Who the heck do I think I am?

So Bert, liamstliam, etakyma, and I went to the sneak preview of GoF tonight. We wound up getting dinner at Chili's, which was fine, except slow. Amy and I threw cash down and went ahead while the boys graciously stayed to settle the bill, and we walked into the theatre just in time for me to answer a trivia question and win a box set of the first 5 books in paperback. Sweet! Will probably donate to HPEF either as auction or library item.

When I went up to the radio guy to collect my doorprize, I announced that I had magnets and bookmarks. I was flooded by small children. Gave away all the magnets and many, many FA business cards and a few Lumos bookmarks. Heh. It was good work for about five minutes.

Bert and Bill arrived and we settled in. I'll tell you the absolute worst thing about the film, no spoiler required: The Audio and Visual got out of synch right around the time they pull the names out of the goblet. For some unknown reason, the video apparently skipped a chapter. So we were getting the sound of Dumbledore pulling the names from the goblet, but the visual of Harry walking into the room with the other three champions and the professors all having conniptions. The guy in the booth fiddled with it, couldn't get it fixed, and eventually got the audio to skip forward, so that we got back on track during Harry and Ron's spat. But they never rolled it back to pick up the scenes the right way. Bummer.

I definitely want to see this again, though I can wait for DVD if necesary. I warned the guys that I would be on extreme sides of the dial all night: either LOVING or HATING, no real in-between. I apologize again, gents, for being a fangirl during the movie.

Okay, on with the skinny. This is going to be jumbled and a bit cranky, so reader beware.
( Now for the Real Good, Bad, and Ugly )

I'm sure I have a ton of other complaints, some more minor than others, just as I'm sure I have a bunch more squees to issue. Nargh. It was like for every thing they did very well, they made just weird-ass choices for so much else. That's always how it is, I know, but then, I knew it would be mixed. On the whole, I think I liked this more than PoA, though. At least I'm looking forward to seeing it again, which I really didn't feel about the others so much.

I have a new theory, though, based on four movies now. If you want to know what's important, pay attention to the films. No, really. If the information didn't make it into the Cliff's Notes version, if it wasn't a vital plot point, then it probably ultimately doesn't matter to the overall arc.

Well. I'm really glad I didn't have to pay for it, anyway.