Malyla's Account Talk

[malyla]

Just popping in for a little lite dusting.

Still in F (and doing better than G right now) and waiting for fourth quarter.

Just saw The Half Blood Prince. Brilliant! How they got all the major plots in a 2.5+ hour movie from such a huge book is amazing. The time flew by. Just two more movies to go.

 

[Guest2]

Get well soon SB.

Thanks bunches Malyla ! On on the right road !

 

[Steadygain]

Just popping in for a little lite dusting.

Still in F (and doing better than G right now) and waiting for fourth quarter.

Just saw The Half Blood Prince. Brilliant! How they got all the major plots in a 2.5+ hour movie from such a huge book is amazing. The time flew by. Just two more movies to go.

That's wonderful - and I promise I'll see it in your honor.

Was just on my way to Lady's place - but I'll tell you the same thing.

'Your posts are like beautiful decorations - so don't be a stranger'

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

Just popping in for a little lite dusting.

Still in F (and doing better than G right now) and waiting for fourth quarter.

Just saw The Half Blood Prince. Brilliant! How they got all the major plots in a 2.5+ hour movie from such a huge book is amazing. The time flew by. Just two more movies to go.

Wouldn't you have loved it if they had opened the movie the way the book did? Could you see Gordon Brown or Tony Blair making a cameo appearance for the opening scene? Now THAT would have been cool!

And the Dursleys, they are so important to the book. Why are they cut once again from the movie?

 

[malyla]

Wouldn't you have loved it if they had opened the movie the way the book did? Could you see Gordon Brown or Tony Blair making a cameo appearance for the opening scene? Now THAT would have been cool!

And the Dursleys, they are so important to the book. Why are they cut once again from the movie?

I thought the same thing about the opening (-removed for spoiler-). It was a quick way to open the movie and the Dursley's didn't really do much at the opening of book 6 (however, they play a huge role at the end of 7). I think the actors asked for too much money or there was no time to include this. I'll find out next month at the convention There is one other plot question I have about the horcruzes that goes back to book one. But, to avoid any spoilers here, I'll wait to ask it in this forum.

Back to work. I will be seeing this one again in the theaters.

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

I thought the same thing about the opening (-removed for spoiler-). It was a quick way to open the movie and the Dursley's didn't really do much at the opening of book 6 (however, they play a huge role at the end of 7). I think the actors asked for too much money or there was no time to include this. I'll find out next month at the convention There is one other plot question I have about the horcruzes that goes back to book one. But, to avoid any spoilers here, I'll wait to ask it in this forum.

Back to work. I will be seeing this one again in the theaters.

Please send me a PM on your plot question. I'm curious.

It wasn't so much what the Dursley's did in book 6, it is their interaction with Dumbledore that I wanted to see on film! LOL!

I'm waiting to see the film again in IMAX. My local theatre doesn't get the IMAX version until the 29th.

 

[alevin]

I thought the same thing about the opening (-removed for spoiler-). It was a quick way to open the movie and the Dursley's didn't really do much at the opening of book 6 (however, they play a huge role at the end of 7). I think the actors asked for too much money or there was no time to include this. I'll find out next month at the convention There is one other plot question I have about the horcruzes that goes back to book one. But, to avoid any spoilers here, I'll wait to ask it in this forum.

Back to work. I will be seeing this one again in the theaters.

that does it, I'm going tomorrow night!

 

[malyla]

that does it, I'm going tomorrow night!

What did you think?


For Viva...,
My question was how did Prof. Quirril get inhabited/possessed by a bit of Voldermort's soul? Where did that piece come from and how did Quirril become a vessel? Seems to be the only plot hole.

 

[alevin]

What did you think?

enjoyed it more than the previous one, not near as DARK. I'm not into horror, and the last film came close in a number of places. Never did trust that Snape, finally the truth comes out. Still I kept wanting him to be a triple agent (or is that quadruple?) but it just wasn't to be. Took my vet buddy Larry, he enjoyed it too, but I think the adolescent crush traumas did nothing for him. :nuts:

 

[Silverbird]

What did you think?


