Prop on Potter (and Flyboys)

I just saw Flyboys. I'm glad they made a WWI fighter pilot movie, but I wish they'd have been just a little more historically accurate. For instance, all the Germans are flying Red Triplanes. I'm pretty sure Red was rare if not unique to Baron Von Richtoffen. I caught a few other things out of place, but it was enjoyable. I was going to rip it up for historical inaccuracy, but there are already enough sites that have done that. This site is VERY specific.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – I watched this two days ago. I didn't put any spoilers in it so don't worry.

Well, they did at least one thing very right. In the book, I feel that Harry whines throughout. I just felt like slapping him in the book. In the movie it is better balanced and is shown less as whining and more as frustration. I really appreciated that.

Three things really struck me.

The actors are too old for their parts. I think that's been said other places before ad nauseaum, but unfortunately it's true. My remedy would be to skip the sixth movie and jump right into the seventh. I think the sixth movie will be anticlimactic after all is revealed in the seventh book anyway. All the suspense and good storytelling (finally) will have paid off already.

The second thing is that there are scenes where some of the actors don't have lines. Jenny [EDIT: Ginny] Weasley goes through the entire movie and the only things she says are her spells and curses. It looks to me like the director felt that we all needed to see those characters, we wanted to see them, but there just wasn't enough time in the film for their storylines. I don't know enough about filmmaking to give an answer, but I can see if it is wrong and this was wrong.

They left out some small, but I thought important points. I am not a dyed in the wool fanatic and I don't have all the books memorized. I read that book so long ago that I forgot what happens in it and I get things mixed up between the books, so you know that if I spot an omission it was probably something memorable. The biggest one of these is when Harry gets into Snape's thoughts and sees his father teasing and bullying Snape when they were both in school. What they don't show is how Lilly, Harry's mom, saves Snape. I think they should have left that in.

That said, I enjoyed it, especially since the tickets were a gift (my opinion is that Jo Rowlings has enough of her own money and I'm not going to give her any more of mine). It had some really great wizard battles and some pump your fists kind of scenes. I recommend it (especially if you can get it for free).

Now I am going to make public my opinions on the seventh book. Mark these down and note the date:

1. The seventh book will be the LAST of the Harry Potter books. I do not think it will be the last book set in that universe, but I think that if J.K Rowlings decides it is the last book there is no force in the world that can change her mind, but I also think that she loves that universe (or world if you will) too much to leave it.

2. Snape is a Dumbledore man. That's right, no quibbling about it, no reservations. Snape is a Dumbledore man. I don't know how he got out of the oath he made, but I do know that he didn't kill Dumbledore. I even have a theory of how he made it look like he killed him, but didn't. Rowlings had been trying with very poor effect to paint Snape as a bad guy and she finally found a way to do it convincingly. It is still the Snape that is loyal however.

3. Dumbledore is not dead! He explained it all to Malfoy. Dumbledore told Malfoy that they could make it look like he was dead. It was all a set up by Dumbledore, in front of two of the most unimpeachable witnesses (Harry and Draco).

4. Snape actually killed the horcrux of Voldemort. That's what he was aiming the curse at, not Dumbledore. I guess this is a minor thing after the other three, but I had to say it, it may be important.

Any questions?