Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – MOVIE – Episode 105
The Buddies apparate into the third Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They got to chatting about: Wizards and their fashion choices, romantic scenes, Hermione’s workout regiment, and how Snape’s redemption arc got lost somewhere between the book and the big screen. So practice your “Lumos Maxima” for those late-night reading sessions, and join the Buddies as they dissect a film that’s darker than Hagrid’s rock cakes.
Intro (0:00-0:44)
Stock Up/Down (0:45-27:04)
Favorite Scenes (27:05-33:28)
Love/Hate (33:29-40:35)
Listener Email & Lingering Questions (40:36-46:03)
Conclusion (46:04-48:12)
NEXT BOOK: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂
Alright. Welcome to the book club. I’m Dylan here with the man who makes me wanna out the moon. Keith, what’s up, buddy? You make me wanna be the what?
Oh, I’m sorry. That’s not true. Great song. Well, here at The Buddy Book Club, we’re breaking down some box office bangers. And this week, we’ll be discussing 2 1000 four’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban film.
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Follow us on social channels, please, and thank you. Keith, first timer for you? I’m excited. Let’s jump into it with some stock up, stock down. Keith, what do you have for stock up?
Yeah. Stock up. Snape? Oh. I I think I’m I’m buying his stock.
I sold it pretty heavily. I got the book. But is he even that bad in the movies? No. He’s not.
Right? He’s not in the movie. The few times that we see him, it seems like all he’s doing is either saving Harry and, you know, Ron, Hermione. And he’s being quite frankly just like a stern teacher. He’s not really playing favorites.
He’s not being, like, super Slytherin esque only. Mhmm. Malfoy talked back to him. He’s, like, shut up, Malfoy. At one point, I was, like, wait, what?
Like, he never says that in the book. Like, that’s so out of character. The one picture that really comes to mind is him holding Harry, Ron, Hermione behind him as he, like, defends them from the werewolf. From the werewolf. Yeah.
That is not the picture we get in the book, which I think the turn is not gonna obviously be as good now in the movies. But at the same time, I feel like it’s a little just moralistic. Like, the dude’s astern kind of secretly holding a grudge. The overall, like, this is the worst character of all time take I had in book 3 is not the same in the movie. Yeah.
He’s a dick, but he’s not, I’m gonna let 3 students die. I’m not just gonna bully Neville into the ground. Yeah. Right. I guess there was a lot of potions class scenes that made it to the cutting room floor, unfortunately.
It’s interesting because this movie runs, I think it’s 2 hours and 20 minutes, something along those lines. So it’s already a pretty lengthy movie, and throughout this, I may or may not have some some criticisms, but it’s tough because this book is just crammed with things happening, and it’s hard to translate that into film without some important side stories. You want to give the main plot line a lot of space to grow, but you don’t want to sacrifice too much of the subplots, and you also want character development. So it’s tough. My first stock up is puberty.
So, you know, getting moody, looks changing, and emotional changes can normally be pretty tough, but not with this film. And you might have thought I was going with puberty as in the fact that this film is 2 years later than the other ones and the kids all look older. But, no, I’m talking about the film itself. The film series hits puberty with this one. It’s it’s so dark and rainy, especially at the beginning, which I loved.
It opens up just already fairly just, like, grim in general and no pun intended. But I’m thinking about with Harry and the night bus. And then once they’re on the train, it’s not like, oh, this is a fun whimsical him and Ron in a car flying, and it’s beautiful day out. It’s like, no. It’s dark and rainy, and there’s Dementors.
So it takes a real serious tone. The music additionally turns as well. I’m not sure what the deal is with the chorus song when they get to Hogwarts. You know what I’m talking about? You’re the music guy here, so I know you keep on keep on telling me the music gets darker and darker.
But The opening does. That that was in reference to the opening. The opening gets, like, a little less whimsical and more spooky as it goes on. But when everyone gets to Hogwarts, they had, like, a minute and a half of those kids holding those giant toads that were singing the chorus song, like, double double. What was that?
Yeah. I don’t know what it was, but the vibe of that music, like, it was I just did a terrible rendition of it because that’s not what it was at all. But that fit the vibe as to, like, how this movie is gonna go. It was very, like, somber, but also upbeat. I don’t know.
It was crazy. But I liked it. And I guess the lyrics were taken directly from Macbeth, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, from what I I read. That checks out to me. I’ve I’ve got some comments on the movie that I don’t think you’re gonna like.
Okay. That’s fine. What else do you have for Stock Up? Stock Up, curls for the girls, tries for the guys. The whopping willows tree scene, was a bit chaotic.
Oh, with Harry and Hermione? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t get Crook’s face touching the the, like the knot. Yeah.
But we did get Hermione just getting absolutely yolked. I don’t know if you caught this, but Oh, yeah. Hermione gets picked up by the whomping Willow, and he’s getting thrown around at, like, 40 miles per hour, maybe a 150 if we’re if we’re talking, the Firebolt speeds here. Mid getting completely thrown, she puts her hand out and catches Harry one armed while he’s standing on the ground, just picks him up, bicep curls the shit out of him. Yeah.
And I was like, holy shit. While she’s holding on to him, bicep curling him, she then rips the tri workout out and throws him Mhmm. A fucking 2 seam fastball into the little hole perfectly. So what I think is what probably got left on the cutting room floor here is that she was using the time turner to go back and just hit the gym so heavily. She’s absolutely yoked out of her mind right now.
They’re like, where have you been Hermione? And she’s just comes in. She’s, like, dripping sweat, drinking protein shakes. I wonder what she’s been doing. She’s not been in the books.
She’s been in the weight skid. Yeah. I love that. And I, yeah, I definitely noticed it. In my outline, I had, like, pick your character or whatnot to see if there was someone different from the movie that you like from the book.
