My Afternoon With Harry Potter

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Fionnuala and the girls commissioned the television this afternoon to watch the first Harry Potter movie. This is an experience I have managed to avoid in all my years on the planet to date. I’ve also never read the books. I blogged about this once and the response was phenomenal. It remains my most popular post of all time, sparking fierce debate between PotterHeads and the rest of us. HP, it seems, is a bit like Marmite. You either love or loathe him.

As ever, the female members of the Black clan were several steps ahead of me. Having booked the television to watch the Manchester United – Spurs match later in the day, I could hardly demand they turn off the Hogwarts Express as it trundled away from Platform 9 3/4. Not that they would have paid me the slightest bit of notice anyway. So I reluctantly resigned myself to almost three hours of annoying child actors with squeaky voices and overactive wands.

Here’s what I’ve learnt so far. Robbie Coltrane is in it. I loved him in Cracker. And Gandalf! Except he’s called Dumbledore. Is he an undercover wizard? And if so, what’s his game? Warwick Davis is also in it. I loved him in that documentary with Karl Pilkington. You know, the bloke from ‘An Idiot Abroad.’ Was Warwick in Star Wars? Something tells me he played an Ewok. Or was he a robot? Turns out, there’s another multi billion movie franchise I know nothing about.

I now understand what quidditch is. Harry seemed to spend the first ten minutes of the match doing very little, bar acting poorly. The captain of the other team was nasty and had bad teeth, whereas the captain of Harry’s team was a good guy and had better teeth. Alan Rickman turned up, although I preferred him in Die Hard, where he had much better hair. Imagine Bruce Willis playing quidditch. He’d soon sort out those bludgers.

As for Harry himself? He’s like a teensy weensy Daniel Radcliffe. Oh hang on, that’s because he is. What’s with his monobrow? He looks like a pre pubescent Liam Gallagher. Ron Weasley was as annoying as I expected and as for Hermione Grainger? Well, I’ve never quite bought into the ‘Emma Watson is the greatest young actress of our time’ and this movie reinforces my stance. Saoirse Ronan anyone?

I got a bit bored after the quidditch match and the fight with the troll in the toilets. There seemed to be a lot of running around darkened corridors, interspersed by cryptic conversations with heavily made up legendary British thespians. Rebecca wandered off at around the two hour mark, saying it was too long, but Hannah stuck it out to the bitter end, stating she enjoyed it. And Shaun Mendes was nowhere to be seen.

I bit my lip and said nothing. The match kicks off in under an hour and I don’t want it to be banished from the living room for anti-Potter sniping. There’s currently a battle raging on a giant chessboard. It’s very dusty, yet Harry hasn’t stopped to clean his glasses once. Now that is magic and a spell I’d pay good money to learn. I also saw a centaur at one point. Or was it a faun. No wait, that’s Narnia.

I think I’ll stick to Middle Earth, hobbits and orcs. I know where I stand with them. Hogwarts is a strange and unsettling place, where I feel hopelessly out of my depth. Oh look! It was the bloke with the turban all along. Well, I never saw that coming. Voldemort looks a bit like Darth Vader without his helmet on. Oh dear. There I go with the Star Wars comparisons again. I wish this match would hurry up and start.

When did you last sit through a movie you weren’t fussed about in order to keep the peace?

What’s your favourite big budget movie franchise and why?

Is the movie ever better than the book?

Published by Fractured Faith Blog

We are Stephen and Fionnuala and this is our story. We live in Northern Ireland, have been married for 17 years and have three kids - Adam, Hannah and Rebecca. We hope that our story will inspire and encourage others. We have walked a rocky road yet here we are today, together and stronger than ever. We are far from perfect and our faith has been battered and bruised. But an untested faith is a pointless faith. Just as a fractured faith is better than none at all. We hope you enjoy the blog.

60 thoughts on “My Afternoon With Harry Potter”

  4. I’m so sorry you had to bear the whole Harry Potter thing. I’m safe for now and have managed to avoid both the books and the movies thus far! However, I’ve had my share of movies I saw simply to keep the peace. To be honest, I can’t remember the last one as I probably slept through it but I’m sure it had something to do with our kid’s Marvel Comic obsession.

    As for blockbuster franchises, well… Most franchises tend to begin the race to the bottom as far as I’m concerned. However, they seem to be good as Disney characters and theme park rides. Give me a good book any day!

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  6. hahahaha! This made me giggle! I am currently reading the HP series with my 8 year old daughter. She is enamored with the whole HP world. I will say I think it is a wonderful way to encourage kids to read and it is 7 books long for them to enjoy. I personally can take HP or leave it. I am neutral. It is not by far the worst YA or children’s series I have been subjected to. The HP world at Universal Studios is simply amazing! Very life like. You are literally emerged into Hogwarts and that is very magical to share that wonderment with your family. I like a lot of different things but am not really over the top about any of them. I enjoyed the Game of Thrones books but not the series. It was opposite with True Blood. I do have the guilty pleasure of reality TV shows (Real Housewives or anything Bravo) but have quit cold turkey since ditching cable. Equally horrifying IMO were the Twilight books and movies and 50 shades books and movies. There was one instance I can recall enjoying the movie more than the book, BUT, it was so impressive that I can’t recall which one! hahaha!

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  7. Not all of us can have a refined literary palate, Stephen. We’ll still suffer your presence so you can move on to …sports.

    And Gandalf did not play Dumbledore. Good ol’ Ian McKellen refused out of type-cast concerns. 😀

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  8. In general, if I’ve read and loved the book, the movie is always a disappointment. It’s probably because I majored in directing in college, and as I read the book I was mentally casting and directing it, so the movie always turned out to be different from the way I’d decided it “should have been done.”

