Harry Potter

just thinking about the Mirror of Erised, it always makes me slightly sad and angry when Dumbledore tells Harry not to long for things, whether they are the past or the future or what may have beens, forgetting to live because of fantasizing or day dreaming. You cant tell someone in a fantasy story not to fantasticate or long for the impossible. it seems oddly discordant, although the message is true, the reason I am reading the bloody book is to enter into an impossible fantastic world, negate the real world, escape into a magical world and wish I was there instead of here. for fuqs sake. the books act like the Mirror of Erised. you read them and long for something just out of reach.

Mrs Figg wrote:just thinking about the Mirror of Erised, it always makes me slightly sad and angry when Dumbledore tells Harry not to long for things, whether they are the past or the future or what may have beens, forgetting to live because of fantasizing or day dreaming. You cant tell someone in a fantasy story not to fantasticate or long for the impossible. it seems oddly discordant, although the message is true, the reason I am reading the bloody book is to enter into an impossible fantastic world, negate the real world, escape into a magical world and wish I was there instead of here. for fuqs sake. the  books act like the Mirror of Erised. you read them and long for something just out of reach.

Bear in mind you read the book as a grown-up. I read the first HP book as a very young kid, and at some point I actually wished I'd receive a letter from Hogwarts someday. Grown-ups can pick up a book and deliberately escape reality for a few hours. Kids can get sucked in to a degree where they almost believe that what they read is reality. I think Dumbledore's words are a nice little reminder that, at the end of the day, it's all made up. Not saying that's what Rowling intended the words to mean, but one could easily interpret them in that way.

Interesting thoughts Blue, regarding you thoughts on Snape:

[quote][I do find Snape a fascinating character, and his relationship with the central characters... Really, Snape relationship with Harrys mother and father and so on. How wrong that went, his relationship with their son. Really, Snape as a character really fascinates me.The fact that the love of his life didn't love him. The fact that she ended up marrying and having a child with the person he considered his mortal enemy. That she died, to a large degree because of him. And that he ended up having to protect her child. There's just so much problematic in those relationships and character dynamics that it really pulls you emotionally into the story. /quote]

I do find Snape an intriguing character on one level, the duality of his character is quite interesting, he's certainly one of the 'greyer' characters in the series, but I do think Rowling has bigged up his loyalty and character depth in the years since the final book, along with wonky worldbuilding I do think one of Rowling other weaknesses was over writing character progression (I.e Ron who swings from one side of the pendelum to the other- from the loyal best friend, a dab hand at chess and the one of the trio with the most street smarts, to a rather grumpy comedy sidekick who runs out on Harry in books 4 and 7...).


No amount of courage or loyalty in later years totally cancels out Snape's harsh treatment of Neville, Harry and other students i.m.o, and wasn't he totally loyal to Voldemort until he found out he was targeting Lilly? Whilst he's a turncoat who saw the error of his ways and ultimately does the right thing, he's still a bit of a git and not one who deserves as much sympathy as some fans seem to think.

Then again its a kids book, and in a world where there are spells to kill people instantly and devices to turn back time, but not a simple spell to improve eyesight its probably best not to examine things too deeply..

Ouch.

http://comicbook.com/2015/08/05/colin-farrell-cast-in-harry-potter-spinoff-fantastic-beasts-and-/

Certainly didn't see that coming...

just the mention of Yates

Read that as Colin Firth at first and got really excited.

In Bruges was fucking amazing though so I'm hopeful for Farrell.

Oh, I did watch In Bruges a couple months ago and was going to post about it here, because I remember you guys heaping it with immense praise, but I forgot.

I'm not sure what kind of movie I was expecting because I hadn't seen any clips or trailers and I wasn't familiar with the plot. Acting was good; loved the visuals, especially that creepy film-set in the alley mimicking the visual imagery from the Bosch painting in the museum. Bruges was purgatory for Ray, after all, waiting for the judgment of a god who would, surprisingly, play by his own rules in the end.

Got a strong Waiting for Godot vibe in the first part of the movie, but only the scenes where Ray and Ken are alone talking. Speaking of which, the roadside where Vladimir and Estragon meet is sort of like a purgatory as well, although their situation is absurd and comic.

