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Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 5-film series


Bilbo

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2 hours ago, Dcasey98 said:

This sounds like it comes from someone who hasn't a clue what the Wizarding world is about, and I doubt you know a lot about it. 

 

JK Rowling, in the first book alone, included an 11 year old boy burning a man to death with his bare hands, a double murder, tales of war and torture, a man being possessed by another, his head grafted onto the back of his head, the consumption of animals for power...the books are dark. The source material is certainly darker than any entertainment brand today. Star Wars and Marvel are both "fluffy and light" in comparison to Potter. 

 

Again, I really can't lay a finger on what exactly you mean by "how little was actually there" when they turned dark. They were dark from the beginning, and it was apparent she was building up to something. You keep on inventing your own weird names and mentioning organizations of Quidditch leagues, except...since when has that been the limits of Rowling's political relevancy when she's literally written about war crimes, geonocide, mass murder, mudblood death camps, kangaroo courts, torture, assassinations, human trafficking, prohibition, the murder of children...like, at least try to care. Your justification for calling it "light and fluffy" seems like a mindless attempt to trivialize the series. This woman wrote an 8 installment series about a boy coming to terms with the increasingly violent world around him and the losses he had to go through to mirror her own experience with the death of her mother, suicidal thoughts, and depression and it's told really quite excellently. The fact that an entire generation clung to it more voraciously than any generation has before to a story, and have come to Rowling to tell her how her books got them out of depression, gave them the strength to confront abusers, accompany their child as they died from cancer...to say it has no substance and is light and fluffy is an insulting, patronizing, bald faced lie, and it flies in the face of everything the books stood for. 

 

The books never attempted to be "light and fluffy" outside of a few irrelevant world building details. They were dark books. No ones claiming it's the greatest piece of literature ever, but for highly commercial fantasy, it's really quite mature, and lying about its tone and patronizing it to disclude it from the creative conscious is really disrespectful. This is the forum that will praise Star Wars and Jurrassic Park, both of which are much lighter and fluffier than JK Rowling's Wizarding World, (particularly the former: Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, farting aliens, come on people,) so I don't really understand the voracious hatred and dismissal of her work. 

 

Basically, the Potter stories are dark and tragic. They're not light and fluffy in any significant way, and you're not going to find many people who will agree. The "heart of the story" as Jo claims, is the scene where Harry walks into the forest and uses the resurrection stone to confront the murdered loved ones he's lost, and use them to comfort him will he died for the community that took him in and gave him a family. Cursed Child sees him bonding tearfully with his son at the gravesites of everyone he lost. And at the end, he built a family. Something that was ripped away from him at age 1. For something so commercial, that really is quite mature and tragic. 

 

Cultural elitism doesn't get people anywhere. Sorry.

 

I don't care.  Most other people here don't either.  Give it a rest.  

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4 minutes ago, TheWhiteRider said:

 

I don't care.  Most other people here don't either.  Give it a rest.  

Well that makes you sound even more unintelligent and idiotic. Bye. I have no time for people who "don't care" about everything.

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2 minutes ago, TheWhiteRider said:

Good!  Hope you get your ban eventually for having nothing to contribute but childish arguments about opinion. 

Ooh! But you state your opinion like fact and get upset if someone challenges it. 

 

You were stating "this is what Harry Potter is like," not "I know nothing about it, but this is what i think it might be like" or even "this is what I thought about her series."

 

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1 minute ago, TheWhiteRider said:

Pretty sure you're the only upset person on this whole forum. 

You all have your noses sniffing your assholes ready to plunge them miles into your rectums Jesus suck a dick 

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1 minute ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

I must be a rubbish Harry Potter fan not to get upset by other people's opinions. 

I'd say you need to do read my former statement 

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2 minutes ago, Dcasey98 said:

Public service announcement: EVERY ONE OF YOU CAN FUCK A CACTUS. 

 

Thank you for the vote of confidence but I'll give it a skip. 

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You mentioned studio interference.

 

Anyone nitice that this is an accusation out towards a LOT of WB franchises? 

 

Ok, we all know Marvel micro manages the MCU films to ensure they all have the same cookie cutter shape but it seems that's WB are accused of getting involved on far too regular a basis. Harry Potter (OotP running time, and also DH2 running time), Suicide Squad, actually, DC films in general, The Hobbit. 

 

Just seems to happen with them more than anyone else!  

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4 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

When Molly says "Not my daughter, you bitch" you can barely even tell Bellatrix went after Ginny and you certainly don't see Molly take notice so the line has no power and just amounts to fan service. Then it's a bit of silly mickey-mousing action music, boom, pow, Molly wins in about 10 seconds and it's done. Where's the character? Where's the struggle?

