Project Geekology

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

• Anthony, Dakota, Rich • Episode 142

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The fourth trip to Hogwarts should feel bigger, bolder, and a little bit dangerous... and that’s exactly where our conversation goes. We crack open Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to ask why the book’s expansive scope soars while the movie’s world-building sometimes skims. Think missing Quidditch World Cup spectacle, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it introduction to Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and a Yule Ball that reveals more about teenage insecurity than the film gives it time to process. When the story grows up, not every scene survives the squeeze.

We dig into character choices that define the adaptation. Brendan Gleeson’s Mad‑Eye Moody is a masterclass in look and presence, but the Barty Crouch Jr. twist sharpens every “helpful” gesture into manipulation on rewatch. Dumbledore’s famously calm question turns confrontational on screen, shifting the headmaster’s essence in ways later films quietly undo. Ron’s jealousy lands as one note, while Neville finally gets time to shine, especially when the Cruciatus demonstration brushes against the truth of his parents. The Pensieve earns its place as a narrative hinge, even if the movie drops key threads like Rita Skeeter’s Animagus reveal.

And then there’s the graveyard. Ralph Fiennes’s Voldemort is operatic and chilling, a rebirth that reframes everything that came before. “Kill the spare” isn’t just a shock; it’s the moment the series announces that choices have a cost. We weigh the thrills of the expanded dragon chase against lost texture, debate the fairness of the lake task, and consider how a longer-form remake could restore the connective tissue that made the book sing.

If you love sharp, story-first film talk equal parts heart and critique, then hit play. Then tell us: did Goblet of Fire nail the coming‑of‑age turn, or does the magic feel thinner on screen? Subscribe, share with a friend who still argues about houses, and leave a five-star review to keep the conversation going.


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Geekritique (Dakota):
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ALLISON MACK: From Smallville to Cult Scandal & Taking Accountability for It Today
https://youtu.be/ajZ1V-VnLNI?si=5EEQhE_TITZ_nJ4-

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SPEAKER_02:

Howdy y'all. Welcome back to Project Gecology. This is uh one-third of your hosts. My name's Dakota, and I'm joined as always with Anthony.

SPEAKER_03:

And joining us as always is good old Crazy Rich.

SPEAKER_02:

And we're not covering Red Dead Redemption today. We're actually covering something that, for whatever reason, whenever we cover this topic, it's very hard to set a podcasting time. So let's hope everything goes well in the recording. Because last time we did a Harry Potter episode, we had to record a couple times, and we kept having to push it off, and we called it the curse of prisoner of Azkaban. But um, hopefully this does not continue for Goblet of Fire. But we are your tri-wizard champions, Dakota, Rich, and Anthony. We're all from Ilver Morning, the American school. It was a very confusing Tri-Wizard matchup. No other schools attended. But we're gonna do our best. And yeah, Goblet of Fire. We're specifically covering the movie, not necessarily the book, but we can talk about the book or whatever, you know, like our thoughts on the books and everything. But yeah, let's jump into it. Before we do any of that though, what have you guys been up to this past week? Uh Anthony, let's start with you.

SPEAKER_03:

Nothing too really, really not much, to be honest with you. I've I did cook for a potluck yesterday. That's why we're uh meeting up later in the week to record. We usually record on a Wednesday and we're recording on a Friday. But yeah, I made some pumpkin pie cheesecake bars, and then they came out like actually really good.

SPEAKER_02:

Wait, what'd you what'd you make?

SPEAKER_03:

Pumpkin pie cheesecake bars. Like you cut them into like squares, yeah. What happened?

SPEAKER_02:

Were they dry? Were they juicy?

SPEAKER_03:

Man, you know, they were crunchy.

SPEAKER_05:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So, you know, I had there's a little bit of uh, you know, crunch there. Not really, but you know, just a little bit.

SPEAKER_02:

That's excellent. Well, just like Anthony's dessert treats were crunchy and partly juicy, I request of you listener, humbly, for a five-star juicy slash crunchy review. Please, you know, wherever you're listening to your podcast app, whether it's a new podcast app, whether you've reviewed us on another podcast app, let's say you listen to us regularly on Apple, you decide to listen to us on Google or Audible or Spotify. You can review us there. Give us another five-star juicy review. Or a crunchy one. The choice is yours, and the entire English language is at your disposal here. So have fun. And yeah, Anthony, that sounds like a really awesome potlock.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty good, man. But yeah, no, that and watching obviously watching Harry Potter. I should've jumped on Hogwarts Legacy, you know, to like really get into the mood, but I didn't. But I may after this, I mean we st we do still have another three films after this, so you know, what which yeah, it's crazy that it's like take how many years for us to actually like get to the fourth film. Four films. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Four films. Because they split seven times. Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_03:

That's true. I mean, if we decide to like break it up into two separate podcasts, yeah, I guess I guess you're right, yeah. But I mean it is it is four films though. But yeah, uh, how about you, Rich? What have you been up to besides Red Dead Redemption?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, let's see, I I was, you know, I was in oblivion for a little bit. Fallout released the uh Fallout 4 anniversary edition, which I didn't pick up. I just have the Fallout 4 PS5 edition, and basically the anniversary edition is the same thing, but it comes with creation club items that you can add now to the game, and it also comes with all the DLC, but it's like they wanted to pay like$70, so I actually just booted it up, and with my new TV, it's honestly it's so nice, like it's such such a different different experience. Like I really, really enjoyed it. And then uh I actually just gotta I don't know, I had been playing the Switch a little bit, but uh my son ended up taking over, and my wife and son are now playing Animal Crossing like every single day on the Switch. So despite the fact that he has a Switch 2, he's now commandeered the Switch 1 again. It's unfair. So I decided to pick up Astrobot.

SPEAKER_03:

And I'm yeah, how did how did how does that work? Wait, why did he grab the first switch again?

SPEAKER_04:

So what happened was I bought my wife Animal Crossing because I thought that she would really, really enjoy the game. So she was hesitant to kind of like at first she was kind of making fun of it and like she was trying to do it late at night and doing the setup, and everyone knows the setup is like the worst in like these types of games, you know, you have to kind of go through like the character creation thing. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, I'm sorry to the audio listeners, but Dakota's now turned into an Animal Crossing type avatar on the screen, and I got it's just adorable and distracting at the same time. But anyway, they sorry about that. Yeah, yeah. So what happened was I got it from my wife, and my son is like, ooh, what's that? What's that? What's that? I want to see that.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a shiny, that's a shiny and Anthony's a panda. Um, this is ridiculous. You guys gotta stop. Animal Crossing was like so fun when like COVID first happened and everyone was just home for like months at a time. I that was the time to do it, you know. Like you had celebrities playing alongside uh like you know normal people. There's a great story of like someone showing like the turnip prices on their islands on Twitter, and Elijah Wood was just like, May I visit your island? And they're like and and they're like, sure. So Elijah Wood was like very kind and like saying, I like your island a lot. Anyway, that was it was fun. Um so yeah, so yeah, that's that's cool, man. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, just uh Yeah, no, for sure. And yeah, I mean you could you could you could still play it on the Switch too.

SPEAKER_02:

No, but I think they they're playing like two player.

SPEAKER_04:

What I was no, they're actually not, they're just playing one player. So what happened literally was my wife started the game and Charlie's like, ooh, what's that? So now like they kind of play in tandem.