Anyhoo, mine basically was it can’t be Crookshanks because all of Crookshanks’ scenes were cut. I don’t know who his agent is, but whoever it was was not good. Not only did the movie’s friendship with Sirius, but they they him letting Harry and Hermione into the Whomping Willow, like you referenced, is changed. And I know that in some of these movies, they try to work in some action sequence into things that are not action y, like we talked about and I referenced with Harry and Ron driving the car in Chamber of Secrets. Like, there’s a thing where Harry falls out.
I thought that was fine. This was a bit much. It was like, what are we talking about? Whomping willows flying around hitting them in the chest? I was like, oh, that’s a heart stopper.
Like, no way anyone’s getting up from that. Couldn’t agree with you more, but what I did also find funny is on IMDB, they have these, like, at the bottom, there’s, like, continuity errors and goofs and, things that just don’t make sense or or whatever the case is, and sometimes they’re fun to read through. And one of the ones was about this. It was legitimately like, no way Hermione could have picked up Harry. He would, like, she would have had to weigh this much.
He would have had to weigh this much. I was like, wow. This I thought you were gonna be like, turns out Hermione can squat £750, rep a 150 down dumbbells, just our stats on some weight lifting. Yeah. I I I just I thought that one was funny on IMDb because it’s like, who goes to IMDb to say that?
Where there’s actual things that people said that’s, like, oh, that’s an interesting point. You know? Oh, like, when Snape gets thrown into the bed, the bed falls on him, but the next scene, he’s just laying on the bed, and it’s intact. It’s like, oh, that’s an interesting continuity error, but this thing doesn’t make any sense. Yeah.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m not a big fan of that scene whatsoever. Also, she slides in right after him. So did she just go full 360 around the Willow and was able to slide in? No one’s that athletic.
Tyreek Hill ain’t doing that. I don’t know why she’s not on the Quidditch team if she’s doing that easy peasy. Yeah. For sure. It just it also is one of those things where it adds time to the movie that I feel like other things could have been shown where it’s also pretty cool that Crookshanks knows the situation and, like, just walks up, hits the knot, and the tree goes limp, and you can get in.
Because even though they don’t explain the backstory with Lupin and the shrieking Shack, it’s one of those things that someone will go, wait. How did how does that work? And if they then ended up reading the book, they would say, oh, that’s so cool. Now I see how that whole thing ties together where this instead is just like a a crappy Disneyland ride. Let me ask you this, d man.
Who has more screen time? Mister Bigglesworth or Crookshanks? Oh, mister Bigglesworth for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
He’s like a main character compared to, Crookshanks even though Crookshanks should be the main character. Yeah. I think Crookshanks has, like, 3 scenes that he’s in. I don’t know. Maybe he was an ornery cat, and and they couldn’t they couldn’t figure it out.
My next stock up is just nature. I mean, nature’s stock is is already at a billion, but in today’s world where we’re all inside, we need a little bit more nature. And they say that it took 1,000,000 of years for the land to form as we know it, but it only took us one summer away from Hogwarts for Hagrid’s hut to go from sitting on flat ground to being on the side of a hill. I don’t know if you noticed that. Yeah.
The the whole geography and everything, topography, is that the word? Sure. It was much different, I felt like, which I didn’t mind, actually. I thought that was fine. And that’s why it’s a stock up for me.
I thought it was awesome. I thought there was I thought it was really well done that there was just, like, more wide shots of Hogwarts itself. And even the Whomping Willow when they showed it early on, it was, like, at the bottom of the hill, and Hogwarts is up on this cliff. And then Hagrid’s hut, they’re going down to it. But as they’re going down to it, in the background, it’s just this beautiful mountain range.
Also, over the summer, I guess, Hagrid put an addition on his hut because now the hut has a separate bedroom attachment. I don’t know if you noticed that either, but it’s different than the first two. But I thought it made it look more like what I expected it would look, I guess, or it made it look more fun and magical. And supposedly, this is the first film in the series to extensively use real life locations. In the first two, they just filmed it in studios pretty much.
And this one, the director was, like, Alfonso Cuaron. He was, like, we’re going outside for this. And so a ton of Scotland stuff. You know, we got Harry’s ride on Buckbeak, which was super cool around the lake and whatnot. Even Hogsmeade, the the houses in the in the winter when they were out there, I thought it looked really, really cool.
And also, they expanded on the scale model of Hogwarts. So the Hogwarts exterior, they said, was expanded by, like, 40%, which included that courtyard, which, like, a ton of scenes were filmed in. I wasn’t a big fan of the courtyard. It seemed just like a straight up steal from Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies. But other than that, you know, the clock tower, a bunch of stuff they added, it just looked more magical.
And I and I appreciate that because it should be. Right? This is Hogwarts we’re talking about. When you look at it, you should go, oh my god. And the first ones gave you a little bit, but why not just expand on it?
So overall, I just I loved it. The grounds felt immense. A lot of wide shots like I said. So I I was a big fan. I agreed with that.
Anytime you can make the world a little bigger, more magical, I’m I’m I’m here for it. Did you have any other stock ups? Yeah. Last one, just keeping in tune with that, romantic scenes and and scenery. Mhmm.
What do you think of the romantic scenes in this? Like, Ron and Hermione hugging and stuff like that? Oh, no. I was talking about Lupin and Harry. You didn’t you didn’t see the the romantic scenes they had throughout the movie.
They were walking around, birds chirping. I mean, first, we get the the meet cute, which is important for I’ve talked about meet cute and how important that is for rom coms here. But Lupin’s on the train, then the Dementors come and he saves them and then gives Harry a chocolate, and you’re, like, wow, that’s a nice little connection there. Yeah. Then they’re off in the forest, and they’re talk chatting 101, and then they’re gone on, like, that long bridge there and looking over that beautiful landscape and that, you know, that second nice second day.
