Forum Overview :: Galactic Civilizations :: I only have the movies to go on

[quote name="fabio"]Which I only watched for Rifftrax. The movies themselves are objectively terrible adaptations. Tons of whimsical fantastical shit going on and it all falls so flat. Filthy Critic described it perfectly as an 8 year old giving a book report. "And then this happened and then this happened and then the feather blew up and it was funny." The stories themselves? They were dumb but passable kids stuff up until around Goblet of Fire. That was when the stupid and the grim seriousness reached critical mass. It was also the point where they should have just started immediately arresting anyone who applied for the Defense against the Dark Arts teaching job because every single professor there IRONICALLY turned out to be evil. Goblet of Fire Everyone grabs a magic teleporting boot (why do these people still use trains?) brings them to the Superbowl of Quidditch. Tens of thousands of the most prominent wizards in the world are there. Somehow 6 dudes in robes are able to march around throwing fireballs completely uncontested until the entire area is a desolate apocalyptic wasteland. Despite this large scale atrocity by followers of someone so taboo that you cannot even speak his name, it's not treated as a big deal. The whole side plot is a big metaphor for puberty as you get to watch the most painfully off key romantic tension between thoroughly unlikable Ron and Hermione who's supposed to be blooming from an awkward nerd but was miscast as a beautiful girl from the start. This is where the amount of danger that school puts kids in became eye rolling. "The cup shot out Harry's name! We HAVE to enter him in this super deadly dangerous contest now! What are we going to do? Say no to the cup?" Harry has saved the school 3 times at this point, yet everyone starts wearing "Harry stinks" buttons for no reason? Huge crowds gather in giant arenas for events that don't take place at the arenas and no one can watch? The location of the next event is supposed to be a big secret told only via riddle from the objects won in the previous event, yet there's a giant podium built and with the entire school audience present at the secret location? Not only are the contestants lives put in mortal danger, but the teachers <b>kidnap a loved one of each and chain them to the bottom of a lake for no reason!</b> Voldemort's lowliest henchman effortlessly dispatches the older and more talented student, but 13 year old Harry can go toe to toe with the legendary dark lord himself? Then everyone acts completely SHOCKED when one of the contestants ends up dead! The dragons and the drownings and the killer maze vines were supposed to be in good fun! Order of the Phoenix Nobody believes Harry when he says that Voldemort is back, despite the GIANT SUPERBOWL MASSACRE BY PEOPLE DRESSED AS FOLLOWERS OF VOLDEMORT WHO LEFT BEHIND GIANT VOLDEMORT SNAKE LOGOS IN THE SKY from the previous film. Harry also never thinks to mention that he saw Malfroy's father at the gathering of Voldemort's followers, wearing the same outfit as the Superbowl massacre dudes, heavily implicating him in what should be the 9/11 of the wizard world. It goes beyond no one believing him; Harry himself acts like it never happened whenever he interacts with Malfroy instead of HOLY SHIT YOUR DAD BLEW UP THE SUPERBOWL AND WAS CAUGHT WORSHIPING WIZARD HITLER! I can't even remember what happens in this one, except that everyone is cool with the new Hogwarts administrator tortures students by carving into their arms with a knife! Either that or no one thinks to mention it. It's some trivial bullshit at the end (Centaur rape?) that gets her fired. The whole thing is just a filler build up to the next movie. "Voldemort is back!", when is exactly where the previous movie left off. Half Blood Prince Okay! The top wizard brass have seen Voldemort with their own eyes! Everyone will finally believe Harry and take action! Except...no. Everyone acts like before when no one believed him and life carries on. Harry still not mentioning that Malfroy's father is one of the villain's top followers and blew up the Superbowl which you think would be of interest to the wizard authorities who now know that the villain is back. In fact, this movie Harry and friends discover the names and faces of Voldemort's entire inner circle but never mention it to anyone. You get to watch the most uncomfortable scene in the whole series as Dumbledore tells Harry to force him to drink a poisonous potion no matter how much pain he's in. It's basically a euthanasia scene. Harry is then told that he needs to track down a bunch of objects that Voldemort sealed his soul inside of. Movie ends with said followers breaking into Hogwarts, trashing the place, and assassinating the head of the school. A solemn funeral is held, <b>and this is still not enough for anyone to believe Harry.