S01E28 — Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.
It’s book four of the series, and you know what that means! We’ve passed the halfway mark!
Is Goblet of Fire better in its book or film form? Which of the hosts thinks this is the weakest book of the series? Why did we spend so long arguing about whether or not Ludo Bagman was a genuinely pointless character?
Discover the answers to all these and more in this week’s release for our Summer of Potter!
Listen to the other episodes in our Harry Potter series:
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Final Verdicts
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)
The Goblet of Fire book dives deep into the Triwizard Tournament, with intricate subplots and rich character development, while the movie streamlines the story for pacing and spectacle. The book offers more lore and emotional depth, but the film leans on action and visuals to deliver the magic.
Tim: The book is better
Donna: The book is better
Rebekah: The book is better
Josiah: The movie is better
Other Episodes You’ll Love
Full Episode Transcript
Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.
[00:00:00] Rebekah: Hey, welcome to podcast. Uh, we are a family of four and we’re reviewing book to film adaptations. And we’re in the middle of the summer of Potter. We are currently covering Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Fire. And so again, just before we get anything a spoiler warning, we will be talking about the entire Harry Potter universe.
Probably not getting into too much Fantastic Beasts, we probably won’t talk too much about the three books after this, but I’m sure that it will come up. Movies? Uh, I will say we’re probably, do we have to talk about the three movies after this? Because some of them are very disappointing. The three books are Order of the Phoenix, uh, The Half Blood Prince.
Oh, I thought you meant after the
[00:00:41] Josiah: whole series. Oh, I know. We may not talk about those three very much now.
[00:00:45] Rebekah: Yeah, fair. Um, I will say that I am going to spoil the plot of the Cursed Child later on. Um, I have that planned. I’m really sorry in advance. Not that I’m going to spoil it, that it’s stupid. So, if you have not already, please join our free Discord server if you want to give your two cents about questions that we can answer on the pod and just to kind of hang out with us.
And we even have a channel. Devoted just to Harry Potter. If you’re new to discord, it’s not too bad. Uh, and it’s all free and let’s be honest. Most podcasters don’t give away discord or anything else for free. So, it’s pretty, pretty stinking cool. So, uh, every episode we love to start with a little fun fact about ourselves, and, uh, we’ll introduce ourselves along with it.
So, today’s fun fact. The wizarding world is really, really bad at spectator sports. The best moments in Quidditch usually appear hundreds of feet in the air behind cloud cover, and all three Triwizard tasks appear partially or completely out of view of the watchers. With the exception of the other champions, Dragontasks, but not Harry’s, the one on screen.
That said, as you introduce yourself, what is your favorite sport to watch?
[00:01:58] Josiah: Goodness, well, I’m Josiah. I am the brother. And the son of this family group podcasting, Cabal. Cabal, wow. And I don’t watch a lot of sports. I like the Super Bowl because it’s unifying to the country, I think. I feel like we’re all comrades watching the same event at the same time all together.
But other football games interest me a good deal less. Ha, ha, ha. What are sports, besides football? Soccer isn’t fun. Baseball is so much worse. All of the Olympics are sports. The Olympics. Uh, figure skating can be fun.
[00:02:38] Rebekah: To watch.
[00:02:39] Josiah: Yeah. Yeah. I could never do it. No, no, no, yeah. I would say figure skating is probably the Olympic sport I’m most interested in.
[00:02:49] Donna: Well, uh, my name’s Donna. I’m the wife and mom of our herd heard. Okay. Words for a group of people. I know. That’s good. And so did he. I think it’s perfect. Um, I With thinking about the Summer Olympics, um, I love to watch gymnastics. I like female and male gymnastics and, and diving. Now, apart from Olympics, I don’t follow them through the rest of the years between the competitions.
But as far as a sport I would like to watch or I enjoy watching, just If I can find it anywhere. I love Luge. I love Luge. I love seeing the people completely lay flat. sail around ice at upwards of 70 80 miles an hour. It’s amazing. I would never do it. And honestly, I kind of think that people that do it are stupid, but I still love watching them do it.
And they’re probably really good people, except for the mental something that happens that would let them lay flat. And sail 80 miles around an ice track. I’m telling all the
[00:03:58] Rebekah: luge people you said they were stupid.
[00:04:00] Donna: I bet they’re wonderful people.
[00:04:02] Tim: My name is Tim and I am the husband father of House Haynes.
And I think at this point you guys are just messing with
[00:04:12] Rebekah: me.
[00:04:12] Tim: Yeah, we are. Um, I, I have two. Uh, one that I, that I would watch more often, but one that I like to watch though I won’t go seek it out and I can only stand it for a little while. Um, I’m intrigued. I love curling in the Olympics. Basically, they’re throwing a rounded, well, flat, rounded rock across ice and using a broom.
To sweep it a beautiful way, it’s really, it’s really strange. I have no idea about most of the rules of it. It’s just fun to watch people using a broom, uh, in the Olympics. So, so when your mom told you, you need to sweep the kitchen or sweep the floor, it’ll be good for you. Maybe you were practicing for curling, but the one I like to watch more often is gymnastics.
I, I enjoy watching gymnastics. It’s one of those things that I look at and think, how in the world are you doing that? And every few years, there’s a significant increase in the abilities. It’s just amazing to me.
[00:05:14] Rebekah: I like that this unintentionally turned into what is your favorite Olympic sport? Because honestly, I forgot the fact that you guys like to watch Olympic sports.
I was just trying to use it to make fun of you. The
[00:05:24] Josiah: whole world is watching together.
[00:05:26] Rebekah: That is true. That is, that is the truth. Well, I’m Rebecca. I’m the daughter slash sister of the podcast. I don’t, we don’t need to have lots of complicated words.
[00:05:37] Tim: House Haynes prefer it. Oh
[00:05:38] Rebekah: my. Uh, my favorite Olympic sport is actually in the winter Olympics probably.
I love watching like downhill skiing or the ski jump. So I’m really into like the really fast winter sports. I’ll occasionally watch a bunch of snowboarding trials too. Um, I love for some reason to watch, is it, who’s the, the guy that’s like a super famous snowboarder? It’s not Tony Hawk. Sean White. Sean White.
Cut the part where I was an idiot.
[00:06:04] Josiah: No, no, no. Don’t, don’t, don’t cut that.
[00:06:07] Rebekah: I love pulling up Sean White’s one and only run down the, uh, the, what’s the, it’s the slope. No, it’s like they go back and forth in a big thing, the half pipe. I love Sean White’s perfect scored half pipe run, which was at the Olympics in like 2010.
It was a really long time ago, but I pull that up on YouTube and watch it like once every six months for some reason. So I also loved this, the skiing video I showed you guys that I’ve, the Red Bull one that I’ve showed you over and over. Anyway, I just, uh, yeah, I love winter sports. I’ll watch like, um, the swimming stuff I think is fun during summer Olympics.
But it’s not quite as interesting to me. And then I think that my favorite, like normal sport to watch is football. So I will scream over some Ohio State stuff. So dad, would you like to walk us through what happens in this particular Harry Potter novel? Sure. If
[00:07:00] Tim: you’re joining us and you’re not sure what the novel or the movie is really about.
After a short time at the Dursleys this summer and joining the Weasleys to see the Quidditch World Cup, the students return for their fourth year at Hogwarts to discover that an historic event, the Triwizard Tournament, will take place throughout the terms. Harry’s name is unexpectedly pulled from the Goblet of Fire, the magical object that will select the champions, and he becomes the unplanned fourth Triwizard champion.
Despite his fears, And age, Harry holds his own and ties for the final prize with the other Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory. But due to the workings of the Death Eater disguised as ex Auror Mad Eye Moody, Harry sees the return of Voldemort to full strength after the Dark Lord murders Cedric Diggory.
Harry narrowly escapes, returning to the school and exposing Barty Crouch Jr. as Moody in disguise. Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, refuses to acknowledge the return of Voldemort, setting the stage for a wizarding world in chaos.
Ooh.
Oh, no.
[00:08:10] Donna: The film skips the first chapter of the book that explains the story of Frank Bryce and the death of the Riddle family.
Bryce does appear in the film and he’s killed shortly thereafter by Voldemort, but there’s no backstory given.
[00:08:24] Josiah: You get the very end, you get the very end of the prologue.
[00:08:27] Donna: Yes, and, and you see a snippet at some point of Frank in his room, he sees lights at the riddle house, he walks up there, uh, he sees The door partially open, and you get a picture of Wormtail, you get a picture of Barty Crouch Jr.
being in there, have no idea who that is, which is understandable at that point, he hasn’t been revealed, but in the film, it is completely different. It’s Wormtail and it’s Voldemort, they’re in the room together, as Frank is getting ready to leave. He hears and feels this slithering, long, massive snake go past him on the stairs and into the room.
He’s kind of, it sounds, basically comes across like he’s frozen by the snake. And then when he goes in, you hear Nagini make some of her snake noises to Voldemort. And Voldemort says, Oh, we’re not alone. And then at that point, turns around, sees Frank, and Uh, has a short exchange with him and kills him. I’m totally aware of why I can understand why they made these changes, but it flows in the books so much better to me.
So, you know, but it’s, it’s, that’s one, that’s one big plot change.
[00:09:48] Josiah: Well, I think it makes sense to cut. Frank’s backstory from the film personally, but, uh, we do not see the Dursleys at all during this film. The film’s first hairy appearance is at the Weasleys instead of, as in the book, where it is at the Dursleys.
And the final scene is before they leave Hogwarts. Do we, do we even see the, do we see the Dursleys at the end of the book?
[00:10:10] Rebekah: We do see the Dursleys. Uh, actually, yes, because we, we see them from afar because when they, they get to King’s Cross, Harry notes that they’re looking, you know, all grumbly as normal when they pick him up, but we don’t actually see any, any interaction with them at the end.
[00:10:27] Josiah: Okay.
[00:10:28] Rebekah: And you had noted that normally the movies kind of pick the beginning, you said they do usually just the beginning and we don’t see the Dursleys at the end of the movies. Yeah, I
[00:10:36] Josiah: think that makes sense. It’s interesting. I think they, they both stayed pretty consistent. That except you don’t even see the Dursleys in this film, which is crazy.
[00:10:45] Donna: And I will say I liked the fact that they started at the Weasleys for just one little piece they put in. Hermione wakes Harry up. He’s like, Hermione, and he reaches to grab his glasses. And then Ron goes, Oh, Hermione. And he like is shocked. And it’s one of the It’s one of the little Easter eggs they give you about their relationship that Harry was just like, Oh, because she sat there, he didn’t act embarrassed, where Ron was like embarrassed, even though he had a tank top on.
Yeah. And so I was like, they kind
[00:11:18] Rebekah: of threw that in. I do like that. One of the things that I miss from them skipping over the Dursleys is that this is the book where, um, Harry and Ron have been corresponding in regards to coming to the, uh, Quidditch World Cup, and so Ron says, you know, give us your letter back, if the Dursleys say no, we’ll come get you at the same time as if they say yes, we’ll still come and get you, and so instead of arriving in a vehicle, which they expected, they did.