Then they’re back at Lupin’s place in his room, and it’s, like, candles lit everywhere. And it’s, like, a gold lighting, which is just a weird scene. The whole everything about everything he was in with Lupin was just, like, why is why is the scenery necessary for any of this? I didn’t hate it, though. So it was a it’s a stock up for me.
Little engorgio for me, if you know what I’m saying. Yeah, there was a lot of walking and talking with Lupin, which I enjoyed. I like the heart to hearts. I did feel that they were platonic, but emotional and relationship y. Oh, Duggan, speaking about relationships, my next knockdown is, forgive and forget, stock down.
Or excuse me, stock up. Oh, my apologies. Stock stock up for forgive and forget because Ron and Hermione’s relationship is totally fine after Crookshanks kills Scabbers. He’s like, oh, Crookshanks killed Scabbers. She’s like, yeah.
No. He didn’t. And then after that, they’re hugging it out. They’re best friends. He’s given her props when she gives Malfoy the, you know, the right cross.
They kinda just threw out the entire drama between Ron and Hermione that is persistent throughout the entire book, and Harry as well. Like, Harry’s with Ron for most of it, but they just threw out the that whole idea that there’s drama between the 3 of them due to the Crookshanks scabber situation. I I feel there’s other scenes that they could have cut and I’d rather them do more character building, more lore. Those are 2 things that I wish there was just more of in this. Like the bus scene, that scene was awful to me.
I think that I was like I didn’t like it at all. It didn’t make any sense. The the night bus scene? Motion sickness, inducing, the weird pirate head talking, the, like, zoom in on the guy’s acne, you know. I’m like Yeah.
Why is any of this necessary? That seemed like the takeaway was, like, oh, this guy has acne. Let’s zoom in on I’m like, no, that’s to show that he’s super young. That that’s the only reason they mentioned it in the book as far as I know. It wasn’t like this guy is ugly.
Yeah. But they were just, like, zooming in on weird shit, and I was like, what’s going on here? And I was motion sickness that whole bus time. I thought the night bus scene went on for way too long. Cut that whole thing.
I couldn’t I like the I like the fun stuff, you know, them sliding between the 2 buses, like the magical stuff. But it went up for too long considering that there’s so much stuff left on the cutting room floor. It’s like, okay, we saw this cool bus that comes and gets you. Obviously, you need a way for Harry to get to the leaky cauldron because that’s what happens in the book, and, you know, he has to get there. So have the night bus come, pick it up, show it, squeeze through some stuff, have a quick thing about who’s Sirius Black.
Oh, he’s this guy that’s on the loose. Okay. Cool. Done. We’re there.
Yeah. It went on a little too long for me. Quick last one. Stock up. Early 2000s fashion.
Wouldn’t think this would be a stock up for a Harry Potter movie, but did did they just forget that they’re in the wizarding world and they wear ropes? Big hate. Big hate for me. Oh, okay. I I need to be in this world.
What are we doing here? Yeah. This is a again, this is why I’m, like, I’m very out on this director. Oh. Apparently, I read the note.
It was, like, yeah. He just wanted to, like, the actors to, like, dress as they think they should dress. I’m, like, no. No. No.
No. No. This is this is a a piece of literature that’s set in stone that is made. You do not get to decide, you know what? They’re just not gonna wear the attire of, the actual world they’re supposed to be in.
And just be, like, being in Star Wars and the guy just sort of puts those jeans on and being, like, well, I felt like Harrison Ford, like, dislikes wearing jeans. So let’s make him, like, you know, Han Solo have jeans now. It’s, like, no. That doesn’t make any sense. Late seventies Harrison Ford.
Nice ass in jeans. I’m just saying. Just saying. I agree with you, but I think the note is misread by you to some degree. Go on.
And I agree with this part. So when it comes to the robes, he was like, hey. I think you the actors should wear the robes as they think their characters would. So or as teenagers would really Yeah. I’m kinda proud of that.
So it’s like, you know, a little looser tie, someone doing a little something with the robe. That makes total sense because if you go to a school that has, like, school uniforms, people kinda do that that same thing. Right? Or at least that’s my understanding from watching School Ties and, other movies like that. So I think that actually makes a ton of sense.
Like, hey. Let’s not get so stuffy and tight when it comes to the students’ robes because they’re kids. They’re all gonna do stuff. They’re in boarding school, basically. But then it was also, like, oh, when they’re out of classes, they should wear what they would wear normally.
That part, I didn’t really understand because they’re still in the wizarding world. These people aren’t muggles. Like, when you see other people in the wizarding world, they’re not wearing Mickey Mouse T shirts and Adidas shoes and stuff like that. I mean, we get that in the next book here too when they go to the the World Cup and they, like, no one knows how to dress. Mhmm.
So, like, the fact that it just doesn’t Yeah. Make any sense that they’re now wearing normal clothing. Yeah. The final scenes when they’re all in just, like, normal street garb, I was like, wait Yeah. What?
So, yeah, was was not a was not a big fan of that. Let’s get to, Stock Down. What do you got for Stock Down? Stock Down motifs and other film school jargon. If it wasn’t already apparent, I I have no business being a movie critic.
Since we’re here, you know, I’m gonna get into it. I was watching a refresher of the movie because I’ve watched it, like, week and a half ago now, and I’m so far into Gobbler right now. I’m literally in that world. Like, I can’t imagine what happened in this movie. So I was just, like, shit.
What what good did I watch? Uh-huh. So I watched some guys’ film breakdown of, like, how beautiful Lee filmed and the motifs of this movie. And I just remember being, like, who gives a shit? Put this stuff in that needs to be in there.
It shows, like, how much, like, movement and stuff was going on in scenes that, in my opinion, took away from those scenes. Like in the background, do you mean? Stuff going on where he’s, like, and then he zoomed into his face and did it, like Oh, yeah. Stuff that’s, like, great art, like, art house filming, which Yeah. This content is so good.
