PotterCast #126: Fred the Armadillo Transcript

News Talk (0:00 - 19.50)

John Noe (JN): Does everybody know what time it is?

Sue Upton (SU): No, what time is it? (laughs)

JN: (laughs) It's PotterCast time!

SU: PotterCast! Squee! (laughs) (JN and SU hum)

JN: Still got a belly full of Thanksgiving dinner.

SU: Oh, and your Thanksgiving in a sandwich!

JN: My Thanksgiving sandwiches, I've had about three so far. (SU laughs) They've been phenomenal.

SU: I still- I don't even want to get into the dripping mashed potatoes idea I have in my head.

JN: No, no no! They don't drip. It's just like any other sub sandwich. (SU laughs) You need firm mashed potatoes.

SU: Firm? Yeah.

JN: Anywho.

SU: This is not a cooking show, it's PotterCast! (laughs)

JN: No. We should make a cooking podcast! That'd be sweet.

SU: Oh, that would be fun, I would do it. We should do it.

JN and SU: Yeah.

JN: I think I've seen some posters out there lately at the malls talking about the Order of the Phoenix DVD coming out.

SU: Yes, very soon. They've already started the bliss for the DVD. It's just- it's in Entertainment Weekly Magazines, it's gonna be on ABC Family, it'll be everywhere. Everywhere you go! Potter everywhere!

JN: They have these cool huge posters at the mall, I saw- (SU: Oh, that'd be cool.) of the cool one that they had on some billboards out there, but we've never gotten ahold of it. It's the picture of all the bad guys on the left, like Voldemort, (SU: Yes!) like it's a profile. And then on the other side, is Harry and his friends (SU: Mm-hm.) and their profile shot, and it's like, they're meeting in the center. And it's the coolest picture I've ever seen promo done for any movie, and I want to get online and no one's got it. Sadness.

SU: We saw that when we went to the premiere in London. They had that big thing, and I stood underneath it so that I could have Jason Isaacs right above my head. (JN: Yeah.) It was awesome and that was as close as I could get to him. (JN: That's the one.) But I love that poster. I think they redid it- Warner Brothers just recently redid their website harrypotter.com for Order of the Phoenix. And I think they put that on there, but I'm not sure. That is a cool poster, I would love doing that poster. (sighs) Jason. (JN: Totally.) Awesome. Squee!

JN: Are you kidding me lawn mower? (SU laughs)

SU: And we now interrupt this podcast, (laughs) for the house session, where you learn...

JN: Well we've been waiting for these lawn mowers to go away for like (SU laughs) an hour. (SU: They could hear us rumble.) And they just come back when they hear me going on about, you know, posters.

SU: That's it, it's the Death Eaters, they thought that maybe you were like signaling them back John! (laughs)

JN: Well, until they go away, I want to hear some news to cheer me up.

SU: There was actually quite a lot of news. We were talking about the DVD, it is going to be released on December 11th here finally in the United States. WB did redo their site, and they've also released a new clip of our friend Evanna Lynch, Luna Lovegood, filming the Thestral scene. (JN: Perfect!) It was really cool to watch that.

JN: That's awesome.

SU: Yeah, I guess that's on the special features or something on the disk. Because the disk is coming out, the regular disks are coming out plus everything is being reformatted or mastered for hi-definition format.

JN: Now did they go through the evolution of getting that line just perfect about telling him what the Thestrals were called?

SU: No, it showed like Evanna and then Dan on these, you know, people would be like, I know people would be like "Sue's going on about a bar," but you know how you can go to those things bronco riding? It looked like that. (JN: Yeah, yeah!) So they showed Evanna sitting on a blue screen, and then they showed how they did all the key work and to put them in flying. It looked really pretty cool.

JN: Yeah. Yeah, they had built that previously from the riding buckbeak.

SU: Oh yeah, okay. That's what it was.

JN: It was a really cool motion-controlled rig there.

