On Pottermore

So I have been a Pottermore member since October 2012. When I first heard about this project I was beyond psyched! Finally, something for all us hardcore HP fans! The website's design is beautiful and full of vibrant colors. You get to unlock new material by J.K. Rowling herself throughout the books. 

As you can tell by this screencap, I got sorted into Hufflepuff. I was bummed at first but I came to love my house. (:

Pottermore lets you go through all the Harry Potter books and each chapter will contain one or up to three key moments in this chapter with amazing detailed artwork of moments in the book. You can interact with a few elements in each moment and you can even collect some items to help you throughout the story such as ingredients for potions, books or galleons for spending in Diagon Alley. You gain points for everything you collect but none if you're recollecting them. 

Like in the book when Harry first learns he's a wizard, you get to go to Diagon Alley and buy your school supplies and your wand. Once you're in Hogwarts, you get sorted into a house by answering 7 questions as truthfully as you can. Once you're in a house then that's that and you can't change it. These are the best experiences on Pottermore as you truly feel that J.K. Rowling placed the sorting hat on your head.

Your potions book.

You can brew potions and duel with other users and that's pretty much it. It's a lot fun at first but you get bored after a while as there's nothing else to do and not all the books are available to be explored. Even brewing potions can be frustrating as if you don't follow the instructions exactly, you have to start over and you'll need to buy more ingredients. Sometimes there's a lag and even if you do the whole potion correctly, the lag might make you start over. And once your potion is done, you get house points and that's pretty much it, you can't even use them. But a lot of people are pretty good at them. Not to mention most of the Diagon Alley shops are still locked. 

As members accomplish certain things on the site, they will gain points for their house and at the end of the year, of course, the house with the most points wins the house cup. 

Also, at the current moment (Only the first few chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban are available), most of the spells are locked and you can only perform a few. Same thing applies to potions, you can only brew 8 potions, including the polyjuice potion. 

To make this website more suitable for children, all members have usernames and it's not possible to upload your own photos or directly message other members. Because of that, you won't know who added you and if you have friends on Pottermore the only way to know who's who is if you talk off the website to tell each other your usernames'. 

I hope that sometime in the near future that more games will be available, maybe taking quizzes to determine your patronus charm or more fun games like the ones you played throughout the story (catching pixies or tossing gnomes out of a garden). Maybe having more moments in each chapter and having more interactive things to do in each moment. Also maybe challenging another member to a friendly game of wizard's chess. And being able to read the books you've purchased would be great too. 

The website is beautifully done and the hard work and effort put into it is very apparent. As you go more and more into the books, you can tell how the Pottermore team is trying make the experience more enjoyable. 

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Movie Review

First post of 2013! Hope you all have a great year this year! Now onto the review. After a much anticipated trailer, I finally got to see The Hobbit a few weeks ago! I was really excited as I entered the movie theater with my husband and a few of his friends (he wasn't too eager though :D). I was really looking forward to see what Peter Jackson managed to accomplish this time.  

This movie differs as it is shot amazingly with 48 frames per second, double the normal rate of 24 frames per second. The picture is vivid, crisp and full of high quality detail. Plus seeing it in IMAX 3D is simply mind blowing, however, the 3D aspect does not play a huge role in this movie.

Although many say that the 48 frame per second was not the best choice that Jackson went along with as it was a bit too fast to capture the real magical moments in the movie. And that it's kind of being on set and so you see everything behind the scenes. Since I'm a fan, I would have gone to see the film regardless of how it was shot. Most of us are not photography or film maniacs so we don't know the details of how the movie was shot and to be honest most of us don't care. To me, movies are all about enjoyment and not about the technology used to create them. Unless, of course, something was very obviously ruining the movie. 

The Hobbit novel is only around 300 pages long which makes you wonder how the writers of the movies will rewrite some parts of the story in order to be able to stretch it into a trilogy. However, I want to point out that I have not read the novel so my review is solely based on the enjoyment of this movie. 

As most Lord of the Rings fanatics know, The Hobbit is a prequel and these events take place shortly before the first LotR film. We see a young Bilbo Baggins, who is portrayed amazingly well by Martin Freeman, whom Frodo takes a lot after by the way. We also see a very green and peaceful Shire, before all the chaos that envelopes it.   

The big bad wolf in The Hobbit is Smaug, a ruthless dragon who thirsts for gold and guess who has a lot of it? The dwarves. The story follows how Bilbo is 'tricked' into tagging along with 13 dwarves on an amazing adventure as a thief to retrieve their homeland, Erebor, along with Gandalf the Grey (another great appearance by Ian McKellen). 

There are a lot of dangers on the road ranging from fearsome (not to mention really ugly) orcs to thick headed trolls and goblins, and a few surprises here and there as well. I was not disappointed that the orcs were animated as it would have been really difficult to design a costume as detailed as the animation, not to mention it would've been very hard to move around in. It looked pretty real to me. 

The scenery was beyond mind blowing, I cannot even begin to describe how stunning the locations were. And they all added so much more to the the story, it was truly dazzling.  

To put it quite frankly, I did not recognize the actor who played Thorin at all and throughout the movie my husband and I were trying to remember where we saw him before but with no avail (we had to search it as soon as we got home). Richard Armitage played the dwarf king and that's basically how good his performance was; we couldn't recognize him. He fitted the role beautifully. We also see some familiar faces from the LotR movies such as Kate Blanchet, Hugo Weaving and Christopher Lee. I don't think I even need to go into how well they all performed (even though it was only for one or two scenes). 

The soundtrack also added greatness to the story, the dwarf songs and the music all came together fantastically. The music simply gives you goosebumps. 

While the movie is pretty long I didn't feel it since I was enjoying it so much. I didn't feel as if it was dragging on, sure I enjoyed some moments more than others but in the end it put a smile on my face. I have heard that the movie is misleading from the book but as I have said before, it doesn't really irk me as long as the major plot has not changed. Besides, you can't compare this with the LotR trilogy, it's going to be different and we to accept that. You might think change isn't always good but a little of it won't do much harm, will it? Following the novels exactly feels boring and dull to me, I will feel like my imagination did it better but the differences add a little spice to the story and so there's a little element of surprise too. I give this movie an 8/10! It may not have lived up to our expectations but it's spectacular nonetheless.