sinnik–exactly – and we learn early on in book 7 that Hermione, as awesome as she is, has a little trouble when she has to apperate 3 people at once under extreme pressure. Ron’s splinching wasn’t a minor matter. By the time the snatchers are chasing them down in the forest, she’s probably not thinking “yeah, lemme try that again and maybe this time the huge chunk will come out of his skull this time!”
I haven’t read the books and have only a vague remembrance of the older movies but this sort of thing was driving me nuts for most of the film. Why did they have to fly Harry out of his house at all, why not just teleport him? Why were they running from the bad guys in the woods, why not just teleport away? Why can Dobby teleport into Bellatrix’s place and why are elves servants at all? Why don’t they have a larger variety of spells when fighting other wizards/witches in addition to the standard zaps? The whole world needs more rules and limits. I can’t accept that they can teleport all over the place at will but then get caught in the open or pinned down in a house (granted they actually did teleport out of that). My Fiancee said they need to be touching to ensure they go to the same place. I said why don’t they just agree on an emergency teleport location when shit hits the fan and that’s not feasible? Considering the preparing that Hermione did, this seems like a very strange omission. The whole story was filled with plot holes, almost all stemming from the horribly inconsistent magic.
TheTrunk:
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House Elves’ magic is different from wizard magic (as is Goblin magic, and just about any non-human magic). In the books, Hermione is a huge champion of house-elf rights, and in book 7 it pays off when they realize that the wizarding world drastically under-estimates the power of house-elves.
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Ron and Harry can’t apparate on their own, they failed their tests in book 6. Apparition is dangerous as you can leave chunks of yourself behind if you do it wrong. In order to do side-along apparition, you need to be touching someone who really knows what they’re doing, but the procedure is harder for the person doing the apparating.
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Harry can’t be apparated directly out of the house because he still has the trace on him for being an underage wizard, and any magic done in his vicinity will be detected. And since the Order knew that the ministry was infiltrated by the death eaters, they have to sneak him out by undetectable means (broomsticks and the like). As I recall, Mad-Eye mentioned this in the movie.
More like a mother’s protection should span her boy’s childhood, but scoff if you like. I find it completely plausible, even wonderful. All parents want to cast a “protection for life” spell on their kids, but it just doesn’t work that way. It’s more of a whimsical metaphor for real life, then some stupid rule that was created in book #1. If I’m going to read fantasy, I’d much rather have it filled with this sort of thing than what you seem to be describing.
I can’t think of a better way to create a dull, loathsome book than to first fill it with the Rules of the Universe. But that’s just me.
I can’t think of a more aggravating story than one where the rules of the world exist or don’t entirely on the whim of the author.
Seriously they don’t have to list everything off in the first chapter but consistency needs to exist, otherwise there’s no reason for anything.
That’s a sad fantasy convention that has no correlation to anything real. But, hey, I guess it’s fantasy.
Harry Potter has more plenty of detail about the rules of things – they are explained whenever it is important for the particular part of the book. They usually make sense at the time they are introduced for the situation they are introduced for. But three books later they can be forgotten about or not really make sense with later explanations.
It doesn’t bother me much given the tone of the series. But sometimes it makes plot points feel a little more arbitrary than they needed to be.
“Expelleramo, bitches.”
Few things grate on me more than people who see movies and then assume the things they didn’t understand were “plot holes”.
While I am sure there might have been something that slipped through, you don’t think someone, somewhere asked the same question and had to come up with an answer as they were writing/rewriting/proofing/editing it?
Producer/Actor/Stagehand: “Why did x happen?”
Author/Screenwriter: “Shrug”
Director: “screw it, ACTION”
sigh.
I suspect the holes happened because important bits were left on the cutting room floor. That was my constant feeling throughout the film - wait, they left off this explanation or that, an important piece of dialogue, a transition piece or extended scene that would have made it flow better. It ended up a disjointed film that I suspect had been better accounted for in the script, but died in editing to get it’s run-time down. Hopefully, an extended edition will be available on DVD, because this one sure needs it.