 

 

Ugh, I hate that scene so much.  It's kind of amazing how Yates turned one of the most coolest moments in the books into something so lame.  Even Christopher Columbus could have made that scene awesome.  

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17 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

That's the weird contradiction of the later Potter movies is that they tried their damndest to make the threat dark, gritty, and real, and yet they were perfectly willing to trade a gruesome death scene for a notable character in exchange for a bit of slapstick. David Heyman claimed they thought it would look silly, so I guess they just decided to go even sillier? Maybe it was a studio note in reality, who knows.

 

David Yates, Steve Kloves, and their biggest fans claim those later movies prize character above all but then you look at some of the stuff they invented for Part 2, the time spent on blowing a bridge up with really no insight into Neville's leadership in the process, or elaborate battle scenes with no palpable sense of fear (except comically, like Flitwick hopping around), or extending the Harry/Voldemort duel into several nonsensical action beats that for me aren't especially exciting and really dilute what should be the intense emotion and revelation of their final conflict. Bellatrix and Voldemort don't die, they explode into puffs of confetti. Oh, but it's grey, not multi-colored, how dark! Where's the humanity?

 

When Molly says "Not my daughter, you bitch" you can barely even tell Bellatrix went after Ginny and you certainly don't see Molly take notice so the line has no power and just amounts to fan service. Then it's a bit of silly mickey-mousing action music, boom, pow, Molly wins in about 10 seconds and it's done. Where's the character? Where's the struggle?

 

 

While I agree with some of that, the "silly Micky mousing action music" is another odd, over exaggerated attempt to patronize. Alexandre desplat would never and nothing about the above scene is offending other than the fact that Bellatrix didn't die like she was supposed to.

 

theyre dark films, but Rowling's books were darker. 

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19 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

That's the weird contradiction of the later Potter movies is that they tried their damndest to make the threat dark, gritty, and real, and yet they were perfectly willing to trade a gruesome death scene for a notable character in exchange for a bit of slapstick. David Heyman claimed they thought it would look silly, so I guess they just decided to go even sillier? Maybe it was a studio note in reality, who knows.

 

David Yates, Steve Kloves, and their biggest fans claim those later movies prize character above all but then you look at some of the stuff they invented for Part 2, the time spent on blowing a bridge up with really no insight into Neville's leadership in the process, or elaborate battle scenes with no palpable sense of fear (except comically, like Flitwick hopping around), or extending the Harry/Voldemort duel into several nonsensical action beats that for me aren't especially exciting and really dilute what should be the intense emotion and revelation of their final conflict. Bellatrix and Voldemort don't die, they explode into puffs of confetti. Oh, but it's grey, not multi-colored, how dark! Where's the humanity?

 

When Molly says "Not my daughter, you bitch" you can barely even tell Bellatrix went after Ginny and you certainly don't see Molly take notice so the line has no power and just amounts to fan service. Then it's a bit of silly mickey-mousing action music, boom, pow, Molly wins in about 10 seconds and it's done. Where's the character? Where's the struggle?

 

 

Also, you're making an extraordinarily big deal about this and you're sort of pretzelling the logic here. The action scenes work effectively and the end when Voldemort is beating Harry around the astronomy tower and his face merges with Voldemort in that one hectic midair sequence is really jarring and nicely done. I love the priori incantation at the end, and it doesn't look like they "exploded into confetti". It looked like dead skin. I think they did that to make Voldemort's end more operatic and less human (an ironic, wrong decision.) But seeing the bodies lying about the courtyard and the emotion in both their faces as they battle each other at the end is human, gritty, and very well done, and when they battle on that staircase at the beginning...great work. 

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2 hours ago, Bilbo Skywalker said:

You mentioned studio interference.

 

Anyone nitice that this is an accusation out towards a LOT of WB franchises? 

 

Ok, we all know Marvel micro manages the MCU films to ensure they all have the same cookie cutter shape but it seems that's WB are accused of getting involved on far too regular a basis. Harry Potter (OotP running time, and also DH2 running time), Suicide Squad, actually, DC films in general, The Hobbit. 

 

Just seems to happen with them more than anyone else!  

