Harry Potter (films) impressions after watching them all

[jtv]

Harry Potter. It's pretty underground, you guys have probably never heard of it. Here's what I thought after watching all 8 films over the past 2 weeks. Hopefully you guys who have read the books can clear some things up for me.

I liked it. It's no LotR or Star Wars, but I'm glad I watched it. I haven't read any of the books. I had seen the first five movies previously, so the last three were completely new.

The series is a LOT of convenient moments. "Oh you need that thing destroyed? Well I just happen to have the exact thing you need". I can't help but think that if this was LotR, at the council of Elrond when they decided to destroy the ring, Gimli would have stepped up and said "Oh, I happen to have a mini Mt Doom here in my pocket" and they throw the ring in and destroy it, end of Sauron, end of movie. I also can't believe how many times they solved a problem with an apologist potion. Like every fucking movie! Of course, the exact opposite is also true, there were so many times that a simple solution that they had set up in a previous movie just doesn't even occur. The last few movies, they establish that the main characters can teleport just about anywhere.... except apparently whenever they're trapped somewhere.

Why did everyone keep telling Harry he had his mother's eyes when his eyes were blue and hers were brown?

One thing I really didn't understand, and I was hoping was cleared up but wasn't, was the end scene from Goblet of Fire. Harry sees Lucius Malfoy at the Voldemort resurrection. Why the hell doesn't he tell anyone? Or if he did in the books, and the movie just didn't address it, why the hell would they let Draco return to Hogwart's the next year?

Finally, they never once mention how they defeated Voldemort the first time.

Order of the Phoenix was my favorite.

[darth-ed]

Goblet of Fire is my favorite movie in the series. The whole Tri-Wizard Tournament was a lot of fun to watch, and the ending is awesome. I really felt something when one of the characters died in that movie (unlike the others for some reason).

[damnedeyez]

To be honest, it's been a long time since I read the books, and I still haven't seen the book 7 movies (refused to watch half of it...and holding off on the DVDs until I see a book 7 part 1 & 2 bundle)...but the movies were always more of a "highlights from the books, for your eyes and ears" to me.

[gm_wil]

The movies were good . . . and I did read the last book . . . but my favorite way to experience Potter was listening to Jim Dale read the books . . . he's fan-flippin-tastic.

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[jtv]

Originally Posted by darth-ed

and the ending is awesome. I really felt something when one of the characters died in that movie (unlike the others for some reason).

I saw that movie for the first time after the whole Twilight madness fiasco, so that ending was awesome for me too, but for a different reason I suspect

If someone edited a 90 minute movie of all the Snape scenes, that would actually be my favorite movie. I loved everything Alan Rickman did.

They could call it Harry Potter and the Elongated Sentence

[tsmith15]

I thought that after the fourth movie the rest of it was complete crap. There isn't even a point of having Hogwarts because they're never in school. I just think it's another case of having too much stuff in the books to translate effectively on screen without having a 3-4 hour run-time for each film. It also has all the same problems as the books have, but I'm older now so it's a bigger deal. I still enjoy watching 1-4 though.