SU: Yeah, it's really- I love when they put those things out like that though. To me, I'm a big geek, and I want to know.

JN: I know, we haven't really gotten a whole lot of behind the scenes with the previous movies. (SU: No.) Goblet had a little bit of it. Goblet had that really cool behind the scenes like a day in the life of one of the actors.

SU: It was the Hufflepuff, Mr. Robert Pattinson. (JN: Yes.) Come on. Cedric lives baby! (laughs)

JN: They caught him on a chill day.

SU: Yeah. So, let's see what else is in the news. Oh! The casting is now complete for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which is in production. And get the name of this, Hero Fiennes Tiffin (laughs) has been cast.

JN: Hero Fiennes Tiffin. Right, right, yeah, I was thinking Hiro Nakamura for some reason.

SU: Yeah, I know. (laughs)

SU: He has been cast to play an eleven year-old Tom Riddle. I think it's pretty neat.

JN: That name sounds familiar.

SU: Well he is the nephew of Ralph Fiennes. So- (JN: Ralph!) yeah, we had the rumor about him which turned out to be kinda true. I guess the other name is Titan, his brother's name is Titan.

JN: Woah, those are some cool names.

SU: Aren't they, though? I mean that's kinda rockin'. But curiously, they did not release the names of anyone playing who's playing like the Gaunt family or Scrimgeour, or, you know.

JN: It makes me kinda worried about those story lines. (SU: Yeah.) If we don't have that...

SU: Well, here I was thinking, because last week we talked about the clip of sneak previews of Half-Blood Prince, and they had filmed the orphanage. So I was thinking they were going to have Merope, and all that whole thing. But they didn't release the names of any actors or actresses for that, so...

JN: They can always mention these people, (SU: Yeah.) in the story line; give mention to these names. But they don't need to cast these parts if they're not going to really delve into it. (SU: Yeah.) I don't know. We should talk next week about how it changes the story line to have that stuff removed.

SU: That would be really good because I actually was hoping to learn- because there was a lot of parallels- although they didn't have too much of Harry being young in Sorcerer's Stone, (JN: Mm-hm.) that whole thing, so, (JN: Yeah.) I don't know. I still would have liked to know the crazy- the guy from the Ministry coming and all that to the house and just...

JN: Yeah. Totally. Well, the last time that they had a big flashback scene (SU: Mm-hm.) and cast a bunch of people to be in it, they kind of butchered it.

SU: Pretty much. "Snape's Worst Memory?" Huh? (JN: Snape's Worse Memory.) What?

JN: Snape's worst montage memory is clearly incoherent. So what the hell is going on?

SU: And especially when they cut out Lily. Clearly we know how important she is. (JN: The whole point of the scene.) Yeah. (laughs) The whole point of the series. (JN: The part with Lily.) Seriously, if you think about it, the motivation of Snape, his love for Lily, is the motivation for this whole thing. (JN: Yeah.) The whole series. (JN: The whole series. Whatever.) By the way, we're just going to cut her out, by the way.

JN: It's all about his underpants, apparently. (SU laughs) Nothing to do with the girl that he's in love with. (SU: No.) That's okay. You can't land everything a hundred percent. Even Scott Hamilton falls on his ass (SU laughs) a few times.

SU: Okay, so filming does go on though for Half-Blood Prince. So, we had a little report from- they're at a train station right outside- (JN: Yeah.) yeah. And Dumbledore is waving. We don't know what that's about. (laughs) I don't...

JN: He's in a better mood this year, apparently.

SU: I guess. We were trying to speculate what that was, but it was at- because they had the train come up and they did a- they said it was somebody inside- the way they shot it with the camera work was like they shot a scene looking outside the window or something. So, Gambon would walk up (JN: Yeah.) and kind of gesture and I guess he had to do that a couple of times, but I don't know what that would be for. (JN: Beats me.) (laughs) But he's got his little glove on, or whatever, green hand again, so- (JN: Yup. That's so cool.) it is cool that they're doing. I give Yates credit for that.

