"Pissed-Off Fanboy" Mode... Engage

[filkertom]

I got two words for ya.

The FUCK?!?

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

What's the problem--wrong line? (Yeah, the book says "I must not tell lies." I'm just making sure I know what your pissedoffness is over.)

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

What? ...what? I mean, sure, the pen is still a grotesque form of discipline, but if Umbridge doesn't give him the line she did...it's nowhere near as sadistic or indicative of the Ministry's incompetence or...any of it! Dammit!

[annechen-melo.livejournal.com]

Kids these days - CLIFF NOTES WILL NOT WORK! You write the screenplay, you gotta read the book!

[cheshyre]

Yeah, but in the book he was specifically disciplined for not lying, when in fact he was telling the truth.
He did break rules, and often, but part of the injustice was being punished for something he was innocent of.

[Also, I always pictured the writing being parallel to the knuckles rather than the angle shown, but that's not why most people seem to be upset.]

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

...A cogent point. OK, I comprehend.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

Staggeringly awful, isn't it? And I can't think of a single good reason why.

[suecochran.livejournal.com]

*headpalm*

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!! ;alkda;lkjfda;lkdjf;lkajd;kJ!:!!:!KJ

So totally wrong.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

And some people wonder *why* I have beautiful daydreams of purging Tinsel Town till the blood flows in the gutters...

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

"I Will Not Back Rubs"... I don't get it.

[ddrussianinja.livejournal.com]

*Indifferent Fanboy Mode Engage*
Meh. Perhaps that's from a montage where you see Harry getting that punishment multiple times with different phrases. As I recall, he got that punishment more than once. Maybe the original line is still there for the first time.

And even if it's not, they could have just as easily cut it out completely, so be thankful for that.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Strange days, when the Harry Potter screenwriter hasn't read the book, but the James Bond screenwriter DID. Sign of the Apocalypse, if you ask me. If I believed in those.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Omigosh...Umbridge enforces Rule 6!

[moony]

Well, I was going to tell you not to panic, because I disctinctly remember that another student besides Harry had run afoul of Umbridge and had lines on the back of his hand - and I was right!

The problem is that the student is Lee Jordan, who is black. Obviously, that is not his hand. So my point doesn't hold as much water as it could.

BUT! It is still valid - this could be someone else's hand. I would not panic yet - the film is unfinished and this is an unidentified still. We still have eight months to go.

Breathe. :-)

[melaniedavidson.livejournal.com]

Maybe instead of the quill magically carving the words into his hand, they could just have Umbridge make him write it on himself in red ink, too! Eh? Eh?!

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

I'm holding out hope that word of the error will get back to the producers and they'll reshoot the scene if needed. But... yeah, I doubt it.

[topaz7.livejournal.com]

The hell?!!

Oh, this is very bad. I am pissed.

It's a major plot point. God damn it.

[ladyoceanstar.livejournal.com]

Is this from the movie? If so, it's just another example of why I WILL NOT watch those movies. Saw the first one, and that's all I needed. It's totally butchering the story.

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

Okay, at first I was raving about this, then I realised that it may not be Harry's hand, it might be Lee Jordan, or one of the other students she terrorizes... Or I could just be hopeful and talking out of my ass.

I'm honestly very leary about the upcoming movie, especially with no Quiddich being in the movie.. I'm praying to whatever mystical force may be out there that they at LEAST keep the Twins' exit in the movie, although since Peeves hasn't appeared since the first one, it's somewhat doubtful.

Sigh..

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

Userpic question: This is Teatime from the upcoming Hogfather TV movie?

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

This is why I continue to think of the films as "pretty Harry Potter picture books". Most of the important plot elements are either messed up, glossed over or cut for time, but "wow what cool visuals"!

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I'm still sad about them not saying who Mooney, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs were.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

I will voice a dissenting opinon - even if it is Harry, while I think it isn't as powerful as the original, I don't think it's a big deal.

[batyatoon]

... grah.

Someone needs to make the scriptwriters write lines. "I must not make unnecessary changes," anyone?

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

It is indeed.

In Which Tom Explains Why It Is A Big Deal

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The problem is not how powerful it is, but how necessary it is to the story's plot. Delores Umbridge, the Ministry of Magic's representative at Hogwarts, is at best a very short-sighted and at worst very evil woman who does not believe Harry's assertion that Voldemort has returned. Rather than encouraging the magical world to mobilize against the threat of Voldie, she tells everyone Harry is a deranged, vainglorious liar. Since he refuses to back down ('cause, after all, it's the truth), she makes him scar himself with the phrase "I must not tell lies", literally branding him as a liar even though he's not.

Rule-breaking ain't no thing. This is the reason why no one's ready for Voldemort except Dumbledore's Army. Not like they really are....

[rook543.livejournal.com]

Whos to say that the "Lies" pharse is not also in the movie? They could be doing a running theme where in the movie she uses the pen for a number of punishments.

I refuse to get all worked up over a little one-frame screenshot, howling that the movie is ruined before seeing at least 1 full minute of the movie...

Lets face it...the previous movies have played a bit fast and loose with books with what they chose to cut out and leave in...

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I understand. But it's too prominent and too vivid an image to be accidental. Which is why I'm now very, very worried. I was already pissed off that they're completely excising the Quidditch subplot from the movie -- you know, the one where, because of his "lying", Harry is banned from Quidditch, and Ron, leading the team without Harry, somehow wins the Quidditch Cup for that year anyway, and achieves his heart's desire (from the Mirror of Erised in the first frickin' book)?

And, yes, I know they can't get everything in. But there have been a few choices I consider very stupid, especially considering how easy it would be to fix. The "Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs" mentioned above is just one example. Two lines of dialogue. Two. That's all it needed. Couldn't spare that fifteen seconds.