</b> The movie ends with "Voldemort is back!" Deathy Hallows (part 1!) Everyone gets ready to move Harry to Ron's house. Why he's safer there is not mentioned. They make tons of preparations, knowing that they'll be ambushed flying there and some of them will die. This is after countless instances of wizards just teleporting everywhere. So they fly, and people die. Somewhere in there is some convoluted bullshit about wand ownership. Okay, so Voldemort's return? The creeping fascism? The wizard war? <b>Everything the entire series has been leading up to?</b> To the point that the last two movies were just filler so they could get to the war? Happens entirely off screen. A vision just pops up announcing, "Voldemort runs the ministry now and there's fascism." Overnight, the ministry of magic has been transformed with brownshirts everywhere and monolithic marble monuments to overtly fascist themes which espouse the exact same agenda as Voldemort's first war <i>which was only 15 years ago</i>. The entire series has established a world where Voldemort is taboo, demonized to the point that you can't even say his name in public. Everyone is suddenly cool with putting him in charge. So now that <i>the entire leading point of the series</i> has happened off screen, what does the entire movie decide is more important to show us? Harry and Hermione camping in the woods for 5 hours. Hours and hours of them trying to solve a riddle that will tell them where the magic sword from the 2nd movie is located. The story eventually says, "fuck it", and a ghost deer shows up to just show them. It's in a nearby frozen pond for some reason. Harry and pals are then told they have to find 3 more magical objects after the story was already bogged down with them having to find a dozen magical Voldemort phylactery objects. They do so by instantly teleporting everywhere they need to go, after that whole opening scene of flying and dying in a world where teleporting exists and is so easy 2 kids could do it. Some meaningless horseshit happens, and the movie ends at the same point as the previous one. "There are phylacteries and we have to destroy them." Nothing has progressed. Deathly Hallows (part 2!) The exact same gotta catch all the phylacteries scenes of the previous movie is repeated here. Some MORE convoluted bullshit about wand ownership. They revist Hogwarts, which is now under control of the fascist government. The entire staff and student body don't seem to care. Maggie Smith's character, the one who carried out Dumbledore's super touching funeral, is still serving as a professor <i>directly underneath Dumbledore's known murderer.</i> The fascism that everyone nonchalantly accepted? Harry just showing up is all it takes for everyone to rebel against it. It turns out Snape is a quadruple agent since he was a double agent in the previous war, but only as a cover for being a triple agent for Voldemort's return, but only as a cover for being a quadruple agent against him. Some convoluted plan how Dumbledore and Snape planned for both of them to be killed in order to help Harry...somehow. It's not mentioned how Snape pretending to help Voldemort has helped the good guys in any way. In fact it's done nothing but hurt them and getting people killed. So Voldemort kills Snape over some MORE convoluted bullshit about wand ownership. Thousands of wizards now <i>openly following wizard Hitler just 15 years after everyone learned how evil he was</i> attack Hogwarts. Tons of magical defense are summoned, none of which were used by the same people when the school was first taken over by Voldemort's regime. The Malfoy family, who have spent the whole series secretly serving Voldemort's return, slink away for no reason now that everything they've risked and worked for has paid off. Harry fulfills his Jesus role by dying and being resurrected. YET MORE convoluted bullshit about wand ownership allows him to kill Voldemort. You see, Voldemort had a wand but had to use someone else's wand to kill Harry, but that turned out to be a lie so Dumbledore had a super wand that Voldemort wanted but Snape had killed Dumbledore so he owned the wand so Voldemort had to kill Snape to own the wand which he tries to use to kill Harry but it turns out that Harry actually owns the wand because the rules are really whoever <b>disarms</b> the owner is the new owner and Draco was the one who took the wand from Dumbledore's body and then Harry took the wand from Draco but even though it was Draco's wand and not Dumbledore's super wand it still counted as disarming Draco which transferred all wands owned by Draco in the world to Harry which was all part of Snape and Dumbledore's plan and holy shit was that really more advantageous than just openly helping Harry destroy the phylacteries and shooting Voldemort in the face? Ron and Hermione get married despite zero chemistry and Ron being a totally unlikeable troll. Harry marries Ron's boring mousy sister who he had zero chemistry with despite being about to drown in wizard poon for being wizardry's biggest hero ever. This is a dumb series for babies.[/quote]