The End

[tealin]

So ... that's it.


.... and I'm still awake.



Was it just me, or ... was it ... a little anticlimactic? WHOA! WHOA! STOP! It was good. In ... its way. But ... Well, I don't know what I wanted out of it. Somehow the ending was ... almost ... too normal. Though to be honest I was half expecting the book to consist of 'They all died' followed by fifty filler pages of Lorem Ipsum.* Every possible ending I could imagine seemed within the realm of possibility, but he's pulled another one of his tricks and ONCE AGAIN managed to come up with the most unexpected outcome, if only by doing what would be expected of anyone else.

I dunno, it just seems to be out of the tone of the rest of the series. The last three books seem to have sort of gradually drifted into a different universe. Maybe it's just me. They're less satirical but not really more of anything else to make up for it. They're less silly, but at the same time also less dramatic or intriguing. Is he bored? Jaded? Distracted? Misled? Suffering from popularity? Not that I could possibly recommend anything to be an improvement ... hmm.

Yeah, it, uh ... that's that.

Oh, I LOVE THIS:
'"Neiklot?"Sunny asked, which meant "Why are you telling us about this ring?"'
I haven't laughed that hard at a book in a really long time. At least a year.

Just ... as a general note ... I move that there be some sort of Interpol policy stating that no movies shall be made of a book or books in a contiguous chronological narrative series that is still being written by the author. Or if they are made, the author is not allowed to watch them. I can't help wondering if both the Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter would have turned out differently if it were not for the intervention of Hollywood.

*Lorem Ipsum is printers' dummy text. More info here.

There is a screencap I really want to post but CURSES my sister has the DVD and I can't find it online. Sunday, perhaps. [EDIT: the DVD is missing! Nooooooo!]

Comments

[fordanglia.livejournal.com]

I think the films definitely had an impact on Harry Potter. I.E., prefect badges were silver in PS, but red and gold in OotP. There was also no earlier mention of quidditch gloves and stuff until after the films. Either that, or JKR forgot/did it on her own. Good times.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

And Snape's hair used to be slicked back, but now it hangs in his face. A minor thing, but still.

[octaveleap.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, are you taking into account the event that happened after the last chapter, the event that was revealed in The Beatrice Letters?

[lepitot.livejournal.com]

Oh, shucks. I didn't realize it was out already. So much for getting it and reading straight through...

[lepitot.livejournal.com]

Oh, shucks. I didn't realize it was out already. So much for getting it on the first day and reading straight through...

[bellatella.livejournal.com]

I think Chapter Fourteen was nice, as it was a contrast to all the chaos of the series and was rather ambiguous in the ending, leaving their definitive future open like some of the questions that remain about everything else. But I do agree with you about the last three books: they weren't as good as the others, probably because of the VFD turning into this whole giant organization and conspiracy in the three. And the same thing's happening with the Harry Potter books (at least that's what I think) :)

[kalamazia.livejournal.com]

Temptation is killing me...but I won't read spoilers! I won't!!! %O

I should wait a couple of years and get the Italian version of the book.
Anyway, even the greatest american library in Milan won't have a copy till next month, I suppose.

But I'll make a monument to the man that invented internet and things like amazon.com or international delivery system...
;)

[lepitot.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely about the HP books. I don't think Rowling's vision has been soured at all by the movies. And, you're right...costume changes are tiny matters.

And I agree with you about the movies, as well. The movies make me very angry, because they could be SO good. But they never are. I always love them (especially the fourth one, even if it was vastly different), but they could always be so much better.

Haha, I've still never seen the Star Wars. I saw the very first one ever made, cause my friend made me. It was okay, but nothing that really excited me. Then, I saw the final Star Wars at the Drive In. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. Partly because I couldn't hear it, partly because of the idiots in the car behind me screaming drunkenly, and partly because I just didn't enjoy the movie enough to really pay attention and try to pick everything up. And, I saw Superman Returns, which was good...but, seemed to be missing something story-wise. Although, visually it was very impressive.

