Which is your LEAST favorite "Harry Potter" movie?

[derby378]

Remember, we're rating the movies, not the books. Vote now!

[hyphenate]

1. As the books get longer

the movies are having a more difficult time keeping up with them, and yes, it comes to a point where they are essentially two different pieces of work with only a small link in common.

However, taking all that into consideration, I do think that reading the books does help in seeing the movies. The movies, however, can stand on their own, which is great.

Of the four movies made, for me, the weakest is the second one. Overall, it doesn't have the direct links to the main story, although it works on the backstory well. It could really have been skipped without any detriment to the overall HP story, since the Voldemort character is not really in the story, only as a precursor to what is coming someday.

As such, it presents itself as an oddity. Tom Riddle, as we all know, WILL be Voldemort, but Voldemort is NOT Tom Riddle. Some aspects of Tom Riddle make us understand Voldemort better, but we don't learn much more about Harry, Ron, Hermione or any one of the other characters to any degree, even Hagrid, who figured more prominently.

[derby378]

2. Interesting premise, but I disagree on one point... (BOOK SPOILER)

In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, we learn that Tom Riddle has pretty much always been of the same mind as Lord Voldemort, even when he was just a child. The unspeakable terror he immersed those two children in seem to indicate his true motives even back then.

[salin]

3. missing the "I haven't seen any" option.

:shrug:

[brook]

4. I only saw the first 2...

but my great-grandaughter announced recently that she was "going to see the new Harry Potter movie" when she was 28. "Actually, I'm going to see them all when I'm 28", she concluded. She's 3 and had been told she couldn't go because it was scarey & she was too young. So - in 25 years she'll take the poll, Okay?

[politicat]

5. Goblet of Fire.

Ugh. Bad construction, poor continuity, too much necessary dropped and too much fluff kept around as filler. Even seeing it on the best screen in the metro area didn't help keep me from getting annoyed with it.

And they killed the dragon.

[Goblinmonger]

7. I can see not liking the new movie

especially from a purist perspective (will touch on that in a minute), but if anything, I would think the cinematic complaint would be that it was TOO tightly constructed with TOO fast of pacing which seems to be the opposite of what you said. Maybe I'm wrong.

I am really disappointed that the house elves and subsequent Hermoine movement wasn't included. I always thought the last book would have Hermoine rallying the house elves (a la Ents in Lord of the Rings) to rise up and fight the death eaters in the last book. I mean those elves have WICKED skills. But them not being in the movie seems to make that less likely.

[politicat]

8. Here's what I'm thinking....

The director concentrated on a lot of fluff (i.e. the never ending ball sequence, the kinda freaky bathtub scene, the weird riot) at the expense of real story issues - aforementioned house elves, the Rita Skeeter story line (how else are we going to get the Tattler story now in book 5 - and that one's pivotal!), the World Cup, etc. I just don't like the choices he and the script writer made as to what was important. I feel like they didn't consider the events of GOF with regards to the entire arc of the story.

The other thing I disliked was the way the director had of not making everything count: He kept bringing Prof. Flitwick into the shot for no reason; he did some weird things with the various interpretations of characters (the raging Dumbledore was Mike Newell's decision, not the actor's decision)... I will admit that I'm picky about that kind of thing - if you have something or someone on stage, it/they better have a reason to be there.

What a fabulous idea for the House elves... and just because the movies aren't showing it doesn't mean it won't happen. And I agree - the Elves are the most underrated community in the entire wizarding world.

[Goblinmonger]

9. That bathtub scene was really weird

When she was "sitting" on his lap, I thought that was a whole new view of Myrtle.

I thought the Voldemort back story that was left out would be important, too.

The rage scene was WAY out of character for Dumbledor, I agree.

I could do without Rita Skeeter, but something had to be in there to get us to the Tattle story.

[derby378]

12. I don't think the dragon necessarily DIED...

She just slammed her head against that stone bridge. Probably the equivalent of a mild concussion for a human, given the dragon's size and assumed bone density.

At least, to my recollection, they never came out and said that the Horntail bought the farm.

[politicat]

14. Not specifically, but the context sure implied that they killed her.

There were two beats of dead silence after she hit, and several horrified expressions on faces. That's movie shorthand for "Uh-oh."

[ghostsofgiants]

6. No "all of them" option?

[XemaSab]

10. I didn't vote

I agree with what an above poster said about the longer the books get, the harder the movies have to work to catch up.

I thought Goblet of Fire had some of the best scenes, but the plot was pretty compromised for the sake of the length of the film. Whole plot lines were missing here, and some major characters. Fleur, for example, had virtually no dialogue, which makes setting her up for 6 and 7 tough. Ultimately, I thought GoF was the most true to the spirit of the source book of all the films.

Prisoner of Azkaban, Cuaron definitely made it his own... some of the imagery and symbolism was inserted into the movie by the director that wasn't so much in the books, and it was a real departure from Columbus's style. Some of the back story on the Marauders was missing, sadly. 10 more minutes would have filled in a lot of the missing gaps, while with GoF, 10 minutes could have filled in some missing scenes, but not the missing plot lines.

I think Chamber of Secrets is the weakest of the books, and the movie shares some of that weakness. There are a few things missing, but frankly the plot of the book jumps around a bit so if the movie jumps a bit too, it's not Columbus' fault. I thought the ending was a bit weak, but I thought many of the movies tried to tack on a feel-good ending to books that had darker closing chapters.

The first movie was okay. The chess scene dragged a bit long.

All in all, I think it's really hard to make films out of these books. I think it was a mistake to start making the movies before all the books are written, because details are lost like for example the vanishing cabinet which shows up in book 2, 3, and 5 before playing a major part in book 6.

I think the casting has been brilliant, with a few exceptions. I'll give an extra shout-out to Kenneth Branagh as Lockhart.

Come join us in the fantasy literature group! Harry Potter 24-7! Good times!

[derby378]

11. My main problems with Cuaron's take on PoA...

...was that the whole project looked like a rush job, with entire sections of the novel chopped out. The pacong was simply too fast. And Emma Watson, who usually turns out a great performance as Hermione, acted like she was completely bored.

GoF was an improvement, but there is still much work to be done. Warner Brothers simply has to concede that the next HP movie is going to last at least 150 minutes and be done with it.

[politicat]

15. Hear, hear!

Warner Brothers simply has to concede that the next HP movie is going to last at least 150 minutes and be done with it.

Exactly. And it really needs a PG-13 rating. GOF was not a movie for 4 year old rug rats (though there was one running in the aisles before the movie started at my 10:00 screening... grrrrrr....) and OOP is definitely not for littles.

edited because coding went kerflooey.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

13. "... Chamber of Secrets"

It's my least favorite book as well, it just seems to be very much story by numbers without the wonder of the first or the excitement and adventure of the rest. I'm yet to see "Goblet of Fire" though (it finally comes to my cinema mid-January.)

[Seabiscuit]

16. They're all "favorites".

I refuse to vote against any of them.

[robbedvoter]

17. Goblet - choppy storytelling, feeble Dumbledore

fact is - it was my least favorite book - the entire tournament story failed to captivate me.
Azkaban was my favorite book + movie as the most surprising plot line & Cuaron gave the movie character. The first 2 are straightforward story telling - nothing artistic - but pleasant enough. This last one - besides some cool special effects was a total mess. What they did to Dumbledore is unforgiveable!