You don’t need to over produce it or overdo things. The perfect example of this is the streaking Shaq scene where that should be the big reveal. That should be the most drama filled turn. That should be, you know, any movie you think of when you finally find out, like, the big twist. Yeah.
And you’re just, like, all you’re thinking about is, oh, my God. The camera in that scene is they’re just jumping around so much everywhere. There’s action here. There’s there’s going there. You don’t I, like, couldn’t even understand what was going on.
It didn’t make any sense to me. It it felt like almost like a a play or a musical. You know how, like, people are always moving around and because there’s, like, not a lot to do. Yeah. And those you kinda have to create that action.
Where that scene, this should’ve been just zoomed in on Harry, zoomed in on Sirius, and then then, like, talking back and forth. It should not have been any sort of and then the rat jumped off. And then the let’s get the wands out. Let’s kill them. Let’s do it.
And it’s just, like, up and down and, like, the whole musical camera chased the rat through the hole and Like, so it just completely fizzled the the whole thing for me. I was upset about that. I agree with you to some extent. I think I mean, Alfonso Cuaron is a phenomenal director for my understanding. I mean, he did Roma, won an Oscar with that.
Have you seen Children of Men? Yeah. Did you like Children of Men? Good. Yeah.
I mean, I just like dystopian stuff in general, so that that collapsed for me. Gravity, whatever. But I’ve heard people say that Children of Men is, like, one of the best films movies of all time. Yeah. Like, there’s a YouTube video of why Children of Men is, like, the best directed movie, and I’m too dumb to know.
So but watching stuff like that, I’m like, oh, that that makes a lot of sense. So when I see stuff that’s associated with this movie and they show those things, I go some of it, I go, oh, that’s really thoughtful and makes a lot of sense. And then other times, I’m like, this just relax. Like, don’t you don’t need to go so far. And I think the Shrinking Shack is a great example because they did something really cool with that Shrinking Shack set in that they, like, built this house that’s, like, on hydraulics.
So the house is actually, like, moving, which, you know, like waving with the wind. Like, they wanted to make, like, it would look like it was waving with the wind. It was so unsturdy, which I love because you see that going on in the background. But it’s hard to even see that happening because it’s just the camera’s just jumping around all over the place. And I I agree with you.
A big reveal thing like that, just just put the camera down and let the actors go to work because the content that they have is good enough to hold any scene. For sure. My first talk down is school, who needs it? There were no classroom scenes in this movie. I guess we have the Boggart scene, obviously, which we need.
We have a Trelawney lesson with the Grimm, which we need. And I I I think I guess you can include care of magical creatures scene when, you know, Malfoy gets bit. I just thought in general, they’re at school, and there’s no no school scenes. There’s so many other scenes in classrooms that are important to the story in the book, and unfortunately, those got cut. I’m not super upset about it because I understand, like I said, you know, at the top that things need to get cut and having, like, 10 potions lessons where Snape is just belittling Neville, like, probably unnecessary.
But, you know, 1 or 2 can’t hurt. I think that goes back to the scenery. Kinda that seemed to be the focus. The outdoors, the outside of the castle. Whereas, I think a lot of these conversations could have been just in the classroom walking by a classroom, walking by, like, I thought the cool parts were when they’re walking up and downstairs and they’re moving and there’s portraits.
I’m like, that is cool to me rather than, oh, that’s a cool forest in Scotland, like, but we can see that in the real world. So it’s not really too anything too crazy. I think getting a mix of both is important. And I think having the juxtaposition between these, like, beautiful outside shots and then Snape’s dungeon where Neville’s getting berated Mhmm. Is like a wonderful play off of each other.
So, you know, I wanted a little more mixture between the 2. And I just wanted more Snape, honestly, because it’s just not the Snape from the book in this one, like you said. So, what else did you have for Stockton? Stark Town already referenced it at the lore. I feel like you missed out on a lot of stuff that I think you could have just handled in a a flashback.
After the reveal happened, they do a quick flashback with the 4 best friends talking about life what at Hogwarts back in the day, you know, that you can uncover all the things that they missed. The Shrieking Shack, the map history, Pettigrew’s backstory, all that stuff of like, that’s key to I think future books and this book to solidify. Let’s let’s look at all this, like, background with these 4 guys that were really good friends and we had talked about it on the group chat. I would love to see a TV show of them 4. How did how did it get to that point where we’re all at Hogwarts best friends and then one of the friends turns the other one in and gets them killed.
That’d be a really interesting thing. We don’t get any of that. We don’t even know any of that. Right? If you’re if you didn’t read the books, you wouldn’t be tuned in.
Or maybe I missed it in the movie, but so I would just love the Morris or maybe the future movies will have that. It made my hates list, honestly, this stuff. And and this is actual all this other stuff I’m talking about the movie, I love this movie. I honestly do. I think it’s a great movie.
All the other stuff that I said bothers me, it really doesn’t. But this stuff actually fucking bothers me. No connection between James Potter’s gang and the marauder’s map. What? It’s their marauder’s map.
There’s, you know, Mooney, Padfoot, Prongs, and Wormtail, but they don’t explain that those people are these people. Like, they’re standing right there. Never explained. Nothing really on Animagi. There’s, like, Snape has one quick reference to it, I think, but not that Harry’s pot Harry Potter’s dad, James Potter, was a stag, which is the Patronus that he sees across the lake.
Excuse me. No explanation of the Fidelius charm, and thus, because of that, no explanation on how Sirius betrayed the Potters. It’s just like, oh, you were his friend and you betrayed them. How? How did he betray them?
Right. Right. Yeah. It’s like, what? And I agree that a flashback would be an interesting way of doing it, you know, just having with the fidelity sharps.
Something along those lines to just explain it or even it feels like it was would have been 2 seconds for Lupin at the end because Lupin is, like, mischief managed and closes it. So he obviously knows something about it. And I guess you’re leaving that open to the viewer to ponder. But it’s still a movie for kids. So And we have Gary Old man too.
