The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series
-
@masonwheeler said
@kt_ said
Actually, the best movie is the third one, FWIW, because Cuaron didn't just blindly copy the book. This one is actually a very good movie.
Ugh, the third movie was terrible! Several years ago, when it first came out, I could have given you a long and well-reasoned argument explaining exactly why. Nowadays, though, it's been a long time. I never went back and saw it again because it was terrible, so the details have kind of faded from memory. But I still clearly remember my overall impression of the film.
@masonwheeler, @mods, if it's ok with you, let's move this thread to General or somewhere.
@masonwheeler, thought I'd elaborate.
I'm not surprised that you didn't like the movie, I think it's the hardest movie to like from the series, but it's one of the reasons it's the best.
I guess the things that could be seen as issues are: the fact that the movie doesn't closely follow the book and that because of that, it's got a totally different atmosphere to other movies. Then there is Harry's relationship with Lupin, that might look a bit unnatural. Upon first viewing I remember seeing this as a kind of platonic homosexual love(?).
But!
I like that it's different. I've read the book, so I don't need the director to remind me what it was about, and as for the rest of the series, none of the movies were as good as books they were based on, because they tried to follow them too closely. Paper and screen are different mediums. You can't just lift and shift and get a great result. If you want a good movie, you have to invent it, think about what to do to make this particular one exceptional. Basically, you need to make a movie from scratch, and just analyze the work you're adapting and identifies main themes, stuff that's crucial to the story, stuff that can't be left out. Then add your own stuff, your own feeling, your own take on it.
And that's exactly what Cuaron did. You get a visual masterpiece, with seasons (or, passage of time) indicated by beautiful scenes of nature, you get (what I realized much much later) a very tender and nuanced kinda-Latino relationship between a friend and a haunted man and his dead best friends' son, lonely and in need of father. You get a slightly changed story, but this way you get his story.
Compare it to what Columbus did with his dumbed down takes of Home Alone with wizards. Compare it to what Yates did, with his closely following the books movies, that always feel a bit rushed, cramped, that feel like they're "too much" -- and thus are always good, but never shine.
The point is, it's not unlimited time that makes a great adaptation. You might think it is, because hey!, it's just impossible to fit all that action into a 2/4 hour movie, but that's just it -- film has its limitations and only once you understand them can you use them to your advantage.
There's another little nugget in the Cuaron's Potter: the dread of too slowly passing time. That's what Rowling is great at doing: leaving the characters with a mistery to solve and then talk about lessons and exams and how they need to read and study and they don't have time to push the story forward. This is especially thrilling to a young reader: they need the story to progress, they're so anxious to see what'll happen to harry next and they have to wait and wait and wait. In Cuaron's movie, there is a bit of that.
-
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
I've read the book, so I don't need the director to remind me what it was about
Any movie that requires you to read the book it's based on in order to understand it is shit
-
@homobalkanus said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
I've read the book, so I don't need the director to remind me what it was about
Any movie that requires you to read the book it's based on in order to understand it is shit
That's not what I meant.
Of course you're right, but that's not what I meant.
What I meant is, movie does not necessarily need to tell you what the book is about, or in other words, it does not need to tell you everything that happened in the original work.
It needs to be coherent, it needs to be understandable to someone who is not familiar with the book, but it can deviate. It doesn't need to be word for word, action for action.
So, when I said I didn't need the director to remind me what it was about, I meant that I didn't need him to follow the story too closely, that it was ok for him to deviate, to invent his own situations, even plots, as long as they play in line with the general atmosphere.
Basically, all of these words are here to say: movie can and probably even should differ from the book. Only by changing/enhancing the original work can a director create a great movie, something that's more than a mere adaptation, something that's more than just good fun.
-
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Then there is Harry's relationship with Lupin, that might look a bit unnatural. Upon first viewing I remember seeing this as a kind of platonic homosexual love(?).
Oh, boy. Moving to the Garage in 3... 2...