They show up by bursting open the wall of Dursley’s house because they had covered the real fireplace. And Mr. Weasley like connects it to the Flu Network and there’s this whole thing where they feed Dudley a Tun Tun toffee and then Mr. Weasley is trying to like chase him around and fix it and he has to fix their wall.
It’s so weird. It’s a very funny scene in the book. It
[00:11:59] Tim: is a little strange sometimes when they take out the funny parts. Yeah, for such a dark film. Because it’s such a dark film and they take out funny parts that like just make it darker all the more. The Quidditch World Cup, which is a very significant portion of the book, is greatly shortened in the film to the point that it only takes just a tiny bit of time.
I
[00:12:24] Rebekah: remember the first time I saw this movie. When they finished this, the Quidditch World Cup stuff and get to the school, I was like,
[00:12:30] Josiah: it’s already,
[00:12:31] Rebekah: I was like, this part of the book was like, not a third, but like, you’re probably talking about 25 percent of the book is like the Dursleys and Quidditch World Cup at the, at the front.
So anyway, it was wild.
[00:12:40] Josiah: Yeah. Much shorter. Well, you remember the Weasleys were in the, the top box at the Quidditch World Cup with gifted tickets. From Ludo Bagman. This is in the book. Ludo Bagman is only in the book. We’ll talk more about him under character changes. I have plenty to say about him, but in the films, the Malfoys are in the honored ox and Lucius mocks the Weasleys for being in the cheap seats.
[00:13:05] Tim: I wish they had done that the way that it was in the book because they got a prize. They, they, it was a prize for doing some things that they had done for another person who got them the tickets, the special tickets.
[00:13:18] Rebekah: It fits more in like what you expect from their characters that they were in the cheap seats like because they don’t have a lot of money.
But I do kind of agree like it was one of the only times that you see them being honored by anyone. But because they cut out Bagman, it’s like it would have been so complicated to try and set it up. Yeah. To where they would have been in the special box. So I kind of get why they did it.
[00:13:39] Josiah: If you take out Ludo Bagman, have Percy convince Fudge, or does Percy work directly for Fudge?
[00:13:45] Rebekah: Uh, no, he works for Barty Crouch in this one.
[00:13:48] Josiah: He works for Fudge
[00:13:49] Rebekah: in future.
[00:13:50] Josiah: Gotcha. Have Percy set, get Crouch to set them up with tickets. And then it’s still Crouch. It’s still Percy. It’s still a prize. It is
[00:13:59] Tim: interesting as we, as we talk about the Quidditch stuff and we’ve already talked about since they’re really bad at spectator sports, uh, in the wizarding world.
Um, The top seats were the cream of the crop and Lucious Malfoy says, Oh, could you even see it from up there? And it’s like, okay, most of the action happens way up in the sky. The worst seats are on the ground.
[00:14:23] Rebekah: Which they comment on after getting there. He’s, Mr. Weasley’s like, I told you these seats would be great or something in the movie because they can see everything.
Right. So it is, it is a little weird. Yeah, it could have totally been left out.
[00:14:35] Donna: Well, as our issue with Bagman being gone continues, this is also the time when the twins step up when Ludo Bagman is offering, you know, bets to people and Arthur’s like, you know, I can’t and he bets. A small coin, like a single galleon or something and, uh, Ludo’s like, is that all?
And he was like, well, you know, kind of shouldn’t be doing this. And then the boys jump up and go, we’ll bet that this team wins, but crumb gets that Ireland win, but wins, but crumb gets this snitch and they go through, this is a little. One story that winds all the way through the entire book to the very end on the train when they go home when the twins finally admit they had been swindled by Bagman because He said, Oh, here’s your money back.
He gave them leprechaun gold, which isn’t real money and eventually disappears. It, it weaves through this story where they were going through this and it’s the reason that Bagman was all over Harry to help him cheat all the way through the tournament because he had bet against the goblins, lost the bet.
I mean, there’s so much in there. I get that most of that is outside of Harry and his, his issues and what happens here. But a lot of it includes Harry because Bagman drives him crazy every time he sees him trying to help him. And Harry’s like, why are you, do you help Cedric? And they go, so to me, I don’t know that they could have done the whole thing and really would have made a big deal.
But that is a kind of big part of Harry’s frustration, that just
[00:16:22] Rebekah: adds to Harry’s frustration. I think that one of the things that leaving this out is so odd to me with is that they also end up having, like, because of this, they cut out the fact that the Triwizard Champion wins a thousand galleons, because it was only 37, I think, galleons that the twins bet when, you know.
They ended up, like, not getting their money from Bagman, but, like, they cut the fact that Harry won a thousand galleons, that there was a prize, that he won it, they cut that he tried to give it to Cedric’s family at the end, and they cut the scene on the train at the end where Harry gives the twins his thousand galleons prize money, and that is weaved through the entire next book, and it becomes a huge part of how the twins start their joke shop, and it’s like, That is a pretty significant side plot and it’s kind of like just left out entirely.
And you can do all
[00:17:12] Josiah: that without Ludo Bagman?
[00:17:13] Rebekah: Yeah, sure. You absolutely can.
[00:17:16] Tim: Yeah, you could have done a lot more because it fleshes out the characters, it gives them more motivation and things like that because later on, when you watch the twins do some of these things, you’re like, um, where did that come from?
How did that happen? Yeah. And it could have been taken care of. Yeah. You could have left the character of Backman out.
[00:17:35] Rebekah: And I do. I thought that was a really like telling thing about Harry’s integrity and character that like, he didn’t want the money. He wouldn’t use the money. He was like, and he decided to do something with it that was good, but he also didn’t wanna get the twins in more trouble.
So he like, it’s hidden for a while. And then in the, you know, fifth book, he shares that it was him who gave him the money because he didn’t want them to think. I want people to think that the twins were stealing it’s, you know, it’s small, but I missed it.
[00:18:01] Tim: Yeah, definitely.
[00:18:02] Rebekah: The last thing you miss at the world cup is that there’s actually two, there’s a distinction between death eaters.
Cause there’s a group of death eaters that cause mayhem and they hang up, um, a group of muggles upside down that were like the caretakers of the camping area and whatever, which was like really, it was a very sad thing. Um, totally understand why they didn’t, didn’t include this in the movie. Um, and then.
Those Death Eaters run and freak out because then a different Death Eater, who is an unknown Death Eater in the book, casts the Dark Mark. So we learn at the end, obviously, that this is Barty Crouch Jr., but the film makes no distinction between the two groups. They show a group of Death Eaters causing trouble, and then you see Barty Crouch Jr.,
who you actually see his face in that scene, casting the Dark Mark. Um, and it just changes a lot of the dynamic about encountering Voldemort later on because Voldemort kind of refers to the ones who really followed him even though he’s been gone but not dead and then everybody else thought he was gone and um, there’s just a lot of like kind of Interrelational stuff that just gets cut because of this between the Death Eaters.
[00:19:10] Tim: Uh, we also don’t see the twins product development for their burgeoning joke shop in the film. That’s a really big to do in the book. Yeah. Um, you see all the levels of it, you know. Molly’s bothered by their, the stuff they’re doing, you know, they keep getting into trouble. Hermione is mad because they can’t test these products on the students, you know, different things like that.
And
[00:19:34] Rebekah: there’s a ton of products that they create that are used in the 5th, 6th, and 7th books. And that you see in the film, I think in the seventh book in particular, they invent a bunch of stuff that Harry, Ron, and Hermione like have gotten from them that they use while they’re hunting horcruxes. And so obviously again, it’s like one of those things that’s easy to remove, but it does come back up.
It’s just not explained, which kind of feels like a little Easter egg for the readers, which is nice.
[00:19:59] Josiah: Another pet project of a Hogwarts student that was largely cut from the entire film series, especially starting with Horder. Of the Goblet.
[00:20:11] Rebekah: Which is not the name of any of the books.
[00:20:13] Josiah: Goblet of Fire.
Hermione begins an organization called the Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare in the book. Which the boys mockingly call SPEW. This is not included in the film or subsequent films where SPEW would be mentioned in the book.
[00:20:30] Rebekah: They actually cut Dobby quite a lot.
[00:20:32] Josiah: Yeah, Dobby is in a lot more of the books.
Yes. Yeah. Did he appear, he appeared in Goblet of Fire film?
[00:20:38] Rebekah: Uh, he did not appear in Goblet of Fire film.
[00:20:41] Josiah: Ah, I was trying to trick you.
[00:20:42] Rebekah: Yeah, but in the book he’s the one that helps Harry with the Gillyweed and like
[00:20:46] Josiah: With Neville in this
[00:20:47] Rebekah: one. They meet him and Winky, which we’ll talk about her. Yeah, so Dobby is removed from a lot.
Winky’s the girl, how self named, but they remove Dobby a lot, which is a little weird because then when you come back in the very, very last movie, He’s in the
[00:21:02] Josiah: second and seventh film.
[00:21:04] Rebekah: Yeah, seventh film, you’re right, not the last one. It is a little weird because he comes back in the seventh film and you’re like, If you read the books, you’re like, Oh, Dobby.
And if you watch the movies, you’re like,
[00:21:13] Tim: Oh, is this from mischievous elf from back when these Yeah, it’s
[00:21:18] Rebekah: like a lot less touching because he keeps getting cut, but he was a pretty significant character in the
[00:21:24] Tim: definitely books. Um, a little bit of trivia. Rowling was asked in an entertainment weekly in 2000 why bigotry was so deeply explored in the book.
Um, she stated Because bigotry is probably the thing I detest the most. All forms of intolerance, the whole idea of that which is different from me is necessarily evil. I really like to explore the idea that difference is equal and good.
[00:21:50] Rebekah: Mm hmm. Interesting. So between kind of where we’re at in the plot now, uh, there’s several things that happen obviously, but the next difference that we’ll talk about Is, uh, in regard to the first task, but I think we had a listener question that has to do with a scene that is also different in the film, and it has become a
[00:22:09] Donna: meme.
Um, so we, we do have a great reader question, and it’s a discord, it was one of our discord family, uh, Kadmon, and if I say your name wrong. Don’t be upset with me, but you can tell me if I’ve done it wrong. I will do better. If she says your
[00:22:24] Josiah: name Cadwrong.
[00:22:25] Donna: Yeah. Uh, but because it could be Cadman or Cadmon or, you know, I want to get it right.
So Cadman asks, what are your feelings about the scene in the film versus the book where Dumbledore asks Harry if he put his name in the goblet? So this is, Right freshly after it happened, they all, Harry goes into the room with the other champions. They’re like, well, who is this? Is this a servant boy that came to do stuff for us?
And they’re like, no, he’s the fourth champion. Dumbledore rushes in and he says in the book, well, and in the, and in the film, did you put your name in the goblet? Now, listening to Jim Dale interpret through all these books. He
[00:23:13] Josiah: can be very
[00:23:15] Donna: aggressive, he can be very soft, he’s very, very talented at that. In the movie, he’s like, hooray, Dungeon Puncher time!
He’s like, and on top of him Josiah, can
[00:23:30] Rebekah: you do an impersonation?
[00:23:32] Josiah: I think I found it. Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Harry? Dumbledore asked calmly.
