Oh…oh…
I just randomly remembered something about the Harry Potter movies that enrages me.
Okay we all know the Goblet of Fire movie was one gigantic mess. We all know about the ‘calmly’. We all know about the ‘calmly’.
Oh god the ‘calmly’.
But there’s something even worse…so much worse…
It’s even worse than them omitting Hagrid’s bloodline or the scene where Cornelius Fudge intentionally gets a dementor to suck out Barty Crouch Jr.’s soul so that he couldn’t testify or Rita Skeeter’s secret or god this film was such a horrible injustice to the books!
But none of that, none of that is even remotely comparable to this scene:
THIS MOTHERF—ING SCENE
WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THAT HARRY JAMES POTTER WOULD HESITATE NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE, WHEN IT COMES TO SAVING A FELLOW HOGWARTS STUDENT’S LIFE IN A TOURNAMENT HE NEVER WANTED TO BE IN IN THE FIRST PLACE!
It is such a disgrace to Harry’s character, to everything he’s gone through, to the sheer amount of compassion he built up over the years of abuse by the Dursleys. Harry would never, in a million years, hesitate to save Cedric and he definitely wouldn’t have his head flying back and forth between a shiny prize and a dying teenager screaming his name are you kidding me movie!?
(Cedric screams it four times by the way, in case any of you were wondering, I counted as I grabbed these screenshots.)
And to make it worse, to make it even worse, you have Cedric gave Harry a weak smile and say, “For a second there, I thought you were going to let it get me.”
Only for Harry to stare right back and say, “For a second there, so did I.”
WHAT?
In case anyone’s forgotten, here’s how the scene plays out in the book:
Notice how HARRY MF JAMES POTTER DIDN’T EVEN HESITATE WHEN CEDRIC WAS IN DANGER, HE IMMEDIATELY ACTED BECAUSE THAT’S HIS THING, THAT’S HIS WHOLE CHARACTER, HIS “SAVING PEOPLE THING” IS WHAT MAKES HARRY POTTER HARRY POTTER! THE FACT THAT HE AUTOMATICALLY TRIES TO SAVE EVERYONE REGARDLESS OF WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO HIM IS BOTH HIS GREATEST STRENGTH AND HIS GREATEST FLAW AND IT’S BROUGHT UP AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN IN THE BOOKS BUT THIS MOVIE THINKS IT CAN JUST THROW ALL OF THAT OUT TO GIVE YOU A SUSPENSEFUL SCENE IMPLYING THAT HARRY HAS TO STRUGGLE TO…YOU KNOW…NOT MURDER SOMEONE!?
AND DON’T WORRY, MOVIE, I’M NOT SCREAMING AT YOU! BY YOUR DEFINITION, I’M TALKING TO YOU CALMLY!
Hey, look at that, I brought it back.
This. All of this. So much this.
I also have some additions.
1) Neither of their ineptitude lead to the events of someone being captured. Unlike the film where oops guess Cedric just couldn’t rip of those vines, the spider was magically resistant to all of the spells they threw at it. It took both their spells combined to beat it.
2) In the book, both of them helped / saved each other. It wasn’t this race where both of them were shouldering each other trying to get to the cup and Cedric, the Hogwarts champion, couldn’t shrug off the vines and sat there calling for help (why the heck did he both have his wand either? I dont remember seeing why he should have lost it or that he did lose it so why did he not use it?). They both helped each other like they had been the entire time.
3) Harry was the one restrained in the book. I don’t know if this was a thing like, “oh but we cant have the hero like actually be vulnerable and almost attacked and need someone else to help him.” That was the point that Cedric, instead of going for the cup, focused on protecting Harry, and even stopped to make sure Harry was ok and it didnt land on him.
4) Cedric was literally at the cup. Like he just had to hold out a hand and he’d touch it. The fact he went back for Harry and helped him get to it and they both took it shows way more humility and a sense of shared trials, we’re going to finish this together. We couldn’t have done it without each other. Instead in the movie, they have Harry actually have this stupid dilemma, go back, and then they both get to the cup and Cedric is all “go on take it, you saved me take it.” While noble, that is so watered down from what actually happened in the book. They actually gave Harry’s lines to Cedric in the movie, which makes no sense. One of the biggest take aways was Harry seeing this behavior in Cedric and it making a lasting impression on him once Cedric was killed. Harry acknowledged he needed Cedric to save him and honestly believed Cedric deserved to win. That humility not only did not show in the movie, it was obliterated and instead Harry contemplates leaving Cedric for glory? Is this the real Harry Potter? the one who already had so much attention as it was and shrinked at the possibility he would face even more whenever those moments came up?
