(no subject)
Nov. 18th, 2002 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Well, this one didn't suck as much as the first one. The big problem with this series is that they are really intended for people who have read the books and want to see them visualized. Since they are specifically aimed at children, there might be some degree of dumbing down, although this is not really necessary since droves children already love the books as they are.
Starting from that target audience, the filmmakers have undertaken to stick in as many Stunning Visuals and Magical Moments as possible, glorifying special effects to the detriment of plot. The second movie thankfully does rather less of that on the whole, and the special effects are by and large used well as part of the plot. Unfortunately, they are about all that is used well for the plot. There are fundamental differences between page and screen that necessitate conveying the same information in different ways, a picture being worth a thousand words, etc. The filmmakers don't care. Because they know their target audience wants each individual scene that they see to be Just So, they do a truly poor job of making the film as a whole have the balance and introspection that the book does. Instead, they film as much of the book as they can scene-for-scene, line-for-line, cutting parts they can't fit, and effectively ignoring the visual nature of their medium. Case in point: Harry and Ron have a tense scene running into Percy while disguised as Crabb and Goyle. This scene exists in the book solely to hint at a love plot for Percy later in the story. But in the movie, they've cut Percy's love plot entirely, making this scene a total waste. This is simply sloppy planning. Instead of intricate humanist plots, we get extended action sequences.
One other thing about book II in particular occurred to me while watching the film, which kind of bugs me: the big monster is not, in fact, a basilisk. Although it's understandable to ignore the whole chicken-dragon aspect, in mythologies where the basilisk can petrify, it is by direct gaze or mirror, and it will petrify itself if it sees its own reflection. So why go to all the trouble of not having its victims see it directly? It still has deadly contact poison, so the threat of death is not really lessened, and a contrived layer of complexity could be removed.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-18 02:59 pm (UTC)Of course, neither resemble the snakey-thingy in the movie...and their roc was a wee bit on the tiny size, IMHO.
I found this movie to be a lot jumpier than the first one, more stuff crammed in just to get to it, with less flow. Too much stuff came up and never was significant; squid on the mantlepiece of high order.
TMH
Basalisk
Date: 2002-11-18 03:20 pm (UTC)Re: Basilisk
Date: 2002-11-18 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-11-18 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-11-18 08:56 pm (UTC)i'd agree that this film appears somewhat choppier in some ways, mainly because they left out whole plots. they did that because the books keep getting longer, but they feel the need to keep the movies under 3 hours