• The Author – Bart Busschots

  

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I finally made the time to watch the fourth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire tonight. Have to say the film didn’t come anywhere near to it’s potential. JK Rowling provided an excellent book which Mike Newell turned into a mediocre film. There are those who say it’s fabulous and so forth, I have to wonder what commission they are on or whether they saw a different movie to me. There are also those that say it is a travesty and worse, I can’t say I agree with those people either because the film had some excellent moments and aspects that should not be ignored.

Before I go any further I’ll have to put my hand up and say that I am a fan boy and that as far as I’m concerned the best possible Potter film would be one that sticks 100% to JKR’s plot, regardless of whether that results in a 4 hour film. However, we don’t live in an ideal world so I know that is not really on. Film is a very different medium to print so the director and screen play writers have to make changes to mold the book into a good film. They also have to go further than that and make it into a popular film because WB have spent an absolute fortune making it and want to get their money’s worth. Again, an unfortunate feature of reality. In aid of making the film easier to sell to the masses I can forgive things like the dragon scene as necessary sacrifices to the god of commerce. However, what I cannot forgive is blatantly missing the point of some of the key characters. But before I get into what’s wrong I think I need to give the creators fair credit for what they did well.

The Right Sound

The first and most obvious success in my view was the music, it was phenomenal and really set the right tone. I bought the sound track months ago and thought it was perfect before even seeing the film and now that I have seen the film I’m even more certain it worked (see my comments on the soundtrack). Yes, it was a new composer and yes the style is different in parts but it works and there are enough common elements in it to make it fit with what has gone before too. Mr Doyle, I take my hat off to you!

I also have to say that although it deviated massively from the book the scene in the maze was very well done and the scene at the end when Harry returns with Cedric’s body is just perfect. Basically the nearer the end of the film the better the scenes are.

New Faces

There were also some new characters that I thought were very well done, Rita Skeeter topping the list. Miranda Richardson nailed the character perfectly. I was also impressed with Barty Crouch senior and Amos Diggory, we don’t see much of Diggory but what we see is really believable, you can really see himself and Arthur chatting about plugs over tea at the ministry! Having said that some of the new characters were a bit of a let down but none were terrible. Moody is a hard one to place, at times Brendan Gleeson hit the character perfectly yet at others he missed completely but over all he was certainly passable.

The Old Guard

The old reliables were also excellent as ever, Maggie Smith was perfect as ever when portraying Professor McGonagll, Alan Rickman was again excellent as Snape and Jason Isaacs again captured the evil Lucius Malfoy wonderfully. Robbie Coltrane also did a great Hagrid, in fact he did a much improved Hagrid compared to some of the earlier films, the first one in particular. I was also impressed with how much the trio have come on over the four films. They had some really rough spots in the first film but I didn’t notice any in this film at all. Having said that Hermione’s character is still being wrongly enhanced but that’s more down to the script than anything else. From the films you get the impression that Hermione is hip and popular which just doesn’t tally with the books at all. Mind you that’s far from new in this film, it was really bad in the second and third films but actually a bit better in this one.

There were also a few nice little touches thrown in for the die-hard fans but fewer that I’d have liked. The one that I was really surprised at was the subtle inclusion of the school song during the celebrations after Harry beat the dragon. I hadn’t expected that at all and it really impressed me.

And Then it all Goes so Wrong

So, what really lets the film down? The most obvious let down is the first few scenes which are horribly rushed and the dialog painfully wooden. It’s almost like watching 15 minute Hamlet at times, they are saying all the right lines but in such fast succession that the whole scene looks forced and wrong. The scene in the side room after the champions are picked is a perfect example, the dialog is almost straight out of the book yet the scene is almost cringe-worthy and totally unbelievable. The Quidich World Cup was also a complete disaster as was the scene with the dark mark. We didn’t see a single second of action at the world cup and they didn’t bother with any of the important plot since house elves were totally written out. You have to wonder why they bothered with the world cup at all! The simple fact is that about 20 extra minutes, a few seconds of world cup play and some house elves would have made all the difference in the world and turned this from a disappointing film into an OK film.