[00:23:39] Tim: Mm hmm.
[00:23:40] Josiah: And the meme has a big red box around the word calmly. And then it has the scene from the book where he says,
[00:23:50] Tim: Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?
Definitely a different interpretation.
[00:23:57] Rebekah: And it says that Snape was, let’s see, the first word is malevolently, his eyes glinted malevolently. And like before Professor Dumbledore asks the first thing, so then Harry says no. And then Snape makes a noise, like kind of scoffing at him. And then he, it says, did you ask an older student to put it in the goblet of fire for you?
Said Professor Dumbledore, ignoring Snape. And then, um, there’s a couple of people that make comments about it. And then Maxine, Maxine makes a comment about, of course, there was a mistake from Dumbledore. He goes, it is possible, of course, said Dumbledore politely. And I think this is one, my opinion about it is, I think this is one of the reasons I don’t like Michael Gambon’s interpretation of, of, um, Dumbledore.
Cause I think that what’s, oh my gosh, bad with names. First guy, Richard Harris. I think that Richard Harris would have done a better job delivering that little section. Um, because there, there’s just this like magic and kindness in Dumbledore that you do not get in the movie. This is personally one of the things that I saw in the movie and I was like, are you kidding?
Like I was unhappy about it to say the least. Yeah.
[00:25:07] Tim: Well, it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense knowing the characters and knowing their abilities because Dumbledore would have known completely that it was impossible for Harry to have done magic that would have done this, that would have caused this to happen.
So it was, he asked him and the reason he asked him calmly is just to get an assurance because he couldn’t have done it
[00:25:29] Josiah: anyway. Yeah, I think that there’s a subtext in the book that Dumbledore understands that Harry Almost certainly could not have purposefully put his name in the goblet. Right. And he trusts Harry.
All that sort of stuff. Whereas in the film, it does, not only is it over the top and it’s not what the book says, but it also kind of makes you think, Dumbledore, do you really trust Harry that little? Do you really also not understand how his skills do not permit him to take this on?
[00:26:03] Rebekah: Um, so getting into some more changes that have to do with the tournament.
In the movie version of The Dragon Task, we see Harry flying around the grounds in the film. He gets the dragon to break his, uh, his chain and endanger the lives of hundreds of children. Uh, no one stands up or seems concerned about this, they just gasp. Um, of course, why would you be concerned about such a thing?
Um, he also does something that makes it look like the dragon falls to its death in a cavern. Um, this is stupid. In the book, Harry basically goads the dragon into flying just high enough so that he can grab the egg from beneath it. So he kind of swoops down a few times, getting lower and lower, and finally he gets the dragon to come up.
He’s on his firebolt. He sneaks under and gets the egg.
[00:26:52] Josiah: I mean, that seems like almost as what was intended of the task.
[00:26:57] Rebekah: Um, so it’s, it just, this change bothered me so much because it’s one of those things in the movie. I think maybe at first I was like, this is kind of cool. Look at him. He’s flying around.
It’s this beautiful scene. Oh my gosh. And then you think about it for like four seconds and you’re like, oh, so the adults We’re fine with lots of things they should never have been fine with, like it bothered me. Nobody flew after him.
[00:27:22] Tim: With a dragon that’s very, very dangerous, completely loose, after a student.
They had a huge team of people. And Harry kind of
[00:27:29] Josiah: killed it?
[00:27:31] Rebekah: He kills it. You know, I don’t know what he, he, he makes it run into something and it falls down into a cavern.
[00:27:35] Josiah: Where is Hermione society for the Protection of
[00:27:38] Tim: Dragons? Another change. One of Rita Mosquito’s exposes in the book is to reveal that Hagrid is half giant.
After she hears him, tell Madam Maxim about his heritage. This causes quite a stir with the students and sets ha gr up for the fut for a future work with the order in subsequent books. This is not in the film. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s just as well. Rita Skeeter is another one of the characters.
You hate her, don’t you? I don’t care for her. I realize why you have to have antagonists, but okay, Malfoy is always an antagonist. Voldemort is always an antagonist. Then you add an antagonist that does things right in front of people, in front of their faces, and everybody’s like, oh, that’s just what she does.
Are you serious? Yeah, I mean, one of the adults should have said, No, you can’t take Harry into the broom closet. No, you have to interview all of the tri wizards. It’s just strange and she’s got a little too much exposure as far as I’m concerned.
[00:28:40] Donna: Well, the only reason that Rita’s role bothers me The only reason about how they handled it was to see her get her comeuppance because you don’t yeah.
[00:28:51] Tim: Yeah.
[00:28:52] Donna: She’s just cruel to Harry. Everybody else in most cases, everybody else that’s against him or picks at him. You see there’s some. Some outcome of them, Umbridge, Aunt Marge, you know, somehow they get something, Skeeter gets nothing, and the fact that she is an animagus, so Skeeter manages to report on many things in the book that she should never have known, leading to her eventual capture by Hermione shortly before the third task.
And in the book, they weave through this a lot, that every time you turn around, she’s reporting something in the Daily Prophet that’s, that nobody except the few people around or the students, but they were all confined at Hogwarts. That’s the bottom line. And she wasn’t allowed to be there. Yeah. They were told that.
After she goes and traps Harry in a broom closet to get this article with him and then puts him in there and ignores the other champions. And she’s clearly. trying to cause trouble, all of a sudden she’s reporting on these things that she can’t know. And so they find out, Hermione finally gets it, picks up on the fact that she’s an unregistered animagist, which means she can transform herself into an animal.
just like Sirius, James, Lupin, and Wormtail could do. And also Professor McGonagall. But Professor McGonagall is a registered legal animatist. And they talk
[00:30:19] Rebekah: from the third book on how this is so important. Yes. Because you can misuse it because Rita turning into a beetle is exactly the thing the ministry is trying to avoid.
That’s
[00:30:27] Donna: right. And, and so they cut all this from the film. And, and don’t bring it, you know, she comes up in, in book and film five as well. And they, they, again, they, they leave the whole thing out. And much like Bagman being gone, it’s the same issue for me. She creates such a pain for Harry all the way through it.
Completely out of his control, by the way. Yes. And you never see her or him really get their, They’re do they take Bangman out altogether, but read is in there, but you never see your
[00:31:05] Josiah: company.
[00:31:06] Donna: No, he’s just kind of stupid bling.
[00:31:08] Josiah: He
[00:31:09] Donna: just has a and he has a gambling problem. And so
[00:31:12] Josiah: I like Rita for her world building.
I like seeing what a journalist What a cutthroat journalist is like in the wizarding world, but I would have liked her to eventually gotten some comeuppance.
[00:31:24] Donna: Yeah, and I think that’s the problem with it. Her character’s not an issue. It’s that you don’t see at the end where Hermione traps her in a jar like a lightning bug, which is literally, it is so comforting.
I love it. It’s so satisfying to get there on the train and he goes, you, that’s not, Oh, yes it is. She says.
[00:31:51] Rebekah: And isn’t, doesn’t it confuse things in the fifth movie because she comes back to write the article. About the escaped Death Eaters, but then she’s like ragged, and I think it’s the same way in the movie, but they don’t explain why Hermione could have gotten Rita Skeeter to do anything.
Am I remembering this correctly? I think it, I’m pretty sure she’s featured in the movie. And it’s like, so dumb. I also have always wondered what this says about the way J. K. Rowling sees, uh, the media, but I don’t know. And that’s, I don’t know the answer to that, so I’m not gonna try and comment on it, but.
[00:32:23] Josiah: I mean, you see the ministry, how she’s thinking about government, you know, all sorts of institutions. I guess she likes, uh, post secondary education.
[00:32:31] Rebekah: Apparently.
[00:32:31] Josiah: There’s a positive opinion to that. Well, the encounters with Crouch and The Forest are vastly different from book to film.
[00:32:41] Rebekah: Okay, I really want to talk about this because I love how they do this in the book.
The movie makes me a crazy person every time, okay? This is where we get to the point in the movies where Rebecca does not like a lot of the changes that were made. Okay, so in the book, here’s what happens. Harry and Victor Crumb go down to the Quidditch pitch. Learn about the third task. Victor asks Harry to walk up with him because of a Rita Skeeter thing, specifically she had written about, uh, Hermione being Harry’s girlfriend, but Hermione wasn’t Harry’s girlfriend and Victor wants to ask, whatever.
Crouch has been missing for several weeks sending letters to Percy to tell him what to do at the ministry. I believe Harry and all of them are aware of him missing at this point. This is like near the end of the school year. So then he tries, Crouch tries to warn Harry, Oh, Voldemort’s coming to Hogwarts, get Dumbledore, he’s after Harry, he’s after Harry Potter.
And then he becomes confused and he starts to hallucinate and see, like, basically he’s confused because he thinks he’s talking to Percy and or to his wife and son. Then Harry says to Crumb, like, keep Crouch here, runs up to get Dumbledore, Snape, Who is a jerk again.
[00:33:53] Josiah: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[00:33:55] Rebekah: Listen, he is a jerk.
He delays Harry. And he delays Harry to the point where Harry might have gotten back before fake Moody slash Crouch Jr. did what he did. So he goes up to get Dumbledore. Once he gets Dumbledore’s attention, Dumbledore’s like, Oh, we gotta go right now. So they go down to the forest. They see Crumb is passed out.
There’s no explanation yet of why, and he, like, gets mad at Maxime, and they get, uh, Karkaroff, and, uh, basically what ends up happening is, Crouch disappears, and from this point on in the book, you don’t know what happens until the very end, you find out that Crouch Jr., his son, who was masquerading as Moody, literally, uh, saw him come up on the map, Trans, he killed him, transfigured his body into a bone and buried it next to Hagrid’s.
Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying, but you don’t know any of this, which I think is an excellently done part of the book. It is so interesting and there’s so much payoff, in my opinion, when Barty Crouch Jr. explains what has happened at the end. And so instead, we don’t do that, and we ruin this part of the story.
[00:35:04] Tim: Instead, the film shows Crouch at the second task, after which he catches Harry in the forest as they return, and briefly chats with him before Moody walks by. Crouch recognizes the odd tongue movement of Moody’s, but doesn’t comment on it. And in the next scene, Harry finds Crouch’s dead body in the woods.
All of those other plot points,
[00:35:27] Josiah: gone. In the book, I guess my Thought about that is in the book when he disappears, I can see them reacting behind the scenes. The ministry is trying to find him, but it doesn’t really concern Harry. Whereas in the film, imagine in real life, if the UN ambassador from the United States turned up dead.
That’s a big deal. While the Olympics are happening in Chicago, would the Olympics just continue without a word? Would there be no Rita Skeeter exposes about, Oh, this is the country that might’ve had something to do with it. I just feel like that. Kind of takes my suspension of disbelief away that no one reacts to his death.
Whereas in the book, it’s like, oh, okay, well, now that we both know the killer and have caught the killer, so there’s not another reaction we really can have.
[00:36:24] Rebekah: And Rita Skeeter in the book does write about him being missing. But I don’t, because they don’t know he’s dead until after she stops writing. You don’t see that.
