Hogwarts looks like a dump.
So I finally gotten around to watching the first movie adaptation of the book series last night... I can see why they'd film on location, but almost every time they do, frankly the places look like a dump to me. I don't primarily mean dilapidation - although in one scene the partially renovated parts of pillars looked really jarring towards the end- but when I was reading the books, I always imagined the hallways to be covered in rugs, stain glass windows on the walls, wall carpets, armors, a plethora of various trinkets in cabinets from the incredibly long continuous history of Hogwarts... and what do we get? Pretty much only plain empty dilapidated stone hallways without any decoration whatsoever. Frankly, they look terrible to me, same for some of the outdoor shots. They are mostly just a historic building exteriors without any effort to set them apart from, well, a muggle historic building. They are in stark contrast to Diagon Alley, which looked pretty good to me. Then there is the hospital scene at the end... it looks like they have give up there, because they just seem to be using contemporary stock hospital beds.
I can't imagine that this has been due to a budget issue in such a high profile triple A production as this (125 million dollars!). It just felt incredibly lazy and unimaginative to me. And frankly a bit depressing.