So Space Channel in Canada is showing the Harry Potter films all through the Victoria Day holiday weekend. I have them on blu-ray, of course, but I always find watching movies on television much more interesting than watching my own copies of them.
As anyone who has read this blog will know, I am not a fan of the movies that were made, loosely based as they were, out of J.K. Rowling's books. That being said, I have also tried to be fair and honest in identifying those areas where I feel the films have enhanced or, by necessity of the medium, adapted the books in a meaningful, interesting way.
I've just sat down in front of the television to watch the last hour of the second part of The Deathly Hallows. The first scene I saw takes place in the Great Hall where Snape demands that the students and staff of Hogwarts turn in Harry Potter and he, instead, emerges from the crowd of students to challenge Snape and, by doing so, set up the final battle of Hogwarts.
I don't love it, overall. But I love Snape in this scene ("ee - qual - lee") and I love the feeling of, I don't know how to describe it, triumph of having Harry emerge to challenge him and McGonagall step forward to defend Harry.
And it is not lost on me that McGonagall and Molly Weasley, two strong adult female characters, step forward to duel with Snape. And, even further, I love the fact the first people to step forward to protect Harry after Pansy Parkinson tries to convince the student mob to turn him over to Voldemort are women: first Ginny, then Hermione, then Cho Chang, then Katie Bell and Parvati Patil, and, as several males start to join Harry's defenders, Lavender Brown.
Add one more detail: Luna Lovegood is the one, in the film, who tells Harry not to bother to go to the Ravenclaw common room but to find, instead, the ghost of the Helena Ravenclaw to help him track down the diadem.
These are pretty strong feminist moments. While two men stand at the centre of the final conflict, it is women who provide the primary, immediate and on-going support to Harry in winning that battle. It's really quite wonderful... and unexpected, considering the fact that Rowling, for all the opportunities she had to fill the Harry Potter books with strong, dominating female characters, too often failed miserably in that regard.
While I love the books and tolerate the movies, I have to admit that, at times, the films are better than the books when it comes to their depiction of women.
Monday, May 20, 2019
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Not So Trivial Flaws
Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition.
Very excited to get this as a gift from a sibling and her family for Christmas this year. To be honest, I had never even heard of it but was delighted when it showed up under the tree.
"Please please please," I pleaded as I opened the box for the first time. "Let this game focus on pure Harry Potter..."
Trivial Pursuit, for those of you who don't know, was created in Canada I believe way back in the 1980s and was an instant hit, first in its home country and then around the world. After the original edition, with its six original categories of questions (if I remember correctly, Geography, Science and Nature, Arts and Literature, History, Sports and Leisure and finally Entertainment), there followed the Silver Screen edition (which focused on movies exclusively), the All-Star Sports Edition (which is self-explanatory) and then the Genus II edition, which returned to the original six categories. At some point in there, the original creator of Trivial Pursuit sold the game to a major American producer.
From there, a series of special Trivial Pursuit games were released, one for every major fad that came down the pipe. Despite this serious dilution of its core base, Trivial Pursuit continued to thrive.
It's a story that sounds kind of familiar to Harry Potter fans, isn't it? Humble beginnings, surprising success, a sell-out to a U.S. conglomerate and a rapid proliferation of spin-offs that move the "franchise" into a deeper and deeper dive for profit and further away from its roots.
Although the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, has many merits -- it focuses on the original seven, true Potter stories and ignores the inspired mess of Hollywood insipidness and merchandising frenzy that followed -- it also suffers from two flaws:
Very excited to get this as a gift from a sibling and her family for Christmas this year. To be honest, I had never even heard of it but was delighted when it showed up under the tree.
"Please please please," I pleaded as I opened the box for the first time. "Let this game focus on pure Harry Potter..."
Trivial Pursuit, for those of you who don't know, was created in Canada I believe way back in the 1980s and was an instant hit, first in its home country and then around the world. After the original edition, with its six original categories of questions (if I remember correctly, Geography, Science and Nature, Arts and Literature, History, Sports and Leisure and finally Entertainment), there followed the Silver Screen edition (which focused on movies exclusively), the All-Star Sports Edition (which is self-explanatory) and then the Genus II edition, which returned to the original six categories. At some point in there, the original creator of Trivial Pursuit sold the game to a major American producer.
From there, a series of special Trivial Pursuit games were released, one for every major fad that came down the pipe. Despite this serious dilution of its core base, Trivial Pursuit continued to thrive.
It's a story that sounds kind of familiar to Harry Potter fans, isn't it? Humble beginnings, surprising success, a sell-out to a U.S. conglomerate and a rapid proliferation of spin-offs that move the "franchise" into a deeper and deeper dive for profit and further away from its roots.
Although the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, has many merits -- it focuses on the original seven, true Potter stories and ignores the inspired mess of Hollywood insipidness and merchandising frenzy that followed -- it also suffers from two flaws:
- It prefers the American versions of the original stories over the British versions; and
- It prioritizes the events of the films over the events of the novels.
The first flaw is perhaps understandable -- an American game maker is attempting to appeal to an American audience and so uses "The Sorcerer's Stone" etc., the name familiar to its audience.
The second flaw is inexcusable. The books are Harry Potter -- the films are merely adaptations of Rowling's novels (and significantly problematic adaptations at that).
So when you face a question in the Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter edition, like, "Who burned down the Weasley's home?", you know the correct answer is "no one" because, well, the Weasley's home was never burnt to the ground in the novels.
In the films, of course, Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback do set fire to the Burrow.
And when you get a question like "What Muggle game appears in the background of Mr. Weasley's workshop?", you know that there is no answer because Rowling never describes the "workshop" in such detail. Sure, in the film, you see that there is a pinball machine back there but that is merely a choice made by a set decorator, not a creative decision of the creator of Harry Potter.
The least the game designers could have done was to introduce each question with a qualifier -- "In the film version" and "In the original novels" -- to point out the difference.
Of course, I would love to have a TP game that focuses on the books alone. Or even one that has a separate category for the films: "Film Facts" or "Film Adaptations" or some such. But to have an HP TP game that actually treats the books like they don't matter?
Not acceptable. Not even remotely acceptable. But typical of the trajectory both TP and HP have followed since their humble but outrageously creative beginnings. TP and HP have both been sold out and are being exploited by soulless US conglomerates who care more about profit than art, generating cash flow than creating magic.
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