Hot Takes

Well, that's perfectly fine for you.  I think I've seen that movie once.  It was an entertaining film.  I've not felt any great need to revisit any of the Harry Potter films.  I think I've seen the first one at least twice due to family obligations.

It speaks to me too. It tells me to do unholy things in the dark.

This must be your first movie. Bless.

Are you feeling okay?

Let's see in another five or ten years.

That would be Goblet of Fire. 

Ah! So YOU'RE the one on my Facebook feed that keeps ranting about it. I sometimes forget who's who from the boards on social media.

It ditches most of the bad slapstick comedy from the previous movies, it doesn't waste twenty minutes at the beginning dealing with Harry's stupid family or magical transportation forms, the tournament provides it with a strong structure, and the stakes generally feel a lot higher and there's genuine danger involved in the proceedings.

Oh man... Goblet of Fire. Probably my least favorite of the series if you don't count the first two. Where to begin?

- Dumb hair.
- Silly romance subplots. Plenty of silly comedy continued here involving Ron.
- A possible kick-ass quidditch match that is completely skipped
- People being dumb throughout. Tournament is brought back after ages, weird shit happening with deatheaters at the beginning of the movie, odd happenings throughout, yet everyone is cool with everything. Far be it from us to question the GOBLET! If his name came out, he must play! He's not of age and it gives Hogwarts an unfair advantage, but the GOBLET HAS SPOKEN! Dumb wizards are dumb. Let's just continue walking right into people's fiendish plots without a second thought.
- The challenges were at least fun to watch, up until the maze, which was supposed to be the final challenge (yawn). What was the challenge here exactly? How can you navigate a maze that is constantly shifting? What parts of the maze were what was supposed to be happening, and it being rigged? Was just the goblet rigged and something that was taking over people? Nothing at all is explained before or after this event. It should have been one of the most interesting and/or exciting parts of the tournament, being the last challenge, but instead the movie relies simply on Voldemort's return to be the only thing engaging about it.
- Despite being fun to watch, the tournament in general was almost completely nonsensical:

Danger? With the possibility of death even? Well, maybe/maybe not. Apparently the tournament was ceased at one point because participants kept dying, but they eventually brought it back with rules that were supposed to help prevent such deaths. I'm not even sure the movie goes into these details, and I'm not sure what "rules" were supposed to help. It definitely seemed death was a very real possibilty multiple times without anyone watching: Eaten by a dragon, drowning, and of course, killed by some random person because no one is able to see what's going on.

Speaking of no one watching, how exciting is the fact that no one can actually see the participants doing the challenges? They all just sit around and wait. Dragon arena? Well, that was the closest one to a spectator sport, but they ended up doing most of the fight outside of the arena. So do they just sit there and cross their fingers that the wizard eventually returns? How long do they wait before they send out a search party to recover the dragon and/or body? If only they had wizard powers that could contain it within an area.

Nevermind the possible deaths, what if participants don't pass the challenges? Not only do you not get to watch, but there's a possibility it doesn't even continue past certain rounds. Fortunately for us they all seemed to pass every single time. But what if no one figured out the riddle? Would the tournament just be over at that point with no winner? If only one person did, would it just end right then and there, or would the single participant keep going by themselves? Not that people get to watch them do anything anyways, but still.

One of the only things I enjoyed coming out of GOF was Mad Eye Moody, but it turned out it wasn't even him, so it's just weird.

*I was going to say I at least liked the scene where Ron wakes up from a nightmare and Harry tells him to show em whose boss... but it turns out that was from Prisoner of Azkaban:

I think we should all be agreement that the greatest coming of age tale of all time is Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Well my complaints even included knowledge from the books (or footnotes?). To me it's just a poorly written story. The movie on its own is even worse without that additional knowledge. That's why it's towards the bottom for me. The only reasons the first two are worse is because of how fluffy they were, the visual effects, and child acting.

Unfortunately overall I just found Rowling was very up and down throughout the series, even up until the very end. And that's saying something from me. As I stated earlier, I believe Prisoner of Azkaban has one of the best written uses of time travel. That's a big compliment. That, and Order of the Phoenix is actually one of my favorite fantasy films of all time.




Come on. Come ooooooon. I've never heard from a single person that wasn't bummed that the one and only professional quidditch match we were supposed to see was completely left out.

If it were up to me every quidditch match in these movies would be left out, because quidditch is stupid.