SPEAKER_02:

So like they could they could go to each other's islands, you know. That that is a thing.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, but then they we'd but we'd need another cartridge or another game. Oh, because we only we only have one copy of the game. So literally, it was supposed to be like Charlie doesn't use the switch anymore. Right, so here you can play it on this, and then he was like, Wait, this is amazing. Let's play it together. But uh, it's great, and then I got Astrobot uh this week. I like the visual distraction that I'm getting right now, guys. It's like I'm really working hard. This is like being in the classroom. Alright, I'm sorry. Like I had last week I had a kid in the back of the room who just kept instead of you know, I'll hey guys, you understand this? You know, I'll I'll ask for a check for understanding during class, and everyone's like they not in agreement. He just started going like this, like no, no, I'd be like, All right, you guys got understand? And he'd be like, No, right? But inaudibly, he wasn't saying no out loud, so nobody else saw him do this. So it was just like he was messing with me. I cannot understand what's happening. Everybody on this podcast is visually trying to disrupt me from anything. I'm sorry. I would just say you guys should get if you get a chance. I got Astrobot. And uh I just I wanted a change of pace game. Uh, you know, I've been playing a lot of these games that are very similar, many by Bethesda, and I just wanted something different. And it's it's really a blast. It brings a smile to my face. Like it, you know, I'd been playing Mario Odyssey, and then I kind of switched over to this, and it's it's fantastic. Highly recommended.

SPEAKER_02:

Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent. You did a whole lot.

SPEAKER_03:

You did, you did. Was there anything else that you had going on? Or were you ready to move on over to what Dakota's been up to?

SPEAKER_04:

I think we can uh go to the flu the flu powder and uh just zip over to Dakota and see what he was up to.

SPEAKER_02:

Heck yeah, brothers. Um yeah, so I finished my second aliens timeline video. That was fun. If you want to go check that out, you have the ability. It is in the description of this video. Um and I think it's pretty good. I think a lot of what we discussed on the podcast for aliens as well as Alien Earth is touched on a little bit in my uh dissection. I really enjoyed the video. Yeah, I I I I enjoyed making the video. And it was very nice having a brand new computer. You know, I was working with an when I bought my last computer, it wasn't like a bad computer, but it was like last year's mid-tier model, but that was like a decade ago. So I got I had a 2015 computer that was barely scraping by with 4K footage. And now I decided to splurge, and I can do like so much with this computer at the same time. Like it's not even before I would be I would have to like have Premiere, my video editing app, open, close that, go into Photoshop, make a little thumbnail. It would take ages for things to load, for apps to open. Now I can do like I I can encode video on like three or four different apps, maybe not three or four, but like handbrake, media encoder, premiere. I can do all of that at the same time and still jump over to like Photoshop and whatever. What would take me two to three hours to export previously takes like five minutes? So it's like 20 times faster. It's it's ridiculously ridiculously fast. I actually thought it was great. Like I thought I was exporting it wrong. Um, you aren't used to that. I wasn't used to that kind of speed. And I I feel like I have barely tapped the potential of this beauty. So I'm I'm excited. The future is potentially bright.

SPEAKER_03:

Nice.

SPEAKER_02:

Um I started reading Watchmen again. I just had a whim. I just had a whim, you know. I think I saw an image of Dr. Manhattan, and I was just like, huh, let me pull it off my shelf. And yeah, uh still good, still just mind-blowingly good, execution-wise. And what else? Oh, and a weird weird thing. I know like this is going to potentially maybe not with you know YouTube, but uh it'll be potentially controversial to some of our audience. I listened to the Michael Rosenbaum uh who plays Lex Luther in Smallville podcast, where he featured Allison Mack. Obviously, Alison Mack had the huge weird sex cult scandal like years ago or whatever. She was in prison for a couple years. She's out now, she's still on like probation and stuff. And I was listening to that, not necessarily like wanting to forgive her. Um it's not my place to forgive in the first place. So I it was just like, I just want to know, you know, like what what makes someone do this? What how do you go from being, you know, a star on Smallville to you know an actual criminal? And it was sad. Like, I there were times where like my eyes were all watering while I was working and I was listening to this podcast, and I was just like, dang man, I feel so bad. And it's not like she's fishing for an apology, she's not or she's not fishing for like forgiveness or anything in it. She's actively telling you like she did something wrong, and it's so hard to listen to.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, I feel like with the amount of like documentaries we have out there on different cults. I'm not trying to give a justification, but I'm trying to say that you know, where a lot of people would be like, Oh, you know, I wouldn't fall for that. The thing is, is that a lot of these cults they take a weakness in somebody's life and you know, they find some way to give that person meaning and then that's when that's when things start to spiral. That's when like the true face of things start to show.

SPEAKER_02:

So, you know, it's yeah, you know, it's also uh it the conversation doesn't go here, but uh like the the podcast doesn't really touch on, you know, like the purpose of prison being rehabilitation, but once you get out of prison where and what can you really do? Because most jobs won't take you, you're never gonna have the same life that you had again. And it's sad hearing, you know, like she she just finds joy in like improv now, like that's all she can do because she's never gonna be called by Hollywood again, you know. Like that's she's burned that bridge, and it's it's tough because she's actually a fantastic actress. I think of the original cast of the Smallville crew, she's definitely among the top two or three best actors on that show. And it's tough, it's tough watching, but it kind of sucks, and I feel like that's a conversation not a not enough people have or are willing to justify. Like there's we live in a a society that's so willing to just punish, but the whole reason we're punishing them is so that they can potentially get better. That's the whole point of rehabilitation, yeah. And like nobody nobody wants the forgiveness aspect of that. And I'm not saying that she's worthy of forgiveness or anything like that. I'm just saying it sucks that we can't have that conversation, and I'd suck. Yeah, it was just it was a hard thing to listen to. So I I do recommend it. I think just just to hear that testimony of like how you can potentially fall into something like that is is eye-opening.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, well, I mean, if anything, you know, what we can do is link it to the pod, you know, since you talked about it. So um sure.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I mean, it we we could do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

And and also, what was it? Yeah, send it over to us. So, you know, I'm I'm definitely interested in listening to that. I mean, I love obviously, like I I love listening to podcasts. You know, look, we're recording one right now, so I mean, obviously, I like to listen to them too. So, yeah, I'd like to listen to that.

SPEAKER_04:

Wait a minute, two things. First, these are recorded. Second, I still think Lana's the villain. Alright, uh that's that's all I have to say on that whole matter. I'm still I'm sticking to like if you guys are loyal listeners, you know that I've always said Lana's the villain, and uh, I'm gonna stick by my story.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm like uh in the beginning of season five at this point, and uh Clark has just regained his powers after having or like after losing them for a couple episodes, and now he's just like, Well, now this person that I love most in the world, I can never tell my true self to. And it's just like, shut up, get over yourself. Anyway, she trusted you with one of those like stones, those like mystical stones. Like, why can't you just trust her with a little bit of just don't tell her the whole truth if you want? You just say, hey, I got superpowers. It sucks.

SPEAKER_04:

When they one day you guys will finish that series. But yes, let's uh let's hop on let's hop on our broomsticks and just kind of zip off into the world of Hogwarts.

