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(A spoiler or two ahead)
I thought it would be fun to revisit the movies again, it’s been a few years since I watched any of them. I’ve read up to Order of the Phoenix but stopped because I personally didn’t really enjoy the books, however I really, really loved the movies when I was younger and I still consider them to be some of my favorites to this day.
Anyways, I’m going to try to look at the movies in a more critical way, rather than just a fan of them. So, let us begin with the very first installment!
My thoughts are actually pretty limited with this first movie to be honest but I shall go over the points that stuck out to me most.
Straight away within the first few minutes of the movie, with the music, the famous Harry Potter title, the instant show of simple but magical magic instantly gave me tons of nostalgia. Your introduced to orphan, Harry Potter who is left on the doorstep of the only remaining family he has, the Dursleys. A not so nice, incredibly high minded family with abusive tendencies towards Harry while Dudley (Mrs. and Mr. Dursleys son) is a spoiled child who gets everything Harry could ever want. Their lives are the complete opposite all while living under the same roof for eleven years.
On his eleventh birthday Harry finally gets something that is just his, a letter from a school called Hogwarts. Everyone knows what happens then, he goes to the school and learns of the Wizarding World and learning more about himself, his family, and Voldemort, the Wizard who killed his parents.
Plot:
The plot is relatively simple to follow, a young boy finds out he’s a wizard and begins to learn of the life he was in a way taken from. However the core plot of this story isn’t really introduced until well over an hour in. It’s understandable, it’s a big world, lots of characters and overall lots to cover and you want to do it an easy pace. Especially since this was based off a children’s book. But I can see how others might think the story is slow paced. I personally don’t mind the pacing, the movie itself makes me incredibly happy so I had a good time all throughout.
Characters:
I think this is one thing that sort of gets some fans of this series, some characters are portrayed quite differently on screen compared to how they’re written in the books. Ron being one of them. Also compared to what we later see in future movies, some of the characters (specifically are main trio) can come off rather bland. Ron is the funny, dumb best friend, Harry is the chosen one, Herimone is the book nerd, and that’s just kind of it for their personalities. I think this greatly improves by the next movie (if I remember correctly) but it is one of my critiques.
Side characters are good, we learn of the trustworthy Dumbledore and the wise McGonagall, gentle giant Hagrid and are introduced to Snape, who as a viewer your made to believe that he may not be “good”. And you also get Harry’s nemesis, Draco Malfoy who is very prideful of being a pure blooded wizard.
Voldemort is sort of the villain, kind of, idk really. He is of course the reason why Professor Quirrell tries to harm Harry but because he’s sort of not totally “revealed” until the end so I think that definitely doesn’t make him to be very scary or a force to be as feared as he later becomes.
I watched this movie on a streaming service where it included all the deleted scenes, which was interesting. I think all of them were actually pretty good, besides one scene with Snape speaking to Harry during potions class. The scene felt a little off to me and to me it made Snape come off more as childish rather than his normal cold self. Also it’s just weird to me that Harry would randomly be sassy to Snape out of nowhere when even with Draco in this first movie he was never snarky with him. This is the scene:
I think most people dislike the first movie because of the acting. If I remember correctly Danielle, Rupert and Emma (the actors playing the trio) were all new to acting and this was their first roles. So yes their acting is not the best if I’m honest, sometimes I found myself laughing when I could just tell that they were thinking “I need to act mad or shocked in this scene”. But I never felt like not watching the movie because of it, a lot of the times I just thought it was cute or funny when they were trying to pull a certain face for a close up or something.
And that is all of my thoughts for this first movie, I enjoyed it a lot and am already halfway through Chamber of Secrets.
What do you all think of the first movie/book?
I thought it would be fun to revisit the movies again, it’s been a few years since I watched any of them. I’ve read up to Order of the Phoenix but stopped because I personally didn’t really enjoy the books, however I really, really loved the movies when I was younger and I still consider them to be some of my favorites to this day.
Anyways, I’m going to try to look at the movies in a more critical way, rather than just a fan of them. So, let us begin with the very first installment!
My thoughts are actually pretty limited with this first movie to be honest but I shall go over the points that stuck out to me most.
Straight away within the first few minutes of the movie, with the music, the famous Harry Potter title, the instant show of simple but magical magic instantly gave me tons of nostalgia. Your introduced to orphan, Harry Potter who is left on the doorstep of the only remaining family he has, the Dursleys. A not so nice, incredibly high minded family with abusive tendencies towards Harry while Dudley (Mrs. and Mr. Dursleys son) is a spoiled child who gets everything Harry could ever want. Their lives are the complete opposite all while living under the same roof for eleven years.
On his eleventh birthday Harry finally gets something that is just his, a letter from a school called Hogwarts. Everyone knows what happens then, he goes to the school and learns of the Wizarding World and learning more about himself, his family, and Voldemort, the Wizard who killed his parents.
Plot:
The plot is relatively simple to follow, a young boy finds out he’s a wizard and begins to learn of the life he was in a way taken from. However the core plot of this story isn’t really introduced until well over an hour in. It’s understandable, it’s a big world, lots of characters and overall lots to cover and you want to do it an easy pace. Especially since this was based off a children’s book. But I can see how others might think the story is slow paced. I personally don’t mind the pacing, the movie itself makes me incredibly happy so I had a good time all throughout.
Characters:
I think this is one thing that sort of gets some fans of this series, some characters are portrayed quite differently on screen compared to how they’re written in the books. Ron being one of them. Also compared to what we later see in future movies, some of the characters (specifically are main trio) can come off rather bland. Ron is the funny, dumb best friend, Harry is the chosen one, Herimone is the book nerd, and that’s just kind of it for their personalities. I think this greatly improves by the next movie (if I remember correctly) but it is one of my critiques.
Side characters are good, we learn of the trustworthy Dumbledore and the wise McGonagall, gentle giant Hagrid and are introduced to Snape, who as a viewer your made to believe that he may not be “good”. And you also get Harry’s nemesis, Draco Malfoy who is very prideful of being a pure blooded wizard.
Voldemort is sort of the villain, kind of, idk really. He is of course the reason why Professor Quirrell tries to harm Harry but because he’s sort of not totally “revealed” until the end so I think that definitely doesn’t make him to be very scary or a force to be as feared as he later becomes.
I watched this movie on a streaming service where it included all the deleted scenes, which was interesting. I think all of them were actually pretty good, besides one scene with Snape speaking to Harry during potions class. The scene felt a little off to me and to me it made Snape come off more as childish rather than his normal cold self. Also it’s just weird to me that Harry would randomly be sassy to Snape out of nowhere when even with Draco in this first movie he was never snarky with him. This is the scene:
I think most people dislike the first movie because of the acting. If I remember correctly Danielle, Rupert and Emma (the actors playing the trio) were all new to acting and this was their first roles. So yes their acting is not the best if I’m honest, sometimes I found myself laughing when I could just tell that they were thinking “I need to act mad or shocked in this scene”. But I never felt like not watching the movie because of it, a lot of the times I just thought it was cute or funny when they were trying to pull a certain face for a close up or something.
And that is all of my thoughts for this first movie, I enjoyed it a lot and am already halfway through Chamber of Secrets.
What do you all think of the first movie/book?
