes in the second half.

>watching the movies before reading the books

ok casual
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To this day, I'm still convinced Mytle is Daniel Radcliffe in a wig. The resemblance is uncanny. I know another actress is credited to the role, but it's that's an elaborate hoax.
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Philoktetes posted...

>watching the movies before reading the books

ok casual

This

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I'm rewatching it now as well, and it's a lot better than I remember it to be.

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lilORANG posted...

To this day, I'm still convinced Mytle is Daniel Radcliffe in a wig. The resemblance is uncanny. I know another actress is credited to the role, but it's that's an elaborate hoax.

The actress is like 20 older than Dan, so it's actually hilarious and horrible in a different way.

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CanuckCowboy posted...

Isn't it worth like 200 points or something vs ten for a normal goal?

Imagine hockey had a random golden puck that could drop from the ceiling and it was worth like 20 goals if you grabbed it.

Well considering the golden snitch is not only ridiculously fast but also extremely small and on a 3D plain. It can't really be compared to a random hockey puck or getting an interception half way across the field.

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And with the CGI, remember the first movie is from 2001

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1NfamousACE_2 posted...

And with the CGI, remember the first movie is from 2001

Welp I feel old now.

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Philoktetes posted...

>watching the movies before reading the books

ok casual

I've no intention of reading the books. I'm only watching the movies to better understand the theme park rides and environments.

Now I know why Universal's Diagon Alley is tucked away behind an ordinary looking brick entrance, why one of the rides has a tree attack you, and why people would love the series enough to wear heavy graduation robes in the summer sun.

well if you're gonna insist on being a phony fan you're gonna miss details like that dudley did have his pig's tail removed at a hospital in london
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Philoktetes posted...

well if you're gonna insist on being a phony fan you're gonna miss details like that dudley did have his pig's tail removed at a hospital in london

That's pretty fucked up that Hagrid would leave him that way. It's the parents who should be punished really. Giving their son two bedrooms and making their nephew sleep in the closet? They're practically sociopaths.

An 11 year old boy should know that it's wrong to steal someone else's cake, but that's hardly the kind for which the punishment should require surgery to undo.

The Dursleys always read like Roald Dahl villains to me. They start to feel out of place as the stories start to take their drama a little more seriously, lol.

But the actor for Vernon kills it. Absolutely love to hate that bastard lmao

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yeah and it's fucked up that aunt petunia tried to hit harry with a frying pan

it's comical fantasy violence your not supposed to think about irl implications
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Gonna be honest, the Slytherin thing never really does make sense

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AlisLandale posted...

The Dursleys always read like Roald Dahl villains to me. They start to feel out of place as the stories start to take their drama a little more seriously, lol.

But the actor for Vernon kills it. Absolutely love to hate that bastard lmao

When she submitted her first draft, J.K. Rowling was told to make the stories more Dahl-like.

Zero_Destroyer posted...

Gonna be honest, the Slytherin thing never really does make sense

Yeah. I thought it was a bit silly in the first film. In the second film, they reveal that it's namesake advocated genocide. Like, what? Why haven't they changed the name?

<_<

*its namesake

pronouns don't use apostrophes to show possession
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Philoktetes posted...

*its namesake

pronouns don't use apostrophes to show possession

You're also supposed to capitalize the first words of sentences and use periods at the end of them.

It's the age of autocorrect. It's pointless to be pedantic about these kinda of things.

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I guess they use Slytherin so they know who to put on a watch list?

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The 3rd film is my favorite.

FortuneCookie posted...

and why people would love the series enough to wear heavy graduation robes in the summer sun.

This blew my mind when I went a few years ago. I was in shorts and a short sleeved shirt and drenched in sweat and feeling like death and heres a bunch of people dressed in full Hogwarts attire having a great time

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NightRender posted...

autocorrect.

ok phoneopster
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spikethedevil posted...

I guess they use Slytherin so they know who to put on a watch list?

Slytherin is likely still around bc Hogwart's board of directors is under the thumb of Lucius Malfoy (this is canon).

As far as I know, Slytherin wasn't really an issue before Voldemort. Basically just like having a Republican house - yeah, a lot of scummy people come out of it, but their worldview is validated by too large a portion of society to just get rid of.

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gamer167 posted...

The 3rd film is my favorite.

I remember hating it when it came out because of how many differences there were from the book but now I love it

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Why was Myrtle moaning in the bathroom

i like the first two movies because they actually try to do the wizard aesthetic

after that they gave up and everyone just wears muggle clothes all the time

which makes sense for like harry and hermione but it makes no sense that the death eaters are wearing muggle suits all the time when they hate muggle culture
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Plenty of "good" slytherins have graduated and are credited in their history/lore. The bias of perspective from films, or even character perspective in books will overrepresent the bad eggs in the school as that's where the plot is. There are certainly troubling cultural aspects of their house, but it's really not any different to current politics and ideology. A slytherin does not inherently make you bad as they just tend to value the virtues of ambition and cunning. Unfortunately, the analog to this is kind of corporate culture where being cutthroat leads to personal success, often at the expense of others. So while being slytherin does not make you bad, one does need to ask themselves the company they keep and whether or not those influence those who are more impartial, even subconsciously. These themes do get addressed, but sort of superficially.