SPEAKER_02:

Accio Firebolt. Alright.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

This is uh interesting I I have an interesting relationship with this movie in terms of like I don't enjoy it as much as I enjoy the rest. It's probably my least favorite of the movies. It's not my least favorite of the books, obviously, it's a very good book. And it's in the books where Rowling goes from middle grade to YA territory in terms of the maturity level in uh of the actual narrative. And I think that that was you know the books never really, you know, hid any types of uh themes from you prior to this point. You know, they they're very Rowling always trusted her readers to understand deep things, even if it's aimed at children, you know, and I think that that's what makes Harry Potter such a fantastic book series, and it just hit like lightning in a bottle when it came out because it trusted the reader more than publishers thought readers were trustworthy, you know. Like I don't know how to word what I'm trying to say, but what I love about Goblet of Fire is it takes it f to the next level. Obviously, like Rowling reached a a point in her career where she was uneditable, so like it's just she she could write as much as she wanted and they would publish it. And I think the next book is the longest of the of of all of them, Port Dirt of the Phoenix. I I like that it matured with the audience, but for some reason the adaptation for this one falls flat to me. There's certain aspects of the magic and the world that just and there's a lot I like about it by the way. I don't dislike this movie, it's just my least favorite, but yeah, there's a lot of magic that I feel was apt from the reading of the book. Anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

So I would say that like book wise, this was probably my favorite. Because like this was like the first time that it really opened up the world of Harry Potter. We got more of like, oh, there's different schools that bring in these different schools. Oh, they've got this, you know, it this like whole, you know, they add to the lore of Harry Potter. There's this like tradition of this tournament that the schools always participate in. So I always thought that that was really cool. And like you said, there's a lot with the magic in this one. Something that disappoints me a little bit in this movie is the fact that they cut out pretty much the entire Quitt World Cup. Like you get like just this much, but in the book, it's so much more they really expanded on that in the books. And so I I know it's like, oh, it's the the Quittish World Cup, but like it would have been cool to see a little bit more of that. Like they just kind of cut to the Death Eaters attacking.

SPEAKER_02:

How does how does uh how does professional Quidditch compare to high school Quidditch, basically? Right. Um it so that would have been that would have been easy.

SPEAKER_03:

That would have been cool. At least like at least showing us the match with um you know Ireland versus Bulgaria?

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Bulgaria!

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yes. So I mean that would have been cool to see that, but like they they like cut like right there.

SPEAKER_02:

I would have liked to have seen Crum in flight. Like a bird he is. Uh Rich, what are you what are your what are your thoughts on the movie? You haven't said anything yet?

SPEAKER_04:

Uh so you know, it's been a long time since I've read the books and seen this movie. Not because read the books and since seen the movie? It's been a long time since I've read the books. It's also been a long time since I've seen this movie. Not because of anything in particular. Like it, you know, it's one of those movies that actually, if it's on TV, you know, like playing on like TBS or TNT or one of those channels, I would leave it on and just watch it. I just uh I haven't like gone back and watched it since I think Charlie and Lauren were reading the book together at night every night, so they read every book in the Harry Potter series, and then after that series was done, we watched the movies together. So I don't know, like maybe five years.

SPEAKER_02:

And then the next logical leap is Nairotel.

SPEAKER_04:

Yes, obviously. So that's cool.

SPEAKER_02:

If I ever have kids, I think that that would be like a really important like thing to share with them.

SPEAKER_04:

That's that's like we ended up and we ended up going as like uh you know, she was Trelawney one year, Charlie was Harry Potter, and I was uh Sirius Black. So at Comic Con.

SPEAKER_02:

So uh we uh we really love you actually you you have a good serious black face to it, you know. Like you should you should have you should you should have just walked around with like uh aware of serious black and that that would have been great.

SPEAKER_03:

One of the was it the lichens that you see towards the end of the series, you give me that vibe of the werewolves.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I I love the series and it's this right here. It's yeah, some uh chops. I uh look, I I it's I'm very forgiving of the series, I think, overall, and I understand uh like I like what you guys complained about, I completely I'm like, yeah, I wish that was there too, you know. But I'm also just there you know, there's something about seeing what I've read and what and like what I pictured in my mind and then being able to see it on the screen. And it's it's like I'm just thankful, you know, like it's yeah, I I I agree. It's it it's weird, you know. Now, is this my favorite of them? I don't think so. It's weird. You guys are talking about the Tri Wizard tournament and like being cool that you're seeing like the rest of the world, and I liked that, but there was a part of me that felt like I was being kind of slow played into what I really wanted to kind of get into, you know, which was uh more of like Harry's parents and all that stuff. That the bold the bold saga. Yeah, uh he yeah, well sh can you oh oh my goodness, we're gonna have a problem on this podcast, guys. We're not gonna do this, are we? We're not gonna do this, right? We are not gonna do this.

SPEAKER_02:

We are not gonna Alright, no, no, no foreshadowing to future events.

SPEAKER_04:

Please do not say his name. Oh, oh please do not say his name.

SPEAKER_03:

My goodness. What if Voldemort times a thousand? How about that? Like, let's just get out of the way.

SPEAKER_00:

Um the quote.

SPEAKER_04:

But yeah, let's and then he's so pale. Like, you know what, he looks so much older than like he is because he's so pale. Like he didn't use any sunblock or anything. Like his skin is just terrible. He's gotta take care of his skin.

SPEAKER_03:

So something that also that like this movie doesn't really do a good job because, like, you know, in the book it doesn't, and then obviously it leads off into the next one, you know, which we're not gonna talk much about, but like his whole initial budding interest in Cho Chang, like you don't really get much of that. Like you get the little bumps in here and there, but there's a lot more going on in the books.

SPEAKER_02:

I will forgive this film that part of it, just because in the fifth book there's not much Cho Chang. You know, it feels like there's a bigger buildup for Cho Chang in the fifth book. She's not really there. She's a she's she's she's a she's there, but she's not really there.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, right. We have like that one moment, but that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

That one moment.

SPEAKER_04:

How do we overlook the fact that that name is wow, what a name. Terrible. It's terrible, uh, terrible writing on that one part. I just feel like it's I mean, it's a name.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, I mean it's I I yeah, so I I Roland gets a lot of flack for giving stereotypey names, and sometimes it's a little more egregious. Like I think Cho Chang is probably the outlier in terms of you know, just names that are names, but you know, so like uh here's here's one thing you can uh one one way to look at it. Like, these are actual names that she's choosing, but because we're looking at it from a Western point of view, it sounds fake. Yeah. So like the name Wong.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was like, we gotta kind of get like outside of ourselves in that kind of way.

SPEAKER_02:

Like, we gotta the name the name Wong from the Doctor Strange films that was written into the comics at a time where frankly comics were very stereotypy and occasionally very racist. And you know, people complained about the whole Wong thing because it's a weird sounding name, it sounds wrong. The actor who plays Wong is literally named Benedict Benedict Wong. Yeah, that's his real life name. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so it's it's it's just like you're not gonna fault an Asian man for having that name, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

Of course not, no.

