Potter, and going back to the future Dollhouse

[jencat]

Heh.  Last night was Half Blood Prince at the Imax...








 

(and the 3D specs kinda almost worked this time for the first section.  Think I've narrowed it down a little... glasses under the 3D specs make the motion jerky, but there was still something a little off with contacts in this time, which might have been stuff on the specs, and might have been my weaker eye... gah. I gave up and flipped the lenses out after they switched the 3d bit off...)

As Potter goes, it was better than films two and four, but  not really up there with Azkaban and Phoenix. 

Although... I'd had the impression that they hacked the Tonks/Lupin stuff out completely, and was pleasantly surprised by how much they left in.  Not the same plot, admittedly (although, we ended up trading Tonks' screen time for Luna's, and it's hard to resent more Luna...) but enough of a set up for Deathly Hallows that we can be pretty sure they leave some of their subplot in (and that they get killed off in due course too, but hey, we've burned that bridge a couple years back and all).  All in, though, both characters appear and the ship is present and correct, so that bit kinda rocked...

As for the rest... well, it was pretty funny, and cute, so that well and good, but slightly puzzled by the rest of the adaptation/editing decisions they made.  It looks good, sure (David Yates has a lovely eye for shadow and light, I'll give him that), but I'm more confused by the plotting the more I think about it.  I mean, ditching the main thrust of the plot kinda killed the momentum dead in the water to the point where I nearly dozed off about an hour in, and there's only so much quidditch, and giggly teen romance that can keep things ticking over. It gets a tad weird when you notice that Hermione's big crying scene in the trailer is from the scene where she's pissed at Ron, rather than for Dumbledore dying.  Priorities, people, priorities...

So: room for lots of faffing about, but no Bill and Fleur; barely any Greyback.  Destroying the Millenium bridge was flashy but quick (could have done with couple of shots of muggles chucked into the water, but nope. Amazed anyone died, going by what we saw...!) Whizzing through town before that was kinda cool in 3d, as those things go... The Burrow burning down was done stylishly, although it took me a minute to clock that Harry dashed out like a lunatic through the fire because he was going after Bella, because of Sirius. Duh.  But, then, Ginny dashing after him, and then Remus, and Tonks.. The whole thing was damn effective (shame Ginny was wearing a dressing gown, as that made it a tad weird), but needed longer to play out.  But I loved, loved Remus on the doorstep, knowing something is coming and not knowing what. The bit with Tonks fussing felt weirdly like I'd read it before in a fic (but then I've read so many..!) and I guess her and Remus not reacting immediately (when the schoolkids are going after Bella before the Auror does, you got problems) is set up nicely - he's distracted and so is she, and it's making them both dysfunctional already (and setting up the next film.. I like it.  Bet they won't even show up next time now, after all that..!).

The cave scene was a bit... blah. Honestly, if you're going to steal the Gollum CGI template from Weta, you could have changed it a teeny bit to make it less obvious... As it was, lots of Gollums attacked Harry, and it was quite a lot like that bit where lots of Dementors attacked him at the end of POA, but with more fire and water SFX... yawn. 
The biggest mistake was dropping the Order of the Phoenix/Death Eaters battle at the end though... I mean, what did it achieve exactly? They got to leave out a couple of characters completely, and avoid the bedside romantic rantings afterwards, but honestly? The Death Eaters show up completely unapposed, nobody even notices, Snape offs Dumbledore and then they all march off to torch Hagrid's house for kicks... It makes no sense. It doesn't work dramatically.  And at the end of an excessively long film, you have to wonder why they chose to leave out five minutes of grand finale to make it end on an anticlimax.

 

Heh.  Also just watched the mystery episode of Dollhouse that never aired on Fox, Epitaph One (and I am going back to Comic Con next year if it kills me. Once every six years isn't unreasonable to cross the Atlantic just to watch cool stuff in a big hall, surely...).  We'll get it here on SciFi in a couple weeks, anyhoo. And will thus be in a completely frickin' different viewing perspective come season two apparently.
Aaaand... Joss Whedon worries me, yet again.  Don't get me wrong, it was brilliant, uncomfortable viewing, in a completely different way to the brilliant, uncomfortable Omega, but lordy, the consequences of putting all this out there in the world, and trying to carry on as normal next season...?! Making my brain hurt.

It was very much Terminator: Salvation post-apocalyptisation to begin with, which wasn't the direction I ever saw this heading, and wound up spliced with Identity's small child murderer freakishness. Plus Doll-tech zombies armed with sledgehammers. And weird sideways glimpses of what-happened-next for our current characters, which you could argue we didn't really need... I feel like I read the last page of the book already now, and I'm not sure I want to find out how it all happened in all the painful gory detail.

I still like Caroline, I'm glad we had another version of her to see, but honestly the idea of her and Ballard together is frankly dull.  His creepy obsession with her doesn't lend itself to any kind of relationship I really want to see, although I still find Victor/Sierra(Priya?) fascinating. Except they're obviously not together any more (Was Sierra/Priya even still around when Caroline and Paul came back to the house? I couldn't see her there, and the scene with Victor was obviously earlier, I think?). 

I loved Whiskey/Claire's sad little arc in this - did she really stay because Boyd told her he'd come back? It seems a bit of a stretch as we don't know what went on.. but she was genuinely creepy and sad wandering around in that dress, and doing her best broken doll impression at the end.

Yay for fixing Alpha's handiwork on Whiskey and Victor though! Although that kept making me think maybe this didn't quite happen like we're seeing it happen - the fixing was a little too perfect, no evidence left on Claire's face at all when Caroline commented on it, but still there when Boyd left; yet we never see Victor scarred at all. And it's pretty clear from Omega that he's as badly damaged, surely?

And Alpha - was it just his work Caroline was referring to, or was he there himself in the safe haven (the compound?)?

 I think I might have been more comfortable with this as a series finale, given that it's such a game-changer.  I get that we're more prepared for that in TV Land these days (it's become commonplace now to do a five year jump between seasons the minute any show feels boxed in, surely - Ghost Whisperer is headed that way too next season after all) but Dollhouse is such a fragile little thing, really, and in such a precarious position.  It's not in the same place as Lost where it can mess around with timelines, and Sarah Connor only got to play it out in a long game because of the nature of the concept.  Dollhouse doesn't have timetravel to fall back on (we think!) and we'd only just really got the concept settled in for half a dozen eps post Man on the Street before it's being changed so irrevocably and completely that the show might as well not exist in its current form afterwards if you take it all as cannon.

I loved it, as an episode, but I'm not sure I'm loving where it's taking the show at this particular point in time...