Yeah. He’s a a terrific, terrific actor. You zoom in on his face, he you can see it in his eyes how upset and sad he is as he tells the story of what happened. Perfect. That would be amazing, you flash back as he’s narrating it.
Yeah. Because in that shrinking Shaq scene, he can just explain what happened with the Fidelius charm. And like you said, he’s a phenomenal actor. David Theulis, who’s Lupin, is also a phenomenal actor. Shout out to Dragonheart.
If anyone’s seen it, great movie. And he, at the end, could, when he’s doing the mischief managed, just say Harry could be like, woah. How’d you know how to do that? And he’d be like, well, this is actually mine. And in that scene too, could also then he’d be like, is your father me or whatever?
And he would say that his father, we were anamagi and his dad was a a stag, and then we’d all go, like, oh, the lake has patronus Harry’s patronus is a stag. Now it makes sense. So I was pretty upset with that. Like, that stuff, it seems like Yeah. That has to be in there, and the fact that it was left out for an extra long night bus scene.
Don’t love it. Don’t love it at all. My next and last stock down is, QuickDitch. So what also made the cutting room floor, and I’m not super upset about this if they had thrown in the other stuff that we just talked about, is we get no Quidditch in this movie, which is funny because we talked about in the pod how there’s so much Quidditch in the book. We get 3 Quidditch matches in the book and and a super long And then the opposite.
Quidditch final. Yeah. You know, specifically, they cut the the most importantly, like, the Quidditch Cup win for Gryffindor, which is, like, the first time they’ve done it in, like, super long time. I think at least you throw in at the end something along the lines that they won the Quidditch Cup. I don’t know.
But we do get what in the one Quidditch scene we do get, it’s the one, obviously, when Harry falls off his broom because of the Dementors. That was a good scene, though. You like that? Yeah. I thought it was I thought it was interesting.
I it was kinda weird that it went so high in the air, but I was like, that’s kind of a cool element to add in. And hate it. Yeah. Yeah. It was good and dark.
I like that stuff. The things I didn’t like was 2 kids getting struck by lightning, and and they just fell off their brooms. So it’s like, woah. There’s now 2 other dead bodies on the ground. Like, Harry’s still flying around?
Yeah. Yeah. And then I did appreciate that, someone gave Harry some Rec Specs because who doesn’t love a good pair of Rec Specs? Because it was big in the book that he couldn’t see through his glasses, and in this one, everyone just got Rec Specs on. So I appreciate it.
That’s just what Dana Radcliffe wanted. And he’s like, yeah. Keep them. Don’t worry about it. Did you have a, like, a favorite moment from this from the movie that you like?
I guess this is more of just loves in general. I thought the opening scene was great. I was, like, this movie is gonna be fucking awesome. That opening Aunt Petunia scene, great actress, like, him getting angry. You mean the Marge the Marge scene?
Marge. Sorry. Yeah. Played by the same woman that plays, miss Tranchable from Matilda. Oh.
Oh. Good good cat. Oh, well, she’s she nailed it. Yeah. And, like, him getting angry, I was like, oh, this makes perfect sense.
So I was I was strapped in once that happened. I was like, this is this is off to the right start. I thought Peter Pettigrew casting was perfect. He looks exactly like a rat. Yeah.
Whatever they did for the facials and stuff like that was was so good. Yeah. What’d you think about the werewolf? I I was okay with it. I mean, I don’t really know what a werewolf supposed to look like other than that one, movie there with werewolves versus, Oh, you love that underground or whatever that one’s called?
Underground. Yeah. Yeah. Great movie. Kate Beckinsale, your girl?
Yeah. I don’t think there’s, like, a defined idea of what a werewolf should look like. I mean, maybe a baseline, American Werewolf in London or something along those lines. And there’s obviously been werewolves in lots of movies, but I thought this one was just so unique and really frightening. It’s a it’s a frightening creature, this, like, the super long arms and kinda no fur on it.
It had, like, humanesque qualities to it. I just I just liked it. I was I was a big fan of it. So I like that. That scene when the werewolves come out was was up there for me.
A couple studio notes. It’s a 9086 on Rotten Tomatoes, which is interesting that the critics like it slightly more than than the fans do because a lot of people feel like this is the best movie. It grossed 800,000,000 worldwide and a couple casting notes. Alfonso Cuaron, as as we’ve talked about, Children of Men, Gravity Roma, Et tu Mama, Tambien was supposed to be really good. Obviously, I didn’t see it.
Talk about Art House. I think that’s that’s your Art House stuff. I I love me some Christopher Columbus. Chris Columbus, the, the director, not the, genocide guy. But he’s best, I feel like, with kids movies, and and this movie did take a different turn.
And I think it was up to Chris Columbus whether he wanted to direct it or not, and he chose not to because he wanted to spend more time with his family. He stayed on it in a producer capacity, but they kind of went around to a bunch of different directors. And I think Guillermo del Toro was supposed to, but they didn’t like his ideas that he was kinda gonna go super, super far off the edge, and he kinda convinced Alfonso Cuaron to to take it on. So, whether you like it or not, it’s definitely a a a different a different take. I do wanna ask you for the casting notes what you thought of our new Dumbledore.
Yeah. That was kinda in my hate. Oh, okay. So Richard Harris died shortly after the second film was released. The producers offered the role to Christopher Lee and Ian Maclellan.
Lee, which we obviously know from Lord of the Rings, Christopher Lee being, Saruman, and Ian McClellan being Gandalf. And that’s why McClellan didn’t take it because he thought it was too similar to Gandalf while Christopher Lee had some scheduling conflicts. I mean, I think the the original cast was absolutely perfect. He’s supposed to be just based off of just based off of, I feel like how I read him is he’s supposed to be kinda like silly but brilliant. Encourages independence, but also he’s like nurturing.