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  9. Like all good young adult / fantasy books, they should never be made into movies, it ruins the images that we (sorry I meant the young adults) create in our (their) minds. Despite being a non-reader myself, (perhaps 20 books in my whole life) I did read 2 HP books but the 3rd was so thick I got bored and have never been near it, or any of the other books or movies, ever since. So does that make me a HP fan? – probably not. However, like you no doubt, I did very much enjoy the Spurs v Man U game, though how Spurs didn’t win (or at least get a draw) is beyond me. I think De Gea has two magic wands – attached to his hips! (I’m a Hull City fan btw, who are making a remarkable recovery in the Championship – with 6 W’s in a row, just like Utd! 😊)

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  10. I like the HP books much more so than the movies – conversely I found the Lord of the Rings trilogy a bit tedious and enjoyed the movies much more. BUT after I saw the movies I found the book much easier to read – strange but true.

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      1. Very true – it’s not often I like the movie better than the book. I like painting my own pictures; imagining what a character looks like, etc. etc. usually the movies ruin that for me. I will always be a book lover first and foremost.

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  11. I loved the HP books. The movies were ok. However, I am one who has never managed to get through the Tolkien books. I know, I have had so many people fuss at me over it. Those movies had so much violence in them so that didn’t help. I am sure the books were better. Instead I loved everything written by C.S. Lewis. In addition to the obvious one The space trilogy is wonderful!

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  12. I burn out on the HP movies – lots of young actors learning that acting isn’t just screaming “Arrggh!”
    Some of my favored bits of the books didn’t make it into the movies, other bits are so off cannon… I’d honestly rather read a book than see it. It’s not just the casting, it’s the MY idea of what someone moves like, where the kitchen is, etc etc.

    I flat out refuse to see any more Transformers or Tron. Nope. Go on with your pals, Dear. I’m not watching any more crappy explosions, migraine inducing special effects, or crappy plot holes to keep the peace. I do watch “the Magicians” with the hubs – fine time to work on knitting.

    I like the MCU – BUT… I’m tired of so many theoretical innocents dying to make a movie. Disasters, real or otherwise, really shouldn’t be the stuff of entertainment.

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  14. Ha! This is very good for you! I think that as regards patience, which being a virtue and according to the infamous poem apparently men don’t have, you have clearly tested this theory. But perhaps you were simply tolerating this with gritted teeth and a scowl in order not to be banned from the television and your upcoming match?!
    As for Alan Rickman, I LOVED him as the Sherrif of Nottingham in Robin Hood when he spits out the words, “I’m going to cut his heart out with a spoon!”. But it was quite girly in parts so you may have decided to miss this epic film … oh yes it was! You see, there are ‘blue’ films and ‘pink’ films … (obviously male and girly ones), occasionally mauve ones and these are the ones to take the family to the cinema to. Then everyone is happy … can’t think of any mauve ones myself, apart from perhaps Finding Nemo, but I’ve never see it. I don’t like cartoons apart from Tintin and Scooby Doo.
    I’m rambling, clearly I need to get out of the house, but I think perhaps the time has come to resolve this and to invest in another television?? 😂

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    1. We have numerous televisions but only one with a 50 inch HD screen perfect for viewing football. I therefore bit my lip and toughed it out. It was all worth it in the end as United won 1-0. I vaguely recall that movie. Wasn’t Morgan Freeman in it? I’ve seen Finding Nemo 578 times to date.

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  15. Took my niece to see this when it first came out, and spent the time watching her, she was so engaged it was much more entertaining than looking at my watch.

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  16. I love the Star Wars films and always have. They’ve virtually always been a part of my life (well since I was seven).

    I don’t know any movies that are better than the books off the top of my head. My favourite book is The Lord of the Rings but I’m not a great fan of the movies, even though they were made here.

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  18. Under the Tuscan Sun – the movie is way better than the book. I enjoyed the HP books and usually read them every year or two, but don’t go as far as to take a quiz to see which house the sorting had would put me in.

    I liked the LOTR and The Hobbit movies, but as usual, much preferred the books. I think it’s because the way I escape into a book is different than the way I escape into a movie. With a movie, you don’t have to use your imagination too much – you already have someone else’s imagination right there in visual format in front of you. With books…you have words on a page and your imagination gets to come up with whatever it likes. I love that escape and I find that movies, while I like watching them, are limiting.

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  19. I’ve watched all the HP and read one of the books. They were fine. Some better than others. Not going to land in my top ten. The Lord of the Ring series most definitely does though.

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  20. I love the Harry Potter books (though reading them as an adult is very different than reading them as a kid) but the battle scenes in the movies gave me a headache.

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  21. Its probably not *original*, but there’s everything you wish in Harry-potter saga 🙂 I actually liked it. I read it once (but all books) and I watched movie (but not the last one…I think I got bored when they grew up) :))

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              2. Oh sorry I thought it’s the comment about my writing lol 😂
                Don’t know about ur level of Swedish 🙂 but I don’t speak in English on daily basis (only reading), so I think it’s pretty good

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  22. I’m laughing so hard!! Yes!!! I don’t care for Emma Watson at all. Saoirse Ronan is a far superior actress and much less annoying off screen as well. I can appreciate Potter for what it is, but it is no where near in the same league as anything written by Tolkien.

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  23. I’m trying to think of a movie franchise I like, and I’m failing. I tend to go for individual, low-budget movies, often without any book behind them. I sit through an awful lot of dross, and most of it stars Tom Cruise, The last good movie he did, IMHO, was Risky Business, and even then he was acted off the screen by Rebecca De Mornay. Best film recently: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Excellent. Sit through: Bridge of Spies. Tom Hanks. Not his fault!

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