Wednesday, May3: Please see an update and correction to this post.
Update (3/13): This is such a cool idea for hard-core Harry Potter fans only. The podcasters at the Leaky Cauldron (Melissa Anelli, John Noe, and Sue Upton) put together a fan DVD commentary podcast of "Goblet of Fire." (Didn't know Leaky had a podcast? Check it out.)
To the irritation of many HP fans, Warner Brothers has yet to release a DVD with directors' commentary, probably as a spoiler-prevention measure. I listened to the podcast as I watched the movie for the fourth time, and it was kind of cute. (Am I the only HP fan who didn't cry when Cedric Diggory was killed?) They're thinking about doing commentaries for movies 1-3. Hey, this is the sort of thing fans do between books. Don't laugh at us. 
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My "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" DVD arrived the other day, and I've since watched the movie twice. It was a better movie the second time around, but much of my criticism from the first viewing still stands.
I suppose it's a bit ridiculous to be such a Harry Potter purist at this point. Screenwriters and directors must cut and condense the books for the screen and add exciting sequences, but here's the danger. Inevitably, subplots are lost, characters are flattened, and the canon is butchered when combining or removing scenes.
For instance, I can live with the truncated Quidditch World Cup sequence and the absence of the house elf Winky, but a few scene changes left me dismayed, and two involve Barty Crouch, Jr.'s character. (pictured)
1) The presence of Barty Crouch, Jr. (BCJ) in the Riddle House in the opening was appalling. Why was that necessary? I can only assume it was intended to help viewers who hadn't read the books understand that there was a prison escapee in cahoots with Lord Voldemort gunning for Harry. But it destroyed the tension. BCJ was in awe of Voldemort and came up with the plan to impersonate Mad-Eye Moody on his own. Like many of V's followers, BCJ hadn't seen V after his failed attempt to kill Harry.
BCJ asked Harry so many questions about what it was like to be in Voldemort's resurrected presence because he hadn't seen him since his downfall, was excited that he'd returned, and knew he'd be rewarded for his evil plot. His presence with Voldemort in the Riddle House in the beginning dampened some of that anticipation at the end, at least for me.
2) The presence of BCJ in the Pensieve scene. Not only was the man not in the courtroom audience, in the book he was a prisoner, a scared 19-year-old (not an arrogant rogue) calling out for his mother, pleading his innocence, and begging his father not to send him to Azkaban. He was guilty, of course, but that scene in the book was powerful. There was nothing arrogant or menacing about BCJ until after he transformed back into himself.
Barty Crouch, Sr., a ministry official who tried and condemned Death Eaters, was disgusted and embarrassed that his son was an accused Death Eater. And the kid's mother…well, she was distraught. Her heart cried out for her son and she ended up fainting from the grief of it all. She loved him so much that she ended up trading places with him in Azkaban, which is why he was at the Quidditch World Cup and at Hogwarts masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody.
It's all much more subtle and intricately plotted in the book, and there's the rub. A two-hour movie based on a book with over 700 pages doesn't have the luxury of being subtle, I suppose. The film makers had more than book purists in mind; there was a legion of potential moviegoers who hadn't read the books and had to understand the movie as a stand-alone film.
The presence of BCJ in those two key scenes destroyed the powerful father-son subplot, rendering the father's character shallow and his motives murkier than portrayed in the book.
3) The dragon scene was terrible. There is no way Dumbledore would sit idly by while a fire-breathing dragon chased Harry around the school. No way. Those who've read all the books know how important Harry is, and keeping him alive is of the utmost importance. Yet, in the movie version of Book Four, a dragon breaks free from its chains and chases Harry to the roof of the castle, and nobody in the stands, all witches and wizards, do nothing to help him or even see if he's OK? The sequence was exciting, but this is what I mean when I say that adding or deleting information "butchers" the canon.
4) Michael Gambon. I don't like his "interpretation" of Albus Dumbledore's character, and I use quotation marks because I heard a rumor that the actor hadn't read the books! I don't know if the late Richard Harris had, but his Dumbledore was true to the book. Harris was in a delicate condition at the time. He was suffering from Hodgkin's Disease and died after appearing in the second HP movie. Perhaps it was his illness that made him less animated, but Harris's Dumbledore matched the book's character: wise, clever in a subtle way, dignified and sure. Gambon's Dumbledore is troubled, uptight, and too animated. I'm sure I wasn't the only fan who gasped when he grabbed and pushed Harry after the champion selection scene.
I don't know how all you early Harry Potter fans dealt with it. For fans who read the books before the movies came out, it must have been quite exciting to see the characters on the big screen and at the same time, confusing and disappointing that scenes had been changed, cut, and rearranged. I didn't have this problem with the first three movies because I started reading the books only last summer (Can you believe it?). I didn't have anything to compare or complain about.
Bottom line: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is still my favorite HP movie.
I guess I shouldn't take it all so seriously. It's only fiction, after all. We're supposed to be having fun, right? 
Can you imagine what they're going to do to Order of the Phoenix?
(Warner Brothers image)
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March 11th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Interesting that HP:PoA is your favorite movie. It was and still is my favorite book of the series!
(Coincidentally, I am more at a loss at Sirius' death in OotP than I am at Dumbledore's death in HBP. I always knew that Dumbledore would have to die eventually - though I figured it would be in Book 7. But in Sirius we were finally given someone close to Harry's parents, who loved Harry as a father loves a son - the very thing, and most tragic, that Harry had been missing since the day Valdemort killed his parents.)
March 11th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
LaShawn, even though GoF is my favorite of the movies, I agree with your criticisms entirely. I think I had prepared myself for the need to mess around with things so much due to the size of the book and the length of the movie, so the BCJ things are frustrating, but I get why they did it.