He’s supposed to be kind of like a comic relief, but also the most dangerous person in the room. Room. So he’s supposed to be like a, a mix between all those things. But he’s not supposed to be just like the stern person that’s like serious. Serious is the last word I would use as as him.
Right? He can get serious, but he is not his overall disposition is almost aloof at times. Right? Yeah. When he was talking every time, it just seemed like he was Professor McGonagall.
Like, we already we already have that. Like, you know? So I I didn’t get it. But, I mean, he wasn’t like a huge part of the film, obviously, but he just didn’t he just didn’t seem very silly or or happy or any of those things. I don’t know.
What do you think? I mean, I’m a huge Richard Harris guy. He’s phenomenal in Gladiator as well even though he’s, you know, very short lived in in Gladiator. I’m not a huge Michael Gambon fan in general, so I don’t love his Dumbledore. I think his Dumbledore has good moments, and then it has some really bad moments.
I think Richard Harris was almost this, like, wise old man who almost seemed frail at times, but which I didn’t love, while Michael Gambon seems, like, a little more feisty, which Mhmm. I like about him. But I thought in the first book when he gets the earwax, you know, oh, alas, earwax, he’s, like, quirky and funny in that way Yeah. That Michael Gabbin, I don’t think really has. And I think there’s other times where he gets, like, a little too serious where it’s, like, wait, Dumbledore wouldn’t be like that.
You know, Dumbledore is kind of, like, all knowing. For all 3 or 4 years, he does the welcome to Hogwarts. It’s it’s just a bit basically him doing a stand up routine for the first, like, 10 minutes, and he’s like, oh, yeah. Go here. You’ll die.
This guy’s kind of, a little bit out there, but I love that. That’s that’s what I like about him. Exactly. And this thing, he was, like, actually serious giving a speech. What’s what’s happening here?
Well, wait until wait until next one is. I’ve seen the obviously, that clip. So I mean, I’ve also, I think, negatively impacted by that clip. One clip I’ve seen, and I’m like, oh my gosh. We all we all probably are.
He’s not terrible by any means. I’m just a bigger Richard Harris fan, for simple as that. Do you think Gary Old man, David Theulis, Lupin? We also get Emma Thompson as Trelawny. You know, some some some big names.
How do you feel about those characters? You think they’re well cast? Yeah. I thought they’re they’re all solid. I think Gary Old man, I think they could’ve done more with him on on how he mentioned it.
Yeah. I think I’m assuming in future films, he’s let him cook a little bit more. Yeah. He’s not really I mean, he’s obviously not in for the Goblet because he’s not really in Goblet outside of, like, them talking to him in the fire as far as I can remember. And he’s a little bit in the other ones, but this is definitely his, like, big intro and you feel like outside of the prison tats he’s got on, he didn’t really do a do a lot.
Not sure where he got those prison tats. You think the Dementors are good with the ink? Because I imagine they’re not really good with the needle because, you know, based on the state of their robes, you know, I I don’t know. Maybe you got them beforehand. And once again That’s a fact.
Their, Sirius Black’s body and hands are made from Russian prison gangs, the tattoos on them. Oh. So what they are tattooing? Person as a man to be feared and respected. What what did you love about, prisoner of massacre in the film?
I already burned a few of mines, but I I didn’t mention also that Harry wearing number 7 at Quidditch. Are up there. I don’t know why that that there’s no mentions. I don’t think reference of numbers like the mute wearing uniform numbers, but I appreciate it. 7 is my favorite number.
7 is, how many books there are. So I assume there’s some symbolism. I’m sure I was hoping to have to find some fun facts on that, but doesn’t seem like anyone’s references it at all. I don’t know if I’m making it up. I thought it was, like, because, Sirius is a dog and werewolves are dogs and, Michael Vick murdered a bunch of dogs.
That’s, you know, Michael Vick wore number 7. I I just thought it was that that long. Stay there. And there’s the clip for the kids. My love is I feel like there’s more in this movie.
There’s more everyday wizarding stuff going on in in the background, which I love. You know, we we have the cleaning lady at the leaky cauldron. Because I’m always just wondering, like, what’s going on in this world? How do these people live? At the leaky cauldron, they got a cleaning lady who’s going around cleaning cleaning rooms.
It’s like, oh, okay. That checks out. And even the boys, which I actually thought was kind of a dumb scene, but I like the idea behind it of the boys in their dorm room on the 1st night back, like, eating those animal candies and doing the animal sounds. I I personally thought that the animal thing was kinda stupid. But the idea of just they’re not always in school.
They’re not always do they’re spending tons of time just chilling in their dorm rooms, you know, shooting the shit with each other, having fun. They’re 14 year old kids. So seeing that kind of stuff, I loved it. And even, like, Lupin packing at the end. It’s like, how does a wizard pack up all of his stuff?
And you just see Lupin, you know, magically putting everything in his place, just normal everyday stuff. Although, that specifically, I feel like was stolen directly from from Mary Poppins, but that that’s just me. So, did you have anything in Luvs? Dementors. I think they’re legit.
I didn’t imagine them floating like that. That was cool. Yeah. I thought they were just a really well done imagination of it and, you know, definitely that’s how I imagine them moving forward, which is which is cool. Yeah.
I I once again stolen from Lord of the Rings. But Oh, yeah. I guess that’s true. Yeah. But they were really, really good.
Yep. Everything about them fit with the description in the book and were scary. They were perfectly scary. For sure. And you can if someone’s interested, they can look into, like, how they did the Dementors and stuff, but it seems like it was pretty cool.
They did a lot of, like, underwater they wanted to do them underwater filming so they get, like, the things flailing like they should. Didn’t work out, but they were kind of able to use that footage for the special effects people to to do it. So, yeah, I thought I thought they were really great. My last love is Harry seeing Pettigrew on the map, on the Marauder’s map. It was a pretty good fix to the map situation in the book.
