LibriumArcana.Games

Thoughts on the new movie - Goblet of Fire?

I'll start.

Long.

My kids were more entrenched then I was.

Do not mistake me. I do not mind long movies. My favorite movie of all time is Braveheart. And I can sit and watch TV series for hours at a time. The key is whether or not it FEELS long.

Although the new Harry Potter movie captured my attention ( I will give it that, it wasn't out and out boring), it was long.

My suspician is that the book is much better. And not in the purist view of the book always being better than the movie. More in the, hands down, the movie was long and tried to cram waaay too much in with too little time but the book is able to lay it out better so that it is a good read and doesn't drag.

I have not read Goblet of Fire so this is definitely a precognition or suspicion on my part.

Anyone care to fill in the blanks or write their own review?

(on on a scale of 1-10, I give the story a 7.5 or 8, but the movie itself a 5.5)

The movie did NOT try to cram too much stuff. In fact, it skipped out on too much stuff and felt too fast, disjointed and rather cut to pieces. And that's where, for me, it failed.

Hmm... it's hard to list what in its entirety was left out because you'll undoubtedly miss something, however there were seven main plotlines missing IIRC:

Hagrid and Maxime's "giant flirting" parts were severely chopped down, as was Hagrid's admittance to actually being a half-giant

Hermione's whole "Elvish Rights" protesting

Rita Skeeter was mostly left out (including the fact that she is an animagus)

The Weasley Twins' magical prank business was entirely forgotten (despite a slight appearance from the "Aging Potion")

Where were the dursleys?

Sirius appeared a lot more prominently in the book

And finally: Barty Crouch's punishment wasn't shown or referenced (the Dementor's Kiss)

Shroom Man 777 wrote:The movie did NOT try to cram too much stuff. In fact, it skipped out on too much stuff and felt too fast, disjointed and rather cut to pieces. And that's where, for me, it failed.

In context to my post, I referred to the pace of the movie, not the content of the book.

There was a very crammed feel to the pace of the movie for me.

I'll be watching it again with the book on hand, next saturday, I'll try to give more thoughts.