SPEAKER_03:

So, like, I mean, yeah, it's if you're giving that name to a white person that was portraying an Asian person, then okay, I would understand the whole whitewash thing, but I mean, you know, it's yeah, like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna flip out on that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Although that is low-hanging fruit. Because, you know, she's strangely like uh Scottish. She's a Scottish character. But uh and it's a Scottish character, actually, yeah, in the book. But yeah, anyway, let's let's move past Cho Chang. Let's let's do that. Um Anthony, you mentioned that what made this book stand out to you was that it opened the world. It wasn't just Harry going to this small location in the Scottish Highlands called Hogwarts, it was also him going to see a Quidditch match featuring two of the greatest teams from that year, and I think it's every four years, so like it's it it's a it's kind of like the World Cup in soccer um in that sense. So I thought that's pretty cool. But then on top of that, we also get the confirmation that there are other schools, you know. Like we at this point, I mean we we knew that there were other schools because Hagard goes that Hogwarts is the greatest school of witchcraft and literature there's ever been. But we've never met or we've never like seen what that what what becomes of those schools, and now we have Durmstring, which I I think is an all-boys school, and Bobatten, which is an all-girls school. So that that kind of changes the dynamics a little bit of what we what we get to see of the wizarding world past this point. And you know, in future books we go to the Ministry of Magic and all that. So how do you I we we already said that like we don't think that the quid Quidditch side of things was necessarily well done, but how do you feel about like the overall worldliness of the book? I mean the sense like you know, like we are looking at a wider portion of the world. How do we feel that this movie represented that?

SPEAKER_03:

So so it it widens enough to you know include that there's other wizarding schools, but it still narrows itself on what's going on, you know, in Hogwarts, and then obviously the continuation of everything that's happening with Voldemort, right? I feel like when it got to the actual you know, when they got to the actual um, you know, what they call the each of the tests or challenges, right? I think that they did well enough with those, right? I mean, because when you're at in the actual challenges, it's just gonna be the challenges themselves. You're not gonna be worrying about all this other stuff that's happening. So I think that the actual challenges they did well enough. Um the Yule Ball, they did well enough also. So, I mean, like you said, there is a lot to like about this film, but then there's also and I think it's because this is where the books start to get bigger. You know, stuff has to get cut out and it's noticeable.

SPEAKER_02:

It's definitely noticeable. And I I think what I would chalk it up to uh in terms of like, you know, we get to see a little bit of the World Cup, we get to see the celebrations around the World Cup, we get to see students from Bobat and and uh Dermstrang, Yule Ball and everything. We get a lot of world building, but it ultimately it just kind of feels hollow in the movie because we don't really get to experience much of I guess, you know, like the the the schools don't feel real from just this movie. You know, they Dermstrang, big strong guys with sticks who decide they want to break dance in the Great Hall, and then this other school that just has hot girls followed by butterflies, and that's the extent of the differences between Hogwarts and these other schools. Rich, you look like you have something very important to say.

SPEAKER_04:

Well, one thing I was thinking about as you guys were talking about world building, right, is Hermione has has, you know, we know has corrected people on the pronunciation of spells, right? So what happens if you have a French or Bulgarian accent when you're trying to say when gardum loviosa? Like, do they have to somehow say it British like?

SPEAKER_02:

I think here's here's I I don't know this for a fact, but we know that the wizarding world, the history of the wizarding world, has existed prior to the advent of the Latin language. Most of the spells that they actually say in the series are in Latin, which makes sense. English is mostly a Latin based. A Latin mixed with Germanic-based language. But I believe that you know, going to schools where Latin wouldn't be the original language that their own language stemmed from, they would probably use spells from a different culture. So like I believe that there would probably be different names for similar spells.

SPEAKER_04:

That's a well thought out answer. I uh I thought it was throwing a monkey wrench into the plans here, but uh that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_02:

The you know, I because I at first I I was just like so were all the spells invented by Romans because it's all in Latin. But we know that there's probably spells that have existed past that point, and then you get into like, well, like in English, we often characterize the names of new animal species with Latin phrases, Latin words. That's something that still happens today. Is that possibly another way that these spells have like invented themselves over the time over the years? But yeah, there's schools supposedly all over the world in non-English or Latin based language groups, and I think there's a pretty big one in Africa. I forget where in Africa, but they use spells very differently. Like instead of wands, they have staffs.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, um what do you call it?

SPEAKER_02:

I think Kingsley Kingsley Shacklebold has a staff, not a wand. I might be no, I'm wrong. In the films he has a a wand, but I think he has a staff in the book. Anyway, I gotta I gotta double check that.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, but does it uh doesn't Moody also use a staff? He has a staff and a wand.

SPEAKER_02:

I think he uses wands in the movie. You know, he won't he uses wands to like turn Draco into a a ferret and he uses a wand to like stop the the ceiling in the the Great Hall from like thundering. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Well well well we know that that wasn't him though.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's true, yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_04:

So yeah, that was Crouch Jr. But that is it knowing okay, so you know, obviously going into it, I've watched a movie before, right? So knowing that Barty Crouch Jr. is uh, you know a time lord. Right. It it's it made me laugh so it's so obvious. Like they're smacking you in the face with it. They're like, hey, by the way, like like there's there are a lot of crumb um did somebody say you know oh my goodness. I didn't even what a what a play! What an alley oop. I didn't mean to do that, but uh it it was just so I don't know. I really I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I kind of enjoyed that for some reason. So I like the actor that they chose for Moody. I love the look of Moody. He's so perfectly done, and that is one of the things that this movie like absolutely knocked out of the park, is just the character design for Moody because it's straight off the page. He's crazy looking, his eyes rigging around everywhere, he's always looking at something else.

SPEAKER_03:

Um I think he's like one of the few characters that they actually like ripped right off the book. Everybody else doesn't look really like their characters from the books.

SPEAKER_02:

I I would say Dumbledore and Hagrid look very much like their characters, but that's like very necessary. But Moody, Moody is so why is he allowed?

SPEAKER_04:

So obviously he's drinking polyjuice potion the entire time when he's hitting his flask, right? But like as a teacher, I'm watching the movie, right? And he's just in the middle of class and he takes out his flask, which you would assume is liquor, right?

SPEAKER_02:

And he's like, and he just puts it away. I assumed it was pumpkin juice. I assumed it was pumpkin juice.

SPEAKER_03:

But they I think that they all assumed that he was drinking alcohol.

SPEAKER_02:

Poly juice potion. That would have been such a good layup for uh giving us a five-star review. Remember, guys, you still have an opportunity. You can do it. Give us a juicy review. Poly juicy. Um anyway. I'm I had an energy drink on the way home. I'm a little extra.

SPEAKER_03:

Um the cutting, you're supposed to come straight home.

SPEAKER_02:

My camera keeps correcting me to the center of my image and I don't know how to stop it. I'll like turn to the side and then like the camera a couple seconds later will just back bring me back into focus.

SPEAKER_03:

It's funny because like you have a background and like it just it just looks like it's it's like sliding you. I just rather than it cr moving the rather than the camera moving over, it looks like it's just sliding you back to the middle.

SPEAKER_02:

It's really distracting.

SPEAKER_04:

When I got into iPad, I had been doing virtual workouts with a buddy of mine, and he's kind of crazy, so I know he's not gonna listen to this, so I'm totally fine. But he he caught me bad one day because the iPad betrayed me. I had set it up so that he couldn't see my legs, and I was finishing the last round of push-ups, and I was doing my push-ups for my knees instead of doing right, and and then the stupid iPad recenters the camera and like puts my waist in the middle, and now he's like, bro, what's going on? And I'm like, the iPad betrayed me.

SPEAKER_02:

That's amazing. I love that.

