Harry Potter: A Review

I'll admit it, I like David Yates as a HP director. I know there are a lot of people who don't like the work he's done the last two installments, but I really do. I think that it's artistically appealing, on a visual and auditory level. And he also manages some nice emotional moments.

Even though they are aware that it's a cinematic adaptation, people still forget. They see that HP logo and they want the book that's in their head to be on the screen. It's just not going to happen, folks. Books and movies are entirely different medium, and they have to be treated accordingly for any kind of enjoyment of the latter.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is one of my favorite books of the series, though I have found it's often overlooked by others. The thing I enjoy most about the book is the closeness that Dumbledore finally allows himself with Harry. And that was played true in the movie.

I enjoyed the teen romance. Lavender was just as annoying in the movie as I experienced her in the book. Harry and Ginny never quite connected, for me, but that's just a shrug, whatever for me. And the hospital scene with Ron and Hermione was cute.

I do have to admit that the chase scene at the end was anti-climatic. I recognized the reasons for omitting the battle, and I'm fine with that. But Harry practically laid down and took it from Snape. And I felt like Snape should have lost control more. He could have been cold and menacing still, but I felt none of the barely-suppressed fury that I expected, and I felt let down afterward.

Incidentally, I really enjoyed the humor of this installment. I laughed more than I've ever laughed in a HP movie. The jokes were funny, the implied humor was amusing.

Again, I enjoyed the movie on an artistic level. I feel like the cinematography was some of the best we've seen in the series. And the music! No John Williams here, friend! It had only the barest hints of his original theme, and some of it was just plain haunting. The sweeping shots of Hogwarts, the scene with Harry and Hermione on the stairs with the snow falling behind them, the sunset with Fawkes leaving...beautiful.

Overall, I think it was a good movie. I think it stayed true to the heart of the book, which is more than you can really expect from most adaptations. There's no way all of our favorite moments could have been included, and a movie is structured differently from a book anyway. I believe that it makes a solid movie, and I give David Yates a thumbs-up to finishing the series. Now to wait another 18 months...

A certain familiar aspect of my life, restated

I was reading the blog of Brandon Sanderson, LDS author of some of my new favorite books. He recently wrote a blog about his life as an unpublished author--the period in which he was writing before his first book was published. He describes the descent of his writing as he tried to write for the market, as he tried to write what editors were telling him people wanted to read, and how it made his writing worse. He wrote a full dozen novels before one was published. He also writes about a point at which he firmly decided that he wanted to write novels for a living, and his determination to do whatever it took to do it. Further on, he writes about his decision to go to a Master's program for creative writing, to surround himself with a community of aspiring writers. And then he writes about his first success--one of the very first novels he had written.

I guess it got me thinking, which I tend to do too much of anyway. Right now, I'm still planning to go back to school, at least part time, and I'm planning to study social work. I see this as a viable option, because it is a career I think I could invest in--if not passionately, then at least enjoyably. It's something I think I could find satisfaction in doing.

However, I've never given up on my desire to be a novelist. This one thing has never wavered--I have been a writer since I was a child, and I have never stopped for any real length of time. Sometimes I am embarrassed to admit this, and often I try to hide my work from those around me who take note of it. After all, novel-writing is hardly a lucrative business. And besides, there are thousands of people who claim to be writers, who either never finish a single full-length work, or whose writing is childish and unimaginative. I have known many such people, and these are what cause my embarrassment when professionals around me take note of the inordiante amount of time I spend with a notebook or a Word file open.

I fully recognize the flaws in my own writing. I am not a published novelist (though I do have some claim with a few short stories) and there is good reason for it. I recognize that I have potential that I have not yet reached.

I also recognize that I want to be a professional novelist.

Here is my issue with this declaration: only the very very lucky and the exceptionally talented writers ever get published. It's an enormous market, awash with mediocre manuscripts from aspiring artists who want to make the big bucks. And, as affirmed to me by Mr. Sanderson, one cannot write for the market. This was the biggest problem with my most recently completed project--I was trying, honestly attempting to write the next Harry Potter saga. And it failed, miserably. It's terribly childish. And I realized--even if I could not express it so eloquently as Mr. Sanderson--that I can't write FOR something, that I can't make myself write something that I don't have in me. Certainly, I finished the novel. It's a goodly length, with a handful of noteworthy ideas. But it is poorly written and even more poorly plotted. It's boring. As I have been told time and again by writers and writing instructors, I must write for myself first. If a writer does not enjoy writing something, why would a reader enjoy reading it?

And so I move forward with my life. I have escaped the dry, monotonous spell that my muse left me in for a number of weeks. I am adjusting to real life. I am becoming accustomed to the day-in day-out nature of a full time job. And in the midst of this mediocrity, I write. The words spill from my fingertips as they often have, until I cannot believe how many pages have been filled that day, and then again the next. And perhaps they are not the prettiest words, and perhaps it is not the most interesting plot, but the next one will be better, as this one shall be better than the last. And perhaps one day, it all shall be worth it. That, my friends, is what we call hope.