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

I definitely agree with you about the Potter books, and although I enjoy the movies, they are far from perfect. I do like to see how the film-makers change things, and I was particularly fond of the way they used actual information from the book (Neville is good at herbology and could have told Harry about gillyweed) to save time and make Neville's character more important. I thought that was clever; after they cut Dobby from the movie, it was really the best way to do it, and in fact I think in some ways it works better.

I think if I was an author who'd written a book, and a movie version of the story was made, and I liked the costume design for the movie better than what I'd come up with for the book, I might try to work that design into my writing. Unless something about clothing was vitally important to the story, it would be a very minor change.

I like the costume design for the Potter movies. I especially liked Sirius's prison outfit, if only because it looked way better than what I imagined when I first read Prisoner of Azkaban.

[ardys-the-ghoul.livejournal.com]

I just spent the last several hours doing nothing but reading that book. I do mean nothing. I didn't even get up to get a drink or go to the bathroom.

Reading is something terminal with me. Once I start, it's almost impossible for me to stop. For any reason.

I liked it. It answered a few questions, if not all. And it left me with a warm fuzzy feeling, which when one is reading the last book of a series entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events, is not something you feel you have a right to expect. It was a relief, in a way.

By the by, don't you just love Dan Handler's "representative of Lemony Snicket" spiel? He was on the Today show the morning the book came out; he kept saying stuff like, "Mr. Snicket wanted..." and "Mr. Snicket thought..."

Funny thing is, I actually had to explain to my mom, when I started laughing about it, that Dan Handler is the one who really wrote the books--it kind of surprised me she didn't know.

[disneyboy.livejournal.com]

We could have a whole long conversation about what I thought was missing from "Superman Returns" (or you could just read the "movie review" entry in my journal, if you dare)...I would agree that the film looked great, and created a nice somber, reflective, poignant mood.
I'm glad I'm not completely alone here in my opinions - thanks for you kind words! - but now I worry that writing such a long post in someone else's journal was in poor form (I probably should have posted it in my own - I honestly didn't realize it was so long until it was too late! (well, I guess I could have deleted it)

[disneyboy.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks! I also thought that having Neville come up with the Gillyweed was a nice compromise (I really like his character, if you couldn't tell), and I have liked many of the costume ideas in the various films - sometimes you don't think of certain ideas until you see it all realized, or how well all the costumes might work on screen together, or what would actually work or make practical sense, until you actually start making, seeing, and trying to use the physical clothes and accesories. My biggest problem with the "Goblet of Fire" movie was that they almost completely removed what I considered one of the most important plot developments in the series: Fudge and the Ministry of Magic turning against Harry and Dumbledore, and refusing to take a proactive stand against the Death-Eaters when they had a chance! To be fair, a movie long enough to adequately encompass this plot might have collapsed under it's own weight - the filmmakers may have done the best they could adapting the material under the circumstances. I've just learned to lower my expectations for what the movies can accomplish, which is fine, since I've still got the books (although she's got one last chance to really screw up the series! Let's hope she does not disappoint!)

[moisha.livejournal.com]

I wrote this in my lj back in July:

I'm only about halfway through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince but so far I am hating it.



The fact that J.K. Rowling knows all of her books are going to be made into films is directly influencing how she is writing them. This pisses me off. Also, please keep straight the differences between the films and the books J. K. In Prisoner of Azkaban Hermione slaps Draco and pulls her wand on him. In the film she punches him. There is a line early on in Half Blood Prince that states: "Like in their third year when Hermione punched Draco."

What? WHAT?

All the little inconsistencies (sp?) bother me. Katie Bell has been on the Quidditch team since Harry got to Hogwarts. Unless she is one year above Harry in school this is not possible. If she is in the next book it will piss me off.

In the interviews on the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD, Rowling states that she wished she had thought of the shrunken head idea cause it was cute. Why not use it now and throw some mention of shrunken heads into Half Blood Prince? Oh wait-you did, stating that they are dark objects and someone had them confiscated on their way into Hogwarts. Sorry, I forgot. I'm not paying attention to your series. And neither is half of the living world.

The pensieve is a horrible excuse to use flashback in a movie. That's all I will say about that.

Ron, Hermione, fucking DO it already.

I was under the impression that Tom Riddle's Mother's name was something like Mary. Then-in Half Blood Prince we discover it is Merope.