Continuing with the Harry Potter re-read.

Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

• Before reading thoughts
  • I know this is where Harry grows up a bit and the series takes a dark turn. It also gets some heft, doubling up from the first three 300-400 pagers. But man do I not remember a specific thing about this book. There’s some kind of big Quidditch thing at the beginning and then the Triwizard tournament punctuates the school year. Somehow Harry is in the tournament even though there’s an age limit, I guess because he’s Harry Freaking Potter. But I don’t know who wins the tournament or anything in the resolution. Are we finally rid of the Dursleys in this one?
• Book review on Goodreads
  • My big takeaway from the first reading of this series was that Rowling got in over her head with the last four books, taking on way more plot complexity and drama than she was really ready to handle at that stage of her career. But on the re-read I’m not feeling that as strongly—she has her shortcomings but mostly she’s so damn good at characters and pacing, and carefully builds out the wizarding world so well that it’s not a mystery why these books have been so endearing.
• Film reaction:
  • Maybe the first movie I didn’t really like. Perhaps because this is the first of the “long” books. Even the short books had to be hacked to bits to fit into even a long movie, but now it’s outright butchery. Why even bother trying to cram this into one movie? Every ounce of subtlety is gone, it’s just brief emotional flourishes and action sequences, i.e., a regular big-budget movie. As long as this movie is, it still feels like a trailer for a longer, better movie. This is the first time I thought that perhaps someone who hadn’t read the book might not even understand what is even going on. They only vaguely hint about the ongoing investigations and weird happenings in the magical world, the strange incidents at the end of the World Cup are very sloppily handled. (I’d love to watch a future movie before I read the book just to see if I could actually follow it, but I don’t think I’m willing to trade that for the book-first experience. Someone who likes movies more than me should do this and report back, please.) One of the major book themes is how the pressure of fame and destiny are weighing on Harry, and they just barely touch this. Ron is just pissy one day and we don’t really know why. They do a pretty good job with the whole dance sequence, but probably teenage love tribulations are notoriously relatable and un-subtle, and therefore entirely film friendly. (An aside: I have a particular aggravation towards movie dialogue that starts with “Welcome to…” It seems so self-conscious, like they’re thinking about how to make the movie trailer friendly, while also providing a quick way to establish what the hell is happening in a given scene. It’s such a movie thing. And this film might set the record. Welcome to Hogwarts. Welcome to the Triwizard tournament. Welcome to the first task. Stop bloody welcoming me!) Anyway as this was the first long book, and they had a new director on board, I can cut them some slack. Maybe they’ll do a bit better with the next ones. But I’d say my odds of watching all the movies has dipped below 50%.

Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

• Before reading thoughts
  • As with Book 4, disturbingly little remains in my brain from Book 5. This is also true of Book 6 and 7. Maybe because I never read any of them more than once and only saw the fourth movie (once). When you read something that long that fast, it’s not unlike cramming for an exam. Everything’s loaded up in the RAM but nothing goes into long-term storage. All I got is that this was “the angsty one.” A lot of general unpleasantness with Harry’s attitude and Umbridge’s crushing presence, but no plot details at all.
• Book review on Goodreads
  • When I got on Goodreads I retroactively rated all of these, with Book 5 getting tagged with just a 3/5, lowest of the series, purely on its feel of constant despair. Re-reading mostly just validated that, BUT I came around on the rating and bumped it up a star. Nothing this long that keeps the pages turning probably deserves a middling rating. It’s still a problem that Rowling’s writing suffers the most when things get dramatic, and with a lot of drama in OOTP there’s a lot of poor writing, but there’s enough done right to overcome it.
• Film reaction:
  • If Goblet of Fire was the first movie I didn’t really like, this was the first movie I thought was outright bad. The unavoidable plot butchery continues, and it felt even more charmless and confusing. I found myself longing for the Prisoners of Azkaban’s willingness to add little touches that weren’t even in the book. As usual the visual and performances are great, although where did the soundtrack go? The first few movies have a great score and now it’s an afterthought. Basically, if I were tasked to be a film critic, despite my general disinterest in modern movies, this would be my usual template review. Looks great, story is boring. There’s a new director and screenwriter for this one, maybe that’s to blame. But mostly I’d guess they don’t have a lot of creative freedom with something like this. Work through the plot points as efficiently as possible so we can all get rich. Make it look good so people can post screengrabs of it when they review the book for the rest of eternity. Criticism doesn’t really enter into it. Anyway, the odds of me watching the remaining three movies are really not that good. OOTP just seemed like an inferior rehash directly after reading the book, and more of a chore than anything. It’d make more sense maybe to watch them years later if I wanted to revisit HP but was busy reading other things. I can’t really even say the last couple of movies helped solidify HP details in my brain, which was kinda the whole point of watching them in addition to reading. They’re in such a rush that it’s just a different form of cramming.

Not sure if I’ll need to do another post for Books 6-7. I’m definitely reading them (have just started Half-Blood Prince, at this writing) and will write something up on Goodreads, but the movie watching is absolutely in doubt. Plus I remember so little about those books it’s probably not even worth noting what the “before reading” thoughts are. I can do them now, in fact: I don’t remember anything. Horcruxes are a thing (and that’s as specific as I can get), and (spoiler) Snape kills Dumbledore.