Prepare for Potterization

Last Friday evening I went with some friends to see the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It took me until today to write this because I was out of town Saturday and Sunday, and I had other obligations yesterday. I’ll ramble on about it shortly, probably without spoilers.

We got our 8 PM show tickets about 2.5 hours ahead of time, and then ate supper. We arrived and seated ourselves about 30 minutes before the movie, and I can say I am glad. We had 11 people and if we had gotten there 5 minutes later we would have had a time getting seats.

Oh and I haven’t read the books yet. I’ve got about 18 books on my dresser right now. When I get those down to a few I’ll look at the Potters.

So, it was a Harry Potter movie. It was one of a series. It was based on a long book. And the movie watched as if it were all those things. This movie was very Harry-centric. The other characters didn’t get as large an amount of screen time or plot importance. The movie assumed you knew certain things from the previous movies. It also didn’t have a spectacular ending. Most of that is caused by the adaptation coming from a long book. Once you have to boil down the book into a short enough story for a movie you end up cutting out a lot of the nuance that the readers love. I am really hoping that the next book might appear as two movies.

As a movie I think it was right good. It was obvious where some of the parts were cut and the story seemed rushed, but overall it was quite good. The actors are getting a little along in years, but it’s still manageable so far. It’s not the same kids’ movie the series started out as, but neither are the books.

If you liked the first 3 movies, then you should like this one. I recommend you go see it, even if you have to see it at full price. Oh, and you might get to see the new Chronicles of Narnia trailer. Yeah, that one’s going on the list too.