SPEAKER_04:

I actually really like the but speaking of betrayal, the betrayal of Barty Couch Jr. over here throwing poor Harry. I mean, I love how angry they all are at Harry, and it takes the bad guy to be like, no man, that was like a really strong confundus charm. Like, there's no way a fourth year can break it. And then they're like, Oh, I guess so, right? Like, guy who's never been in Hogwarts, like to our knowledge before, is now like the voice of reason, and he's actually the bad guy. Like it and like is Barty Crouch, like I'm thinking, like, there's gotta be a scene where he's sitting there going, like, these damn morons, like now I've gotta convince him that he's not a bad like he's not a bad kid.

SPEAKER_02:

Like well, they do so much with Barty, like it's so smart though trying to redeem him.

SPEAKER_03:

It's so smart though, because it's like while everybody's like flipping out on Harry, like, why not be the guy to go to bat for him, right? Oh baseball references.

SPEAKER_02:

It makes you it makes you trust like as much like Rich, you were saying, knowing that he is the bad guy in this movie. There's still a lot in this movie, knowing all that, where I'm just like, maybe he kind of does like Harry a little bit. Like maybe he's rooting for Harry at this point, and you know it's not really like in a good way, but he's very nice to Harry. He's helping him along the way, and obviously it's it's for the eventual reveal of he who must not be named. But as a viewer, especially if you haven't read the book and this is your first watch, this guy's on Harry's side throughout it all. You know, he's the one who told Ron about the dragons, he's the one who put Neville up to the Gillyweed thing. He's the one who kind of directs Harry when he enters the maze. Yeah. And he I I never noticed that. For some reason I noticed that. I just I thought he was pointing into the maze, like, get going. It's actually showing him where the cup is.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I I noticed that a while back. He's just like But then I I don't know if you noticed, but like Dumbledore looks at him.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, he does. Like he noticed that too. Speaking of Dumbledore, I feel like this is a an important distinction from the book because this is the most un-Dumbledore that we've ever seen. Because in the next movies, the actor who plays Dumbledore reverts back to normal Dumbledore. In this movie, he's very aggressive. Harry, did you put your name in the cobbler of fire? Not anything that is supposed to happen in the book. He's always supposed to be cool, calm, and collected, and like Loony. Like he's supposed to be just in the clouds, like he's just completely zooted.

SPEAKER_03:

Like he's like Luna Lovegood, but maybe I don't know, maybe Loonier. Uh he's supposed to be, you know, like even in uh Well, I mean people have actually pointed that out a lot that like he that they they're like he uh in the book he asks him that calmly, like and it says it in the book that they ask him that calmly, but in the movie he's like yelling at him.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, he like runs up to Harry, grabs him, Harry, did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire? And at that point, I'm I I I expect him to just like start punching Harry after that, just like, what are you doing, Harry? But no.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So when it comes to the you mentioned Anthony that there's a lot that is cut out of this for the sake of time because the books are now getting heavier, but they do inject a couple new scenes into this one that do pad out the time of the movie in a weird way. Like they they don't actually need to do this. I do think it makes the movie maybe a little bit better, but they could have used that time towards including more stuff from the books. So they completely like get rid of the the Rita Skeeter being an animagus. Yeah, remember she turns into a bug? Yeah, I think it's a ladybug. But Hermione ends up realizing it and like traps her in a like a jar. Oh, I thought.

SPEAKER_03:

I forgot about that.

SPEAKER_02:

It's been a while. Yeah, and that's the reason why she's like getting all the scoops, like that w when nobody else is around. Like it's it's it that's a completely thrown out story. But I guess it's not essential to the plot, it's just kind of padding out like the the world building and stuff. But one thing that they did add in this movie is the whole flight section where Harry is being chased by a dragon. Now, that is the first task is him being, you know, like trying to like get the egg from the dragon, but they never leave the confines of the the contest. They like in the movie, they go all over the place. They're on the astronomy tower, they're you know, he's being chased, he almost gets killed by a Hungarian Hortail. And I I love I I I love that line where Harry knows what what uh dragon is in the in the bag, and he goes, and Barty Crouch goes, and that leaves the and Harry whispers, the Hungarian Horetale, and he goes, What's that boy? I love that.

SPEAKER_04:

I I you know what I'm glad you say that because I haven't read the books in a very long time. And I remember watching the scene going like I don't remember this, but I then I was like, oh, maybe it's that I don't remember the movie, you know, but now it makes more sense to me that I didn't remember it. And uh also I did uh one time there was this I don't know what it there was this special Harry Potter event at a beer garden in Queens, New York, uh in Astoria where I grew up, and they had uh, you know, like Drought of the Living Dead and stuff like that, drinks and all different kinds of things, and there were bands and they were all Harry Potter themed. And um I think one was uh it was a group of little kids. They were like eight or like between like eight and eleven or something, and they were the Harry and the Hungarian horn tails, and it was so cute, man. Like they're they're just jamming and like playing Harry Potter theme songs, so it was fantastic.

SPEAKER_02:

I as a millennial, I ironically listened to what was called Wizard Rock occasionally. Um they had whole bands with unique and original music that was about Harry Potter. I think they have like Pirate Rock, which is about like Pirates of Caribbean. Shut the front door!

SPEAKER_03:

I weirdly remember that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I had a physical CD from a band called Harry and the Potters. Yes! I forgot the name. It was actually decent. Like it wasn't it wasn't bad stuff. Yeah, so that it was fun being a manio, guys. Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

We do I miss it. We do have our own corny things that we do, man. We really do.

SPEAKER_02:

I miss a lot of it, but yeah, of course. It's probably best that we uh leave it, leave it leave it in the past.

SPEAKER_03:

It was fun at the time, I agree.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it was just so new and like this is such a cool concept. Oh my god, look, it's a Harry Potter themed band. Uh and there was a couple of them. I think there was like Fred and the Whee or like Weasley's Wizard Weases or something like that. It was some Weasley stuff, anyway. There was probably one of those, one or two of those like bigger wizard rock bands for the beer guarding thing. So that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, so uh this uh I I did like like I think like Anthony said earlier, like I thought the challenges were really good. You know, it was kind of like you know, nice seeing Myrtle. It's like hey Myrtle, what's going on? You know?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh so I enjoyed she's so lascivious, she's so slime, so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. And she's played by an adult. Like this is like a 40-year-old woman, yes.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. Wait, she was 40? She was like 40 at the time. No, no, no, not 40. Nothing. No, I think she was definitely an I don't think you're far off, Dakota. She's like 60 years old now. If she wasn't 40, she was knocking on 40's door. She's 59. Oh, oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

No, wait, okay, I was right. Shirley Henderson, the actress who played Morning Myrtle, was 37 years old when she filmed The Chamber of Secrets. She's supposed to be a second year.

SPEAKER_04:

You know what? It must be that she wore um she wore sunscreen and she cut protected her skin, so she wasn't aging, right? Because if you don't wear sunblock, then you're just gonna look old, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's something about her like facial makeup, not physical makeup that you put on your face, but like the make of her face. Right, right. The structure of it, like the way she smiles is very childish. Yeah, it's it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so in this movie, she would have been like close to 40, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Crazy. The world we live in. Am I right?

