Harry Plotter: Movie 4

The fourth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released in 2005, a mere 6 years ago. It was directed by Mike Newell, which makes it the last movie in the Harry Potter franchise to be directed by someone other than David Yates. While the book is a fluid, interesting, and captivating read (check out our review HERE), the movie often feels disjointed, rushed, and uninspired. It’s almost as if the filmmakers decided on where the action sequences should go and then just built the rest of the story around them. They don't seem to care when characters are left out or important story lines are dropped, and the reworking of certain events to fit into their specific narrative arc feels clunky. It’s unfortunate that such an engaging book was turned into such an odd movie. Yet, despite its obvious faults, the film does carry with it a certain magic, especially when the action stops long enough to leave room for the smaller, more human moments.

The Four Triwizard Tournament Champions

Flower of my Heart

First, let’s talk, as we often do, about casting. Most prominently

Harry Plotter: Book 4

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published mid-year 2000, and I remember it being the first Harry Potter novel that I absolutely needed to have when it came out. I was still reeling from the tour de force that was the third book, and I had heard rumors that a character was going to die. Now it seems silly to anticipate a character death, because Rowling ended up playing fast and loose with the murder card as the series continued. Still, it was a big deal at the time. I'm not sure what I was anticipating, exactly, but I know that this would be a different book, a more mature book, a book that I wouldn't be embarrassed to carry around school.

Sh*t gets REAL

And, well, things really do get going in this book, which represents the beginning of the dark years for young Harry Potter. We get a lot in these pages: the Pensieve, the Triwizard Tournament, Fleur Delacour, Viktor Krum, Alastor ‘Mad Eye’ Moody, the return of Voldemort, etcetera. It’s one of the more densely packed novels in the series. While books 5 and 7 tend to luxuriate in teen angst and desperation, respectively, everything in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire moves by at a relatively fast clip, barely pausing to mention the blossoming [blerg] love stories of Ron/Hermione and Harry/Cho Chang.  So, what are some of the more important or interesting moments? Let’s see… (Spoilers Ahead)

In this book we get very quick mentions of characters that become imminently more