For Viva...,
My question was how did Prof. Quirril get inhabited/possessed by a bit of Voldermort's soul? Where did that piece come from and how did Quirril become a vessel? Seems to be the only plot hole.

I'm not Viva, but...
According to the books, Quirrel went out to a certain forest in Romania (?) where Voldemort was hiding out after Voldy lost his physical body from the rebounding spell on Harry (Potter). Quirrel had heard about magic being there, and found it all right. May be mentioned during Quirrel/Voldermort's ramblings before the final battle in the Sorcerer's stone movie.

 

[malyla]

I'm not Viva, but...
According to the books, Quirrel went out to a certain forest in Romania (?) where Voldemort was hiding out after Voldy lost his physical body from the rebounding spell on Harry (Potter). Quirrel had heard about magic being there, and found it all right. May be mentioned during Quirrel/Voldermort's ramblings before the final battle in the Sorcerer's stone movie.

But wasn't that where the diadem was hidden? Who brought the diadem back to Hogworts? Did Quirrel find the diadem and put it on causing his possession? Then brought the diadem back to Hogworts? Please forgive the spelling mistakes. I'm supposed to be doing real work instead of escaping into a fantasy world and that conflict has upset my internal spell checker :cheesy:

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

For Viva...,
My question was how did Prof. Quirril get inhabited/possessed by a bit of Voldermort's soul? Where did that piece come from and how did Quirril become a vessel? Seems to be the only plot hole.

Voldemort explains it in Goblet of Fire. When the spell rebounded off Harry back upon himself, he became "...less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost..." The one power he had remaining was the power to possess the bodies of others. Quirrell encountered Voldemort in the forest in Albania and Voldemort was able to possess him and "bend him to his will."

As for the diadem, I believe Voldemort placed the diadem in the room of requirement when he interviewed for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position with Dumbledore. I would have to read Deathly Hallows again to be sure.

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

What did you think?

enjoyed it more than the previous one, not near as DARK. I'm not into horror, and the last film came close in a number of places. Never did trust that Snape, finally the truth comes out. Still I kept wanting him to be a triple agent (or is that quadruple?) but it just wasn't to be. Took my vet buddy Larry, he enjoyed it too, but I think the adolescent crush traumas did nothing for him. :nuts:

They could have done the Snape betrayal scene SO much better! Nothing like the book!

 

[malyla]

What did you think?
They could have done the Snape betrayal scene SO much better! Nothing like the book!

I agree. I do have a problem with the movies in that every director is reminded that these movies are for kids and therefore any complicated human emotion or plot can not be employed in the script because gods forbid that we have the children asking their parents hard questions about human motivations. Star Wars 1-3 is a supreme example of this. The audience for those movies were children when episodes 4-6 came out, but were now in their 30-40s when eps 1-3 came out but the movies were less complicated than the originals and were made for children with was very annoying for us adults. Although I just heard somewhere (a movie review for Moon - I think) that Star Wars killed the adult Science Fiction movie whos best example in 2001:A Space Odyssey. Maybe, not so far in the future, we will get some remakes of the movies that will be Jackson's Lord of the Rings worthy and Snape's character will get his just due for the hero/antihero complicated character he truely is in the books. It is fasinating to me that Snape's character works so well on many levels but that we mostly see Harry's perpective and not Dumbledoor's or Snape's until it's too late. That was brilliant story telling by J.K.Rowlings.

I wish the fight scene at the end of the book where the other students faught off the Death Eaters had been at least hinted at or shown. I miss that Harry gave his friends the rest of the felix felisous (sp) and that is what saved them when the death eaters invaded the school. I would have traded that for Lavender/Ron scenes anyday (although the hospital scene with Hermone was well done).

Two more chances to see complicated human motivations (i.e., more adult themes). Hopefully they will not release the movies a year apart (6 months would be cool).

 

[Aule Mar]

Don't want to sopil it for anyone but Snape was only doing as Dumbledore had asked.