Apart from the half-hearted opening to the film and the rediculously rushed scences the really un-forgivable aspect of the film is the total mess made of two of the main characters, Professor Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort. Both are supposed to be the greatest wizards of their time and one is an emotionally unstable babbling wanna-be-Irishman and the other is a ballerina. I’ve never liked Gambon’s Dumbledore because he just doesn’t fit with the Dumbledore we get to know and love from the books at all but in this film the director and the script writers just didn’t give him a chance at all. He looses his temper, he shouts, he even goes to pieces and ends up sitting on the floor of his office looking like an emotional wreck. That’s not Dumbledore! This one really gals me because Dumbledore is by far my favorite character so seeing him so terribly portrayed is so so disappointing. However, regardless of the script Gambon just doesn’t do a convincing Dumbledore, he speaks too fast and his body-language is all wrong. He is supposed to radiate an aura of power and Gambon just doesn’t portray that at all. I’ve always said Ian McKellen should have followed on from the near perfect Richard Harris but sadly I don’t get to cast the films!

Then we come to the Dark Lord. What a let down. The most evil wizard in the entire magical world, a wizard feared almost universally and responsible for an 11 year reign of terror the likes of which had never been seen before and he prances around as if he wants to be in the ballet! What ever Mike Newell was aiming for it’s safe to say he missed. The only thing that was even passable was his appearance, makeup were doing their job but I don’t think anyone else was. The body-language was terrible, the voice, a disaster. He didn’t come across as frightening at all. Simply put, he just wasn’t believable. The grave yard looked great and I thought the scene had potential but Voldemort ruined it.

Conclusions

So, bottom line, what would I give it out of 10? I’ll give it a pass, nothing more nothing less. Here in Ireland that’s 40% so 4 out of 10. Great potential, let down by poorly portrayed characters, badly rushed scenes and pointless penny-pinching. Worst HP film of the 4 we have seen so far, which is really disappointing considering it is following on the heels of the best.

Tonight the Moon makes a very close pass to the most visible Star Cluster, the Pleiades (or Seven Sisters). I just got a brief glimpse of the pairing a few minute ago with my 10x50mm binoculars and the view was stunning. Both easily fitted in to the same field of view and there was a lovely display of Earth Shine to top off the view! I’d estimate that the Moon was between two and three Moon diameters from the cluster.

Tagged with: astronomy • Moon • conjunction • observation log • deep sky

Astro2 held an observing session along with the Physics department for today’s partial solar eclipse. They had a nice array of Telescopes there, two set up to project an image onto screens and then a PST for observing the Sun directly in H-alpha. I was technically at work so I couldn’t stay for the whole eclipse but coffee time coincided nicely with maximum eclipse so I got to see about 20 minutes starting just after maximum. The view in the PST was spectacular, some lovely prominences and also two small sunspots near the eclipsed bit of the moon.

Myself and another colleague watched a live webcast from Turkey from work for a few minutes either side of totality. It was no where near as impressive as actually being there but it was still nice to do something for the eclipse.

Tagged with: Astro 2 • astronomy • observation log • eclipse • Sun

Yesterday was a bitterly cold day and last night was no warmer. After the excellent Astro2 talk on Science, Religion and Dawkins only three of us were brave enough to venture out into the cold for some observing but for those of us that did it was well worth it. We had stunning views of Saturn showing the cloud bands and the Cassini division very clearly, amazing views of the Orion Nebula at ridiculously low magnification (30X) so as to get th entire thing into the same field of view and then we zoomed in on the core for a closer look. We also took in some of the open clusters in Auriga and M35 in Gemini as well as a rather un-impressive M1 (light pollution really spoils it). We then finished off with another look at Saturn because none of us could get enough of that beauty!

Tagged with: planet • deep sky • Astro 2 • Saturn • observation log • astronomy

Yesterday was a sad day for NUI Maynooth as it was the last day that the great Brian Gormley would be counted as a member of staff of NUIM. Brian is off for a very important job in DIT and I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing him the very best.