But like, she does make a big deal about it. It makes a lot more sense in my opinion, in the
[00:36:38] Josiah: book. Speaking of the Crouches and also other Book 4 only characters, Harry sees three memories of trials at the Wizengamot in Dumbledore’s pensive. This is in the book. Ludo Bagman, Igor Karkaroff, and a teenage Barty Crouch Jr.,
along with three others, including the Lestranges. I believe their first appearance, their first mention. It’s unclear here whether or not Crouch Jr. is actually guilty of any explicit crimes.
[00:37:10] Rebekah: He’s crying at his mother and it is heartbreaking. He’s like, Mom! Mother! Father! Like, in the book, it is literally, like, heart wrenching.
[00:37:19] Josiah: Yes, and in the film, they make him a cartoonish villain, right? Yes. The whole time. Well, in the film, we see only Karkaroff’s trial, and while he accuses Barty Crouch Jr. of being a Death Eater, just like he does in the book, the movie shows Jr. responding by trying to run and being captured. Barty Crouch Jr.
‘s trial is not shown in the movie, and Ludo Bagman is cut. from the movie, so you don’t see anything from him. I think when I was first reading this book a few years ago, and I read The Memory of Ludo Bagman’s Trial, I realized, wow, yeah, I’m glad Ludo Bagman got cut. He’s just, he is literally just a red herring.
Uh huh. Actually, He has no purpose.
[00:38:02] Rebekah: I didn’t really, you’ve been talking, we’ve been talking about that kind of off, Off recording as well about Ludo Bagman’s appearance or non appearance in the film, I guess. Um, and I do, I didn’t think about that, but you’re right. I think in the book he really is just a major red herring and in the film they give you the villain.
You just don’t know that it’s someone else in disguise. Like you don’t know that he’s pretending to be someone else.
[00:38:24] Josiah: Other red herrings have Like a purpose. Like Lupin is a red herring for, oh he’s a werewolf so he’s evil. And then you realize, oh actually he’s like my uncle basically. And he’s my uncle who’s real nice to me throughout the rest of the series.
And he helps with various things. The best written red herrings do have an actual purpose besides what you thought that they were. And Ludo does not have that. The Crouches skirt by, I’m okay with the Crouches even though they don’t have to do with the rest of the series because Barty Crouch Jr. has so much to do with Voldemort’s return, I’ll forgive it.
[00:39:02] Tim: Harry tells Dumbledore about his dreams, recognizing Barty Crouch in them, after seeing those memories. That’s how it goes in the film. In the book, however, he shares his dreams with Slytherin. Sirius, who mentions them to Dumbledore long before Crouch goes missing. Harry also does not recognize Crouch Jr.
in the dreams in the film.
[00:39:22] Rebekah: Yeah, because he’s much younger in the dreams. And I he Harry shares this at the beginning of the book. He writes a letter to Sirius from the Dursleys. And in the film, it’s like it comes in later and he tells Dumbledore and he’s like, I recognize the man. It was the man that Karkaroff accused in the trial, or what, he, I don’t know if he says it, but he basically points out that it was that same person.
And
[00:39:42] Tim: it was also the same man.
[00:39:44] Rebekah: Oh, and he says it’s the same man that he, yeah, that he saw at Frank Bryce’s, like, well, he doesn’t know Frank’s name, but.
[00:39:49] Tim: But he, at
[00:39:49] Josiah: the person who got killed. Also, I don’t know if we were going to mention it elsewhere, but I just wanted to say, I loved Sirius Black when I was watching his movies as a kid, and I was so excited after, after movie three came out, and you’re like, oh, Harry has a godfather.
Oh, he’s so nice. I was so disappointed. Yeah. He only appears in the fire for that one scene. Because I wanted Harry to have his little father figure around,
[00:40:15] Tim: even a little bit. And can I just say, and this is probably entirely out of place, but when he appears in the fire, the special effects are dismal compared to when he appeared in the fire earlier.
Yeah,
[00:40:27] Donna: it’s very weird. I’m not a big fan. In book three.
[00:40:30] Tim: Yes.
[00:40:31] Donna: We don’t all hate Snape, by the way. But when Snape threatens Harry with Veritaserum about the theft from his office in the film, he mentions Polyjuice potion ingredients. But as there’s no mention of these being stolen in the second film, Friggin Chris Columbus, I
[00:40:49] Rebekah: blame you.
[00:40:51] Donna: Yes, Chris, thank you for that continuity error. This can create a slight continuity error, although he doesn’t technically mention that they stole it before. There’s just no reason given for why Snape assumes Harry and his friends would have stolen it. These little things
[00:41:10] Josiah: add up.
[00:41:11] Donna: They add up. They seem a little at the time, but as we have researched and come across some of these, it’s like, uh, how much more could have happened?
Fleshed out what we just talked about with like Dobby and, uh, and not being there much for a movie watcher had Dobby been included in a few other places when, when his life or when his last scene happens in book seven. And you see that on film, it, it would be more compelling to the audience.
[00:41:49] Rebekah: And I, I think they skirt around it being a continuity error a little bit because he doesn’t explicitly say, because you stole it before, but it is left field that he’s like, I know you and your friends, if you do, if it happens again, I’ll get you and your friends.
I’m like. In what universe would you have any reason to think this is Harry and his friends? Do you have, like, is there any way, but in the book, it’s like he has, he knew that they stole it in, uh, Chamber of Secrets. And so there’s like purpose and a reason for him to make such a comment. It’s just so weird.
So, um, in the book, one of the things I really like is that Molly and Bill Weasley, one of Ron’s older brothers, visit Harry at the school in the final task. Cause they announce like, family’s here, and Cedric’s like, come on Harry, you’re holding them up. And Harry’s like, I know that Ursley’s didn’t come to see me.
Um, so they kind of tour the school, and again, I know a lot of why this was cut, but they tour the school, they go through all this stuff. And, um, the reason this comes up to me is after Harry returns from the, um, graveyard and all of this stuff, he is, I mean, he’s beside himself. He has just seen someone killed.
He’s seen Voldemort return. It is like the most emotionally taxing thing that’s ever happened to him. And there’s this beautiful line. It says, Mrs. Weasley set the potion down on the bedside cabinet, bent down, and put her arms around Harry. He had no memory of ever being hugged like this, as though by a mother.
The full weight of everything he had seen that night seemed to fall upon him as Mrs. Weasley held him to her. His mother’s face, his father’s voice, the sight of Cedric dead on the ground all started spinning in his head until he could hardly bear it, etc., etc. And it’s just this beautiful little moment where Harry is cared about.
Um, in a way that he’s never felt cared about before, and I think that that kind of moment, and they cut the whole scene where it would have happened anyway, like there’s no, they don’t have any of that, which we’ll discuss briefly, um, but it just, it would have deepened Harry’s character, I think in a way that Daniel Radcliffe does not.
Daniel Radcliffe feels a little flat to me through the later books, kind of like Josiah has pointed out and I think that that kind of thing where he could have become vulnerable with a mother figure could have been a really good moment and it bummed me out a little bit that they left it out.
[00:44:05] Tim: And there you go with so many of the problems that I have with the films.
I love visual media, but in the films Especially the first time I watched them, I felt like there were so many gaps in the plot. It was hard for me to follow. Not only that time changes so quickly and they change it by nothing that you would really notice unless you’re paying real attention to the flowers or the grass or the sky.
Um, And then you, you take out character building, character depth moments and things like that. And in this film, Molly Weasley doesn’t even appear. She, this is the only film she’s not in at all. Um, the, the maze is more streamlined. Um, the only obstacles that Harry encounters are the bewitched crumb.
Enchanted vines and a wind that happens as the pathway begins to close in. Harry also sees Flora in the film as she’s dragged under a hedge, which doesn’t happen in the book. While we see that Krum seems to be enchanted somehow, the film doesn’t explicitly state that he was put under the Imperius curse.
I mean, it’s just strange. The things that you chose to keep the way that you changed it and pulled out things that were deep and explanatory and interesting and would have been visually interesting, by the way, yeah, all of that visually interesting, but they chose to cut a lot and I don’t fully understand why some of these happened.
I understand some that that makes sense, but others are like, why that moment with Harry that? That makes for a great movie. Not just a, hey, this is a franchise movie and we included these characters.
[00:45:55] Rebekah: So, the, just to clarify, the obstacles that do get cut, which I loved a lot of these from The Maze, include a Boggart that appears to Harry as a Dementor, Last Ended Scroots, which were, we found out, Hagrid’s creatures that he bred, he cross bred things together to get them, a Sphinx that tells Harry a riddle, And a huge spider that Harry and Cedric fight together, which I believe is how Harry originally gets injured because in the book he ends up with like an ankle injury or something like that.
Uh, bonus points, can anybody tell me the riddle that the Sphinx tells to Harry that he does solve?
[00:46:32] Josiah: That’s really easy. What is black, red, and white all over?
[00:46:39] Rebekah: That is not the riddle. Mom, do you remember it?
[00:46:42] Donna: Middle and end is part of it. Middle and end is part of it. And the word you say when you’re thinking of a hard to remember word.
But that’s wrong. The words aren’t right.
[00:46:54] Rebekah: You’re close though. You’re getting a lot of it. So here’s the riddle. First, think of the person who lives in disguise, who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies. Next, tell me what’s always the last thing to mend, the middle of middle and end of the end. And finally, give me the sound often heard during the search for a hard to find word.
Now string them together and answer me this, which creature would you be unwilling to kiss? The answer is spy. D and uh, which if you’re British is spy duh, which is a spider, which doesn’t work in American English. I got
[00:47:28] Josiah: duh, I got duh and uh.
[00:47:30] Rebekah: Yeah, and he got spy and uh, and spy uh, spy uh, spy duh.
[00:47:36] Josiah: Oh my gosh, the middle of middle and the end of end is so easy.
That one came to me right away. Yeah, the
[00:47:43] Rebekah: spy one I think would have been the hardest one for me to come up with.
[00:47:47] Donna: And again, to dad’s point. This would have been another opportunity to see a little bit more raw emotion from Harry because he’s, he’s scared. He’s trying to keep his wits about him and he’s being, you know, challenged at every turn.
And so something like this. Could have been another opportunity to show not only is he in the middle of a difficult situation and he is frazzled But that he can do this. He’s not, he’s not just a doofus. He really can work through these things. It showed a little bit of his strength. To me, it showed a little bit more of his, of his cunning and the ability to act well
[00:48:32] Rebekah: in crazy situations.
Also, Hermione’s the one that solves the riddle in the first book, and so it shows that he’s grown some. Anyway. Yes.
[00:48:39] Josiah: Well, in the book, Voldemort has incredibly long expository speech to Wormtail. Harry and then the Death Eaters who return when they feel the mark burn. The film shortens this to several lines and eliminates the explanation for how Voldemort’s return came about or what he plans for the future.
[00:48:58] Rebekah: Which I understand.
[00:48:59] Josiah: I understand. Rewatch the graveyard scene today and it is almost 10 minutes. It’s a, it’s a lengthy scene and it’s really cool and creepy and disturbing and action packed and all of that stuff. So, I think the film did basically what it needed to do. And also, Wormtail is, uh, chanting his little spell about blood of the enemy forcibly taken.