JN: Yeah. I think that they did something similar when they had to film Anakin (SU: Oh, right.) in Episode whatever it was, Two or Three, when they showed his robotic looking (SU: Oh, right.) forearm. (SU: Yeah.) They need to do the replacement here, so.

SU: But I love- the fans go out and do these reports. This one was originally in German, a German site had it. And all these fans had sent in all these- a bunch of people sent in translations and stuff. (JN: Cool.) So, I just thought, it's really cool when people do that. But we just want to know everything. (SU and JN laugh) A little obsessive. Speaking of wanting to know everything, there had been rumors- we had all talked about for Order of the Phoenix, we had all hoped that Lockhart would have been, they would have filmed that scene, (JN: Yeah.) there was rumors floating about. (JN: Yeah.) But there was a new interview with Kenneth Branagh and he said that they never even contacted him for that, for him- (JN: Aw. Sadness.) I know. And apparently, he was actually once in line to direct Prisoner of Azkaban.

JN: Yeah? (SU: Yeah.) I thought that rumor had been around for a while, (SU: Yeah.) but was it Azkaban? I thought it was maybe Sorcerer's Stone or something.

SU: Well, he said he was running to direct one that Alfonso Cuaron did. It was while he was working on the second one, he revealed. He said, "They felt for a minute that maybe it'd be great if Ken did one, but it didn't work out. It would have been interesting." (JN: Hm.) So- and he was nominated for an Academy Award. He does a lot of directing, besides being a very accomplished Shakespearean actor and regular actor, too. That- (JN: Yeah.) he does direct. Now- and he said he wouldn't come back for Deathly Hallows, either.

JN: He would not?

SU: He would not. No.

JN: As a director or as an actor?

SU: Director. He would hope that Gilderoy would be in for Book Seven. (JN: Yeah.) We don't know what happened to him. (laughs)

JN: I think once it gets closer to Deathly Hallows, the movie time, we're going to have to start making a wide appeal, (SU: Yeah.) that every actor who was mentioned in here just needs to come back. Even if it's just for a few seconds of screen time. (SU: Yeah.) Just come out to Leavesden for one day. (SU: Yeah! That'd be great.) Just get out in that movie. Who cares what they pay you? (SU: Yeah.) I know that's stupid, but you need to be in this movie. This is the last one, this is so important.

SU: They've had extraordinary casting on these films, I have to say. (JN: Yeah.) But he was so perfect as Lockhart. I like it- if you stayed to the end of the movie, you got to see that scene of him, just- when he was in St. Mungo's. They had a poster of him inside Flourish and Blotts; he's just sitting there on that- (JN: Yeah.) and just that one little thing like that was hysterical. You know?

JN: It was a great little flourish thing.

SU: And they can have him do something like that. That would be funny to wrap that up, having him walk by, or a story or something with Harry with his kids (JN: Yeah.) or something at the end of Deathly Hallows. They could do that. (JN laughs) I think it's a good idea, John. You should write it. (laughs)

JN: I am going to rewrite- no. I would never assume I could do that.

SU: No. Okay. What else is happening? Okay. We all know that Jo has handwritten seven copies of something called The Tales of Beedle the Bard and one is going to be auctioned off for charity. (JN: Mm-hm.) Well, the great news is now the book is going to go on display here in the U.S. and, I don't know, by the time this gets out, it will go on display on Monday, November 26th and then be open to the public on the 27th and 28th, as well.

JN: What does that mean exactly, "open"? Do they display just the cover, one of the inside pages, or...

SU: You know, I don't know. I have honestly never been to one of those things. I know that they did that when they had the auction for the Black family tree and one of our readers went and was able to see portions of it- they sent back and we got to see what parts of the names are on the tree but not the whole thing, so I don't know if they'll take the whole book apart, I don't know.

JN: What I want to know is from where are they coming up with the value of this thing? Is it in the fact that it's a hand-written original work from Jo or is it the fact that only these seven people and their closest friends will know what the story is.