Transcending Ages

Today I would like to write about a specific element of popular culture:

Star Wars.

I have decided that Star Wars is a phenomenon. It transcends generations, along with the normal social and societal boundaries associated with cult fiction. Star Wars affects everybody--the old, the young, the popular and the nerdy, the intellectual and the oblivious. I can think of nothing else that does this--not Harry Potter (not yet, anyway), not Pirates, not even Lord of the Rings. In all those cases, somebody looks down on it, somebody criticizes, somebody snubs, and somebody takes it wildly out of control. Star Wars is different.

For example: My parents and I recently visited Disneyland. While there, we stopped to watch the "Jedi Academy" in Tomorrowland. It's a show, where "Jedi Masters" invite children of the audience to enter the Academy and learn the art of a lightsaber. It's a Kodak moment for the parents, of course, particularly when Darth Vader and Darth Maul enter the amphitheater with stormtroopers and duel with their kids. Perfectly charming.

However, my attention was drawn several times away from the stage and into the audience. The adults were enjoying this nearly as much as the kids--they certainly cheered for the Jedi, and booed and hissed the Sith, and were overjoyed when Yoda's overamplified voice echoed from the speakers overhead. One woman in particular was totally in the moment--in her sixties at least, she bowed to the Jedi as they came in, and theatrically cringed away from the Stormtroopers at their entrance. This proud grandmother did not seem the least bit abashed at her cultish behavior.

Furthermore, when my father and I sat down for a (nauseating) ride on Star Tours, the ride attendant (wearing a rather unfortunate bright-orange jumpsuit like Luke's X-wing flightsuit) wished us a good ride and said, of course, "And may the Force be with you." A woman behind me said then--and I quote--"I would give anything to wear an orange suit and say "May the Force be with you" to people and get paid for it!"

All I could think was, Yeah you'd enjoy it--the first five times. After that, I'm pretty sure the thrill would wear off.

My nephew Ben is just discovering Star Wars. He's five. You would not believe how many similar five-year-olds I saw running around California with toy lightsabers and padowan robes. Do you know how much they charge for those things? The robes--a cut-out piece of brown fabric that would rip if you looked at it funny--cost over fifty dollars. I don't know how much the toy lightsabers cost, but I imagine they are similarly astronomical. Star Wars is a money-making machine that will never die--no matter how terrible the new movies are.

What I'm forced to wonder is whether George Lucas had any idea what he was creating. I'm sure he claims some awe-inspiring vision of the future, but I imagine it was more an accident of fate. Our society needed inspiration, and the ham-handed filmmaker handed it to us with some cheap new tricks and some lucky finds on the acting side.

Speaking of which--Indy comes out in two weeks. I hope that it's good--it would be terrible to ruin the first three fifteen years after the fact!

Potterworld

Yes, I am what might be called a Harry Potter fanatic. I'm not absolutely crazy, like some others holding this title, but I have read the books many times, and to this day I still look up JKR interviews and other tidbits. I have also been a member of the Facebook group "Finishing Harry Potter 7 was like Destroying the 7th Horcrux of my Childhood" since finishing the book last summer.

Today I was reading updates on the HP films. I'm not really a big fan of the films (I'm hardly ever a fan of books-made-movies), but I liked the fifth movie, so I'm keeping up-to-date with the future films. I'm interested to see how HBP turns out this Thanksgiving. I also found out today that the seventh book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will be split into two films, a Part I and Part II. Though they've been accused of just trying to make more money, the producers claim the split is for entirely creative reasons--it being impossible to squeeze this huge finale into two hours. Like other readers, I wanted to know where in the text the split will take place, but as far as I could discern, Warner Brothers is still mum on this point. So, this reader shrugs and says "Well, we'll wait and see."

However, I was reminded of another unpleasant fact during my readings this afternoon. During her US Tour last fall, JKR announced that "Dumbledore is gay, actually." According to this Newsweek article she explained that Dumbledore loved Gellert Grindlewald, who appears in the seventh book. Now, I had heard this rumor before, but I had fortunately forgotten it. Okay, so this is a touchy subject, because I have several close friends with homosexual tendencies or declarations, but I wish she could have left poor Dumbledore's memory alone. I find this kind of explication from authors somewhat annoying--if you don't include it in your book, just let readers think what they want. All these facts she keeps coming out with--what the characters are 'doing now', who everybody married, what jobs they got, what their children are named, etc etc etc--I find it a sign of fanatic fandom (if such a term was not repetitive enough) but also a poor conclusion. Don't get me wrong--I love JKR, and I love the Harry Potter series, but I felt that the last epilogue left much to be desired. But what can one poor fan do, really, other than complain?

I'm excited that David Yates is directing the last few HP films--I felt he did an excellent job with OotP, and I hope to see similar work for the next--three!