Monday Morning Quarterback Part III

By BOP Staff

July 20, 2011

You were supposed to wear the knickers too, you jerk.

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Joshua Pasch: For anecdotal purposes, I thought the world should know that I was apparently a child without a heart and no imagination for magic, as I gave up on book three when I was supposed to be JK's wheelhouse reader. Instead, my college roommate got me to give the series another chance at love when I was 21 years old. And love it I did. Here are my book ratings:

Sorcerer's Stone: A (for setting up the world)
Chamber of Secrets: B+ (docked points for introducing Dobby)
Azkaban: A- (for introducing werewolves. seriously, who saw that coming?)
Goblet of Fire: B+ (docked points for being a book that feels elementary in scale compared to the others. a tournament? really, how could the stakes feel big enough?; wins back respectability for having maybe the best finale of all seven books).
Order of the Phoenix: A+ (for introducing Umbridge, one of modern literature's most bad-ass villains. she is so evil)!
Half-Blood Prince: A (props for keeping me guessing until the very end on who the half-blood prince is)
Deathly Hallows: A- (comes as close as it could to giving something so momentous as the final comeuppance for Voldemort. those are high expectations to try satisfy).




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As for the films, the grading is a bit harsher:
Sorcerer's Stone: B (points for introducing a world that felt magical when I saw it 10 years ago and was a little kid; docked points for not holding up over 10 years).
Chamber of Secrets: C+ (never feel any real excitement; this franchise needed a fresh director to add higher stakes moving forwards).
Akzaban: B+ (ask and you shall receive; Cuaron provides a much needed change of tone for the series and while some of it didn't quite work for me - the freeze frame on Harry at the end of the film is unfortunately imprinted in my mind - this was still the first sign that the movies could grow up with the books).
Goblet of Fire: B- (mostly docked points because the source material is also weak, but it fails to capture the chillingness of the Voldemort's re-birth in the graveyard).
Phoenix: A+ (Yates takes over and nails the fifth entry better than I could've hoped; my favorite moment in the ENTIRE franchise remains Harry yelling to Dumbledore "Look at me!!!!" as he channels his inner dark side. Amazing stuff. First time I really got chills from the movies).
Half-Blood Prince: A (Yates proves he's the friggin' man. His greatest accomplishment here was injecting comedy and hormones into the series with a deft touch. also he perfected the flying "raining ink" effect and uses is brilliantly in a climactic badle scene).
Deathly Hallows 1: A- (this entry reminds me a LOT of the first Lord of the Rings flick with lots of aimless wondering. But I like the three main actors so much, I didn't mind it one bit. also wins respect for making Dobby awesome - previously believed by scientists to have been impossible to achieve).

Among the greatest franchises, I think this is just tough to judge at this point. My disappointment in rewatching the first two films recently means that I really need to give it AT LEAST ten years before I can judge this entire thing with some level of perspective.


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