[timewalker.livejournal.com]

That one really got me while evryone was gushing over Prisoner. That, and the connected explanation of the Patronus image. I just shook my head. "Gosh, Professor Lupin. I have no idea why my patronus would be a stag." "Well it's simple Harry. Since my friends wanted to help me out during my transformations, they each learned how to become animagi. And your Father became a stag."

Re: In Which Tom Explains Why It Is A Big Deal

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Lacking other data, I assume that the change of text is merely a change of text, and that the actions have not changed...

My thought is that lying is rule-breaking. So, he's still (wrongly) getting branded for lying, but the text of the brand simply isn't specific. And the lack of specificity does decrease the power of the thing.

But it isnt' entirely lost. To me, the exact text that ends up on his hand isn't important. It isn't like anyone in the school won't know exactly why he's being punished. The real meat of it is that he recieves cruel punishment for doing the right thing. And that's still preserved in the shot. IMHO.

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

Well, IMO, PoA was the weakest of the HP movies -- it seems to be barely a Cliff Notes version of the book, and I have no idea how it was so critically acclaimed. Likewise, GoF was the best, despite the massive cuts, because they decided to tell one story and told it well. You could actually follow it w/out having read the books, a first for the movies.

Either do a Peter Jackson style epic, or seriously adapt the story to fit the limits of the screen. You can't fit in EVERYTHING. And, sure, Ron's self-confidence building is important from the perspective of his character in the novels, but is it vital to the story of Harry forming the DA and confronting Voldemort at the MoM? At the heart, OOTP is about Harry standing alone against authority, and, for the first time, taking positive action on his own instead of being prodded along or tricked into doing things. (Well, OK, he was tricked into going to the MoM, but the forming of the army was his own doing (with a nudge from Hermione, of course...initiative really isn't Harry's strong point, overall...) Still, ultimately, it's about Harry and the rest of the students acting when no one else will act -- or even believe there's a reason TOO act, and that's the story I expect the movie to tell. The Quidditch subplot isn't vital to that story.

Re: In Which Tom Explains Why It Is A Big Deal

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I disagree. When you're a kid -- hell, when you're an adult -- there is a stigma to being called a liar, a hot weight of shame you can't throw off. By comparison, rulebreaking is pretty cool, if you can get away with it. And many, many kids have faced situations where they were called liars by adults when they were not lying, and it burns their souls, sometimes for their whole lives.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Ironically, enough, given that I'm a H/Hr shipper, Ron's self-esteem is most important from the point of view of his being in the thick of things in this and later movies. He didn't do very much in PoA, he didn't do much in GoF, and now he's not doing much in OotP. But I understand that he's supposed to eventually get the girl, in much the same way that Harry's supposed to end up with Ginny, who basically stands around a lot waiting for Prince Not Very Charming. Hah?

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

There IS no Rule 6! :-)

Re: In Which Tom Explains Why It Is A Big Deal

[umbran.livejournal.com]

*shrug*. The thing is - I don't see that the different words mean anything much different. Recall that I am assuming that the actions that lead to punishment are still the same. He's still being called a liar, and he knows it. That the punishment text says it implicitly rather than explicitly weakens the image, sure. But it is not ruined. The scene is strong enough to stand the change.

And having typed that, I think therein lies the largest part of my position - the scene is stronger than that. I seem to find it to be more robustly written that the rest of the folks here.

Again, IMHO.

[fuuberry.livejournal.com]

One thing is, along with Ron's subplot in Quidditch (Although I remember Rupert hinting that they might have bits of the plot still in the movie), you have other parts that tie to the primary plot of the novel.

Along with Ron's plot, you also have Harry and the Twins being banned, which further increases Harry's hatred of the woman and leads to quite possibly my favorite scene in the book (As I mentioned earlier), the Twins' exit. The great climax of that scene is their brooms ripping fron Umbridge's wall and crashing through her door. I also wonder, if they won't be having Quidditch in the movie at all, how Harry and Hermione are going to end up over at Hagrid's when he has them promise to look after Grawp. Perhaps they keep the scene whole, since it's really just them sitting down, cringing, and trotting off, but if that's the case, there's going to be screams of fury from fans and critics alike that the only Quidditch we're treated to is a show of the audience... For that matter, having no explanation as to why Harry's just sitting out of the game.

Anyway, I think it's time I stopped babbling.

Re: In Which Tom Explains Why It Is A Big Deal

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who spent an unfortunate amount of time in teacher prep courses:

One of the most prominent learning styles is "tactile" or "kinesthetic", meaning essentially "learn by doing". This sometimes (as in my own case) takes the form of having to write things down. This is the entire basis, as far I as know, behind the tradition of making students write down "I will respect the teacher's authoritah" X-hundred times. The very phrase gets burned into the mind, must as "I will not tell tales" is burned into Harry's.

Indeed, later in the book, we see that that phrase has been etched across his frontal lobe, forming almost a mental block against raising alarms about Voldemort.

So yes, frankly, the text of the line does matter. Harry never once had trouble, that I can recall, with disobeying Umbridge...but he had a hell of a time "telling tales" after that.

[wolfger.livejournal.com]

Now see... this is why I'm glad I haven't read the books yet, and will not read the books until after I've seen the last movie. We all know Hollywood butchers books, but I like to enjoy movies anyway. So I'll enjoy the movies first, then enjoy the books later.
Sadly, I may have ruined Eragon for myself.
Starship Troopers was a good example of a movie that was..... well.... tolerable if you hadn't read the book first. (since reading that book, I hate the movie, and refuse to ever watch it again, but at least I didn't spend my entire theatre experience being pissed off)