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.

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[deleted]

that´s because muggles can´t see hogwarts in all her beauty

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Dude, the English are even more stingy than Americans when it comes down to budgets. Why do more for a movie, when you can pocket the rest? What you are saying is to actually make it more realistic or use CGI for god's sake right? Nope. They just wanted to do the bare minimum, to get the movie over with, see how much it grossed, and pocket the rest. That is all really production companies are now days.

RIO OLYMPICS!!!! August 5th!

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Dude, the English are even more stingy than Americans when it comes down to budgets.


Could you elaborate on that please?

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You are depressed by a film set? In reality, English styled boarding schools aren't the flashest places you will see.

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It was a figure of speech to express my disappointment in the set direction, especially for such a high budget and high profile movie that was supposed to bring a whole other world to the big screen from the pages of a book.
What we got looked like a made for TV movie most of the time that they filmed at medieval buildings on the cheap.
I know Hogwarts has a history and a ton of character as a place in the books, and they fell flat on their faces trying to portray the place in the movie.
I know about boarding schools, but this place is supposed to be whimsical and magical.

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That isn't how I see it and maybe the Set Designers don't either. It is supposed to be a castle and a very ancient one at that.

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Even if so, the Diagon Ally set is still clashing hard with the real life locations.

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