And the bone of the father. Bone of the father, all that stuff. When he’s, when he’s putting Voldemort in the cauldron, it’s like, it’s a magical world. I get it. The, the spell is telling me how Voldemort’s returning, you know?
[00:49:41] Rebekah: Yeah. I understand the change. I love the exposition in the book, but I also know that this is one of those things that is just not movie friendly.
[00:49:51] Josiah: Yeah, if you want the backstory, I think it’s good for the book.
[00:49:54] Rebekah: If you want backstory, you have to read the book in like, in that way.
[00:49:57] Donna: And in this scene is my favorite line to love and hate. Uh, Voldemort is looking around at the Death Eaters that have come back and the spaces where they haven’t come back and talking about each of them as he goes around.
And, and then he’s like, We are still united under the dark mark then and then he said, and Jim Dale’s interpretation of this, I don’t know where it came from inside his brain, but he goes, Oh, and it is so awkward. It’s so awkward and I love it every time I hear it, uh, I’ll, I’ll say it out and mimic it. And, uh, and so I get a kick out of it cause it’s like, okay, okay, Jim.
[00:50:42] Josiah: Oh, ah,
[00:50:43] Rebekah: wait. Yes. So in that scene with, um, the dark Lord telling his followers what to do, there’s this really cool, um, trivia thing that I’ve always loved. In the original print version of the book, there was a continuity error. So, James, and this is only in, like, I don’t know how many were printed, but not a lot, James comes out of the wand before Lily when the Priory Incantado thing happens in the graveyard.
So Rowling had it correct in her manuscript. One of her American editors Changed it made James comes before, right? Lily comes out first because she was killed last after him. Yes, it’s recent to old. And so the American editor that Rowling trusted, it was one of those people that she says, I did this and Rowling said, I trust you, whatever.
And then she changed it and made it wrong. And Rowling said later, like, they were all very sleep deprived on a very, very tight, like, deadline. And so it wasn’t caught until some of the books were printed and sold, which I just find really interesting.
[00:51:44] Tim: Like the other large exposition that we talked about before, um, Crouch Jr.
and Winky’s exposition after Harry’s return to the castle are completely eliminated. We never learn about how Crouch Jr. escaped from Azkaban, his captivity with his father overseen by Winky, or how Bertha Jenkins, Jorkins, excuse me, I always mispronounce that, how Bertha Jorkins learned about him and had a memory charm put on her that Voldemort would later break.
All of that is cut. There again, to me, some of those things leave huge plot holes. for the watcher of the movie, and it’s like,
[00:52:24] Rebekah: oh, how, why, what? Well, that leads me to kind of the thing that I hate most about the changes that they made in this movie. So after Crouch Jr. in the film, like, says that Voldemort’s back, he’s going to be honored as a hero.
Voldemort says something about he doesn’t like heroes. Call Azkaban. The next thing you see is Dumbledore giving his speech at the Leaving Feast. So in the book, there’s a ton that happens that’s very relevant to the continuing plot. And I think that it makes the fifth movie, I think it makes it longer at the beginning and I think it makes it a little more confusing and you don’t set it up, but I, like, I kind of understand it.
But. What happens in the book is the Dementors kiss Barty Crouch Jr. at Fudge’s instructions, leaving an empty shell, which means the one person who could have backed up what Dumbledore is saying is true, has been kissed and cannot give testimony that Lord Voldemort is back or that Lord Voldemort was behind what was happening.
So it allows Fudge to deny all the things that Dumbledore is saying. In the films, there’s no logical reason that Fudge should deny what Dumbledore is saying. Because there is literally a witness that you can use truth serum on, you could do any number of magical things to prove what he’s saying. And it doesn’t make sense to me that then Fudge still like refuses to believe Dumbledore.
Um, this is also when Harry gets his Triwizard winnings, which we discussed. And so then at this point, um, Sirius is revealed as an ally and they like bring people together. And this is what starts the development of the Order of the Phoenix. He sends Hagrid and Maxime off. You know, he tells Sirius to go get some of the old Order members.
This is where Mrs. Fig is re mentioned, um, for the second time in this book. And I think that this was a very poor choice because it just, it makes, in my opinion, it makes so much of the rest of the story of like Book 5 and Movie 5, I think it makes it more confusing.
[00:54:23] Josiah: I think that, to one of your bullet points, is I thought, I didn’t know it was an opinion, but I guess it’s my opinion that Fudge believes that Voldemort is back and he’s just choosing to purport what is false because he thinks that what, that’s what will keep him in power.
[00:54:44] Rebekah: I don’t know. That’s an interesting theory.
[00:54:46] Tim: Well, in the book, if he’s the one who says, no, go ahead and give him the kiss, which will destroy him from being able to speak. Otherwise Fudge would know. And purposefully get rid of the one witness that people would be able to say, well, here’s the witness that we have.
And so he can spend the rest of the time keeping holding on to
[00:55:07] Josiah: his power. I just think in real life, there’s a lot of people, especially in politics or for political reasons that will, will just deny a truth and say, even if like in their heart of hearts, they’re like, yeah, it’s probably true, but. It is better for me if I just pretend like it’s not true.
[00:55:26] Rebekah: Yeah, I think it’s just, I, I get it more that what dad said is, is accurate where he would get rid of the person that could have given the other testimony. But it just, it’s too far for me to think that Fudge would just blatantly deny if the person was still able to give testimony. And it’s weird because Barty Crouch Jr.
assumed, we assume that he’s sent back to Azkaban. In the movies, because that’s, Gumbeldorf says, call Azkaban. He doesn’t break out in future movies. He never comes back. Like, he doesn’t come back in the story. I don’t know.
[00:55:58] Donna: But in, uh, but in the next book, one of the headlines is the Dementors leave Azkaban.
[00:56:04] Rebekah: Yeah. And for some reason, Barty Crouch Jr. is just not part of it. Even though he was one of the most faithful servants and all that. Yeah, anyway, I just think the whole thing is confusing. I don’t like fudge, but I think that this makes fudge look so much more bad, like in a way that he wasn’t in the books.
He was just scared. He was a coward, but this makes him look like a criminal.
[00:56:26] Donna: In Dumbledore’s final speech about Cedric’s death in the film, he just, in the film, he discusses that the bonds of friendship are what should be remembered in order to quote celebrate a boy who was brave and honest and true right to the very end.
In the book, the quote, that quote ends the speech this way. Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good and kind and brave because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Is that
[00:57:07] Josiah: a quote from the, that’s what he says?
That’s the book. That’s what he says in the book. That’s the book quote. Oh, wow. Isn’t that better?
[00:57:14] Tim: It is better. It’s more nuanced. I like, I like the book quote, uh, for lots of reasons, but I could also say the book quote basically says if you want to do what’s right, remember, you might die for it. That’s what I’m hearing.
[00:57:31] Rebekah: Which I think is a better sentiment, but maybe too deep? I
[00:57:34] Josiah: don’t Well, from what I’m reading right here, it sounds like Dumbledore’s saying Hey kids. I’m not asking you to be brave, honestly, if Baltimore comes across you side with him, ’cause I don’t want you die. ’cause I don’t want you to die.
[00:57:46] Tim: I think the one from the film and his film is an encouragement and the one from the book seems like a warning.
Mm-Hmm. .
And I and I understand why they would change that for the Mm-Hmm for the film.
[00:57:58] Rebekah: That is wild. The thing Josiah said, I would never take it that way.
[00:58:02] Tim: Hmm.
[00:58:03] Rebekah: That is wild. I guess that’s probably why they changed it. ’cause it almost makes you. Want to do the easy thing to avoid dying, but to me, it just comes across as like, remember what happened, like, remember how evil Voldemort was because of what he did to a boy who chose to do the right thing, not the easy thing, you know what I mean?
Like, that’s what I take from it. That’s part of it. It’s
[00:58:25] Tim: probably the intention.
[00:58:27] Rebekah: But I mean, here’s the line before it. There’s not a lot of other context. It says, It is my belief and never have I so hoped that I am mistaken. We are all facing dark and difficult times. Some of you in this hall have already suffered directly at the hands of Lord Voldemort.
Many of your families have been torn asunder. A week ago, a student was taken from our midst. Then the quote that we just listed, and then the next scene is Harry is in his room. Wow. So, I don’t know. That’s very interesting. I will point out that in the film, there is a use of this sentiment from the book, the right versus easy, where earlier Dumbledore’s talking to Fudge briefly after they find Crouch’s body.
And the quote is, a true leader does what is right, no matter what others think. And Fudge says, what did you say? Like as, because he knows Dumbledore’s kind of calling him out. And I think that that’s probably a more effective version of that quote for the movie in this case. Now that I’ve heard Josiah explain how he, you know, said it could be interpreted.
Because the point is not just anybody, when you have the choice, blah, blah, blah, it’s leaders should do the right thing regardless of what’s easier or what makes you look better. So I understand where that’s a little
[00:59:32] Josiah: different. With great responsibility comes great power. Danger. That was a little backwards.
Comes great danger. Comes great danger, that’s
[00:59:40] Rebekah: true. Um, so there’s only a couple of setting changes in this book.
[00:59:43] Josiah: Yeah, one of them is that the only film in the Harry Potter franchise that includes No muggle places, no muggle towns, cities, neighborhoods is this one. Goblet of Fire only has one exception, Little Hangleton.
That’s right. In
[00:59:57] Rebekah: Little Hangleton, you only see the graveyard and the one house that was the riddle house where Voldemort was. Yeah.
[01:00:04] Josiah: Which is not a muggle house.
[01:00:05] Donna: So you don’t, so you wouldn’t know, you would have no reason to even know Muggle or Wizard either because you don’t really
[01:00:10] Rebekah: see a town. I wonder if that made the filming easier because they didn’t have to shoot on location at like normal places, maybe?
That makes,
[01:00:18] Josiah: that makes
[01:00:18] Rebekah: sense. Like in London or whatever.
[01:00:20] Josiah: Yeah, in the film, you, you could believe Little Hangleton was a wizard place, couldn’t you? Yeah, there’s no reason that you would think. It’s where the riddles were.
[01:00:27] Rebekah: Exactly.
[01:00:28] Tim: Nothing about it that says otherwise. Uh, another setting change from book to film.
The maze in the film appears to be quite massive. Uh, located in a large valley next to the castle, instead of the size of the Quidditch pitch, which it is in the book.
[01:00:47] Rebekah: Which I think is partly because in the book, like, The Quidditch pitch has stands around it, but I think in the movies, the, the, the stands are like way higher and like, they’re much more expansive.
So in the film, it wouldn’t have made sense to have them watch the maze from there. Cause you could have just looked down and seen them because of the way that the movie changed the, the Quidditch like viewing area. And so in the film for Goblet of Fire, they just make it a totally different thing. The size is different, but also there’s like a viewing area that’s more like what you would expect to see it.
Like. a soccer stadium or something, you know, something like that.
[01:01:20] Tim: I would have to say they made it massive and then made the obstacles in it.
[01:01:28] Rebekah: Nothing.
[01:01:29] Tim: Less than the book.