SPEAKER_04:

Well, I I did uh either either way, I I I liked uh I I liked her in this movie. I think she's good in her role. The extended chase, I that's something felt off about that, so I kind of am glad that that was off. I also I was thinking like if I were the contestants, the result of the of the swim of the swimming one, right? It's gobbledygoo, guys. I mean, it is infuriating that like if I'm looking if I'm just a competitor in this contest, I'm like, wait a minute, what? Like, he didn't have to go do that, like, alright, good for him, but he gets second place? Like, I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_02:

It is uh Dumbledore was definitely pulling some shit. He was pulling his way, and that Igor Kharkov was like, he's just like, boo, boom.

SPEAKER_04:

He should have been. I mean, he had every right to be irritated. I just uh I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_02:

I love Igor, I love Igor Kharkov so much. He's so evil. How did he speaking of people who were incarcerated and got jobs after prison time? How did he become headmaster at a school?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. And like not only was he like he incarcerated for like robbing somebody, like he got incarcerated He was a death eater, he's probably dead, like he probably probably killed people. Like, yeah, dude. He he was the follower for essentially the Harry Potter version of Hitler, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, he was on he was in the Nuremberg trials, bro. Um He really was, yeah, he really was, like he really was. Like he was like, no, no, no, no, I have names, I have names. I did really like the pensive. I thought that was a really cool visualization of the idea of the pensive, and it's it's uh used a lot more in like book six, but I that's another thing. Rowling does such a good job of seeding things in previous stories so that when it's time for them to be truly useful in later books, we are we're already accustomed with it. Oh, the pensive's back. Oh, we're going back into Dumbledore's memories. So that's that's something like even after reading the first book or rereading the first book, I I listened to the new audible audiobook uh with the full cast and everything, and fantastic. I highly recommend it. But what's amazing is now that I know the story front to back so well, you know, just from many readings and watchings over the years, it's amazing how much you can pick out from just the little ways that she words things that she understands where this story is going for the most part. There are things like I don't think she knew that Scabbers was gonna be Peter Pettigrew in the first book, but there are things where like huh, that's weird. Why did Dumbledore have Harry Potter's or why did Dumbledore have James Potter's Cloak of Invisibility? Why was he researching it? Like, we know these things exist in the world. Why was this one special? That doesn't get explained until like the very end of the book seven. Stuff like that. Like, how do you even like map that out? And so I'm I'm I was very impressed with that in my recent rereading of that, and just seeing how it continues even into Goblet of Fire with the pensive and other things. Um, you know, the introduction of Fleur de Lacour, who, you know, I wouldn't say a prominent character later, but she does come back and everything. So yeah, I I just think it's cool.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree.

SPEAKER_02:

I sometimes feel like I say so much, like I I just like word vomit, and you guys are just like, wow. And I feel bad afterwards. I'm like, I kind of derailed this, too.

SPEAKER_03:

No, no, we're just like, you know, hold up, you know, let them cook. But no, man, I I I agree, you know, it's the setup of you know, JK, you know, it's like Oda level, man. Well, I don't know if it's Oda level, because Oda is like he'll call back something from he'll be at like episode 900, call back to something episode 50. But um it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02:

We're talking we're talking about one piece here. Yeah, yeah, one piece, yeah. My bad. Yeah, this is eichido.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so yeah, like I I I appreciate when somebody can do stuff like that, you know, kind of map things out and call things back from earlier books.

SPEAKER_02:

Very cool. What do you think of the U Oh sorry, Rich, you have something?

SPEAKER_04:

This is completely off topic, and I completely apologize. But you guys brought up uh one piece and it triggered something in my brain that South Park had a uh episode where they're talking about how like the kids are bullying each other using AI, and one of the kids like bullies, I think it's it's Kenny, and it's supposed to be that Kenny has intercourse with Totoro, right? So then everyone thinks these videos are real, and to and stu and and stu and studio Ghibli shows up and they're like furious, like and I was like sitting there with my wife, and I was like, Studio Ghibli, Studio Ghibli! I was like, you know, the the boo the weird birds, the weird birds. So sorry, completely off topic, but uh you guys mentioned one piece.

SPEAKER_02:

So that's uh no, that's actually a gorgeous callback. Uh I appreciate that. I actually do want to watch that South Park episode. I've heard very good things because it totally nails how the whole culture around AI and like how wrong it is occasionally and how much of a yes man AI can tend to be. So I I want to watch that episode. But I had no idea that uh I'm guessing Miyazaki, like the director, showed up because Miyazaki's such an easy person to think I would guess he would be the face of Studio Gibbon. Yeah. But what do we think of the Yule Ball?

SPEAKER_04:

Oh man, I mean, Ron's garb is you know classic, just so great. I can't remember exactly how it was described in the book, you know. I'm not sure if they went extra. Because I don't know. In my mind, I think I pictured it as antiquated, but not like atrocious, right? I don't know. And this felt like I don't know in what era that looked good. Even in the era where that was acceptable, like that was the ugliest version that you picked.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh yeah. I don't recall if it was atrocious, like you said. Um it definitely was almost feminine to the point where like Ron thought it was Jenny's. Like that is something that's from the book, which is funny that they continued it with. It is it's just it's funny. I feel bad for Ron. Like, he's just the punching bag a lot of times, you know. I it's either Neville or Ron are the punching bags.

SPEAKER_03:

It's so funny because I mean there's families like that where like you know, this this the clothes just get passed down from like the eldest down to like the youngest, you know? So the fact that like you know, you kind of get that, like, you know, in the wizarding world really does like kind of ground it, you know.

SPEAKER_04:

But his brothers, I just love that he's completely surprised, right? Because he has three older brothers, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, four. Four.

SPEAKER_04:

So he's got a few one of them didn't be like like, hey, there's this terrible thing, right? Or like one of them didn't complain. There aren't pictures. He's five older brothers. Five, so like he's not the you know, like he's not the first one to see this outfit, you know. I actually get a little I love Ronald Weasley, but in this movie, this movie, I find him kind of detestable for a short period of time. I don't think they make it I think they make his his frustration with Harry seem a lot more juvenile because in the books we can see into his head more so we understand how he's feeling and how he feels like hurt and betrayed. Where I think in the movie it just comes off as him being it him like I don't know, he's like him being a literal teenager.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah. But to There's no other way to put it. I mean, it's juvenile because it's exactly what it's meant to be. He's a teenager. Teenagers do stupid things. We were teenagers at once. We did dumb things, we got upset for dumb reasons.

SPEAKER_02:

But I I kind of agree with Rich in the sense that the movie truncates his emotional range to that of a teaspoon, you know, like he doesn't really get the opportunity to express himself ever beyond just pure jealousy to pure oh sorry about that, I was wrong. I was being a right get.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, that that that's what it is for me. Like I I work with teenagers, you know, like I I teach seniors, I'm I'm with them all day long, you know, and yeah, they do stupid things and stuff, but they you know, I feel like there's just a little bit more nuance half most of the time. And and that that was it, like when you say like that, like you know, they cut stuff out from the book. For me, like the character development and seeing more of them gets cut out too. And I think that's a little bit even more detrimental to me because I really love Ron. And it's just so weird to see him for almost an entire movie act completely just they're just giving he's like a caricature of all of the worst things a teenager can do all at once. He's mean to girls, he's mean to Patel, right? Uh he's mean to Hermione, he's rude to Harry. You know, it it's just all around that it just seems I don't know.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. No, I I agree. One in that same vein, uh, but in the opposite direction, I think they did a really good job with the characterization of Neville. I think Neville really got to shine in this book, at least from a character arc and character development standpoint. Because they don't skirt they actually, what's interesting here is they set something up for the next movie that is never paid off in the next movie. But if you understand the character, it kind of pays off itself in this book. So they have Moody perform the Cruciardist curse right in front of him. It's in the next book that we find out that his parents were tortured by the very same person who performed the Cruciardist curse in front of him to the point where they became insane. So like Barty Crouch Jr. was among those who tortured the longbottoms to the point where they had to spend the rest of their night their lives in a loony bin. And he was cruel enough to do it right to his face. And that's the part, like going back and watching this movie again, whoa, this guy is really evil.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and he knew and he knew it too, because he's like longbottom, is it?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. It's really messed up. And and that's that's one of those things, like Rowling does not pull her punches out, even though it's a kid's book. You know, like she's willing to show the extreme range of emotional depth with her characters.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh well, I feel like by then you you're like where you say that like by the time you hit this book, you're really gonna be around the age of these kids.

