I love Independence Day partly because I love fireworks. Though I've been hearing them on and off for the past few days (tonight especially) the best show I got was at Naim's yesterday evening where we set off some that he bought; hand-held sparkler wands and fountains of fire, colored 'solar flares' and one that shot out zooming green sparks! But more on that in a second; I'm getting out of order.
P2 and I are watching all the Harry Potter movies again before HBP is released, starting tonight with Sorcerer's Stone. As often is the case, going back and experiencing something again will sometimes net you previously unnoticed details. I expected maybe one or two tonight but found four things I'd not previously noticed! These usually crop up because your attention is on some other more focal thing in the scene; but the detail is there to be noticed. What I noticed this time: Near the beginning where the Dursleys are at the zoo with Harry, there's an external shot of the Reptile House in which if you watch the people walking by outside there is a group of students dressed in school uniform. This is a bit odd as technically it's Summer holidays and even Muggles shouldn't be in school then. Anyway, I see it as foreshadowing of school life at Hogwarts, and maybe even of Slytherin* House as the uniforms are green and they're right outside the Reptile House.
Second, I recognized the design of the chess pieces in the Wizard's Chess set that Harry and Ron are shown playing with over Christmas break. The design is very clearly that of the 12th century Lewis Chessmen! Many pieces can be seen from the knight to the queen in her chair, down to the geometric, ebenezer pawns. I had done some research on chess piece design since the last time I watched the movie, so that was rather delightful to discover.
The last two are name related, I never before caught that the centaur who defends Harry against Voldy in the Dark Forest is Firenze (Firenez!), addressed by name by Hagrid. This is probably in the book too, but as you never know which named characters will return to play more prominent roles and which will never return, you tend not to remember minor character names. At least I don't. Finally, at the end of the movie when Hagrid gives Harry the album (P2 said it looked like a cigar box X'D) with the photo of his parents, normally you'd focus on the people waving in the photo, but on either side are pennants bearing the letters J and on the other side L (or it could be the other way round..). JP and LP would be a bit obvious, so the single letters standing for James and Lily are a nice, subtle nod to fans. James' name is at least shown earlier in the movie on the Quidditch plaque, but I don't think Lily's name is ever mentioned.
Fun stuff. I'll keep my keen eye trained on the following movies to try and find other things I've previously missed. Having read all the books now there are the larger story arc things you understand now, like where the invisibility cloak came from and the building suspicion and animosity towards Snape. But those aren't quite the same as previously unnoticed details. Speaking of fun stuff I went over to my buddy Naim's the other night for some fun times as usual. Got to try out some new games including Rocket Riot and Worms Armageddon 2. The former was fun, but the latter just great; pure worms mayhem, polished to a high sheen. Worms scream in terror in the face of nearby dynamite, and the explosion sound effect is quite satisfying. Makes me want to get out Open Warfare 2 (DS) and give it a shot. As it were. :P
*Apart from watching the movie, back when I was designing the Hogwarts uniforms in Animal Crossing (see below), I noticed something about the name Slytherin that's not immediately apparent due to its conventional pronunciation. JKR's big on words and names of things, so while Slytherin obviously relates to slithering snakes, it's spelled with a Y, and so can be broken up to read, "sly therin," relating very specifically to qualities of Slytherin House's members, which the Sorting Hat sings about at some point in the books. I think the song is in the first book, I'll track it down later.