It does get complicated!!

 

[CapeChem]

I have not read one of the HP series......I have seen all the movies....I came out of the last movie with the impression that snape was doing what dumbledore knew needed to be done.....

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

I have not read one of the HP series......I have seen all the movies....I came out of the last movie with the impression that snape was doing what dumbledore knew needed to be done.....

I wish Richard Harris hadn't passed away. Michael Gambon is not Albus Dumbledore and never will be in my eyes. He's way too stuffy and rigid to bring Dumbledore to life like Richard Harris did. Maybe he needs to hit the bottle between scenes like Harris allegedly did. It might lighten him up a little.

 

[malyla]

I wish Richard Harris hadn't passed away. Michael Gambon is not Albus Dumbledore and never will be in my eyes. He's way too stuffy and rigid to bring Dumbledore to life like Richard Harris did. Maybe he needs to hit the bottle between scenes like Harris allegedly did. It might lighten him up a little.

Again, I agree. Everytime I see Gambon, I experience a disconnection with the character I'm seeing from the one I read (and saw so aptly played in the first two movies by Harris). He is annoying in his stiffness.

I love the actor who plays Snape though and just wish the script had been better in the Half Blood Prince as far as Snape's, Longbottom, and the other important but supporting characters are concerned. I know I'm being picky, but I really could have done without watching Lavender literally climbing on a sleeveless Ron.

The book also was much more subtle and mysterious about Snape and Dumbledore's interactions. In the book, Harry overheard Dumbledore and Snape arguing in the woods and neither one knew Harry was there. The way the movie did it with Harry and Snape seeing each other after a very short arguement between Snape and Dumbledore, spills the beans before it is suspensefully necessary.

Oh well. It is still a good story and maybe some creative license needs to be taken to bring a good book to life on the screen. Was anyone dissapointed with Jackson's LOTR movies?

 

[Viva_La_Migra]

Again, I agree. Everytime I see Gambon, I experience a disconnection with the character I'm seeing from the one I read (and saw so aptly played in the first two movies by Harris). He is annoying in his stiffness.

I love the actor who plays Snape though and just wish the script had been better in the Half Blood Prince as far as Snape's, Longbottom, and the other important but supporting characters are concerned. I know I'm being picky, but I really could have done without watching Lavender literally climbing on a sleeveless Ron.

The book also was much more subtle and mysterious about Snape and Dumbledore's interactions. In the book, Harry overheard Dumbledore and Snape arguing in the woods and neither one knew Harry was there. The way the movie did it with Harry and Snape seeing each other after a very short arguement between Snape and Dumbledore, spills the beans before it is suspensefully necessary.

Oh well. It is still a good story and maybe some creative license needs to be taken to bring a good book to life on the screen. Was anyone dissapointed with Jackson's LOTR movies?

I agree with you on Snape. I could write a book about the problems with the movies. Personally, I think Sorcerer's Stone is the closest to the book and is my favorite movie of them all. The other movie's were entertaining, don't get me wrong, but they take too many liberties for my liking.

 

[malyla]

This was sent to me and is amazing not only for the humor, but for the insight into where Lord Voldermort came from. J.K.Rowling is far more whole and real than the press has portrayed.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jkrowlingharvard.htm
Text follows: Part 1
J.K.Rowlings commencement address at Harvard 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates:
The first thing I would like to say is "thank you." Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honor, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation. Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners, and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard. You see, if all you remember in years to come is the "gay wizard" joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this. I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called "real life", I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination. These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest of -- to me expected of me. I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was write novels.
However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know the irony strikes with the force of an cartoon anvil now, but....So, they hoped that I would take a vocational degree. I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics. They might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
Now, I would like to make it clear -- in parenthesis -- that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations. And that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
Now, I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted, and well-educated, you have never known heartbreak, hardship, or heartache. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment. However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far removed from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
Now, I'm not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the Press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all -- in which case, you fail by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected. I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned. -continued...-​