[01:01:30] Rebekah: Yeah. It was very
[01:01:31] Tim: weird. We made it massive. There’s got to be all sorts of things happening in there. Well, actually, there’s even less happening than there is in the book.
[01:01:39] Josiah: I do like in the book, the full circle of it, where we start at the World Cup of Quidditch and end on a quidditch pitch.
[01:01:47] Tim: I have a feeling that was an intentional thing for sure. Yeah. I like that. At the very least
[01:01:51] Josiah: I can see JK Rowling thinking, oh no, we’re not gonna get any quidditch. Mm-Hmm at Hogwarts this year we better use the quidditch field for something
[01:02:00] Donna: Yeah. So a little bit of trivia for setting changes. This, to me, should win the award for the best use of space. Sound stages H and I were used for these scenes. Interior of the Riddle House, interior of the tent during the dragon trial wizard task, the trial room seen in the pensive, the entrance of the hedge maze, and the little Hangleton graveyard.
So they got a lot of use out of those two spaces. And now that I go back and watch, I want to try to figure that out. I know I won’t because Even
[01:02:35] Josiah: exterior scenes.
[01:02:37] Rebekah: Yeah. Yeah. That is, that’s just craziness. Wow. I think doing that for interior and exterior is very impressive. Like, obviously, I don’t know how big the stages are, but that’s pretty cool.
Yeah. So let’s talk about how characters were different. There were, this was one of the first, I guess book three was like this, but movie four was one where they cut a ton of people, kind of some of which we’ve covered. And there was just a lot different about characters.
[01:03:01] Josiah: And it was by far the longest book up to this point.
So I think that makes sense.
[01:03:05] Tim: Well, they cut Percy, they cut Charlie, they cut Bill. Uh, they’re not at the Quidditch World Cup in the film. It was really neat in the book where they were all together and it was, yeah. Huge thing. And, Mm-Hmm, . Yeah. They cut all cut off. Mm-Hmm. cut them out of the book or out of the film entirely.
[01:03:21] Rebekah: And Percy’s whole bumbling thing with, uh, like. With Crouch and Fudge, it’s just so funny to me the whole time. Was Percy in the Triwizard Tasks as a judge? You
[01:03:33] Donna: see him a couple of times in the film, briefly. He appears with no
[01:03:36] Rebekah: lines, right. But I don’t even think he’s I don’t think he has lines, but I think he is there.
Okay, I just wanted to check.
[01:03:41] Tim: Another, another missed opportunity to deepen or broaden some of the characters. Agreed. Huge cut from
[01:03:47] Josiah: the film, Ludo Bagman, starting at the World Cup, throughout the Triwizard Tournament. Ludo Bagman is, is a constant presence in the book. He has several subplots. He’s a red herring for who the trio is.
Thinks might be manipulating things at the tournament. His trial was also eliminated from the pensive memories. He’s mentioned twice in Order of the Phoenix, unimportantly. And I think J. K. wasted a huge chunk of her series on Ludo. It was essentially only a red herring for one book. And I have a little trivia game for you guys.
I looked up how many times characters were mentioned, and I have a few popular characters here who were mentioned less in the entire series, not just in Book 4, in the entire series, less than Ludo Bagman.
[01:04:37] Rebekah: So excited about this. Oh, wow. Wait, do you want us to guess? Yeah,
[01:04:40] Josiah: can you, would you like to guess like someone who is mentioned about the same amount as Ludo Bagman, you know, someone who’s about as just important throughout the entire series as Ludo Bagman, who is, as a reminder, in only one book.
Cho
[01:04:56] Rebekah: Chang.
[01:04:57] Josiah: Cho Chang, okay. You think Cho Chang is about as important as Ludo Bagman in the series?
[01:05:03] Rebekah: Yeah, because she’s A figure that comes up and again and is important, but she’s not actually relevant to the end plot. Like if she was never in the film or books. She’s in like
[01:05:13] Josiah: three books, right?
[01:05:14] Rebekah: She was in, she was mentioned starting in book three and then she comes up some in four, obviously, and then in five the most.
And then she comes up again in seven.
[01:05:24] Josiah: Charlie Weasley. Charlie Weasley, okay. Who do you think, Mother, is about as important as Ludo Bagman?
[01:05:34] Donna: Uh, Scrimgeour?
[01:05:36] Josiah: Rufus Scrimgeour. Alright, well let me tell ya, Charlie Weasley is mentioned less than half as much as Ludo. Rufus is well below Ludo, and Cho is also below Ludo.
Ludo is mentioned more than Tonks, than Crabbe and Goyle, Rita Skeeter, Dean Thomas who is in every book, James Potter, And Bellatrix Lestrange. Wow. That is surprising. Is Ludo Bagman really more important than all of those characters? I was, as a red herring only, I suppose. At first
[01:06:13] Donna: I was thinking Mundungus, but Mundungus is way more important to the plot of things and his bumbling stupidity.
[01:06:22] Josiah: And he’s way less than Ludo.
[01:06:23] Donna: Yeah, I mean, but he, he is significant in what happens.
[01:06:28] Josiah: Now, you said Rufus the Scrimgeour though, didn’t you? Rufus and Mundungus are actually right next to each other. Oh, wow. And I think it’s funny that Ludo Bagman is mentioned almost exactly the same amount as Lucius Malfoy.
Lucius is just above him. Oh, my.
[01:06:41] Rebekah: Okay, here’s why that’s hard for me. The reason that I like these books is because I like the red herring thing. I like all of these little things that aren’t relevant to the end plot, but they’re just like interesting things about people in this world. Like, there was no reason that Aunt Marge mattered, but she’s fascinating and she’s hilarious and important.
Like, I don’t know, I just, I think that there’s a lot of characters like that that aren’t in the endgame that I find really interesting. Because it feels more real, like it, for me, it’s easier just to suspend my disbelief. I know maybe, perhaps it’s not as ideal when we’re talking about the, like, way that you would want to write a novel, but like, to me, it feels more real that you would know about someone who then, you know what, they run off and they never come up again.
Igor Karkaroff runs off and he never comes up again, like, but he was the headmaster of Durmstrang and he was in this book and he,
[01:07:36] Josiah: you know. He does come back. He’s dead. When they’re, I’m thinking of Victor.
[01:07:41] Rebekah: Yeah. Karkaroff comes, the only thing that you hear about Karkaroff is that he was, his body was found.
[01:07:46] Tim: When? In book seven? I think it’s
[01:07:47] Rebekah: book six that you find that out, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.
[01:07:50] Tim: But know, he left before this book was over, right? Yeah. And Victor Crum is the one who leads the group back to their school.
[01:07:58] Rebekah: Yeah,
[01:07:59] Josiah: they don’t. Karkaroff is slightly more, is more interesting to me because he is One of the only examples we have, maybe besides Snape, kind of, of a Death Eater who turned, and it’s like, yeah, and he permanently turned, he didn’t go back to Voldemort, which I think is an interesting character development, whereas, like, Ludo Bagman was never a Death Eater, right?
[01:08:22] Rebekah: Correct, he would, he accidentally passed in formation. because he was stupid.
[01:08:26] Josiah: Yeah. And so like, what’s, what’s his character? What are we trying to get? What does it tell us about the war between good and evil? Igor Karkaroff is a part of that tapestry. That’s true.
[01:08:38] Tim: There are
[01:08:39] Josiah: people who used to be bad and are never turned back to being bad.
Bagman
[01:08:44] Tim: was just an athlete that rose to a position of a bit of influence,
[01:08:52] Rebekah: but he just kind of
[01:08:54] Tim: They passed information
[01:08:55] Rebekah: to a friend thinking he was passing, whatever, it doesn’t matter, but he wasn’t doing anything
[01:08:59] Tim: about the things that he knew.
[01:09:01] Rebekah: So Karkaroff comes up again in Half Blood Prince when, um, uh, Mr.
Weasley is in the hospital and they mentioned that they found his body in a shack up north with a dark mark over it. Um, and that is the time when Sirius’s brother Regulus is then mentioned again, and when he died, that he only managed a few days. And that comes up obviously in Half Blood Prince, we’ve, er, technically no, it comes up in book seven, in, uh, book eight.
Deathly Hallows. Also, with all
[01:09:30] Josiah: those different books being mentioned, Igor Karkaroff is mentioned much less than Ludo Bagman. That’s very true. He takes up less page time.
[01:09:37] Rebekah: That’s very true. And then in the Deathly Hallows, his name is mentioned in the scene of Snape’s memories where you see Snape and Dumbledore talking.
And Snape tells him that Karkaroff’s mark is becoming darker. And then he says he’s going to flee if the mark burns. And then Dumbledore says, uh, that Snape is braver than Igor Karkaroff. Sometimes I think we sort too soon. Obviously indicating that Snape could have potentially been in Gryffindor, which would have changed his life.
But I don’t know. I like Bagman. I, maybe it was like overkill, but I really enjoy his character. So I love, like, I hate that he got, like, Removed entirely.
[01:10:15] Josiah: Yeah, okay, so he got removed, and it’s still a two and a half hour movie that barely features Barty Crouch Sr. That cuts out Dobby, that cuts out so much.
Is Ludo Bagman at the top of your list of things that you would re include?
[01:10:32] Rebekah: No.
[01:10:32] Josiah: That were cut.
[01:10:33] Rebekah: No, I wouldn’t say that.
So a couple of them are just kind of interesting, but not huge deals. Uh, there’s another person mentioned, Bertha Jorkin. She’s only mentioned in this film, or in this book, excuse me, uh, The Witch Who Disappeared From Bagman’s Office, had a minor role in the book, but she was technically a big part of how Voldemort returned, and how he discovered Barty Crouch Sr.
‘s secret, and how he was hiding Junior, and all of this stuff. Um, totally makes sense that she was cut, uh, she’s never mentioned again, and so I think that she worked as a book character for the story, but when you have to remove exposition and stuff like we discussed, you can’t keep her.
[01:11:13] Josiah: I would have liked her to be mentioned in the books later as like a Is anyone looking for her?
Cause they, they mentioned that she’s missing at the beginning of the book. Yep. They mentioned anything about her after the fact, at the end of this book.
[01:11:24] Rebekah: At the end of this book, you find out how she dies and stuff. That’s part of the exposition. Anyone besides
[01:11:28] Josiah: Harry? Does like Dumbledore learn? Yeah,
[01:11:30] Rebekah: they’re, they’re in there when Barty Crouch Jr.
is explaining how all of this stuff happened. I look, I
[01:11:35] Josiah: look dumb.
[01:11:36] Rebekah: Another small change that I found interesting was that Mr. Diggory was excited to meet Harry at the beginning of the film, which is very different, uh, in the way that he was, um, talking to Harry every time they encountered each other in the book.
Cedric Diggory’s dad, Amos, was always very, like, proud of Cedric, but almost rude to Harry, um, in, in the book throughout. Now, the reason that I thought that this deserved to be mentioned is because in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, does anyone know the plot of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child? Just what you’ve told us.
Okay, well, spoiler alert for Cursed Child. The main point of the plot is that Amos Diggory and his niece, Use a time turner to go back and try and save Cedric’s life by, like, stopping him from winning the tournament. That’s the whole, like, that’s, like, what is happening during a lot of this. And so I think it’s interesting that Rowling, who obviously was a big part of what was approved to go in and not in the movies, at the time didn’t have a problem with Amos being very sweet towards Harry.
