What are your movie pet peeves?

[jbwarner86]

Originally Posted by snugglepot

Movie Hermione is not Book Hermione, Movie Ginny is not Book Ginny, and Movie Harry is definately, not Book Harry.

This reminds me, I was watching the DH1 Blu-Ray in Maximum Movie Mode last night, and during the dancing scene (which I still can't bring myself to watch again, it's just so embarrassingly out-of-character), David Yates is blithering on about how he put that in as a sort of "will-they-or-won't-they" moment. And I'm just screaming in my head "Of course they won't, you doorknob, it's not something that either of them would ever, ever think about for so much as a second!" It sacrifices Jo's solid character development just for the sake of shipping, and it just ticks me off so much. I'd expect junk like that from fanfiction, not from a professionally-produced film adaptation.

And don't get me started on the complete lack of chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright. I don't know which character Bonnie thought she was playing, but the nervous waifish redhead who goes all jittery when Harry has to help her zip up her dress is not the Ginny Weasley I know.

[Night_Sarabande]

With all of the mention of Peeves in the books, he should have been in the movies themselves. I love him--he's hilarious. That's what bugs me most of all.

[Goddess_Clio]

Originally Posted by jbwarner86

This reminds me, I was watching the DH1 Blu-Ray in Maximum Movie Mode last night, and during the dancing scene (which I still can't bring myself to watch again, it's just so embarrassingly out-of-character), David Yates is blithering on about how he put that in as a sort of "will-they-or-won't-they" moment. And I'm just screaming in my head "Of course they won't, you doorknob, it's not something that either of them would ever, ever think about for so much as a second!" It sacrifices Jo's solid character development just for the sake of shipping, and it just ticks me off so much. I'd expect junk like that from fanfiction, not from a professionally-produced film adaptation.

And don't get me started on the complete lack of chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright. I don't know which character Bonnie thought she was playing, but the nervous waifish redhead who goes all jittery when Harry has to help her zip up her dress is not the Ginny Weasley I know.

Ahhh, makes me so happy I've only seen the DH movies one time each...

I did hear that comment about the dance scene made on an ABC family preview or something like that and I was appalled. Why did that even need to be a question? Even from just watching the movies you see that it's Ron and Hermione all the way. (Okay, there was one kind of shippy moment in POA when Harry and Hermione are sitting on the forest edge but since then it's been R/H!)

[snugglepot]

Originally Posted by jbwarner86

This reminds me, I was watching the DH1 Blu-Ray in Maximum Movie Mode last night, and during the dancing scene (which I still can't bring myself to watch again, it's just so embarrassingly out-of-character), David Yates is blithering on about how he put that in as a sort of "will-they-or-won't-they" moment. And I'm just screaming in my head "Of course they won't, you doorknob, it's not something that either of them would ever, ever think about for so much as a second!" It sacrifices Jo's solid character development just for the sake of shipping, and it just ticks me off so much. I'd expect junk like that from fanfiction, not from a professionally-produced film adaptation.

And don't get me started on the complete lack of chemistry between Daniel Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright. I don't know which character Bonnie thought she was playing, but the nervous waifish redhead who goes all jittery when Harry has to help her zip up her dress is not the Ginny Weasley I know.

Exactly!
I hate what the movies have done to Ron's, Hermione's Ginny's and Harry's characters. At times they are almost unrecognisable from their book counterpart.
That dance scene is my most hated of all the scenes in all eight movies. It is TOTALLY out of character, especially, for Harry.
The waitress scene in HBP is my second most hated. Harry leaving the protections of Privet Drive to ride around on trains and flirt with waitresses (She wasn't even that attractive)
All of Ginny's major scenes and lines back as far as PoA, have been cut or butchered. I so wanted to see her trembling at the Dementors, turning down Harry as a date to the Yule Ball as she had promised to go with Neville, telling Harry off in OotP for forgetting about her possession, sharing chocolate with Harry in the Library while he confided in her his need to speak with Sirius. All their scenes from HBP (the book), especially, the kiss! What we got instead was so pathetic!
Don't start me on Hermione! I dislike her character in the books, but she is tolerable at times! I detest with a passion Movie-Hermione starting from PoA!
No wonder CoS is my favourite movie as Hermione gets petrified!
You can tell Kloves loves Hermione as he started giving her other characters' lines and scenes (especially, Ron's). It seems as if Kloves wanted H/Hr to happen so he wrote scenes to display this. H/Hr get extra scenes and H/G get theirs cut, or destroyed, to make their relationship less appealing. Even the R/Hr scenes are not as obvious as some of Kloves' H/Hr ones.

[Goddess_Clio]

Originally Posted by snugglepot

Don't start me on Hermione! I dislike her character in the books, but she is tolerable at times! I detest with a passion Movie-Hermione starting from PoA!
No wonder CoS is my favourite movie as Hermione gets petrified!

AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

That's evil!

I tolerate book Hermione rather well (unless I'm listening to the US audiobooks in which case I wish bodily harm on Jim Dale for giving all the girl characters such horrible voices - they're deeper than the boys' voices!!) but movie Hermione is just something awful.

[snugglepot]

Originally Posted by Goddess_Clio

AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

That's evil!

I tolerate book Hermione rather well (unless I'm listening to the US audiobooks in which case I wish bodily harm on Jim Dale for giving all the girl characters such horrible voices - they're deeper than the boys' voices!!) but movie Hermione is just something awful.

I actually liked Hermione when I read PS and CoS, but then in PoA (the book) I started disliking her. The way she acted over the Crookshanks and Scabbers affair and telling Minerva about Harry's broomstick. I never liked her again. She annoyed me and by the time I saw PoA (the movie), my hatred of Movie-Hermione set in.
Look at all the movies since PoA, at various Trio shots and scenes. They are often centred around Hermione, NOT Harry, and Ron is nearly always sidelined.

I am evil, I know! But not having to endure Hermione's annoying presence for part of that movie is one of the reasons I love it. She starts to really steal lines in CoS eg knowing what a "Mudblood" is, "hearing voices is not good," Fear of a name" etc. It's such a relief to me when Hermione is petrified and we are free of her until the final scene!

[StarryVeil]

Originally Posted by snugglepot

No wonder CoS is my favourite movie as Hermione gets petrified!

!!!

In all seriousness, though, I completely agree with you about Hermione Emma Watson Granger (that's my nickname for Movie-Hermione ). I didn't really dislike Hermione from the books - she's got some great qualities and moments - but she's not one of my favorite characters. It was mainly her I-know-what's-best-for-everyone and I'm-doing-the-logical-or-correct-thing-no-matter-what attitudes that really got on my nerves at times. And then, along came the movies, playing exactly on those very unlikable qualities of hers!

I liked PS/SS and CoS (no, not because she was petrified for most of it ) where Hermione remained inside "cute little know-it-all" territory but then from PoA onwards...man. Emma Watson's popularity started rising and it came at the cost of Ron (and Harry, sometimes) being sidelined and Hermione stealing lines from them. The most irritating parts in PoA, for me, were 1) When Hermione steals Ron's "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill all three of us!" line (that was such a great moment for Ron in the books and Hermione was actually scared out of her pants at that point) and 2) the way Hermione kept dragging a clueless Harry about and seemed to know just the right thing to do at every single point in the time-turner part (when that wasn't the case in the book). I won't even go into all the other ways in which the movies messed up Hermione.

You can tell Kloves loves Hermione as he started giving her other characters' lines and scenes (especially, Ron's).

The moviemakers' crush on Emma was just nauseating. Most unforgivable of all would be the last shot of the series in DH2, where they zoom in on Harry and Hermione, and Ron was just crammed in at the corner somewhere. It was the last shot of the entire series - they could have given the three of them some equality at least in this one shot!

It seems as if Kloves wanted H/Hr to happen so he wrote scenes to display this. H/Hr get extra scenes and H/G get theirs cut, or destroyed, to make their relationship less appealing. Even the R/Hr scenes are not as obvious as some of Kloves' H/Hr ones.

Don't get me started on the crazy movie ships. Harry-Hermione, Lily-Snape, Neville-Luna...I don't understand why the moviemakers couldn't just stick to the facts. As JKR so rightly said, "Not everybody falls in love with everybody else!"

[snugglepot]

Originally Posted by StarryVeil

!!!

In all seriousness, though, I completely agree with you about Hermione Emma Watson Granger (that's my nickname for Movie-Hermione ). I didn't really dislike Hermione from the books - she's got some great qualities and moments - but she's not one of my favorite characters. It was mainly her I-know-what's-best-for-everyone and I'm-doing-the-logical-or-correct-thing-no-matter-what attitudes that really got on my nerves at times. And then, along came the movies, playing exactly on those very unlikable qualities of hers!

I liked PS/SS and CoS (no, not because she was petrified for most of it ) where Hermione remained inside "cute little know-it-all" territory but then from PoA onwards...man. Emma Watson's popularity started rising and it came at the cost of Ron (and Harry, sometimes) being sidelined and Hermione stealing lines from them. The most irritating parts in PoA, for me, were 1) When Hermione steals Ron's "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill all three of us!" line (that was such a great moment for Ron in the books and Hermione was actually scared out of her pants at that point) and 2) the way Hermione kept dragging a clueless Harry about and seemed to know just the right thing to do at every single point in the time-turner part (when that wasn't the case in the book). I won't even go into all the other ways in which the movies messed up Hermione.


