I have seen it!

[rj_anderson]

No, not the light. The film!

And this was my ensuing conversation with lydaclunas:

synaesthete7: I just came back from PoA.

synaesthete7: MUCH WITH THE PRETTY.

lydaclunas: indeed.

synaesthete7: Except Dumbledore, who was MUCH WITH THE CHEAP DRUGS. But as unconvincing and irrelevant as I found his inspirational speeches (and Sirius obviously was buying from the same crack dealer, because he was just as bad if not worse), I liked Michael Gambon way more than Richard Harris, as I knew I would. At least his Dumbledore doesn't look like he's about to wheeze and keel over any second. You can imagine Voldemort actually might fear him.

synaesthete7: Oh, and in that hug in the Shrieking Shack? It didn't look to me like Remus was embracing Sirius either like a brother or a lover -- it looked like he was patting him down for some of those cheap drugs.

lydaclunas: LOL.

synaesthete7: "I know they're in one of these pockets somewhere!" *pat pat pat*

lydaclunas: I'll have to give it a closer inspection on the second go round.

synaesthete7: And then Sirius tries to get them back, while Lupin is distracted turning into a werewolf. "This is not your heart!" *pat pat pat* "Aha, here they are! Woo, party!"

synaesthete7: I loved the film, though, really loved it.

lydaclunas: Sad that you think MG was on drugs but still a better Dumbledore than RH.

lydaclunas: pharnabazus was all, "I wish RH had lived to do this film." and I was all, "Are you NUTS?! Woodstock Dumbledore at least twinkles!"

synaesthete7: A coat-stand would have been a better Dumbledore than RH. But Dumbledore's weakness in this movie wasn't due to bad acting -- I like Michael Gambon a lot. I blame Steve Kloves for taking away all Dumbledore's wacky humour, just as I blame him for continually cutting down Ron to build up Hermione. Not that I didn't love Ron anyway.

synaesthete7: RON: "Rrrroar!!!"
RJA: "Phwoar!!!"

synaesthete7: :-)

lydaclunas: *nods*

lydaclunas: I do want Kloves' head on a silver platter at this point.

synaesthete7: Oh, and I loved Neville too. But I think I would love Neville if he were played by Richard Harris.

synaesthete7: Well, maybe not.

Really, though, I'm of a mind with yahtzee63 on this one -- I really don't care about the canonical inaccuracies, and the bits that didn't conform exactly to my mental image. I even found that a lot of the lines people had been complaining about were tossed off so fast that nobody but a rabid fan would even notice them, let alone be irked by them (such as Ron agreeing with Snape -- yeah, it's uncanonical, but if I hadn't known to look for it, I'm sure I would have missed it altogether).

On the whole, I enjoyed the film thoroughly on its own merits, not as a replacement for the book (which I think may always be my favorite of the whole series, unless JKR does something really amazing in the next two books), but just as a darn good movie. I don't care about Lupin's mustache, either. In fact, so sue me, I rather liked it. (Nor did I mind his werewolf form -- it was much creepier than an ordinary wolf would have been, and cinematically that worked just fine.). David Thewlis was great, as was Gary Oldman. They reminded me of all the things I loved about Remus and Sirius when I first read the book, and that was what I'd been most hoping for. You may find this hard to believe, but of all the HP adults, it's Remus who comes closest to my ideal of the Perfect Canon Boyfriend -- prior to OotP, anyway. Snape isn't even in the ballpark. And I loved David Thewlis for being freakishly tall and wearing old baggy clothes. Now I suddenly want to write for the Eleventh Doctor again...

Anyway, yeah! I can't wait to see this movie on a bigger, better screen with full surround sound, instead of in our piddly little local theatre where the sound was turned down low enough that you actually had to strain to hear it at times (I have never had that problem in a movie before -- usually I have to plug my ears for the first twenty minutes because the decibel level on the soundtrack actually hurts). Not to mention how much more fun it will be with lydaclunas7, avarill, and callyperry there beside me, doing snarky and no doubt hilarious commentary. Whee! Convention Alley, here I come!