There was no setup for Cursed Child. And so cursed child must have been a story that came to her later and unrelated to this book because otherwise in the movie, I think that she would have made efforts to make sure that those interactions were like closer to what they were in the book. So.
[01:12:56] Josiah: I hate Cursed Child.
[01:12:57] Rebekah: Well, it’s very, I
[01:12:59] Josiah: have heard, uh, visually it’s what some theater aficionados that I know have said is the best thing they’ve ever seen on Broadway.
[01:13:08] Rebekah: Like I would like to see it for the visual. Yeah, I would
[01:13:10] Josiah: like to see it for all the magic. But it is,
[01:13:12] Rebekah: the story is so weak in my opinion.
[01:13:16] Donna: Well, On to something that’s, you know, not abysmal, but a little sad.
We do not meet Winky, the house elf, who used to serve Barty Crouch and his family. She shows up in the book, she’s there at the Quidditch World Cup. They’ve got her, they see her up in the box first, where the Weasleys were, and Harry and Hermione, and she’s terrified, and you, you, You grow, um, fond of her immediately because she’s very scared and pitiful.
But then in the woods, after we see the dark mark go in the sky, uh, Harry and Hermione and Ron are come into a clearing. Harry realizes his wand’s gone. Um, and. They, they hear noises, the dart mark comes up in the sky, and the guys, all the men come, and Mr. Weasley, and Cedric, and Crouch, and Bagman are all four of them?
Maybe Bagman’s
[01:14:16] Rebekah: Cedric was there. He missed, but
[01:14:18] Donna: not Cedric. Um, They come into the woods, you see Winky again, they, you know, accuse her of doing this spell to bring the dark mark and there’s like, they’re like Amos, you know, and Barney, what are you saying? Blah, blah, blah. And it’s, it’s a, it’s kind of a cool scene in the book, honestly, because you realize how quickly people will accuse with no logic behind their accusation.
It’s Harry, it’s Ron. Oh yeah, it’s Harry Potter. He summoned the dark mark. We’re sure that’s what he would do. It’s Later in the book, Winky appears with Dobby, the house elf, when they both get jobs at Hogwarts, which is a funny, then that’s a kind of a funny lighter scene.
[01:14:59] Rebekah: Well, then you find out Winky’s become an alcoholic on butterbeer, which makes a house elf drunk.
[01:15:04] Donna: Uh, Dobby is, uh, um, That’s Dobby’s first, you know, that’s one of his entrances in and then he helps Harry a few times. Winky’s also at the end of the book when Barty Crotch Jr’s exposed and she’s there with him crying and Master Barty, you’ve been a bad boy. And it’s so, it’s so gut wrenching to me going through that and hearing her so distressed.
Um, but she and Dobby are both Cut from the film.
[01:15:35] Rebekah: I will say, I, just to reiterate, I am sad that the house elves got so cut, including Spew, obviously by Hermione, but like, also all of it, I do, like, I think that it diminished a lot later on that didn’t have to be diminished, but I’m not a movie maker, so.
[01:15:53] Josiah: Rita Skeeter, talking about characters, is introduced in this movie as the reporter interviewing the champions about the Triwizard Tournament, whereas the book introduced her early on as a reporter who Percy claims has it out for the ministry. Gives a little, uh, characterization for Rita, but also Percy.
Here’s some trivia. In some theaters in Iceland, usually younger, attendees would crack up when Rita Skeeter introduced herself because it seems that her last name is very similar to the Icelandic word for a lady. It’s a crude word for a bowel movement, I’ll say.
[01:16:29] Tim: Mm hmm.
[01:16:31] Josiah: And, Mother, I, I thought that that was yet another nod to butt crack Santa.
[01:16:35] Donna: Oh, dear. He keeps coming back. He strikes again. I’m telling you. Harry Potter only listener. He struck again. That’s from
[01:16:41] Josiah: Twilight. District family. Brbrbrbrbrbr.
[01:16:43] Donna: Discord. Discord family. Back me up. Yeah, you gotta get on Discord. This needs to be a piece of our
[01:16:49] Tim: merch. Could you see
[01:16:51] Donna: how cute at Christmastime people would be walking around with a hat?
Or a cool scarf. That had butt crack Santa’s name on it.
[01:16:59] Tim: Oh dear.
[01:17:01] Donna: I’ll
[01:17:01] Rebekah: never
[01:17:01] Donna: win.
[01:17:02] Rebekah: Why are
[01:17:02] Tim: slicky slides?
[01:17:04] Rebekah: Yeah. Why are slippy slide? Well, no, sorry. The joke is why is your butt crack up and down and not side to side? Because if it was side to side on a slippy side, you’d go.
[01:17:14] Tim: That
[01:17:17] Rebekah: is one of our favorite jokes.
If that tells you anything about our family from long ago, uh, much differently, uh, Barty Crouch, Jr. The main antagonist in this film has a few significant differences that I think. Probably worked for the film. First of all, he’s a blonde in the book, a brunette in the film, and he gets like a weird tongue flicking tick.
And that’s basically used to like hint at him masquerading as moody, like nearer to like after. Right before Crouch dies, it kind of comes up, and so they give him this little tick that is never mentioned.
[01:17:53] Tim: Right, also in the, in the movie, we see him as an adult. Um, he’s reasonably around the same age in the current setting of the film.
He’s not a teenager as he, as he is in the book. Yeah, as the memory of him is in the book.
[01:18:10] Donna: Um, then Dumbledore comments after the big reveal that they should call Azkaban who will find out they’re missing a prisoner. But in the book, he was presumed dead over a decade earlier. And this is huge. We talked about this.
This came up just kind of out of the blue in my head. And I thought, What in the world he does call Azkaban, they’re missing it, and I guess it’s in there for drama, dramatic effect. But again, for the book reader, tears out your head, you know, tears up your head a little bit. It’s not an
[01:18:44] Rebekah: Easter egg where you get more backstory because you read the book and so you don’t need the exposition at the graveyard because you actually know the backstory.
It like, changes the story. It’s a Halloween
[01:18:54] Josiah: egg. Yeah. To book readers who know extra stuff, they’re like, oh, that’s a sloppy way to say that. That’s not exactly what Dumbledore would say. Yeah,
[01:19:03] Donna: huge, huge hole
[01:19:04] Josiah: there. During all the other films, did you notice that Polyjuice Potion did not change the character’s voice?
Presumably because the audience might be confused who was who, but. Artie Crouch Jr. does an incredible imitation of Mad Eye Moody. Continuity error! Wing a wing a wow wow! Do the books change their voices in the books? They just have the, the We don’t
[01:19:29] Rebekah: know. We know that Jim Dale reading them uses the voice of the person that they look like when they are changed.
Because Nothing is reasonable.
[01:19:37] Tim: Nothing in the, in the narrative of the book.
[01:19:40] Rebekah: Well, I would assume that something in the narrative has to say something about it, probably in the second book. because of the way he did that.
[01:19:47] Donna: When they change into Crabbe and Goyle, in the earlier book, to go into the Slytherin common room, they say, Harry says, uh, Crabbe or Goyle, which one sounds a little dumber than, you don’t sound dumb enough, or something like that.
And LeBron goes, well, what about this? Okay, that’s better. But in the Ministry of Magic, They,
[01:20:13] Tim: they don’t have to change their voices. Ron doesn’t
[01:20:15] Donna: recognize Harry when they go into the ministry later in book seven. So it’s a problem in the books as a continuity here. He forgot who he was, who he was portraying.
I don’t think
[01:20:26] Josiah: that’s too bad. I mean, it sounds dumber. You can have a voice, but. Have a different reflection or something.
[01:20:32] Donna: Yeah, and it could be kind of like superhero, where because Superman puts glasses on, you all of a sudden don’t see that he is
[01:20:40] Rebekah: clearly Superman. Um, the Lestranges are mentioned as a couple in this book and in Order of the Phoenix.
However, what happened to Bellatrix’s husband never gets explained, which really annoys me in the books, and only she is ever introduced as an active character. So like they introduce her in Order of the Phoenix, obviously she’s throughout the rest of it, but we don’t know why her husband
[01:21:03] Josiah: I think her husband’s brother is also mentioned in this book or the next one, and he never comes up again.
[01:21:09] Rebekah: Yeah. Wow. So that was a weird That was just a weird thing in the books that felt like there wasn’t a payoff. Why not just mention Bellatrix? Why did Why was she in a couple because then she like acts like she’s in love with Voldemort kind of she does then it even feels weirder because you’re like isn’t she married but like she’s evil so who can I don’t know it’s a kind of a strange choice in my opinion
[01:21:29] Tim: this next one is a strange choice as well crab and Goyle the adults the Death Eaters are described as the largest hooded figures in the graveyard you But the actors, the ones that were named, were of average size.
I mean, that, that was like one of those things, why, why not just get a larger actor? They didn’t have any lines. They don’t speak. They just needed to look huge and imposing.
[01:21:55] Donna: And Crabbe and Goyle, they’re big. That’s all they have going for them. They’re big. So, yeah, I agree. Their dad should be. Well, let’s fly into some basic info about the movie and book, and I will literally just read through these, uh, to give you a little scope of the money involved mostly.
Uh, the book released worldwide on July 8th, 2000, on the same date for the first time in the book series. It released everywhere on the same day. The movie release was done, uh, the premiere was at the Odeon Leicester Square in the UK on November 6th, 2005. And then November 18th, interesting, almost like two weeks later, the rest of the UK and the US got to see it for the first time in theaters.
It has a 4. 6 out of 5 rating on Goodreads. The movie ratings in Rotten Tomatoes has a critic score of 88. And a Flixster audience score of 74, both nice and fresh.
[01:22:56] Rebekah: That 74 though is lower than it should be, and I think that it is low because readers of the book were probably disappointed with what was left out.
74 is not bad, but a lot of times When you see a critic score that has a decent disparity with the Flickster score, there’s something else going on. Critics people that think more like Josiah would be able to recognize, Oh, this was great. Like, this was a great movie standalone. We liked it this way, whatever.
Whereas book readers probably went to see it and went, wait,
[01:23:26] Donna: yeah, several times. And the others have been closer in, in critics and, and. Uh, theater goers. The IMDB rating is 10. Production cost of the film was 150 million. The opening weekend, uh, brought in tickets 102, 685, 961. This is the first movie to hit 100 plus million on an opening weekend.
Domestic and international comes to 897, 468, 952, dear Lord, which is
[01:24:08] Rebekah: almost a hundred million more dollars than the third film. I mean, it ramped up, things ramped up, so I get that. It feels like less of a. A child’s film. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And so I wonder if it felt like it had a wider audience for that reason.
It was also PG 13 versus PG, which the other said this was the first PG 13 one, right?
[01:24:30] Donna: Uh, yes. And then it was filmed in England and Scotland. So they moved out a little bit from what the others had been. Um, some other interesting trivia points that that we found, um, My favorite chapter name, and this is just my trivia, my favorite chapter name in this book, and I mean possibly in the series, I loved the House Elf Liberation Front.