SPEAKER_02:

You mature you mature with the characters, sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

So yeah, they're teenagers. So of course she's like, okay, this is gonna be a teenager book.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. But you know, again, these are still this is all still considered kid lit, kid literature. So it's i it is still impressive how emotionally uh mature all the characters are, you know, like they're not just caricatures of uh stereotypes, you know, even though a lot of her names are stereotypes. Every character that has a meaning, meaningful in these stories, that they feel real to you, they feel like real people. And I think that that is the true magic of these stories is that she was capable of creating a world populated with people you feel like you've always known. And I think that that is really cool. And I think they did a really good job in this movie with Neville on the bottom. That's that's all I gotta say.

SPEAKER_04:

We do know we know that Neville's parents were killed by the Christianis Curse.

SPEAKER_02:

They weren't killed or just Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_04:

We know that they were tortured before that scene, though, right?

SPEAKER_02:

No, because we I don't think because we never hear anything.

SPEAKER_04:

But her because Hermione says, like, how could you, don't you know?

SPEAKER_02:

Like No, it's don't you see it's hurting him or bothering him, she says. I don't know. I don't know, I forget what the book says, but I I'm pretty positive.

SPEAKER_04:

Okay. Oh, but see she may she may not be. That that's why that's why I got confused, just because I distinctly remember it seeming like she knew because she was like, Don't you see it's bothering him, implying like because you know it's what happened to his parents. Okay, alright. Wow, so it does happen. We don't find out to the next book.

SPEAKER_02:

That's actually pretty because I think that's the revelation for us when they go to St. Mungo's in the fifth book, which they never go into in the movie, but that's the big reveal there is that they get to meet Neville's parents. And you just feel bad for him. You feel bad for Neville because he got the as much as Harry got a short end to a stick, Harry Potter definitely pulled the shorter end of the stick than Neville, but Neville doesn't have the world fawning over him like Harry Potter does. You know, like everyone loves Harry because he's the boy who lived. Nobody remembers Neville, even though his parents suffered a very similar fate. It's tough. I feel bad for Neville.

SPEAKER_03:

We also what we get like a very, you know, interesting character in Cedric Diggory, and he's like only there for the book. Um he's portrayed by Robert Pattinson, and this is before he goes down the rabbit trail of uh Twilight.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, uh, this is before he becomes a sparkly vampire. I like him. He's a cool guy. I think one of the one of the few issues with the books, and I guess to the movie uh it's not the movie's fault, but like we never really get until like Luna Lovegood, we never get friends outside of Hogwarts or outside of Gryffindor house. And I think that kind of built a little bit of tribalism in the readership, because everyone wanted to be a Gryffindor, you know? Like if you if you go to Barnes and Noble and you know everything is like house themed. So like you can get like a Harry Potter notebook and Gryffindor, Huffle, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin themed, you'll never find any Gryffindor stuff because everyone thinks they're Gryffindor. So that's that's one of the flaws that I have with the books. Anthony, I mean, I keep calling Rich Anthony.

SPEAKER_04:

I'm raising my hand. I just want to be clear. I humbly accept I have never ever had any notion of grandeur that I'm a Gryffindor. I'm a day one and for life Hufflepuff.

SPEAKER_01:

I knew it. I knew you were gonna say that. I I have always thought of you that way.

SPEAKER_04:

It's just uh, and so I as a Hufflepuff, I gotta say one thing. I think Cedric is a such a weird representation of her house.

SPEAKER_02:

He's gregarious, he likes to hang out with friends, and you know, he's very social. That's a very Hufflepuff.

SPEAKER_04:

Alright. Yeah, he's just so good at stuff that it's just like uh, you know, it's uh like I wish we had it's like this is the first Hufflepuff we really kind of get to know, and he's like amazing at everything, you know, where I kind of wish there was more like I kind of want to meet like Bilbo Baggins, the Hufflepuff, right? Like, there's one there, right? Like, there's gotta be you know that the Hobbits. Are very Hufflepuffy.

SPEAKER_02:

Pretty much all Hobbits and all of Hobbiton are Hufflepuffs except for I would say except for Frodo, Mary, and Pippin. Sam is a Hufflepuff. Every other Hobbit we ever met is a Hufflepuff.

SPEAKER_04:

You know, I just I kind of wanted to meet like I don't know, like a very just gregarious and slightly overweight young man in one of the houses at one point. But so Cedric, I don't, it's you know, he's a the thing, it's it's weird. He's he's only really around this book. And and that's the one thing I know you said that like she's really good at um like building, you know. Like I I I don't recall he's not in the other books, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Like this is no, because he's a seventh year, so they wouldn't really touch on him because he's three years older than you know the main castle.

SPEAKER_04:

Still dating Cho Chang.

SPEAKER_02:

Still dating Cho Chang. I think Cho Chang is a year older.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, yeah, I think she's the fifth year. I think yeah, it's been a while. I kind of want to take a dive back. Now might be the time, you know, with the fully voice casted uh audio.

SPEAKER_02:

I cannot stress enough like how well they did those books. Like if you just listen to the first chapter, do they do it like Star Wars? It's so much better than Star Wars.

SPEAKER_03:

Really? Well, I mean, I know Star Wars is like narrated by one person, but like they have like the music, they have the sounds, that's why I like the Star Wars ones.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so they have the music, they have the sound effects, but it's so much more than just lightsabers and blaster fire. It's you know, you can hear people like shuffling paper in the background, you can hear like Ampetunia cooking on the stove in the background, you can hear like the chatter of the TV and scenes in the background. All of it's woven into like the narration plus the character actors that are playing these roles. It's so good. I was so impressed with it. Yeah, I highly recommend it. They're coming out one every month up until like June of next year.

SPEAKER_03:

So when did the first one drop?

SPEAKER_02:

Early this month.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so we got another one coming out next month, then.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, there is one in December. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Cool, cool. Yeah, I'll uh I'll look into it, man. I'll look into it.

SPEAKER_02:

Voldy's back, guys. They touched the port key. The cup was a port key, and now the guy we can't name is back.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, man. That was interesting. Well, um both Harry and Cedric get sent there. And he just immediately gets killed. Oh man. Immediately. Like a toss away.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Kill the spare. But you know what? Had they not killed the spare, Harry probably wouldn't have gotten away.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, his parents were still there, so I don't know if like it's tough. That's true. And and the caretaker was still there. But maybe, I mean, I would say like maybe with the existence of Cedric being there, maybe it helped the distraction last a little bit longer. So I mean, you could be right.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I love that scene so much, and I think that might be my favorite scene from this movie is the way that they brought He Who Must Not Be Named back from the dead. I I love that he recalls his Death Eaters, and it's it's a small number of Death Eaters in comparison to like, you know, the numbers that he used to have, but it's the typical ones the crab, the goyles, the malfoys, McNair's.

