Today I am going to answer the fourth question in this series: “What is your least favorite Harry Potter film?”
4. What is your least favorite film? Why?
Like I’ve said in each of the previous posts, it is so difficult for me to pick a favorite and least favorite in this series because each installment has its own unique and heartwarming qualities. But this exercise is meant to get me thinking, so even though I feel guilty choosing which film I liked the least, I will go with the first movie, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.
Let me start by saying that this movie is really great! Being that it’s the first in the series, they could have really messed up casting, set design, and score but I believe they knocked it out of the park on all accounts. (Scratch that, I have a problem with movie-Ginny that I will get into in a later post.)
Where this film falls short of the others, in my opinion, is the young actors. The part that bothers me the most is the giant wizard’s chess scene towards the end. Here’s a refresher.
The lines that particularly annoy me are during the exchange between Harry and Hermione starting around 3:03:
Harry: “No. Ron, no!”
Hermione: “What is it?”
Harry: “He’s going to sacrifice himself.”
Hermione: “No you can’t! There must be another way!”
I just think it’s weird because Harry and Ron were literally just talking about what they were planning on doing and Hermione was right there, why did she need to ask what’s going on? I guess I feel like “What is it?” wasn’t the right phrase there… Maybe, “What does that mean?” if she didn’t understand the chess lingo they were using. Another thing that makes the exchange awkward is that that camera cuts to the actor for each line and there is a pause before each one is said. It’s as if they just filmed each line by itself and didn’t shoot it as part of a dialogue exchange. You can almost imagine the “action!” that was shouted right before and so the delivery of the lines doesn’t seem fluid. (Okay, I’m done ranting about that scene…)
The kids’ acting improves immensely over the course of the filming period; even from the first to the second film you can see a huge difference. I know their inexperience couldn’t be helped, they needed to be young and I wouldn’t want to change it anyway! I would much rather have little kids shouting rehearsed-sounding lines and be cast at the appropriate age than have teenagers playing first years. It makes it endearing anyway. It’s so fun to watch the first film if only just to see how little and cute Daniel, Emma, and Rupert were!
The story itself is more childish than the rest of the books, so it seems almost silly to compare the first few books to the last ones. The tone of the film is lighter, more jolly, which is necessary to tell the story, but makes it more of a children’s movie than the rest of the films.
Conclusion: I love the world they created with the set, costumes, music, and casting, but the first movie gets my vote for least favorite because of the children’s acting, even though it’s endearing.
Which of the Harry Potter movies did you enjoy the least? Leave a comment!
Thanks for reading!
-Rebecca
I adapted this questionnaire from Over the Moony.
1. What is your favorite book? Why?
2. What is your favorite film? Why?
3. What is your least favorite book? Why?
4. What is your least favorite film? Why?
5. Who is your favorite character? Why?
6. Who is your least favorite character? Why?
7. What would your patronus be?
8. Which of the Deathly Hallows would you choose?
9. Which house would you be in?
10. If you could meet any member of the cast, who would it be?
11. If you were on the Quidditch team, which position would you play?
12. Were you happy with the ending?
13. How much does Harry Potter mean to you?
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