to think that the Harry Potter are timeless literature and the films are woefully miscast?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Inflammatory title to draw you in. I hope. I just fancied some HP chat.

I'm re-watching the films at the moment. Is it me or is there something old-ladyish about Alan Rickman's mouth? I realize I am thinking about this far too hard, and I know it's practically forbidden to speak ill of him on MN. But every time I see those films, I'm disappointed again that he just isn't as sexy as his voice.

I also think the Burrow looks all wrong to me. I love what they do with the reeds in the scene where Bellatrix taunts Harry and he and Ginny run after her. But I imagined the Burrow being rural and farmland-ish, with an overgrown garden around it - not plonked down in the middle of a marsh. Am I right?

What's your favourite bit of the films/books?

maryz - well, they were!

Love love LOVE the HP series, both books and films cannot wait to read them all to little pip once he or she makes an appearance.

Loved Voldemort but did anyone else think he has to be up there as one of the campest baddies of all time..?

Mmm, Matthew Lewis has turned out very nicely.

I've seen that link before and the caption that makes it for me is 'finds a comfortable balance somewhere between Stephen Fry and Hitler'.

daphne - yes, fairly camp! Though I think almost all of the men in HP are quite camp. You really cannot swirl around in a long cloak fingering your wand and not be camp.

Daniel radcliff was terrible as HP but I think his acting has improved as he has got older. It was such a shame they didn't find someone better.

I didn't like Emma Watson either.

Overall I thought the films were fabulous. They came out at just the right time for our family. (Eldest was born 1992 and youngest 1996) The oldest DC wasn't too old and the youngest not too young IYSWIM. My DH read all the books to the kids. They were all obsessed.

Our kids were all taken to see LOTR when each of the movies came out. DC4 was just 6 when she saw the first LOTR movie but she was enthralled. I covered her eyes a few times. The build up between the release of each of the LOTR movies and the HP movies was great. We used to go to and watch them on the biggest screen possible as soon as they were released. Luckily we were overseas so it was really cheap

Just place marking, and agreeing Ginny was a bit wet.

It's always niggled me in the fourth film how Neville gives him the gillyweed, not Dobby. In the book you see how much of a long game Crouch played, but not so much in the film. And what was Gabrielle doing coming over with the Beauxbaton girls? She was far too young and there was no reason for her to tag along. Also was the Rita Skeeter bit properly explained? I loved that sub-plot.

We might also refer to one film as Harry Potter and the Camping Trip...

I do love them really though!

Matthew Lewis... he is my OH's man-crush

Loved Lucius, Lupin, Sirius, Pettigrew, Lockhart...

Perhaps it's quicker if I say which I didn't like

I hated Seamus in the film - he seemed to ruin every scene he was in.
Agree that George and Fred took some warming up but, by GofF, I think they'd got there, although the different accents was a bit disconcerting.
Preferred Dumbledore 1 to Dumbledore 2.
Oh, and what in God's good name was Professor Trelawney?! Nothing like the book and really didn't like the film version.
Dursleys became a bit of a caricature in both book and film, though very well acted.

LOVED the Knight Bus
Moaning Myrtle was good, too.

Where was Peeves?!!!
Unforgiveable cutting - and with Rik Mayall, too!

On a serious note, Harry Potter introduced me to reading. My parents bought me the book for Christmas when I was 6, intending for me to read it a few years down the line... a month later I'd finished it

The Weasley accents was one thing I really didn't understand.

They're from Ottery St Catchpole, which is supposed to be in Devon.

Ron has a little bit of Cockney.
Ginny is wet boring I don't even know her accent
Percy is a posh twat
And then Fred, George, Molly and Arthur all have a Birmingham twang

was actually 3 when the first book was released

is so funny. A load of impressions of Harry Potter characters, from the films and from things like A Very Potter Musical, Potter Puppet Pals etc

Oh stop it Moomin

I thought I was doing well being 8 when the first book was published.

I love the films albeit the books were so much better.
Helena Bonham Carter was amazing. Fabulous casting!!

I loved Lupin and Tonks and wish they had been more in the films.

Alan Rickman is just amazing full stop. Although I cant see him without laughing since I watched Sweeney Todd the demon barber of fleet street.

Given the end of the Harry Potter series is so bad (the epilogue in particular is just horribly trite) I can't imagine that they will be considered classics in the long run. I love children's fiction but I think that HP is really fairly run of the mill. In some ways the films were better than the books because they cut out some of the endless rambling and moaning in the later books. It's a sad feature of popular series that they often get a bit flabby, presumably because the editing becomes less stringent. I really think they would have been much better books with at least a quarter of the text cut out, especially all that angsting about going out with your best mates sister (like that's ot a totally normal thing to happen).

Cast wise I agree that DR is very wooden. I know he is supposed to be 'normal' but he has so little charisma that you wonder why the other two hang out with him. Then Ron gets very moany too which is irritating (although I know he was in the book too).

I really disliked HBC because it felt like she was just hamming it up. Generally I enjoyed watching all the British character actors, especially once we didn't live in the UK any more.

In the films Hermione was never bookish or bluestocking enough for me, Harry was rather limp and blank, Dolores Umbridge was far too thin, and, most disappointingly, Moaning Myrtle was just wrong, wrong, wrong! They should have got a plump, Bunty-ish, 12 year old girl to play Myrtle, not Shirley Henderson doing the same old schtick she does in every role.

"There is certainly a marked jump in the tone of the films once you get past the first two. It seems like more than a years worth of 'growing up' goes on."

I found the same of the books, though - the first two were "children's books" and then it got into "teenage/young adult" fiction.

Even JKR regrets the epilogue now, doesn't she?

Like others, I hate that Snape and the Marauders are so much older than the books have them. Was JKR really thinking of Alan rickman when she wrote Snape? If so, why didn't she make a bigger gap between everyone leaving school and Harry's birth?

Biggest let down in casting was Hermione Granger and Gonna Weasley. Such fantastic strong female characters completely ruined by bad acting

Ginny! Sorry!

i also think that the films deviate too far from the books, especially the further into the series you got.

agree Rosmerta was just wrong. wasn't Ron meant to have a crush on her? bleurgh!

Professors Sprout, Flitwick and McGonagell were all perfect.

warwick davies- amazing!

Matthew Lewis also fabulous. especially in the final film.

agree the bbc could have done a better job makinng the series (i love their portrayal of the Lion the witch and the wardrobe).

i didn't know that about Daniel Radcliffe having a problem with alcohol. thats a shame.

loved Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. especially in the earlier films. ron got a bit whiney in the later ones!

I'm not sure Lupin could have curled up in his office that easily how they made him look non the films.

Actually that's a point, where do you think the teachers sleep?