-
@heterodox said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Then there is Harry's relationship with Lupin, that might look a bit unnatural. Upon first viewing I remember seeing this as a kind of platonic homosexual love(?).
Oh, boy. Moving to the Garage in 3... 2...
Won't it help that further down I call it a "Latino broken foster-parent / abandoned-son relationship"?
Oh, who am I kidding? Of course not!
-
You really should stop snorting Nescaffe ...
-
@luhmann said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
You really should stop snorting Nescaffe ...
But that's all I know!
-
@luhmann said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Nescaffe
That a new product by Nescafé?
-
@pjh said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@luhmann said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Nescaffe
That a new product by Nescafé?
Still better than Nescovfefe
-
@pjh said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@luhmann said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Nescaffe
That a new product by Nescafé?
Seeing you in this thread, do you think we could Jeff this to general or look at me? There's no sensitive info in this thread.
-
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Seeing you in this thread, do you think we could Jeff this to general or look at me? There's no sensitive info in this thread.
Sure - t'weren't me that did the fork though..
-
@pjh said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Seeing you in this thread, do you think we could Jeff this to general or look at me? There's no sensitive info in this thread.
Sure - t'weren't me that did the fork though..
Yeah, it was me. Just didn't want to fork outside of the lounge () without a mod's consent. ;)
-
@pjh said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
That a new product by Nescafé?
Made by John McAffee ... hence the snoring
-
@luhmann said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
You really should stop snorting Nescaffe ...
I've seen Orange Is The New Black, I know that's a bad thing to snort
-
@jaloopa said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
I've seen Orange Is The New Black,
But enough about US Presidencies...
-
@raceprouk said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@pjh said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@luhmann said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Nescaffe
That a new product by Nescafé?
Still better than Nescovfefe
What about McNescafe?
-
@boomzilla
Wouldn't it be easier to just pee on some mud and drink the resulting fluid?
-
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
That's what Rowling is great at doing: leaving the characters with a mistery to solve and then talk about lessons and exams and how they need to read and study and they don't have time to push the story forward. This is especially thrilling to a young reader: they need the story to progress, they're so anxious to see what'll happen to harry next and they have to wait and wait and wait.
I consider the "everyday life" parts, school courses etc, to be the strongest part of Harry Potter books. They build a rich world with a lot of details to explore. It feels very convincing too, for me the most suspenseful parts are when they sneak at night and can get caught by teachers.
In contrast, the main quest is a generic - a chosen one fights an evil force threatening the world - similar to numerous other fantasy stories.
By the way, for the older and jaded audience, a version of HP where they reverse engineer the magic.
-
-
-
@lb_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Watched a bit. So, a few plot holes and lack of adherence to the book.
As I said, this was the best movie because of the latter, and it still is instead of the former.
-
@kt_ yes, somewhere in the video he agrees with you in that it is a good movie because it does not closely follow the book, which is why I posted it.
-
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
As I said, this was the best movie because of the latter, and it still is instead of the former.
I don't agree. IMO if a producer says this is a movie of X, and it does not faithfully depict X, then the producer is essentially lying to me.
-
@lb_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@kt_ yes, somewhere in the video he agrees with you in that it is a good movie because it does not closely follow the book, which is why I posted it.
Ah, got it. Didn't get that far. :)
-
@masonwheeler said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@kt_ said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
As I said, this was the best movie because of the latter, and it still is instead of the former.
I don't agree. IMO if a producer says this is a movie of X, and it does not faithfully depict X, then the producer is essentially lying to me.
I understand your point of view.
-
There will never be a good Dune movie :(
-
@magus said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
There will never be a good Dune movie :(
Well it's not like the source material was all that great... :flamebait:
-
@masonwheeler said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
IMO if a producer says this is a movie of X, and it does not faithfully depict X, then the producer is essentially lying to me.
No, it's one person's interpretation of the book made into a totally different medium. No-one is lying to you, except your shoulder aliens, again.
