Point: Harry Potter Directors

Greetings all!  I’m Tom, posting here in the Cave as Turbo.  Ryan and I (sorry, I refuse to refer to him as any kind of “stud”, no matter how studly he may be) have been friends for a few years now, even lived together for a while.  One of the reasons we became such good friends is our love of pop culture and our abilities to geek out over ridiculous shit for hours on end.  Ryan got me into comic books and introduced me to some essential movies I’d somehow managed to miss (Jaws, Aliens, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon…  you get the idea).  Well after watching Ry rock the shit out of this site for a few months now, I realized I couldn’t allow him to hog all the glory for himself.  So after getting him really drunk, I talked him into letting me write for the site as well.  So came my plan for this article.  While Ryan and I agree about 90% of the time, there is still that 10% he and I disagree on entirely (sorry sir, Community is merely “watchable” for me, and yes I’m officially caught up).  One of the things we disagree on is the progression of the Harry Potter film series and the different directors to tackle the project.  So I now proudly present The Batcave’s very first: Point/Counterpoint.

“Ryan, you ignorant slut.”

Let me start by saying, we do agree on three movies.  The first two are clean and accurate adaptations that are entertaining and well directed.  They’re not perfect, but they’re a great start to the series.  Shit, they made me want to finally read the books.  The other we seem to agree on is the fourth movie, Goblet of Fire (GoF).  While it wasn’t packing ALL the heat the book did, it got the most important scene in the movie as right as humanly possible (in fact Ryan and I both applauded at the end of Voldy’s resurrection scene).  That leaves the rest.

“Shit’s about to get real.”

The third movie in the franchise, Prisoner of Azkaban (PoA) was directed by the amazingly talented Alfonzo Cuaron.  Now while I’ve kind of prided myself on being able to separate the movies from the books, this one was so far off the mark, it has become simply painful to watch.  Yes, he brought a darkness to Harry Potter that the first two were lacking, but there were far too many times where it felt forced and unnecessary.  There’s the nameless black kid who shows up twice in the entire movie just to say some creepy line.  Then there are the segway scenes that last about 30 seconds each (5 total in the movie).  I don’t find it entertaining to watch a bird fly over Hogwarts just to get killed by a tree (that somehow moved between the second and third movie).  I guess I just a had a problem with him changing this world that was already established.  Yes, this got remedied over the next few movies as the following directors just rolled with the punches, but at the time of its release, I felt like I was in a different Hogwarts than the one I’d already gotten to know.  They then took the whole Patronus thing and turned it into a “shield”.  We all know Patronuses as animals is particularly important later in the story.  Also, Lupin’s werewolf was so awful I laughed the first time I saw it.

“Is wittle Wupin cold?”

Some people had problems with Michael Gambon’s casting but for me he was a saving grace (“Professor we did it!”  “Did what? Goodbye…”).  He brought out the quirkiness left out by his predecessor.  Combine the two and you have MY Dumbledore.  But I digress.  So those are my major complaints on PoA.  As I said before, Ryan and I agree on GoF and the director there took the mess left behind by Cuaron and combined it with the already established world from the first two movies.  Then we got David Yates.  Here’s where you’ll find Ryan and disagree most.  For me, David Yates SAVED the Harry Potter series.  He had an uphill battle with Order of the Phoenix (OotP) having a new writer and was directing the longest book of the series.  Not to mention he was working with WB which CAN’T be easy.

Yeah, you’ll NEVER see this.

He had new characters to introduce, and old ones to cut.  All I can say is they kept the heart of the story in tact.  Dolores Umbridge was evil and creepy, and Grimauld Place was RIPPED from my brain.  I always felt the battle between Voldemort and Dumbledore was the most important scene in the book.  This was supposed to be the battle between the two greatest wizards alive and it felt like it.  Yes, their wands connected, but in the context of the movies, it was never explained why Harry’s and Voldemort’s wands connected in the prior movie, so the effect was left up for grabs, and I think visually it’s an impressive one that works.  Same goes for the sixth movie.  I always felt it was the weakest book (but still great), and when it came out it was instantly my favorite movie.  David Yates knew he was completing the series at this point and it was the first time it felt like an actual sequel to the previous movie and not just “Another story in the life of Harry Potter”.  He now had the confidence of the studio and the original writer of the movie series back on board.  I know Daniel Radcliffe has said he’s least happy with his own performance (can’t see why, the Felix Felicis scene is one of my absolute favorites of the series due to his performance), but I guess it was just a difficult time in his life (kid was 18, we all suffered at 18, and he was famous, couldn’t have been easier).  I love Half-Blood Prince (HBP) as a movie, it had some action, suspense, romance, and Hermione got wasted drunk in one scene.  I saw respect from the adult actors for the child actors and really let them do their work. 

Surrounded by award winners and the kids hold their own.

Finally the last two movies.  Any faults I find with these last two I can only blame on the studio and in having too many hands in the cookie jar.  This was a huge moment, the final Harry Potter movies (a cash COW), and a lot of ends to tie up.  Deathly Hallows Part 1 (HP7P1) is now my favorite of the movies, even though it’s just half a movie.  It got so much right, the things it got wrong are forgettable.  It was cleverly written and explained all the holes left out previously in the movies.  There were even moments that I felt were BETTER than the book (yup, I went there).  The escape from Privet Drive was spectacular and I like the way Hedwig died in the movie way over the way in the book.  The acting is great and the main trio really brought everything they learned over the previous ten years to the table and gave it their absolute all.  The splinching scene was grotesque and the Harry/Ron breakup was well done.  HP7P2 has the most problems.  My biggest complaint is that it’s not a movie.  It’s half of one.  I knew going into HP7P1 that it would have a cliffhanger, and I was satisfied with the cut’s location.  But P2 picked up literally where the last left off!  It even replayed the final scene of the previous movie just to remind everyone where we left off.  Again, studio thing, not director thing.  He just made one LONG ASS movie (which I’d love to see as a whole).  The second half is fine. Considering the entire movie is essentially one long day, it has a lot to live up to.  It ends differently but in the context of the movie series, it works and makes sense.  To me, someone as powerful as Voldemort, and as evil as he is, would have a more significant death than just falling over dead.  Yes it’s the idea that in the end he was just a man, but I still like that his power exploded out of him basically.  Plus they left in Molly Weasley’s triumphant moment.  Sure there are things I would have liked to see, but I’m happy with what I got.

“Molly Weasely: Mother of 8, housewife, farmer, poor, simple, total badass.”

David Yates brought the cast and crew together.  He gave us an obvious family, and gave us some damn good entertainment.  He came into something already established and left his permanent and indelible mark on the series.  What I love even more is that he’s casting these people in his next movie, which just says all sorts of positive things about the actors and the director’s respect for them, and they for him.  I’ve worked in places where the boss changes every couple of months, so it couldn’t have been easy for him to come into this world.  But he stood his own and owned that shit.

So Ryan, please, let us now hear your side of the argument.  And to the readers of the wonderful cave, I hope you enjoyed my first article.  You’ll be hearing from me plenty (I DID see Men in Black 3 and honestly, it’s not horrible.  Maybe Ryan will let me review it for you).  Until next time: