harry potter movie - not long now

why do i keep watching the harry potter movies, even though i actually think they're not really great in terms of 'great movies?' well, i wasn't expecting them or requiring them to be 'great movies.' i'm expecting something else from them instead. and it's hard to explain.

the prisoner of azkaban was done by a different director, or producer, or whatever it was, and i am not going to look it up right now, but he had a totally different style in his movie than all the other movies. and i liked that one the best in terms of a movie that you could appreciate on its own merits, without reading the books, without knowing who the characters are, without seeing any of the other movies. azkaban was more of a stand-alone movie.

i think every one should have been produced that way, as though you hadn't read the books or seen the other movies. but you can't waste too much time on explaining the background of who the characters are, either, in a short movie, so you wouldn't just assume that it all needed to be explained again, and explain it again in every single movie. so they can't be TOO stand-alone.

i watch the movies, not expecting 'greatness,' but because i've become familiar with the characters, and i like to see those people going around together doing things. i like to see it acted out. a movie won't ever be as detailed and thorough as the books are, but still it's fun to watch.

it's a colorful, comforting world. you're watching people going to a place you wish you could go to, doing something you wish you could be doing, hanging around with people you wish you could be hanging around with.

i'd like to go to school again, if it were a school that i approved of, that taught things the way i wish they were taught, a school that agreed with my beliefs. learning magic is a hands-on, role-playing, practice-oriented skill. you don't just sit there reading a book. you have to DO something. (unless it's with umbridge. and by the way, even though she's a 'bad' character, i thought she was one of the best actors. she seemed believable, understandable, and i could almost feel sorry for her and understand what she was trying to accomplish. she wasn't a flat character.)

and i always like to see the weasley family - i grew up in a smaller, more cold, reserved family, not a big family full of noisy people who expressed their feelings openly (i'm thinking of the article i read and blogged about recently, about intentional communities and different races and ethnic groups).

i don't know enough about making movies to put into words the things i notice. i can sort of explain it, a little bit. but there's movie jargon that i don't have. the camera angles, how you zoom in on someone, and that kind of thing, is done differently in azkaban (movie #3). for instance, the camera zooms in through a glass window several times, using special effects to make it look ripply as though you are floating through the glass. they didn't HAVE to do that. it was just a little added bit of style. you could have started out with the camera already there in the room with the person, and not bothered zooming in from afar at all.

why bother starting off far away, then zooming in on somebody through a glass window? why bother using the whomping willow to show what season of the year it is, to show the passage of time? (the BOOK didn't do that. why add something that wasn't in the book?) did the BOOK say, 'you can hear a clock ticking in the background?' why bother adding little touches of style? i don't make movies, so i don't have the words to describe this.

but i HAVE written music, and i played piano a long time ago, and flute, and i've attempted to play other instruments. i rented a violin, briefly, from someplace, to see if i could play it. i tried to play the guitar, but my fingers are too short, and it was very difficult. there are lots of instruments that are easier to play if you have long fingers.

anyway with writing or playing music, the music sounds totally different if you just ignore the little bits of expression added to the notes. you can play it louder or quieter, legato (smooth and connected) or staccato (short and separated). and there are infinity possible ways to vary the style. there are so many ways, i can't list them. making movies is like that.

there's no reason why this particular batch of harry potter movies has to be the one, final, ultimate manifestation of harry potter movies, and it will never happen again. there could be as many remakes as people want. i said the same thing about atlas shrugged. there shouldn't be just one-and-only-one final, ultimate version of a movie. especially if it's a movie based on books. that's why people argue so much, and get so worked up, about whether or not the movie interpretation is 'perfect.' it has to be 'perfect' the first time because they're thinking it will only be done once and never again.

there could be new harry potter movies in the future, with a totally different style and new actors, new music, new everything.

this has to do with copyright ownership, or movie rights, or whatever, and contracts, and how people get paid for making movies. so, it'll be a while before the big official moviemakers do a different version of harry potter. the only thing we can hope for is a 'fan fic' version, a homemade harry potter movie, just like we're hoping for someone to do a homemade atlas shrugged. (no, i'm not comparing harry potter to atlas shrugged. i've seen enough objectivist culture to know that they would be very offended by that idea.)

i'm imagining a really cheap, animated, 'south park' style version, for instance. really low tech. this is just an example. or anime. something drawn on a computer.

or 'home video with the neighbors' kind of thing, with people dressed up in cheap costumes, and bad acting. people running around in the backyard pretending that the trees are the forbidden forest, the house is hogwarts, the dog is a dragon, the pot boiling on the stove is a cauldron in snape's class. i can see it.