Harry Potter and the Importance of Being Decisive


Okay, so I've changed the title back to "P&C". Should've just left it alone. That kind of behaviour just sums up my mental state at the moment. Can't decide on anything. Always tinkering and generally annoying myself. There's just too much on my "so-called mind".

Saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire recently. My first impression was that it seemed a little muddled, certainly not as cohesive as the previous instalment, Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. But I gave it a second watch last night and I enjoyed it a lot more. What threw me, I think, was that for the first time the film-makers have chosen to make a movie that doesn't entirely stand alone. You really do need to have at least seen Azkaban to know about Sirius Black, for example, otherwise - how confusing would that face in the fireplace scene be? I understand they had to cut a lot of stuff, and the stuff they cut certainly doesn't harm the enjoyment of the overall movie, but it can leave newcomers scratching their heads.
Now I'd read the book last year so I knew what happened in the story and what stuff was going to get chopped out (like the entire Dursley's sequence), so I should have been prepared. But the reason I felt a bit lost on first viewing was that there really isn't any grounding scene at the start. It opens with Harry's dream about Voldermort (which is great), then you jump to Harry and Ron in some tiny bedroom and the next thing is they're sauntering through a forest with the rest of the Weasley's and then - Kapow! they're at the Quidditch World Cup. Now I knew they were in the Weasley house because I've read the books, but I just thought for pacing it would have been good to have an establishing scene inside the house, a noisy breakfast or something, before they set off. Just so we knew where they were. Just a quibble. The rest of the movie was pretty good. Much of it was exactly as I'd imagined it from the book, but then Hogwarts is so well-established in the public consciousness that it's very easy to dive back into Rowling's world.
I'm actually looking forward to the next film, Order of the Phoenix. I know it's supposed to be one of the least popular books (way too long, for a start) but it'll be exciting to see the bits I can remember - like the showdown in the Department of Mysteries, you know the scene where ****** ***** gets killed. That'll be magic!
I'm also looking forward to the final book, which J.K. told me the other night is going to be called Harry Potter and the End of the Franchise. This, however, may change.

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