The moviemakers' crush on Emma was just nauseating. Most unforgivable of all would be the last shot of the series in DH2, where they zoom in on Harry and Hermione, and Ron was just crammed in at the corner somewhere. It was the last shot of the entire series - they could have given the three of them some equality at least in this one shot!


Don't get me started on the crazy movie ships. Harry-Hermione, Lily-Snape, Neville-Luna...I don't understand why the moviemakers couldn't just stick to the facts. As JKR so rightly said, "Not everybody falls in love with everybody else!"

You and I have similar dislikes.
I detest PoA, the movie, except for a couple of scenes-(NONE involving Emma).
I refuse to watch any of the movie from the part where Ron gets snatched by Sirius in his dog form.
That pathetic "Hermione swinging on the Whomping Willow" scene, the line stealing in the Shrieking Shack, the lack of Animagus and Marauder explanation, Hermione leading Harry around, practically by the throat, in the Time-Turner sequence, the stupid werewolf howling by Emma, Dumbledore hitting Ron's broken leg, the fact that Ron is in Muggle plaster when in CoS Madame P said she can "mend broken bones in a trice", the nasty way Harry and Hermione treat Ron when he's confused by their disappearance then reappearance and that final "freeze frame" of Harry's face!

It depresses me that I can hate so much about a Harry Potter movie!
I can't help it though! I enjoy the scenes where Aunt Marge gets blown up, Harry's flight on Buckbeak, the Boggart lesson, the Twins giving Harry the map and Harry's talk with Remus on the bridge.
Is it sad to like so little and hate so much of a movie?

[jbwarner86]

Originally Posted by snugglepot

Is it sad to like so little and hate so much of a movie?

Not at all. Prisoner of Azkaban used to be my least favorite film...until I saw Goblet of Fire. After watching that utter waste of celluloid, I have to question not only whether or not Mike Newell read the book, but whether or not he even knows what the Harry Potter series is.

Yes, I hate the humongous characterization problems and all the stupid pointless changes like the talk with Sirius and the Yule Ball and whatnot. But what hocks me off the most is how they totally botched the plot. GoF is probably one of Jo's most intricately constructed stories; there's not a single page wasted in that book. Everything is important in one way or another. And trying to streamline it into a movie is just so inherently difficult. Cut the S.P.E.W. subplot? Well, there goes Winky the house-elf and her involvement with the Crouch family. Cut out Ludo Bagman? There goes any explanation as to how dirt-poor Fred and George get the money to establish Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Cut out Hagrid's backstory? There goes any explanation of Grawp in the next movie.

But the worst, the absolute worst change made to GoF in my opinion, was the horrendous butchering of Barty Crouch Jr.'s plan to restore Voldemort. That was a truly brilliantly written mystery in the book, one that kept me guessing until the end when I first read it, and the movie just utterly destroyed it. The film provides no explanation as to how Crouch broke out of Azkaban, and turns him from a cunning master of disguise to a deranged shrieking nimrod who nearly blows his cover at least twice.

Then there's the aftermath of the Death Eater attack. If Crouch's aim is to see which Death Eaters are truly loyal to Voldemort by firing the Dark Mark into the sky, why does he wait until hours after they've all left to do it? Diddley-dur-hey! Plus, if he's so devoted to Voldemort, why the hell does he run and hide when he hears Ron and Hermione coming to find Harry? This is the boy he's looking for, and he and his friends are all underage - you'd think a true Death Eater, when he has his quarry cornered and basically defenseless, would just Avada Kedavra their sorry hides, grab Harry, and Disapparate on the spot. (Not that I'd want that to happen, of course, but the way the scene plays out, it just makes Crouch look like a completely ineffectual moron.)

And when he murders his father, he just leaves the body in the woods? Where everyone can find it? (Not to mention, nobody seems to care that a high-ranking Ministry official has died under mysterious circumstances.) And then, at the very end, they just send him back to Azkaban - which means he doesn't get dementor-kissed. And considering this is the plot point on which the entire plot of Order of the Phoenix hinges, you'd think somebody behind the scenes would have caught that, wouldn't you?

It actually makes me angry if I think about it too long. Out of all eight movies, this one really dropped the ball the hardest.

[snapes_witch]

Everything jbwarner86 wrote about GoF and:

Of course, I'm going to bring up the mishandling of Severus Snape (yet again) -----

Book Snape never, ever hit a student! OK he throws a jar of cockroaches at Harry, but that's the NEXT book!! (but not the movie)

That Snape had been a Deatheater is almost a throwaway line in Dumbledore's memories. I completely missed it the first time I saw the movie.

He doesn't show his Dark Mark to Fudge.

Dumbledore doesn't send him off to spy on Voldemort with the distinct possibility of being killed. OTOH, I don't remember Voldemort telling his gathered DEs about the three missing DEs.

And I didn't like PoA either.