It also just so happens that the current events that the books and movies are set in happen to represent a darker time for that house, so in hindsight sure you can say "why are we allowing this house to even exist" wherein most of harry potter universe had slytherins who were simply ambitious wizards who contributed to wizarding society and a subset of them tended to have strong prejudices. Whereas had the house not existed, those "bad" eggs would have still had to be placed somewhere.

Lastly, the series was written initially as a children's series that grew with its audience into young adult fiction. As such, the black and white morality of the earlier books/movies tends to mature as the series progresses, but it does make it difficult to apply the "grey" to the earlier titles since they're presented entirely differently.

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sLaCkEr408___RJ posted...

Why was Myrtle moaning in the bathroom

She went there to cry. She was also in Trainspotting

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I finished the second one.

• The battle with the blind snake was more entertaining than the confrontation with the dude in the turban from the first film. I really enjoyed the spider forest too.
• I don't remember any dialogue from Warwick Davis this time. I hope he got paid. Bit parts are divided up between speaking and non-speaking roles.
• Film 2 and Voldemort still isn't in his snake sperm form yet. I guess it's like the Friday the 13th series where Jason doesn't get his iconic hockey mask until two and a half movies in.

On the whole, I think I liked that one better than the first movie. I did miss Hagrid's, "I shouldn't have told you that," running joke though.

"Harry, you live with Muggles. Tell me. What is the function of a rubber ducky?"

Harry Potter 3: Sirius Business

• I'm guessing the first film did that thing where they hired short/youthful-looking kids to play younger characters. They all appear to be about 17 in this one.
• Harry Potter's uncle continues to provoke the wizard. I see he still hasn't grasped the concept of self-preservation.
• The CGI seems to have suffered a slight downgrade. At times, the movie feels like its own Gamecube adaptation. Speaking of Nintendo, the musical frogs remind me of Ocarina of Time.
• Daniel Radcliffe has stated that he's an atheist - and a militant atheist when it comes to politics. But I had no idea it extended so far as for him to use an invisibility cloak to knock down Christmas carolers.
• I appreciate the explanation they gave for why time travel isn't an instant fix-all.
• The previous films acted like they were building up to a conflict between Harry and Malfoy. After Malfoy's treatment in this film, I no longer want to see any kind of a battle between them.

So far, I'd rank the films 2 > 1 > 3.

The Malfoy stuff is actually one of the more interesting ideas the series develops but this is the point where it staggers a bit

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Slytherin is basically the house of ambition. I imagine if Rowling ever went in depth into the high ranks of the Ministry or any kind of wealthy business owners, you'd find that a lot of them were Slytherin. It doesn't automatically make you evil, but if you're such an evil asshole that the entire world knows it, you were probably ambitious enough to be put there.

The House system is pretty flawed regardless though.

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The kids were like 9 when they were cast. They would have been like 12-3 in filming of the 3rd movie.

They start getting spaced out a bit more towards the end, I think they're like 21 in the final film when they should be 17.

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They were about 11 when filming the first movie.

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Started Harry Potter IV.

• Harry smiles at an Asian girl who's not Hermione. The Shipping Wars Begin!!!
• Dumbledore grabs Harry by the shoulders and pushes him against a table. I think that's rather inappropriate for a school's headmaster.
• "I am not an owl!" Holy context, Batman! That quote should have been a meme.
• The dragon contest is my favorite scene of the series so-far and I think it's very unlikely that will change. It reminds me of the T.rex attack from Jurassic Park or the Rancor pit from Return of the Jedi.

I'll resume after work.

The best part about Harry Potter 4 is Dean and Seamus dancing at the ball together

FortuneCookie posted...

Dumbledore grabs Harry by the shoulders and pushes him against a table. I think that's rather inappropriate for a school's headmaster

You ain't seen nothin yet lol

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Tag

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FortuneCookie posted...

2 > 1 > 3

get that flame shield ready fam

also tag

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Harry smiles at an Asian girl who's not Hermione. The Shipping Wars Begin!!!

Oh you poor sweet summer child.

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Watching 2 now, got the to Quidditch scene and catching the golden snitch does end the game. Before the snitch was caught the game was 90-30, Slytherin was winning.

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Mr_Karate_II posted...

Watching 2 now, got the to Quidditch scene and catching the golden snitch does end the game. Before the snitch was caught the game was 90-30, Slytherin was winning.

The snitch is absolutely lopsided in value vs. normal goals, but the normal goals do matter in aggregate. Also, if the game goes long enough the lead can stretch to the point where the snitch is no longer enough.

Edit to add: not that I think the value of the snitch is reasonable. It should be worth maybe 1/3-1/2 of what it is.

tiornys posted...

Also, if the game goes long enough the lead can stretch to the point where the snitch is no longer enough.

I thought the snitch was an auto-win, and the 150 points were house points and not quidditch points? so like the other team could have more points but still lose

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FortuneCookie posted...

So far, I'd rank the films 2 > 1 > 3.

what the hell is wrong with you, 3 is the best by far