Every time I read, every time I hear Jim Dale read it, I laugh because I keep thinking it’s health, it’s health. So that was just, you know,
[01:25:05] Josiah: literally Rodolphus. Lestrange does not appear. He is mentioned once. Indicating that he is at the battle of the Department of Mysteries.
[01:25:18] Rebekah: Are you kidding me?
[01:25:20] Josiah: Yeah. What is the
[01:25:20] Rebekah: quote?
[01:25:23] Josiah: Listen, Neville whispered. Footsteps and shouts echoed from the door they had just sealed. From behind the door they had just sealed. Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Lucius is still roaring. Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left.
Crab, Urbaston, go right. Urbaston being Rodolphus brother. How do
[01:25:43] Rebekah: you spell Rodolphus?
[01:25:44] Josiah: Are you Rudolf R O D O L P H U S And he’s also mentioned in the Deathly Hallows as having been injured.
[01:25:56] Rebekah: Oh my gosh! Yes! Tonks is talking about how they injured Rodolphus. So Rodolphus is just there and Bellatrix skank?
[01:26:06] Josiah: Well, we don’t put that in the podcast, but yeah, she’s a skank,
[01:26:10] Donna: but in the books, when it talks about how they torture the, the, uh, the long bottoms, they’re both, it’s like a joint venture. Like I imagined them both just going after them. So that’s really crazy, but maybe they wanted the vibe of her lusting after Voldemort, who knows?
[01:26:29] Josiah: The book was nearly twice the size of the first three books in the series. Goblet of Fire is so long. I think it’s the second longest, or is Deathly Hallows edged out? It is the
[01:26:39] Rebekah: second longest. I think it’s Order of the Phoenix, Goblet, then Deathly Hallows, then um
[01:26:44] Josiah: Well, Rowling explains she knew from the beginning.
It would be the biggest of the first four. She said there needed to be a proper run up for the conclusion, and rushing the complex plot would confuse readers. She also stated that everything is on a bigger scale, which was symbolic, as Harry’s horizons widened, both literally and metaphorically, as he grew up.
She also wanted to explore more of the magical world. Yeah, that last part is what she could have cut.
[01:27:11] Tim: There
are some credit oddities at the very end of the credits, there’s a line, no dragons were harmed in the making of this movie because the
[01:27:23] Rebekah: dragon died, which was done, continue.
[01:27:27] Tim: There is a burn in the parchment beside Brendan Gleason’s name, referencing mad eyes, glass eye.
[01:27:36] Donna: Oh, well, the poor guy had to lay in a cabinet for the whole film. So, I mean,
[01:27:42] Rebekah: um, another thing affected by the dumb choice to only use British people. There are two non Britons in this film. Victor Crum’s actor Stanislav Yanevsky was Bulgarian to, you know, to be true to who he was. And Clemence Posey, who was a French, uh, played Fleur Delacour.
[01:28:03] Donna: Alan Rickman, who apparently was more sacrificially considerate than Daniel Radcliffe’s parents because he actually wore black contacts through the whole film series for the role of Snape. Ella. It’s almost like I did not
[01:28:18] Tim: realize that. It’s almost like you
[01:28:19] Donna: can figure it out if you want to. We don’t know if Daniel Radcliffe’s parents will ever listen to this.
We don’t want to cast shade on them and they seem to raise a halfway decent boy, but you could have told him to suck it up and figure out the contacts.
[01:28:36] Josiah: Well, much like this. This movie features the least number of Muggle locations, it also features the fewest Muggles of the entire series. Director Mike Newell was the voice of the radio announcer, and Eric Sykes, who played Frank Bryce Was not credited because he didn’t have any lines in the film.
Wow. I was so sad.
[01:28:58] Donna: I mean, the dude gets a very untimely sad end to his life in this short little thing, and they don’t even give him a line. Or gasp at the snake or something. I don’t know. He did have a cool line in there to say. You know, my wife knows you’re here and I’m going to blah, blah, blah, and you don’t have a wife.
But it also talked about him being like in the military and he was going to be brave. He was not going to back down. And the set of the lake is one of the largest underwater features ever constructed with a capacity of 132, 000 gallons of water. The largest was made for the movie The Abyss in 1989 with a capacity of a staggering 7 million gallons.
[01:29:45] Tim: Massive.
[01:29:46] Donna: That is insane.
[01:29:48] Rebekah: Well, uh, I think it is time for us to deliver our final verdicts and tell you what we thought. So, as we’ve kind of been doing with the other movies, as you give your final verdict, let us know what your favorite book scene was from Goblet. And then tell us if you like how it was portrayed, uh, in the film.
So, I don’t mind going first again. There is a book quote where Harry is telling Dumbledore about everything that happened in the, in the graveyard. And he tells him about, uh, he could touch me without hurting my face. And this is after he’s told Dumbledore about him being cut and using the blood to bring Dumbledore, to bring his body back.
The line that I love is, for a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes, but next second Harry was sure he had imagined it, for when Dumbledore had returned to his seat behind the desk, he looked as old and weary as Harry had ever seen him. I love that.
I don’t know why, it just hit me, because I remember reading that, and as I was reading, I was looking for it to come back later on, and I waited, and it’s not until the very end. Of book seven that this actually pays off and I love it. Um, I was very bummed because unfortunately they literally cut the entire thing where Harry shares what happened in the graveyard and all that is cut from the film entirely.
So they didn’t portray it in the film. My final verdict is that I love this book. The movie. Was good for what it was, but disappointing as someone who loves all of the details in the book. So I didn’t, again, I didn’t hate the movie. I’ve watched it. It’s interesting to watch, but I have to, it’s like, you know how you suspend your disbelief when you watch movies to believe that it’s really happening?
I feel like I have to suspend the fact that I know what I consider the canon of this story. So that’s a little tough. Also, this is not a big one, but there is one thing in the book Reading by Jim Dale that I always love, which is where they’re at, uh, the meal where they have French and Bulgarian food because they’re inviting these new Triwizard participants, um, like the new students have just showed up.
And there’s a bouillabaisse, and somebody says something about bouillabaisse, and Ron hears it and doesn’t understand that he’s saying that they’re referring to a dish, like he doesn’t know what bouillabaisse is. And so Hermione says, bouillabaisse. And Ron then goes. Bless you. And I just think that is so funny.
I don’t know why, but I think it’s so cute.
[01:32:23] Tim: I can go next. Um, favorite book scene. Uh, apparently it’s the one that I thought was in the movie somewhere. Um, it’s the one of Winky and Dobby down in the kitchens and Harry and Hermione, and I believe Ron as well, are speaking. to them, and we’ve discovered that now that she is a free elf that she doesn’t want to be, um, she has become, uh, an alcoholic on butterbeer, and she hiccups and falls over.
I thought that was cute. And apparently it was only in the book. For me, a final verdict, well, I think I like the book better, although, um, there are pieces of the book that I really like, but a fairly significant part of the book that, you know, I’m okay with, but I think the film cut too many things that make it deeper and help with characterization.
So, I would prefer the book.
[01:33:25] Donna: So, for my favorite scene in the movie, if you know me or if you’re getting to know me, you might have figured out by now I’m super emotional. And I know we make jokes about it, but it’s so true. I cry very easily When I’m not even going to go into examples. I just cry a lot. So for me the best scene Has been always in this book when Harry is in the graveyard and he and Voldemort strike wands, the wands connect, and this prairie incantatum happens, and all these people, the last people that Voldemort has killed with his wand, come out in this representation, this representation, I guess, ghost of a ghost, And they all come out and even Bertha Jorkins and Frank Bryce and they’re like, you go boy, and Frank Bryce doesn’t even know who he is, except in the beginning of the book.
that he remembered that this is this Harry Potter boy. So it’s so touching to me. And then, you know, Cedric comes out and he’s like, please take my body back to my family. And then James comes and then Lily comes and says, you’ve been so brave son, just a little bit longer. And they encourage him. And it’s this amazing emotional.
burst there. She writes it so well. They did have the scene in the movie, but it’s greatly shortened. Every one of them doesn’t talk. Cedric obviously says, take my body back to my father because his mother’s not in the book. Lily and James do about very similar to what they do in the book. It’s touching to me.
I thought it was portrayed as well as it could be in the film not being word for word. It was emotional and and you did get that sense. As far as which one I liked better, most of the time the movie giving me a visual picture of people helps me when I listen to the book. So in that way, I liked the movie.
Some of the cuts and changes and additions were frustrating for me, but I do like it and I’ll watch it again. But I’m going to go back to the book because I think the development in the book and similar to what we said before, um, in, in trivia, how she just expanded this, she knew it would be longer. It pays off for me.
So I’m gonna say the book was better. All right. Last but not least.
[01:36:01] Josiah: I’m Josiah. I really enjoyed the graveyard scene. That was pretty good in the movie. It’s probably my favorite book scene from Goblet. I think Goblet might be the weakest book. Oh.
[01:36:16] Tim: I think
[01:36:17] Josiah: so. Oh. Oh, indeed. I think it’s bloated, whereas even Order of the Phoenix, which is longer, I don’t know if it’s, it would be bloated, it’s, it’s a lot of important stuff.
Goblet of Fire was her first really long book, it just got so big and out of control, there’s so many things that only have to do with book four. Whereas, like, book five introduces a lot of new threads that continue to the end.
[01:36:48] Donna: Yeah.
[01:36:48] Josiah: I think the movie did a lot of cuts, a lot of which were probably necessary, a lot of which were improvements.
I think that it was a lot of fun watching this movie for the first time. It’s a Triwizard tournament. It’s a lot of Just pure fun in competition, seeing all these magical things happen. I think this movie is an improvement on the book in a lot of ways. The book is going to have more details. You know, if you are a book person who loves those details, then just read the book.
That’s great. I think that. The movie doesn’t have a lot of the problems the book does. And so I’m gonna say the movie was better, but um, I enjoyed both of them. And you know, to be the weakest Harry Potter book is not that big a problem. You know, Harry Potter books are pretty good. Yeah,
[01:37:42] Rebekah: the baseline is pretty high.
Pretty
[01:37:44] Josiah: high.
[01:37:44] Rebekah: Well, that is what we think, folks. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star rating or review, especially on, um, the Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Audible apps. Uh, those are super great because they help us connect with new readers. You can find us on X, Instagram, and Facebook, at bookisbetterpod to send us feedback, ask questions for us to answer on future episodes, or just, you know, to have fun with the host.
So you can join our free discord server. Uh, there’s a link in the episode description and as with previous Harry Potter episodes, I will also leave a link in the description to a comprehensive list of changes from book to film because we covered half of what I originally had written down today. So, uh, there are quite a lot and, uh, until next time.
Don’t be confronted, Joe, patron, ex, ex, expecto, potter, Dom. I don’t know. Expecto, Potter, expecto. Potter of summer. Of some summer of Potter. Woo.
[01:38:44] Tim: Or you could just warn people don’t touch goblets that you don’t know where they’re going to take you. That’s right. Such a great point. Is it real? Are we asleep? Is it true?
Is it ai? Who knows?