I’m not a fan of the second movie and regarded it as the weakest of series, but I’m going to place this one at the bottom of the list as the worst Harry Potter movie.
To the bolded bit, this is my primary complaint with the movie. I did enjoy the story though.
As for being able to zip away, this is the kind of lesson you’d think any big budget director would have learned from the many, many complaints leveled against The Matrix Reloaded. “Why doesn’t Neo just fly away? Why is he invincible most of the time but not others? Etc.” Especially in Rowling’s story, where the characters are still younger than their enemies, there’s no reason not to have plenty of vulnerabilities & such. It would certainly up the tension.
Honestly, no I don’t think those things happen nearly enough nor do most directors and writers care if there are a few holes. If they did there wouldn’t be plot holes in any big budget movie yet nearly every movie has them. With Harry Potter they’re somewhat beholden to the book so not everything can be changed and holes in the books could be difficult to write out without changing too much.
There aren’t many things that I just plain didn’t understand, mostly they were things that weren’t explained (at least in this movie, could be previous movies had the exposition needed or perhaps the books explained it better), things that simply struck me as nonsensical or things that were entirely arbitrary. All of those things are failings, some due to the author of the book others due to the screenwriter and/or director. To imply this movie (or the entire series) is somehow perfect is ludicrous.
I share much of the same sentiment, though I still think the 2nd movie is the worst. Still, I think this one is running a fairly close 2nd for that dubious honor.
The first 20 minutes were quite good. I thought the whole Hermione scene at the beginning was very well done, as was the action scene when they left the Dursley’s home and the Ministry scene. From there on, the movie tails off badly. Critics of the book thought the book bogged down in the woods and this movie does as well. The pacing is off, it’s confusing at times and dull at others. They’re here, there, nowhere and everywhere haphazardly. Of course, this follows closely with the book since the characters didn’t have a plan at this stage. But unlike the book, crucial details are missing to explain their actions to the audience. The ending was a jumbled mush and unsatisfactory.
The last movie is set to have a lot of action and drama and I look forward to watching it. But this one was rather forgettable and one of the weakest movies in the entire series.
I haven’t seen this yet, but I can’t imagine it being worse than the wasted potential of the last movie.
Just went last night. It’s quite a bit better than Half-Blood Prince, though the need to cram a lot of exposition into the beginning is quite comical. Characters like Bill and Mundungus who should have been introduced years ago, but never rated inclusion in the previous movies just show up and say little more than “hello”. They don’t even bother to explain some things like the shard of mirror Harry is carrying that was introduced in Book 5 but never appeared in a film, or explain why the Weasly house is none the worse for wear despite its seeming destruction in the last movie (something that did NOT happen in the books).
But the fights, the heists and the high drama of it all is very well done. It’s really fucking sad, just like the book. I think the camping in the middle benefits from being compressed for the movie. Instead of being mired in the woods for the hours it takes to read through that part of the book, the movie carries you through that period at a pretty good clip, while retaining a sense of the characters’ frustration.
I was kinda bummed that Dudley didn’t get his little moment of redemption, but I quite like the change Hedwig got.
I haven’t read the book but I thought the camping portion was too drawn out in the movie, if it’s cut back significantly from the book I can’t imagine what sort of slog it would be to get through it. They could have further cut it down by a couple of scenes I thought.
What was the mirror thing about? I read all the books, but I don’t remember it.
He’s carrying around the Mirror of Erised fragment to look at his parents. IE- to wish for them to have lived, for none of this to have happened, to live a “normal” wizarding life.
I also thought it was wacky to suddenly have him with it in the beginning when he didn’t have it for the past movies. Then again, having Dobby suddenly show up and give a crap about Harry is pretty inexplicable if you haven’t read the books. I mean, where was Dobby all this time? Why does he need to protect Harry now? The past school years weren’t fraught with enough danger?
What? I thought it was a bit of the two way mirror communication device that Sirius gave him (and then he forgot about, which was a bit unfortunate for Sirius in the end).