[MasterOfDeath]

Originally Posted by snapes_witch

Everything jbwarner86 wrote about GoF and:

Of course, I'm going to bring up the mishandling of Severus Snape (yet again) -----

Book Snape never, ever hit a student! OK he throws a jar of cockroaches at Harry, but that's the NEXT book!! (but not the movie)

That Snape had been a Deatheater is almost a throwaway line in Dumbledore's memories. I completely missed it the first time I saw the movie.

He doesn't show his Dark Mark to Fudge.

Dumbledore doesn't send him off to spy on Voldemort with the distinct possibility of being killed. OTOH, I don't remember Voldemort telling his gathered DEs about the three missing DEs.

And I didn't like PoA either.

Don't forget Snape supporting Dumbledore putting Harry's life at risk in the tournament and using him as a piece of meat, as bait, something Snape is against according to DH.

Great post, jbwarner86! I agree with all of your points. GOF is quite possibly my least favorite film of the film series.

[snapes_witch]

Originally Posted by MasterOfDeath

Don't forget Snape supporting Dumbledore putting Harry's life at risk in the tournament and using him as a piece of meat, as bait, something Snape is against according to DH.

Great post, jbwarner86! I agree with all of your points. GOF is quite possibly my least favorite film of the film series.

I suppose we can give Steve Kloves a pass on the that one since the DH book was way off in the future, otherwise I think he really messed up Snape throughout the movie series.

[snugglepot]

Originally Posted by snapes_witch

I suppose we can give Steve Kloves a pass on the that one since the DH book was way off in the future, otherwise I think he really messed up Snape throughout the movie series.

And Ginny and Ron and Hermione and Harry and Dumbledore and Sirius and Remus and just about every other character in the whole thing!

Steve Kloves messed up big time!

[coppertop1]

The movies definitely could have shown Snape more nuanced, Alan Rickman is a brilliant actor, I'm sure he'd do great with it. Yes, Snape never hit a student, he was cruel in a verbal way but not physical.

I thought GOF was an improvement on POA, but POA is probably my least favourite movie, and GOF was still a miscue. I really wish they kept Skeeter's animagus story in there! Then they could have done Skeeter's Quibbler story in OOTP.

I saw a clip on Youtube where McGonagall has the Slytherins put in a dungeon. UGH! McGonagall wouldn't do that, she asked the Slytherins to leave. Why change that? Why? To make it more dramatic? To show Slytherins ARE all evil, which JKR herself said they're not.

[Apheka]

Originally Posted by coppertop1

The movies definitely could have shown Snape more nuanced, Alan Rickman is a brilliant actor, I'm sure he'd do great with it. Yes, Snape never hit a student, he was cruel in a verbal way but not physical.

I thought GOF was an improvement on POA, but POA is probably my least favourite movie, and GOF was still a miscue. I really wish they kept Skeeter's animagus story in there! Then they could have done Skeeter's Quibbler story in OOTP.

I saw a clip on Youtube where McGonagall has the Slytherins put in a dungeon. UGH! McGonagall wouldn't do that, she asked the Slytherins to leave. Why change that? Why? To make it more dramatic? To show Slytherins ARE all evil, which JKR herself said they're not.

I've seen this said a few times on various threads but the Slytherin common room is in the dungeon unfortunately Harry's answer to the snatchers in DH1 was left out. It's also mentioned in one of the earlier books.

[jbwarner86]

Originally Posted by coppertop1

I saw a clip on Youtube where McGonagall has the Slytherins put in a dungeon. UGH! McGonagall wouldn't do that, she asked the Slytherins to leave. Why change that? Why? To make it more dramatic? To show Slytherins ARE all evil, which JKR herself said they're not.

At least they had the foresight to cut the scene showing Filch actually locking the Slytherin students in some sort of jail cell (it's on the DH2 Blu-Ray in MMM, and it really must be seen to be believed). It's moments like this that make me question whether the filmmakers really got the books at all.

[Warlock27]

I hate that Harry and Ron's bromance was neglected by the writers to build up their precious golden duo DanHarry & EmmaHermione.

Where was the scene after Ron destroyed the locket where he and Harry reconciled and hugged? Where was the moment at the end of HBP when Ron told Harry that he and Hermione would go with him?

These guys are bffs for life. Closer than brothers. JK even said that they become Aurors together at the ministry. They're the dream team. Sadly though not in the movies.

[ShadowSonic]

Which is doubly sad, considering Rupert is a better actor than Dan or Emma.

[ajna]

That Harry's hair remains so perfect in HP8. Especially in the Great Hall scene where he confronts Snape. It's TOO perfect.

[Martok]

Originally Posted by ajna

That Harry's hair remains so perfect in HP8. Especially in the Great Hall scene where he confronts Snape. It's TOO perfect.

Well, messy hair is a nightmare for continuity as you need to make it look exactly the same every day of shooting. There are movies where you can tell which shots are pick-ups because of the look of hair of the characters.