Bryce's Ramblings

Okay--I know this is rather late in coming, but I finally saw the latest Harry Potter last night, and I wanted to talk about some of the things I noticed in it. First off, some elements were handled much more deftly than the book. I'm talking about the never-ending Umbridge scenes. In the book, it felt like those were going to last forever. Just when you finished one, you'd have another which was pretty much just like the last one. It's like that old "second verse, same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse." Blech. In the film, the Umbridge scenes were handled with montages. Fantastic. You got the exact message you were supposed to get--what Umbridge was doing and how she was so horrible--without having to be shown every little horrible scene. Bravo.

The ending of the movie, on the other hand, had some difficulties. Difficulties which I wrote at length about, and then Livejournal decided to get rid of my draft. Grr. Suffice it to say that my biggest complaint was that the main villain of the movie was set up to be Umbridge. She's the one most of the conflict focused on. Voldemort was more of a sideline until the end. The problem with this approach is that I didn't feel invested in that conflict as a viewer, so when that was all that was left, I lost some interest. Plus, Voldemort was pretty weak in this film. He didn't get a chance to really take control. I know that happens in books 6 and 7, but I think perhaps Rowling brought Voldemort out too soon in the series. It relegated him to a fairly unimportant role this time around, and necessitated all the filler about the ministry, which--while interesting--wasn't all that and a bag of chips.

I had some other interesting observations, but I'm too lazy to repost them. :-)

Got back the home inspection report today, and for the most part it was good news. There were some minor problems (electrical, chimney), but nothing that really looked like a deal breaker, though I've asked a few people for their opinions on it, and I suppose there might have been something I missed. In any case, it certainly seems all systems are go for the house. One interesting thing that the inspection turned up was that the middle portion of the house probably dates back to about 1830, if you can believe it. It's still in good shape, though, so that probably tells you how well the house has been holding up.

In other news, I went ahead and got Harry Potter on Saturday, then finished it Sunday. (Total time about 7 hours--it's a fast read.) I really enjoyed it. As with Rowling's other books, I thought there were some pacing issues and some clunky prose, but the plot and characters were spot on. A great ending to the series, and highly recommended. (Though I wish some people were less insistent on forcing others to believe Harry Potter is Great Literature . . . It's fun, it's entertaining, but it just ain't Dickens, IMHO.)

I'm debating whether or not to go pick up a copy tonight. On the one hand, that's really late to be getting anything. On the other, I'm worried I'll get behind and find out from someone else how the series ends. That would really annoy me . . . Then again, what if I went tonight and some punk comes by and yells out the ending to everyone in the room? That would annoy me even more. Hmm . . . You know you've got it cushy when you have time to debate things like this.

In other news, the house inspection is done, but I won't hear the results today. Probably Monday. Sigh.