Yes. What we talked about last time with Fred and George would have seen if they looked at Ron at any time during their ownership of the map, they would have seen Pettigrew with Ron at night. Outside of that, I thought this was a good fix to the situation because it’s like, okay. Harry sees Pettigrew on the map, and that leads him to running into Snape. The map gets taken.
So and then Lupin gets it and Lupin sees it on the map. It made a lot more sense to me than Harry using this map the whole time and never seeing Pettigrew even though Yeah. He’s there. So the few times that this kinda goes off from the book, it it does it in the in the right way. What about Hades?
There was really no character turmoil to make Ron and Hermione’s characters more important. I feel like they should be involved more and have more story lines going with them, but it didn’t seem like that was necessarily the case here. Agree with you on that. For me, I didn’t really understand the the Boggart scene when when Harry steps up to the Boggart because and Lupin even says in the movie, oh, I didn’t want you to step up to the Boggart because I thought it’d be Voldemort, and that would freak people out. But he does step up, and it becomes a Dementor, and then Lupin stands in.
So it’s like, what? What? You know you know it wasn’t Voldemort. You know it was a Dementor. So Didn’t Yeah.
Didn’t really make a ton of sense. The twins somehow knowing about Harry and his invisibility cloak, I hate that just for the whole story in general. Harry’s invisibility cloak is pretty secret to just him, Ron, Hermione, and and Dumbledore, so didn’t love that. Like, they see some footprints and they’re like, oh, it’s Harry. It’s like, wait, what?
How? How? And 2 more quick ones. 1, fire bolt at the end as opposed to the middle. I know they cut all the Quidditch scenes, but who sent Harry the fire bolt is like a big question that’s going on throughout the book.
And then at the end, he gets it and then flies off into the sunset and it’s, like, freeze frame on his face. I’m not a big fan. I feel like all the endings of these have been it’s like you write that perfect essay in high school and then you just end it with, like and then so that’s that’s about that. And you’re just, like, period, and you’re, like, fuck it. I’m turning this around.
I was in the body. Like, everything else is good enough. Yeah. It’s like a whole headingsy black. How do we end this book or this movie?
Just fly Harry off on his fire bolt and then freeze frame as his face is screaming from happiness. Yeah. I feel like we should get, like, a a looming, like, next time, like, Voldemort’s still out there. Yeah. Why don’t we get a picture of, like, Pettigrew going down a trail that’s in Albania or something like that?
So, woah, what? He’s like, I told you I’d come back to you master and you just see, like, an ominous presence, like like, and he’s like, oh, no. And that’s it. Cuts. Yeah.
Then the movie ends. It’s like, master, I’m returned. We should be directors. I mean, we should really write this stuff. Even they have the Trelawney says that, like, oh, the the servant will return to their master or whatever by the end of the night.
And then at the end, it can just be like, you know, Pettigrew in this creepy ass wood being like, master, I’ve returned to you. It’s like, you know, boom. End credits. Not like, I’m here in Potter. I’m planning on a boom.
Whatever. The slow clap was fine. Slow clap. Slow clap. In general, the story just seemed to move super fast, and I get it.
It’s a dense book with, like, lots going on. It just kinda sped from scene to scene to scene to scene to scene, and everything was going so fast. That’s just more of a personal thing for me. I didn’t really, like, necessarily hate it. Well, the other scene that they said when I was watching that, like, filmmaking great thing was when you know how, mister Weasley takes pulls Harriet aside Yeah.
And is, like, tells starts talking to him. Yeah. And he just keeps moving. Oh, yeah. And then he goes to the next scene and goes and they’re, like, what an amazing piece of filming because they show all these things you need to see.
And I was, like, that was the most, like I just kept on thinking how stupid that was. Wait, you mean when when, mister Weasley just, like, drag him from one pillar to another pillar to a door? Yeah. And it was so obvious they were, like, showing this poster to show this poster. Like, how about be a little bit more subtle?
I thought filmmaking was all about being subtle, not being, like, see this poster? It’s funny you say that because I noticed it too. It’s like, what was wrong with having the conversation there? Or, like, if you want to have it somewhere else, like, why didn’t you go there the first time? I have a, a listener email.
Sure. What do we got? Billy from Michigan. You’ve got mail. Two part question.
Based on the movie, is magic that can be done on your cell phone app allowed? Harry’s under his covers using Lumos? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And second question, what what is more scary to you?
The Bogart turns into a snake or when it turns into a clown? Yeah. So that’s Billy from Michigan. Thank you for the questions. These are great questions.
I actually had in my lingering questions. Billy and I share a brain. So Harry can scream, Lumos Maximo over and over with no pre repercussions, but when he just accidentally inflates someone, it’s like he’s gonna get expelled. Yeah. Also, that spell sucked.
Why would you even want that spell? If it just, like, slightly it would first of all, if basically it was a flare, it would, like, light up the whole house, and then it would go for 3 seconds. Have you ever heard a flashlight thought? Like, it’s so much more effective. You have the muggles do have flashlights or torches.
You know, you can just use one. You don’t have to use a wand and you won’t get expelled. And the best part is 2 seconds after the Marge thing, which is 2 seconds after this Lumos Maximo thing, he’s like, oh, using magic outside of school could get you expelled. And I’m like, you just you just use lots of you you said spells, like, over and over and over again. So, yeah, that was hilarious.
And I could not agree with this person more. I’m not even, like, afraid of clowns, but that clown in particular was not funny. It was frightening and the snake was not. I think what end up happening was they were, like, this will be the next person’s thing that they’re scared of and we’ll just keep going through and maybe this was, like, and, like, editors didn’t realize that. So they, like, added a laugh track, but it was supposed to be a scary thing, I think, next.
Like, you know, they’re just running through it. Yeah. So I guess a spider, a snake, a clown, like, that made sense. But then they were just like, oh, shit. We didn’t we’ve got to turn the snake into something that’s not scary.
