Tonks
I try, generally, not to rant about my Harry Potter nonsense here, for those of you who periodically try to sit down and have an adult conversation wiht me. Doubtless for those of you who oocasionally seek council or confidence, i'd like to leave you with some shred of faith that i still have my sanity but, as is usual, sometimes I have to break that code to say "What the fuck?"
As you may or may not remember, in so many of my seething rants about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the last book release, the only thing that I was happy about - true, the only thing that I positively gushed about - I was happy as Larry about the realization of a ship that I've sailed since OOTP was released and Tonks was introduced. Tonks and Lupin. Two of what are my favorite characters from the series, save Dumbledore, were meant for one another since their inception but JKR, being the general dunce that she manages to be with regard to all other major plot movement, we - the shippers - were convinced would never see it. To our delight she did, and we were pleased.
And then...then there was this. The casting list for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the fifth book and next movie. The fisrt key point that I, as a Remus/Tonks fangirl and Tonks efficienado checked for was her casting. Lupin has long since been cast and is played by the mildly disturbing David Thewlis who, should I ever need to cast a child molester, I'll call immediately. (No, don't sue me for defamation of character - i'm not saying he is a child molester, i'm just saying that the long walks in the woods with Professor Lupin were more than a little wierd.)
A long time ago, I came to the mind that Natalie Imbruglia was the perfect Tonks. Not the new Natalie Imbruglia with the longer hair and the slimmer lines that leave her looking slightly ill, but the Natalie Imbruglia of the late nineties who made a one-hit wonder here in the States with Torn. [One | Two | Three | Four]
She has the soft facial features but still pixie-ish look sthat were always required for a character so full of naieve joy, but she also holds a quality I've always claimed Tonks would have in the hands of any other author - depth. (Not Natalie herself, but her appearance. Other than Torn and a cameo in Johnny English, i'm not familliar with her acting career at all.) Needless to say, I was positive they weren't actually going to cast her but I could hope nonetheless.
Given that you all clearly understand my expectations of the character now (and for those of you who can restrain from mocking me - there are about 30,000 words of my further characterization of her floating about the web) you can understand why I was entirely suprised and disgusted when my gleeful, joyous, clumsy and distantly burdened - though sweetly innocent in spite of it Tonks was announced to be played by....her
Now I assumed that the casting director had suffered a minor stroke, for this girl is neither pixie-ish, nor cute, nor sweet with almond shaped eyes. Yes, she's clearly willing to dye her hair pink, whch is an expectation of the role (with a possible temporary shade change to purple) but I'm sure than anyone could be pursuaded with the proper amount of cash and the Harry Potter dynasty is more than able to oblige those requests.
I would have assumed this, has the next peice of news not reached my ears only a few minutes later. First, the dreaded backstory.
Sirius Black is Harry's Godfather. In youth - he was Harry's father', James', best friend. As you'll all recall, the dark wizard, Voldemort, killed Harry's parents and tried to kill Harry, but failed. This has left Harry and Voldemort with an overly cliched connection of the minds - namely that they can pry into one anothers thoughts and emotions. This is important. Commit it to your short term memory. Getting back to Sirius however, there's a little bit of additional story for him. He was worngfully convicted of the murders of 13 muggles and one wizard in borad daylight and assumed to be spying for Voldemort. (He was assumed to have sold out the Potter's and to be responsible - if by extension - for their deaths. This honor was really held by the wizard he was accused of killing, one Peter Pettigrew. As it turned out, he ddin't actually kill him - he tried, of course, but Peter escaped and pretended to be Harry's best-friends pet rat for 12 years.) Now that that's all understood, in OOTP, Harry beigns having strange nightmares and these nightmares involve a place inside of the Ministry of Magic called the Department of Mysteries. They got progressively longer throughout the year and Dumbledore (the headmaster of the school and Gandolf the Great of Harry Potter) does everything in his power to stop the dreams from happening but won't tell Harry why. (Did you really remember the bit about prying into one another's minds?) In the end of the book, Harry has a dream or vision or whtaever you wuold like to clal it in which Sirius is in the Department of Mysteries being tortured by Voldemort. As Harry is the only person who knows this is happening and has no means of notifying anyone who can help Sirius, he does that thing he does that makes the series a Hero story and jumps on creepy lizard horses and makes for London to save him. As it turns out, it's a trap. Long story short, however, Sirius (and Lupin, and Dumbledore and a fair few others) appear to save Harry and his friends from the bad guys - here known as Death Eaters (original, no?) - and Sirius ends up dying.
As you mght have gathered from this - it's a rather large deal. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - yeah, Sirius was the prisoner. He's not only a character beloved by many teen girls, but he has an entire book dedicated to him. So when it was announced that Gary Oldman, who plays Sirius Black, had not been signed for the OOTP film, I was confused.
Miore than confused, I was perplexed.
For four movies they've hugged the storyline to such a degree that impresses those of us who realize how far screenplay writers normally stray. (Naturally, they don't hug it so closely as to keep from infuriating teenage girls who would like to have the costume designers strung up for putting Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) in a pink dress for the Ball rather than a blue one but well enough that you could watch the movies and skip reading the books without missing enough to make it confusing.
All in all, I've no idea what to think, so I'm focusing on the Happy Feet trailer.
