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Okay, I'm cheating, it's not really a review, it's more a Reader Response. I mean Viewer Response. I hated Lit Analysis. But anyway, so we went to see Goblet of Fire and I was very pleased. This is definitely one of the better movies. I haven't seen the first one in awhile so I don't know which I like more; but the fourth book is one of my favorites-- the most recent reading I've decided it's my second-favorite, 5 being first, so obviously the book is still better than the movie, whereas the first movie and first book were tied-- I think they were actually equal, but on the other hand the first book is one of my LEAST favorite of the books. Not like I don't LIKE it, I just am not quite as obsessive about it as some of the others. I mean I loved it when I first read it, but I didn't become a fanatic about the series until Chamber of Secrets. So to get back to the original point, I therefore don't know whether I like movie 1 or 4 better, but who cares anyway?

I guess the overall reason for my being happy with it is that I was SATISFIED with it. I knew it couldn't be the book, but there was nothing really that made me think, "but why didn't they do THAT instead?" There's a few things I NOTICED as not being there, but nothing that BUGGED me, not like them leaving out the fact that Lupin and James and Sirius invented the Marauders' Map in movie three bugged me (and I don't know WHY that particular detail bugged me as much as it did, but I really did feel the need to keep bringing it up whenever I mentioned the movie). The only omission in this movie that bugged me the most, which really isn't much at all, was no Percy-working-at-the-Ministry thread. But then, Percy's never really been in any of the movies as much as in the books-- I suppose they'll work out Percy's Ministry-stooge business from book 5 when they GET to movie 5. The only other thing that actually bugged me a little more was that I would have liked to have seen more development of the other Triwizard Champions. You barely got to know anything about Fleur and Krum; but I would have also liked to see more development of the relationship between Harry and Cedric too, because that's just so fraught with emotion and all. Especially the fact that Cedric was going with Cho-- you like so BRIEFLY saw them together at the Ball, but there was nothing about it after that, or even much DURING that for that matter, and that's such a big thing, here's Harry feeling all bitter about perfect popular Cedric whom everybody likes better than him including Cho, and Cedric keeps being nice to him, and so forth, and then in the maze... I guess they showed a bit of that in the movie, but I would have liked more, meself. But I'm just weird.

Because on the whole I really didn't have any other problems with it. I FRICKIN' LOVE the Weasley twins, and before I saw the movie I was worried that they wouldn't be in it much for fear of subplots being cut, but no, they snuck in quite a lot-- which is absolutely in character of course! I loved how at the first task one of them shouts something like "Go, dragon!" when the dragon takes off and wrecks the stands the teachers were on. SO Fred and/or George. (I wonder if there are obsessives who have watched the movies so many times that they can actually tell the difference between Fred and George? That would be cool. I wish I could). I CAN'T wait to see them in Order of the Phoenix, that book being after all their crowning glory. And I also loved the sets. I actually went "Whoa, that's great!" when I saw the World Cup stadium. And the lake in my head is totally lame-- the movie lake made the second task look totally scarier. Speaking of scary, you know, the graveyard scene is totally the scariest scene in the books, but I actually think it's scarier in my imagination than it was in the movie!... BUT, I loved the very beginning of the movie, how it OPENS with a shot of Tom Riddle Sr's gravestone and then swoops up to the Riddle House, it SO PERFECTLY set the mood, and I think really set me up for being pleased with the whole thing. Oh, and Neville-- well first of all I have to explain that I have always been a HUGE Neville Longbottom fan, especially since one time I had a dream that he was going to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving (this dream was a long long time ago too, before even the first movie, so it was the Neville in my head rather than the Neville in the movies, but still, it's Neville), anyway so I was really glad there was so much of him in the movie, too... even more than there was in the book, actually. I loved seeing Harry hanging out with him, and I was pleased that they included the part about his parents, and thought it was handled pretty well too, in the class and afterward... except maybe that the mention of what actually happened to them, as Harry sees in the pensieve, is pretty quick, and you never see Harry's reaction to finding out about it, so it MIGHT have been missed... or so I thought, but my husband, who has only read the book once and forgot a lot of it, actually MENTIONED that part out of nowhere ("I thought it was neat how they said that Neville's parents had that cruciatus curse done on them," he said), so if HE caught it I guess it was clear enough after all. Oh, I also really liked the trial scene in the pensieve too-- I liked how they condensed what had been several different trials (and rather tedious ones) in the book into just the one trial. Okay, I've run out of stuff to talk about off the top of my head, so I'll shut up now. FRED AND GEORGE ROCK! Just had to mention that again.

Date: 2005-12-10 02:26 am (UTC)From: [identity profile] vovat.livejournal.com
Wow, I wonder when you wrote this one, seems like a while ago...

It was pretty recent, actually. I kept the comment notification for a while because I couldn't find my copy of the book. I ended up looking it up in [livejournal.com profile] bethje's copy.

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