The MacGuffin

saw you guys at the grand illsuion like what you are doing
cool shit

Thanks! Hopefully we’ll see you again next week for Stand By Me.

i have read all the harry potter books and i was a huge fan, but when the movies came out i have to say i stopped loving it. Not that the movies were terrible but i still can not sit through the movies with out getting bored, that is excluding the first part of the last movies, i actually thought that was the best one thus far so the last one sounds exciting as well. I feel like harry potter movies have the twilight effect the super fans which i used to consider myself will love the movies good or bad regardless of how the movies drag on.  Great podcast you guys keep it up =]

Interesting…what exactly is it about the movies you didn’t like? That they
cut so much out from the books? They weren’t able to capture the magic of
the books?

I’m curious because I haven’t read any of the books and have only seen the
movies.

well obviously in the books they go more into character details, but it feels like the movies focus too much on the teeny emotions that go on between the three main characters, granted that is a big part of the story but they dont focus on the other characters as much. they mention them and they come on screen for a few minutes but you dont get their importance . for example in deathly hallows part 1 mad eye moody dies and it is so uneventful and felt pretty cold. Im not sure how some one in your shoes that has never read the books felt about that scene? it is really small things like that, that are not that small for someone like me that has read the books  and loved them because my favorite characters of the series are not the three main characters. The movie i thought did the best job in really capturing important characters was the third one, prisoner. 

I loved the books and the movies. That being said, I do agree on the action scene at the beginning of the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (where Mad Eye dies) – they completely missed the opportunity to make this a much more extensive and exciting sequence.

But in general the movies are some of the best adaptations in existence.

Spencer, I like the Ewoks, too. There, I said it.

I agree with Scream 4 – I didn’t think the writing was great (Sherriff Dewey’s dialogue – really?) but the ending is great, and different from the others.

*Haha, good to know I’m not the only one. Are you a big enough fan to own
the Ewok movies?*

I guess time will tell if that one will stay on the list or not. Hollywood
loves to milk its franchises.

When I started getting really into film instead of just being a kid who watched a lot of movies, the discovery that so many people hate the Ewoks was deeply shocking to me. They’re great! And Return of the Jedi is still my favorite of the original trilogy. Haters can hate if they want, though.

I definitely agree with the sentiment that some sequences in the films have been rushed, secondary characters short changed, etc. I wouldn’t pick Mad Eye Moody as an example….people love him, but I don’t get it. We barely got to know the *real* guy in the books. What’s the big deal in him being minor in the films? (This is my nitpicking nerd moment, yes….)

I get way more up in arms on the lack of Neville or Snape time in the later movies. And it becomes a little ridic the way Hagrid just pops up here and there without much explanation.

Still, I really enjoyed the adaptations overall and loved the final films. Can’t wait to be able to watch 6-8 all together; I think it will be even more obvious what a fine job they did wrapping things up.

for some reason mad eye was always a character that stuck with me along with sirious, lupin, and obviously neville but nevilles roles in the movies is a whole other subject. i could literally nerd rage about that for days. i really dont care what they do with his character in the last movie, its just unbelievable…..

Snape is another character that doesnt get the right treatment but i was never a fan of his character so i really dont have too much to say about that. My two favorite characters are Neville and Sirius. The fact that those two are my favorite characters probably is the reason why I dont enjoy the movies. To me Neville was the hero that never got his respect and it appealed to me more than Harry because Harry got all the credit all the time. Neville could have been in Harry’s shoes according to the prophecy which is so intriguing and makes him that much more intriguing especially with what happened to his parents.

I know it might sound like im hating but what i loved the most about the books was missing in the movies. It is not like the the movies are short, the books are pretty long but they missed a lot of key moments and ideas that you could fit in the 2 to 3 hour movie but you can not blame them for focusing on the main three characters. the movies are what they are and your either for it or against it, either way they are successful and its all that matters.

One of my big guesses about why you found certain older movies on the adjusted grosses list was the lack of competition from TV. While TVs were around in the 50s they weren’t as ubiquitous as they were in the following decades. And even if you had a TV there wasn’t 24 hour programming or a lot of selection. So definitely the early half of the 20th century people would go to the movies for their entertainment, often multiple times. Thus more tickets sold.

Also, The Sound of Music has a Lonely Goatherd, yodele-hi yodele-hi yodele-hi hoo!