-
@arantor said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@masonwheeler said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
IMO if a producer says this is a movie of X, and it does not faithfully depict X, then the producer is essentially lying to me.
No, it's one person's interpretation of the book made into a totally different medium. No-one is lying to you, except your shoulder aliens, again.
But the producer is selling his shitty story branded as the original. It is the very reason I stopped watching Game of Thrones, when it started to drift far away from the story. The book is perfect, no need for a shitty director to tell me his stinky artsy fartsy interpretation.
-
@dse Now I want to know what you think about Red Dwarf, where the books and the TV series deviate quite a lot from each other despite being written by the same people.
-
@dse said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
But the producer is selling his shitty story branded as the original.
No, the producer is selling it as 'the movie adaptation of the book'. Some of the elements of the book don't entirely work when translated to the big screen. Both can co-exist.
-
@raceprouk said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Now I want to know what you think about Red Dwarf, where the books and the TV series deviate quite a lot from each other despite being written by the same people.
I'm not dse but as far as my take on it goes, Red Dwarf: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, and Better Than Life - they're great. The Last Human, ick, and Backwards was so good it has completely escaped my brain.
Rob Grant is the stronger writer of the two as far as I'm concerned but there's definite swings and misses going on. It is interesting to look at what came first and what bled into the other in terms of material.
-
@arantor Grant is the better writer (Backwards (the book) is brilliant), yet it's Naylor who continues with the TV series
-
@raceprouk said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@arantor Grant is the better writer (Backwards (the book) is brilliant), yet it's Naylor who continues with the TV series
Backwards, like I said, was forgettable. I had to go to the Wikipedia page to remind myself of the plot and had a 'oh yeah, that sounds familiar' moment.
-
@arantor said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
Backwards, like I said, was forgettable.
We'll just have to disagree on that :P
-
@raceprouk I did not even know there were books fo Red Dwarf! So I don't know, if books are better. It is possible to have a movie adaptation that is better than the book: The Godfather
It is I think almost impossible to beat a good book however and both Harry Potter and Game of Thrones are as good as their genre can get.
-
@masonwheeler said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@magus said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
There will never be a good Dune movie :(
Well it's not like the source material was all that great... :flamebait:
Burn him!
-
@dse said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
It is I think almost impossible to beat a good book however and both Harry Potter and Game of Thrones are as good as their genre can get.
Yes to the former, no to the latter. George R. R. Martin's writing style is so incredibly tedious. My ex gave me a box set and I had to quit partway through the first book. I actually can't think of any other book I just stopped reading.
-
@heterodox said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
I actually can't think of any other book I just stopped reading.
Gormengast, for pretty much the same reasons
-
@dse said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@arantor said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
@masonwheeler said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
IMO if a producer says this is a movie of X, and it does not faithfully depict X, then the producer is essentially lying to me.
No, it's one person's interpretation of the book made into a totally different medium. No-one is lying to you, except your shoulder aliens, again.
But the producer is selling his shitty story branded as the original. It is the very reason I stopped watching Game of Thrones, when it started to drift far away from the story. The book is perfect, no need for a shitty director to tell me his stinky artsy fartsy interpretation.
Not really. And comparing Cuaron to HBO's TV machine is just well… silly.
-
@dse said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
It is I think almost impossible to beat a good book however and both Harry Potter and Game of Thrones are as good as their genre can get.
Agreed. You can either do it differently, or you can do a mediocre job.
That's why adapting the book word for word is just silly. Taking a good director and allowing them to interpret the book as they want, this is a good move. It's not a sure fire way to earn lots of money, but it's the only way to try to get a great movie.
-
@heterodox said in The Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie of the Harry Potter series:
I actually can't think of any other book I just stopped reading.
The Wheel of Time, also for the same reasons.
Although to be fair, I should have stopped buying them after the second book, whose first chapter takes at least 20 pages and can be summed up as "[hero] was doing some sword training on top of a tower. He stopped. There was a light breeze. He got down the tower." At least if the rest had been some summary of the previous book, that would have made sense, but no.