Nothing new announced, but the fact that Fantastic Beasts started filming today (well, yesterday now) has been all the buzz it seems.  Guess that's a testament to the enduring popularity of HP.  Hypable (which was started by staffers from HP mega-site MuggleNet ) has a round-up of what little information on the characters we have, most of which was new to me since I don't follow JKR's Twitter (or most HP news these days).

http://www.hypable.com/fantastic-beasts-cast/

Can't say I'm very excited by Beasts, though as with you Eldo I don't really follow Potter anymore, and since there is hardly any pre-existing story to judge the film on, I'll keep an open mind...but really, it just seems a lazy way to expand the franchise in a direction few fans were calling for, and a rather random gamble for WB to invest in.

I think a large part of the Potter films sucess was down to the books being a then current pop culture phenomen, a star studded adult cast, and some pretty impressive production design aside, I never really felt like the films were anything memorable, too disjointed i.m.o.

I'll be pretty surprised if this hits big...

(I have the book lying around somewhere, it was kinda neat in its own way)

I'm glad David Yates is back in the directorial Chair though if only to annoy Figgs

I really enjoyed Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages when I was a kid and they still make me smile (though nostalgia plays an even greater role here than it does for the main Harry Potter books). There is no story within the books though; so the new films won't really be adaptations at all. I agree it's a pretty bizarre direction to take the franchise in, though I'm split on whether that's a good or bad thing. Normally studios want to emphasize familiarity and sameness as much as possible, often to the detriment of the story, so it's kinda nice to see something different here. But I dunno if it'll appeal to the same things that HP did for me. Regardless, I feel like this idea must have come from JKR herself, since it is so different from the normal studio approach. Hopefully that's a good sign.

given its Yates it will probably so dark it wont matter which period its set in. might as well call it Pitch Black: the Harry Potter years.

I still have a hard time making out what's going on in some parts of HBP in particular...

I didn't have any issues with HBP, though Deathly Hallows was a bit extreme...

Mrs Figg wrote: Pitch Black: the Harry Potter years.

Now that's a spinoff I'd happily pay good money to watch

The lack of lighting in both parts of DH stood out to me most when I tried to make avatars out of screencaps of them. I couldn't see shit if my screen wasn't at just the right angle (granted that's partially cause it wasn't a great screen).

Eldorion wrote:The lack of lighting in both parts of DH stood out to me most when I tried to make avatars out of screencaps of them.  I couldn't see shit if my screen wasn't at just the right angle (granted that's partially cause it wasn't a great screen).

I watched DH2 in post converted 3D (crammed into the second or third row from the screen), so it was even worse.

But I'll happily take too little light, some gorgeous framing, and generally sucesful attempts at acting by the main trio, over Christopher Columbus's Shot, Reverse Shot, copy and paste from the book style of directing, and the acting with the Eyebrows in the first 2 films, Yates get's a lot of flack for taking liberties but I think he has alot of flair that he hasn't been given credit for.

I don't have any real animosity for Yates -- I've always really liked DH1 and HBP has grown on me a lot over the years. I think Columbus managed to capture a lot of the "magic" in scenes like the first glimpse of Diagon Alley and the view of Hogwarts over the lake, which are still affecting for me. But I can't deny that the filmmaking is fairly pedestrian.

oh I so agree with you about the magic. Colombus captured it beautifully. I can still tear up when Harry first sees Diagon Alley. those first three films were truly magical.

First three books maybe. The second film is bit wonky!

It was probably too long for its own good, but it also had Kenneth Branagh as Lockhart. I always thought he was great. COS is also the first film that I ever saw a post-credits scene for. I have no idea why I watched the VHS (yeah it was a VHS ) all the way to the end to see that. I might've been fast-forwarding and then noticed it looked different.

Lockhart was genius.

So, even after wiping his memory he still had an instinct for PR?

I think what i find most intriguing about Amazing Beasts is that Rowling is apparently writing it. (Right?) So, it's really the original author expanding the Universe of her creation.