We’ll just add a laugh track. Don’t worry about it. Scary to scary with snake to to clown, and everyone started laughing. And, like, the clown is frightening. By far scarier.
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Billy. Appreciate that. Lingering questions.
Why did they replace Goyle? That was my my question. Did you notice that it was Malfoy Crabbe and then some other guy for all of those scenes? Like, how Oh, I read somewhere that he got injured or, like, injured his arm, so they had to write someone else in. Yeah.
I didn’t notice it, though. Yeah. Because I was, like, wait. They had Goyle at the beginning. He was there, and then all of a sudden, it was just some other guy, like, a stand in.
I was, like, did they just forget that they this was the guy who they, like, stage it with? You know, that’s, like, just for blocking purposes. But I’m pretty sure, and I didn’t look this up, I’m pretty sure there was a photo of Voldemort next to the fat lady when they first go to Gryffindor Tower. So anyone who’s potentially watching it for the first time or or what right when they go up the stairs, there’s a portrait right next to the fat lady, and it’s Voldemort as we see him in later movies. That is him.
So pretty interesting because I didn’t know that they had already come up with a character but once you see the character in the next movie, it’s like, Wow, that’s him right there. Caroline’s question which was a lingering one that I enjoyed and I don’t think we discussed in the last one, how did the twins figure out how to use the map? I had that same question. It’s a good question. Yeah.
They just kept going with random stuff until they figured it out. They, like, would, like, tap on it and be, like, reveal yourself, and it would just kinda give you hints along the way based off of what they’re looking for. Hey. We’re up to no good. What do you do?
Type of thing, you know, or something like that where it’s like, why were you in Filch’s, office? You know, why are you there? And it’s like, well, we stole you. It’s like, oh, okay. You know, like, I think there’s, like, some sort of progression because it’s magical.
I don’t know. That’s what I felt like. I can dig it. Yeah. Because if it’s only for those guys I didn’t know, but I I like that idea.
I was thinking that they could have just eventually guessed, like, we saw him this way. We’re up to no good. I don’t know if that would be the exact wording though, you know, that that they would use. So, yeah, I think I like your way better. The the map I mean, the map’s pretty sophisticated.
It probably They responded to Snape in the book. Yeah. You have greasy hair and a big nose. That was it for lingering questions. We addressed the cutting room floor stuff.
Did you have anything else for that? My last fun fact was, because in order to acquaint himself with 3 lead actors, director Alfonso Cuaron, had each of them write an essay for their characters. First of all, you’re coming into the movie. You should be writing an essay on the characters what you think of, not me. But this is actually shows that they know the characters really well.
Emma Watson wrote a 16 page essay, which is what I thought it was I heard it was 10 pages, but okay. Oh, whatever. Daniel Radcliffe wrote a page, and, Rupert Grant, who plays Ron, didn’t turn it in, which is basically what the characters would do. So he act they actually did the assignment correctly. So I appreciate it.
I feel like that’s not fair enough. Like, Rupert Grant was, like, that’s what Ron would do. But, like, Ron does his homework. He’s not he’s not a bad student. But he would like turn it in late or, you know, make a copy off of someone.
I think I think that’s fine. I’d pour a bunch of ink on it and be like, oh, it was there, but then this ink spilled on it. I don’t know, man. Movies are weird like that. It’s like I guess you’re gonna make 1,000,000 of dollars so, like, you can write you can write an essay.
But it I’d be like, come on, man. It’s like the new boss coming in and wanting to shake things up. This this guy. And I’d also be pretty pissed at Emma Watson who spent, like, all her time making, like, a 10 or 16 page thing, and he’s like, it was just really a test to see if you knew your character. What?
This is terrible. So that will do it for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of the Ask your end movie. What did you think for all of the movie? Like, what would you give it out of the 4 buddy system? It’s hard because they obviously books are always better than movies.
I probably give it a 2 out of 4. I really was not that big of a fan of it. I think I had to rank the movie that go 1, 2, 3. Oh, really? Use that as your favorites.
I’m a little nervous about these next ones. There’s too much going on. The first and second one, I think, just captured what I thought in my brain of the book much more than this one did. This one just did too much. I don’t mean to be so negative.
I get into these things too much. So No. That’s fair. And I probably would give it, like, 3 buddies. I’m not I didn’t say this was my favorite movie.
I think it’s a really good one. I think a lot of people say it’s their favorite movie. It’s definitely my favorite book so far. Tough for me to say. I I did like it better than the other ones, but a lot of the aspects of the other ones, I like more.
I think just overall, it’s, like, pretty pretty close for me where it’s not 2, I think, is is the worst in my opinion just because the CGI stuff I thought with the snake and stuff just just wasn’t wasn’t really for me. So it’d be between, like, 1 and 3. Anyhoo, we’re moving on to Goblet of Fire, the I remember getting this book and being like, oh my god. It’s so long. I am so excited.
Like, when has that ever happened? As a kid, you get a super long book from somebody and you’re like, why isn’t it longer? This book’s phenomenal. This book is unbelievable. I’m I’m, like, halfway out of it.
I’m just, like, so locked in. It’s an emotional roller coaster every time I I read it. Like, my body and mind change as I’m reading it. Like, I get really upset or I’m getting, like, really happy. I’m like, what’s going on?
You know? It’s like physically changing me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I, we listened to a bunch of it on the 14 hour ride back from from Michigan, and it 1, it made that drive fly by. And 2, I was like, they’re not at school yet? It was like 8 hours into this book. It’s so good. And they’re not even at school yet.
It was it was wild to me. So yeah. Okay. Well, great. I’m excited to talk about it.
Hopefully, we’ll get that, next week, and we’ll have a special guest for that too, which I’m excited about. So, Keith, thanks for chatting Prisoner in Escobade, and I’ll catch you for Goblet. Indeed. Alright. Alrighty.
Bye now. Bye now.