SPEAKER_03:

And you're saying it like while he's like ripping off the math?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Goyle, crab, and you, Lucius. Thirteen years, and you didn't do nothing. If I would have heard whispers.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I mean Ralph Fines is unbelievable. Have you have you guys ever seen there's a guy on I I'm not sure if it's just Instagram, but uh he basically does like Voldemort Oh!

SPEAKER_02:

You're joking on your own saliva.

SPEAKER_04:

He does he who must not be named like uh Voldemort. Voldemort he does like impressions and he does this to annoy his like wife or his girlfriend, and he just like goes around and then he went full out. And at first he just like bought tape and put his nose up and like was like talking to her, but then she came home one day and he's just wearing the full face, like the whole head cap. It's just unbelievable. Uh and it works so well just because it's Ralph Finds. I really think that he changed how I understood Voldemort to be. Like, he is such a delicious, like Shakespearean level villain, right? Like, he's really so much more interesting and then everybody else. And I'll tell you, I'll give you one good reason. Alright. Here's a test. Anthony, what's your middle name? Ryan. What?

unknown:

Uh Ryan.

SPEAKER_04:

Ryan, okay. Mine is Joseph. Okay. What's yours, Dakota? Okay. His middle name is Marvolo. Marvolo, man. Like, he is so much cooler than us, alright? Marvolo. Alright? We don't have that kind of pizzazz in our lives.

SPEAKER_02:

No, we don't. We don't.

SPEAKER_03:

The pizzazz. But yeah, no, I agree. I mean, uh, overall, like, you know, this this isn't gonna be the worst movie that you ever see, but yeah, like with this being like the first of the larger books and like a lot kind of getting cut out. I mean, you know, I could I could see that there's a lot that, you know, I wish was in it, but you know, it's just that stuff was per personal preference. I guess at least the major story beats were there. But yeah, like let's uh let's wind this down. Let's just what are our last thoughts on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Rich.

SPEAKER_04:

I know you're gonna go take on Vecna soon, so I think I'm a little bit more forgiving overall than you guys are, just in the same way that we've spoken about like the Hobbit before, you know, like I'll just accept it because I want to see something on screen, right? I did feel like if you didn't read the books, then this movie does you a slight disservice. Which a lot of people didn't. Yeah, that see, that's the issue is like if you've read the books and then you're watching these movies, I'm like, all right, that sucks, and that's annoying, but I'm still happy to see it. If you're just watching the movies, then I think you missed out on some character development and some cool stuff. So if you're gonna watch this, go read the book first and then go ahead and watch it. And I think that you'll enjoy it in a different way. But you can't look at this as a direct adaptation that follows faithfully in a way that is gonna make readers happy.

SPEAKER_02:

That's fair. As far as I'm concerned, while it's not my favorite of the movies, I do like the directorial intent. I love the way things were color grated in this movie. I think some of the vignetting around some of the scenes is just really pleasant to look at. Um, and I I overall enjoy it a lot. I I always come back to like the books were extremely well written, but what brought Harry Potter to a level that no other kids' literature will ever achieve is also the fact that the movies were fantastic. The movies were good, you know. The casting was like just so great, so perfect, and and I can't fault that. I don't think anyone can fault it. It's just they captured lightning in the bottle twice with the books and with the movies, and it was just the perfect time for it to be released, you know? And anyway, yeah, I I mean Goblet of Fire, I would probably put like number 18 on my uh top MCU films, but maybe maybe number four in terms of Harry Potter books in chronological order.

SPEAKER_03:

You know, we have that HBO series that's coming out, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Who is it for? So Because the demographics for Harry Potter is us.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

So he's I will say that like then you have the kids of like you know, me, my friends in our generation, right, that we've all had our kids wa uh read it, then like Hogwarts Legacy came out, and it was like, yo, you know, like I I mean I got my son and I was like, You you gotta play Hogwarts Legacy, you know, like he he was crazy about it, you know. So I actually think that there is an audience out there that's not the same, it's not the same, though. It's not the same thing. It's not the same.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like it's like what I will say to because I'm gonna play devil's advocate here. I don't think that it shouldn't exist. I'm in the camp of like art for art's sake, and I I I think that what we've seen from the set photos tells me that they're doing something different than what the movies did. They're shooting scenes that aren't even in the books that are only hinted at. Uh, and you can tell that based on some set photos and stuff, like, wait a minute, why are they shooting that in that location? That would mean either they're filming stuff for a later season while they're filming season one, or they're introducing subplots that were only ever hinted at. So I think that they are adding quite a bit more juice, if you will, into uh the meat of these stories. And once we get to the books where they're a little bit longer, we'll actually be able to develop the stuff in Goblet of Fire that we weren't able to see because it's going to be played out over the course of a series. So that's my hope anyway.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Well, I mean, it's just the way that I see it's a little tough is that, you know, like you said, the this phenomenon, it was, you know, lightning in the bottle twice, which is hard, but it really was a product of its time, you know, and and it you know, the I mean a lot of adults read it at that time too. But the thing is, is that there's stuff that our parents grew up with in the 80s that they absolutely loved that were kind of like, you know, eh, like there's maybe a couple of things out there that I would say that were like really caught on, which was Star Wars, but they stayed relevant, right, by coming out with newer stuff. Whereas this is just gonna be a rehashing of a story like from a while ago.

SPEAKER_02:

I see what you're saying. You're suggesting that there's no new content coming out for the newer generations, or like by rehashing Harry Potter, they're just retreading what a previous generation experienced.

SPEAKER_03:

Right, right, exactly. So so that's what I'm saying. It's like it's a little tough, like you know.

SPEAKER_02:

You're touching on a bigger topic that kind of goes into pretty much all things that are popular. You know, you Lord of the Rings, here's the hobby, here's Rings of Power, Star Wars, here's a hundred and a hundred and one novels, and uh several.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, I mean, they come out with some shows and cartoons and stuff, so they've maintained uh relevancy. Lord of the Rings, uh it's it's a little bit tougher. You there's not a lot of people. I mean, there's a lot of people that like Lord of the Rings, but like not your average like Joe's gonna be like, oh, have you seen Rings of Power? They're gonna be like, What? What's that? You know? Fair. So but um you know, but we'll we'll see. We'll see, like, you know, what what the success is. I'm always gonna, you know, I I'm going into it cautiously optimistic, you know, just like I did with um, you know, uh, what do you call it? Uh with live action one piece. And you know, that turned out to be fine. So, you know, that that's you know, we'll see. But yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Guys, thank you so much for listening to us here for our 142nd episode. We hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please be sure to give us a five-star juicy review. I'm saying it for the third time, just so that you don't forget it. And uh, if you want to check out any of our show notes down below, we have links to not only my video, but also that podcast with Alison Mack and Michael Rosenbaum, just in case you're interested. It's a fascinating lesson. And yeah, guys. Bye.

SPEAKER_03:

Peace.

SPEAKER_02:

Long live the timeline, guys. Am I right?

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