Amourosa Wrote:Oh, yeah. I went to the midnight premiere and it was great to watch the *entire* auditorium's worth of people jump at that moment. LOL
The whole auditorium jumped? Were they all, like, seeing their first ever movie? <!-- s

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Quote:It's a shame it was rated PG, maybe they could have put the epic battle at the end of the book in the movie. That, and that movie was SO not PG.
It was a 12A in the UK, which seemed about right. The only thing that I think would have raised the rating was the child abuse (with hinted incest/paedophilia) flashbacks - but the really nasty stuff there was subtle enough that I don't think children would have picked up on it anyway.
I'm actually glad the battle was gone, for four reasons:
1 - The Death Eaters were rather more sinister if they could walk into Hogwarts, kill Dumbledore, and walk out . . . rather than having to fight through an army of Aurors to do it. In the context of the films, we know they can go in with wands blazing: now we know they can come like thieves and do their worst before anyone even notices.
2 - While Liquid Luck saved Harry's friends in the book, on the other hand, if a bunch of 16 year olds (and younger!) are a credible threat to Bellatrix Lestrange's posse, that neuters them a little bit. They're a hell of a lot more intimidating if they can't be fought to a standstill by luck-inspired teenagers.
3 - The previous film ended with a large, epic, Order + pupils vs Death Eaters battle - as will the final one. Having it in this film would have made things far too repititious. (I think that was Steve Kloves' main stated reason for changing the ending a bit.)
4 - The two main plot points that come out of the battle are Bill Weasley being mutilated, and Lupin and Tonks becomming a couple. The latter is important for the rest of the story, and it was established rather well in the extra scene at the Burrow (which also did a great job of establishing Lupin being somewhat reluctant about it all, IMO.) So that leaves poor Bill. In the books, werewolfism has parallels with various things including AIDS, homosexuality, and paedophilia. This led to some great Lupin moments with him trying to deal with prejudice, health problems, worry about infecting loved ones, and knowing his abuser was still wandering around free. Unfortunately, aside from a brief scene in PoA, that entire subtext isn't in the films. And I think Bill being mutilated by Greyback is relevant only with all of that - with that subtext, a crazy butch gay man beat the shit out of him and fucked his face up and
possibly gave him AIDS just for fun and his very, very attractive financée loves him so much she doesn't even consider leaving. Very powerful scene. Without that subtext, though, Bill being bitten would mean nothing other than "Damn, those Weasleys are having a REALLY tough time" . . . but that was established very viscerally with their house being blown up.
I'm not going on a rant, heh, it's just that some things that work brilliantly in books do not work at all on the screen, and vice versa. What's amazing about Harry Potter is that the story is so strong the vast, vast majority of it works equally well on both.
Oh and Jim Broadbent deserves a goddamn Oscar. The regret, and pathos, and shame he put into that role was magnificent, it was Shakespearian. Alan Rickman was yet again fantastic, and especially with knowledge of the final book he was layering on the emotions and conflict like crazy - the whole cast was astoundingly good in fact, and I'd say that isn't just the best-acted Harry Potter yet, its's possibly the best-acted fantasy movie I've ever seen. But Jim Broadbent? He was Godly.
And I'm gonna have a late breakfast, get on my bike, and ride out to the cinema to see it again <!-- s

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