 

Yeah, but on the other hand, Heyman has always maintained that the Columbus films were in fact where the studio was most involved -- and even so is there any doubt that those two are Chris Columbus movies through and through? I mean, that's why they hired him! -- but that by around film 4, WB was pretty trusting of the property and the filmmakers' ability to deliver. They let Cuaron get away with quite a lot, and Yates said he had a great, relaxed relationship with WB on Potter. In his recent Q&A, he said that it was Tarzan where he started to receive more of the dreaded studio notes, though even then claims it wasn't bad as he's heard from others. So in the case of HP, I'm actually more willing to blame the filmmakers, which makes the creative setbacks all the more disappointing.

 

Also I find WB very interesting because it's actually hard to think of another studio that has given directors more control over their choices. Think of their repeating relationships with Kubrick, Nolan, Cuaron, Spike Jonze, or the fact that in the last two years Inherent Vice and Mad Max: Fury Road were major studio releases. On the other hand it's garnering a reputation for being overly controlling in its franchise movies. One wonders if Alan Horn moving to Disney in 2012 and being replaced by Kevin Tsujihara has anything to do with it, which is odd because Disney is the biggest micro-manager in the business.

 

2 hours ago, Dcasey98 said:

While I agree with some of that, the "silly Micky mousing action music" is another odd, over exaggerated attempt to patronize. Alexandre desplat would never and nothing about the above scene is offending other than the fact that Bellatrix didn't die like she was supposed to.

 

Maybe over-exaggerated phrasing but I don't find that music expressive of anything going on between the characters other than the sparks they're shooting at each other, which is completely uninteresting to me.

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41 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

I think he should be banned!

I think your and your ugly, bitch ass brown eye should be shipped to China you dick sucking cactus fucker

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4 minutes ago, alextrombone94 said:

Snape's memory scene though, outstanding.

That particular scene is actually pretty great.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it were solely responsible for the incredibly high acclaim the film received.

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Just now, Not Mr. Big said:

I'm no fan of the movie but that particular scene is great.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it were solely responsible for the incredibly high acclaim the film received.

 

And to think they would have cut it had they only made one film!

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7 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

Maybe over-exaggerated phrasing but I don't find that music expressive of anything going on between the characters other than the sparks they're shooting at each other, which is completely uninteresting to me.

It's lame but I don't think any composer could have done much with such an inconsequential fart of a scene.  

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I don't disagree and I'm not saying great music would have made the scene a masterpiece, but I'm not totally convinced that was the most that could have been done with it. But I mean, it's fine, the problems with the scene aren't with Desplat. I just don't feel like his work does anything but add some adrenaline (which is how I feel about a disappointing amount of the score), whereas I think at least a little more emotional focus was possible. Actually the best possible version of the confrontation might have been unscored, but I don't think Yates's attempt would work without music.

 

2 hours ago, Dcasey98 said:

Also, you're making an extraordinarily big deal about this

 

I guess pot meet kettle then, brother. ;)

 

2 hours ago, Dcasey98 said:

The action scenes work effectively and the end when Voldemort is beating Harry around the astronomy tower and his face merges with Voldemort in that one hectic midair sequence is really jarring and nicely done. I love the priori incantation at the end, and it doesn't look like they "exploded into confetti". It looked like dead skin. I think they did that to make Voldemort's end more operatic and less human (an ironic, wrong decision.) But seeing the bodies lying about the courtyard and the emotion in both their faces as they battle each other at the end is human, gritty, and very well done, and when they battle on that staircase at the beginning...great work. 

 

We're going to have to agree to disagree on a lot of these points. Point blank, the film obviously succeeds because it connected with you. You find the face-merge and Voldemort's disintegration interesting to look at and haunting imagery, you find the battle on the staircase a human and powerful sequence and expressive of character. I do not.

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53 minutes ago, alextrombone94 said:

And to think they would have cut it had they only made one film!

 

Ha yeah, I remember them saying that. I doubt they would have cut it entirely, but I think it would have been something like one scene in Dumbledore's office where you get all the major revelations at once.

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Saw DH1 in the cinema this morning. Can't see DH2 next week as I won't be in Dublin so I watched it on Bluray this evening.

 

Currently an emotional wreck (knowledge of the books obviously adding to it). 

 

Part 2 is a significantly better film the closer in proximity to Part 1 you watch it. 

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I guess so. I've done the back-to-back thing just once when Part 2 came out on Bluray and found the earlier stuff more spirited (the Gringotts break-in and dragon escape really works nicely coming directly after the torture and death at Malfoy Manor, plus the trio's other setbacks and tensions in Part 1) but by the end of it all I was still a bit like

 

maybe.gif

 

On a positive note, I did go see Azkaban in the IMAX re-release last Tuesday and I think I love film and score even more than ever now.

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