His going away do was last night and I was glad to see so many staff and students from so many academic and service department there. Even the speeches were good and you could tell that it was more than just the standard platitudes, people were genuinely sorry to see Brian go. I think the president summed up how great a job Brian did as Director of Student Services when he informed us all that the college would be hiring two people to replace Brian. Personally I wonder will that be enough?!

Farewell Brian, Maynooth will miss you!

We had an unexpected observing session at the Astro2 meeting today. As we went in to the excellent talk on Gravitational waves it was pelting with rain but when we came out later the sky had completely cleared and there wasn’t a cloud in sight so we all trudged up to the physics department observatory for a wonderful observing session.

We started out with a look at Saturn, first at 100X and then at 190X. The air was not very stable so close after a major weather system had passed by so although Saturn looked very crisp (and big) at 100X even 190X was starting to push the limits a bit. At 190X we could clearly see the cloud bands on Saturn, the shadow of the rings and in moments of good seeing the Cassini Division in the rings. Saturn looked a little nicer than usual today because the background was just peppered with loads of stars from the large open cluster M44 (the Beehive Cluster) which Saturn is currently moving through.

After Saturn we turned our attention to The Orion Nebula (M42). Because the over half full moon was very close to Orion I decided to go for as low a magnification as possible to give maximum stability, contrast and sharpness to our view. Even with the moon interfering the nebula still looked stunning at 62X with the LX200. The contrast was excellent and all four stars of the trapezium were easily separable. There was also a lot of detail visible in the nebula. All in all people seemed impressed with the view since there were lots of oooh’s and aaaah’s as people were looking.

Finally, after everyone had had a good look at M42 we moved on to the moon. We started at 62X so that people could see the whole disk at once and also get an idea of the scale of the Orion Nebula which they had just seen at the same magnification. We ended the session by allowing everyone a ‘moon walk’, i.e. I put in our highest eyepiece (6.4mm giving a magnification of 390X) and gave each person observing the key pad and let them scan the moon for a while.

All in all it turned out to be a great observing session probably made all the more enjoyable by the fact that none of us had expected the opportunity for observation to present it self tonight!

Tagged with: astronomy • observation log • planet • deep sky • Astro 2 • Saturn

… you’re glad you have a power hungry, heat spewing G4 because it’s helping heat your bedroom. Just my luck that we’d run out of home heating oil just as we hit the coldest spell of the whole winter so far!

I had a Chinese takeaway from the Royal City in Maynooth for the first time in AGES and decided to get Fillet of Beef in Black Pepper sauce, my favorite dish in C3. In C3 it is rather spicy and tastes of black pepper but also has more flavor and leaves your mouth in-tact enough to actually taste the food, the Royal City version tasted as if they had taken an entire packet of black pepper, pured it into some rubbish beef and added some water and thickener. It was so hot that I could only take one mouthful and it tasted of NOTHING but intense and sickeningly over-powering black pepper. I threw it in the bin and will not be giving them my business again.

For the second time in less than a week the North Campus of NUI Maynooth was plunged into darkness at around 5pm. We still don’t know what caused the last cut but it was apparently “an ESB fault”. I wonder what we’ll be told about this one. My money is on another “ESB fault”. This level of service is just not acceptable. All CS department servers including our public web page were down for a whole night. I couldn’t work on my PhD stuff and I couldn’t find an email address for a lecturer in Physics I needed to contact. MiNDS> was un-available again too and basically this is the second night I’ve been majorly inconvenienced in less than a week by the apparent incompetence of our national electricity supply board. This level of un-planned service disruption is un-acceptable and I believe the university need to at the very least threaten legal action against the ESB to impress upon them that this third-world level of service is just not on in 21^st century Ireland!

It was both frosty and foggy last night so there were a lot of ice-crystals in the air. I saw one of the most impressive moon Halo’s I’ve ever seen. The inner circle went right in to the moon and was very bright, then there was a bright redish fringe followed by a dark fringe and then another bright fringe. For more information on Lunar Halo’s have a look here: http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/droplets/cormoon.htm.

I had a look tonight because the weather is similar but th fog is just too thick to see any interesting phenomena.

Tagged with: astronomy • Moon • observation log • atmospheric optics

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