"I know size can be daunting, but don't be afriad. I love you..." *dances*
As you may or may not remember, in so many of my seething rants about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the last book release, the only thing that I was happy about - true, the only thing that I positively gushed about - I was happy as Larry about the realization of a ship that I've sailed since OOTP was released and Tonks was introduced. Tonks and Lupin. Two of what are my favorite characters from the series, save Dumbledore, were meant for one another since their inception but JKR, being the general dunce that she manages to be with regard to all other major plot movement, we - the shippers - were convinced would never see it. To our delight she did, and we were pleased.
And then...then there was this. The casting list for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix the fifth book and next movie. The fisrt key point that I, as a Remus/Tonks fangirl and Tonks efficienado checked for was her casting. Lupin has long since been cast and is played by the mildly disturbing David Thewlis who, should I ever need to cast a child molester, I'll call immediately. (No, don't sue me for defamation of character - i'm not saying he is a child molester, i'm just saying that the long walks in the woods with Professor Lupin were more than a little wierd.)
A long time ago, I came to the mind that Natalie Imbruglia was the perfect Tonks. Not the new Natalie Imbruglia with the longer hair and the slimmer lines that leave her looking slightly ill, but the Natalie Imbruglia of the late nineties who made a one-hit wonder here in the States with Torn. [One | Two | Three | Four]
She has the soft facial features but still pixie-ish look sthat were always required for a character so full of naieve joy, but she also holds a quality I've always claimed Tonks would have in the hands of any other author - depth. (Not Natalie herself, but her appearance. Other than Torn and a cameo in Johnny English, i'm not familliar with her acting career at all.) Needless to say, I was positive they weren't actually going to cast her but I could hope nonetheless.
Given that you all clearly understand my expectations of the character now (and for those of you who can restrain from mocking me - there are about 30,000 words of my further characterization of her floating about the web) you can understand why I was entirely suprised and disgusted when my gleeful, joyous, clumsy and distantly burdened - though sweetly innocent in spite of it Tonks was announced to be played by....her
Now I assumed that the casting director had suffered a minor stroke, for this girl is neither pixie-ish, nor cute, nor sweet with almond shaped eyes. Yes, she's clearly willing to dye her hair pink, whch is an expectation of the role (with a possible temporary shade change to purple) but I'm sure than anyone could be pursuaded with the proper amount of cash and the Harry Potter dynasty is more than able to oblige those requests.
I would have assumed this, has the next peice of news not reached my ears only a few minutes later. First, the dreaded backstory.
Sirius Black is Harry's Godfather. In youth - he was Harry's father', James', best friend. As you'll all recall, the dark wizard, Voldemort, killed Harry's parents and tried to kill Harry, but failed. This has left Harry and Voldemort with an overly cliched connection of the minds - namely that they can pry into one anothers thoughts and emotions. This is important. Commit it to your short term memory. Getting back to Sirius however, there's a little bit of additional story for him. He was worngfully convicted of the murders of 13 muggles and one wizard in borad daylight and assumed to be spying for Voldemort. (He was assumed to have sold out the Potter's and to be responsible - if by extension - for their deaths. This honor was really held by the wizard he was accused of killing, one Peter Pettigrew. As it turned out, he ddin't actually kill him - he tried, of course, but Peter escaped and pretended to be Harry's best-friends pet rat for 12 years.) Now that that's all understood, in OOTP, Harry beigns having strange nightmares and these nightmares involve a place inside of the Ministry of Magic called the Department of Mysteries. They got progressively longer throughout the year and Dumbledore (the headmaster of the school and Gandolf the Great of Harry Potter) does everything in his power to stop the dreams from happening but won't tell Harry why. (Did you really remember the bit about prying into one another's minds?) In the end of the book, Harry has a dream or vision or whtaever you wuold like to clal it in which Sirius is in the Department of Mysteries being tortured by Voldemort. As Harry is the only person who knows this is happening and has no means of notifying anyone who can help Sirius, he does that thing he does that makes the series a Hero story and jumps on creepy lizard horses and makes for London to save him. As it turns out, it's a trap. Long story short, however, Sirius (and Lupin, and Dumbledore and a fair few others) appear to save Harry and his friends from the bad guys - here known as Death Eaters (original, no?) - and Sirius ends up dying.
As you mght have gathered from this - it's a rather large deal. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - yeah, Sirius was the prisoner. He's not only a character beloved by many teen girls, but he has an entire book dedicated to him. So when it was announced that Gary Oldman, who plays Sirius Black, had not been signed for the OOTP film, I was confused.
Miore than confused, I was perplexed.
For four movies they've hugged the storyline to such a degree that impresses those of us who realize how far screenplay writers normally stray. (Naturally, they don't hug it so closely as to keep from infuriating teenage girls who would like to have the costume designers strung up for putting Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) in a pink dress for the Ball rather than a blue one but well enough that you could watch the movies and skip reading the books without missing enough to make it confusing.
All in all, I've no idea what to think, so I'm focusing on the Happy Feet trailer.
"I know size can be daunting, but don't be afriad. I love you..." *dances*
1 Comments:
Oy Vey, That is one siturbin picture. I only found dark theatre pics of her, so I couldn't ass judgemen but if that's tonks... *shiver*
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