The long dragon scene and Gambon's Dumbledore are unacceptable. They should have shortened the dragon scene and stuck to the book, and lengthened the LV rebirthing scene. I cried when Dumbledore died in the books. I'm looking forward to Gambon being gone at the end of the 6th film.
I can't really say why I dislike PoA so much. Perhaps I need to give it another watch or two.
March 13th, 2006 at 10:10 am
We bought and watched GoF last night. I saw it in the theater, but this was my wife's first viewing.
I've had to partition my mind, one part for the books, the other for the movies. They're two very different creatures, and it's really not possible to compare the two. The movies, by necessity, are superficial and severely truncated.
Everything happens too quickly and too simply. The plot and character developments are both mere sketches of what they should be, and, I think, the movies lose pretty much most of what make the books so wonderful. But I also realize that there's no way to avoid the problem, so I have to watch the movies without thinking about the books.
That said, I think Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore is regrettable. With few exceptions, Dumbledore is steadfast, distanced, and competent. Gambon just makes him look like a doddering fool, which destroys the relationship seems to have intended between Harry and himself.
My other main problem with GoF is the complete corruption of the plot involving the two Barties Crouch. There are no real mysteries or puzzles when it comes to the Potter movies - everything seems to follow the Scooby-Doo formula.
Oh, well. Like I said, there's no way to fairly compare the books and the movies. The movies are good, the books are great.
March 13th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
Goblet is my favourite, mostly because it opened up the Harry Potter world for me. Before it, I hadn't read any of the books or even seen a single HP movie (weird, I know). This led to me borrowing every book at the library (I got the sixth for christmas from my sister), and read them all in 8 weeks time.
So, Goblet is my favourite — and will always be (but I agree om the ctiticism).
March 15th, 2006 at 8:11 pm
GOF is the book that got me hooked. OOtP is my favorite book, especially the scene at the end between Harry and Dumbledore.
So far, I haven't read ANYTHING positive about Mr. Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore vis-a-vis Richard Harris. I recently saw Mr. Gambon in a different movie and he was great. He's just wrong for this part.
BTW, J.K. Rowling just updated the Easter Eggs on her site. Check it out!
March 18th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Really good comments about the movies and what was wrong with Goblet of Fire. I am one of those people who read the
first four books before the first movie came out–actually, I'd read all of them at least 4 times by then. Shows
how obsessive I am. The books, as is usually the case with books to movies, will always be better than the movies.
I did like a lot of what was in Prisoner of Azkaban–the look and feel of it. And I think, as a movie, I like Goblet
of Fire better. I was buying replacement copies for two of my books the other day (POA and GOF) because they were
literally falling apart. The clerk asked me what I thought of the GOF movie. I told her that I liked it because when
they got things right, they really got them right, but when they got them wrong, they totally blew it. And the scenes
you mention are the ones that bothered me–plus the scene where Harry finds Crouch Sr murdered. I was hoping there was
a deleted scene that would make that better. There is one where the trio are discussing it, but it's still not terribly
clear how important that is.
Then at the end, there was no hospital scene where Snape is sent on his mysterious mission, Hagrid is being sent somewhere
over the summer with Mme. Maxime, the "old crowd" is being recalled (which sets up the Order of the Phoenix). There is
no mention of Snape and Sirius needing to work together, or of Snape showing his Dark Marked arm to Fudge with
Dumbledore clearly stating what needs to be done–showing the coming division between the Order and the MoM.
I think by leaving all that out, they have made it nearly impossible to have the proper set-ups to have the Order
of the Phoenix make any sense at all. And as that is really my favorite book, I'm quite worried about the next
movie. And if Michael Gambon doesn't do a better job with Dumbledore next time around, I don't know that I can really
stand to see any more of the movies–except that I'll probably go just to watch Alan Rickman as Snape–if they'd
only make his character as important in the movies as he is in the books, I'd be happy.
Wow, doesn't sound like I liked the movies at all does it? I do, just not as much as the books, and in the end it is
the details that are changed and left out that irritate me the most. Still, I'm not opposed to change–I loved the
study hall scene with Snape and Harry and Ron; I loved the dancing lesson with McGonagall. The combining of the
Pensieve scene worked well, except for the portrayal of Crouch Jr. Leaving out the house elves and the SPEW subplot
was ok. Having the Patil twins both in Gryffindor is ok. Having the movie start at the Burrow was even ok, though
I missed Molly. And less Sirius was marginally ok–by not having much of him in GOF, it will not make a lot of
sense to the people who only watch the movies that Harry is so distraught over Sirius's possible danger and subsequent
death at the MoM.
In retrospect, it would have made more sense to wait to start filming the movies until after the last book was
pubished–that way they'd know what absolutely had to be in the movie and what could be left out or changed.
Pat (from HogwartsProfessor.com)
March 21st, 2006 at 8:54 am
Goblet of Fire Pensieve
A few more thoughts on the Goblet of Fire film.
March 21st, 2006 at 8:54 am
The dragon scene. LaShawn Barber was not thrilled with this either, as she wrote recently: There is no way Dumbledore would sit idly by while a fire-breathing dragon chased Harry around the school. No way.
April 29th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
I finished HBP about a month ago, and from all the books, I have always really loved Dumbledore. I was so excited when the first and second movie played Dumbledore quite well. He was supposed to be the kind that had a calmness, yet power abotu him, and he never once raised his voice at Harry.
So, when the third anf fourth came out and I saw the "new" "Dumbledore" I was qually dsiappointed! I agree with what you said about how it made Dumbledore look, and so I must say I don't much care for him in the movies. Harris did a wonderful job, he was calm, and his voice was just low enough for you to like him, but still respect him. This Dumbledore isn't at all like the previous. He could of at least tried to be more like him.