SU: You know, there is an article that they had a big press day about that and one of the websites was talking about how it's very rare to get an unpublished manuscript from a living author. And that they kind of "guess-timate" on what other sales of other previous unpublished manuscripts have been, but- Like with Jo's, they are only estimating it will go for a hundred thousand dollars, which I think is way low personally but...

JN: There's probably like some clauses in there that say you can not turn this around and publish it.

SU: Oh no! Jo did say, she did specify- and it does say on Sotheby's website that you are not being granted publishing options for that, but I'm sure someone will say- You know, because the book includes five tales that are referenced in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so I want to know that background just because...

JN: I wonder if we ever will.

SU: Well, Jo never said that somewhere down the line she wouldn't publish this for charity too, you know.

JN: Yeah, but you think she would have to disclose that in this auction, and say that this is unique and one of a kind right now, but I may eventually publish it, so that could change somebody's motivation for buying that thing.

SU: Well, that's true, that's true, I would think so. And I would think that the people that she's giving the other six copies to- Maybe like say she's going to give one- and we don't know, but say she giving one to Arthur Levine. He's not going to go ahead and publish that on his own, you know. (JN: No.) (laughs) I do know that it is said you are not being granted any publishing rights to it. And there is a catalog that you can purchase and it does have little bits about it, like images from the thing, but it doesn't tell everything so- And all the money from that does go to charity, for the Children's Wish charity, too, so I guess in a way you can get- Like we the fans can get hold of some of it, but I just want the whole thing so, I don't know- how greedy. (laughs)

JN: It's all good.

SU: It's all good! Speaking of being greedy, I love Potter, I want to dwell in it and I want to go to Orlando, Florida in 2009 or 2010.

JN: Oh yeah? (laughs)

SU: Yeah. (laughs)

JN: What's happening then?

SU: Well, apparently you can go and sing Christmas carols and do Halloween there, if this rumor is true.

JN: Well that makes a lot of sense considering that they have huge events for Halloween in their old park- (SU: Yeah.) they do their Halloween horror night and they had a huge one this year with like all the big- Freddy Krueger and Jason and all these other crazies from scary movies and things. (SU: Yeah.) And they go all out for Christmas too and then they have the whole area there for Dr. Seuss and stuff that's covered in snow and everything.

SU: Oh! Wouldn't that be fun?

JN: They go all for holidays. So if they have the big Harry Potter park attached to their other parks there it would stand to very good logic that they would dress him up for holidays too so...

SU: You know, that was cool because this report said that they're going to have like for Christmas, that they would have- they're planning an holiday at Hogwarts with carolers strolling through the streets of Hogsmeade and a traditional English Christmas feast being served nightly in the Great Hall at the Hogwarts Castle. Squee! Which would be squee. And then they are going to try and compete with- I guess Disney World does a Halloween- not so scary Halloween party, and they are going to try and compete. And like you said make it more like kid friendly. (JN: Yeah.) This is kind of cool John and maybe you could elaborate more about this, but they said that phase one of the Wizarding World may open late in 2009, and that phase would probably include Hogwarts Castle and Hogsmeade village, and phase two featuring the Forbidden Forest and that Weasley family flying car attraction. (JN: Yeah.) That would be sweet.

JN: It's funny, I've never heard any of that officially from anybody. (SU: Really, yeah.) So, I don't know who they are sourcing there, (SU: Yeah, I don't know.) but that comes from that Screamscape website or whatever it is?

SU: This was on Jim Hill Media and then that Screamscape website also has stuff about this too- those are like unofficial- that Jim Hill guy...

JN: They are theme park enthusiast bloggist with website and things, (SU: Right.) they send people out there and scour the parks for interesting things and they are die-hard for everything theme park, so (SU: Yeah.) they'll probably be covering it pretty hardcore.

SU: I would think so. I would think so.

JN: There was talk on one of those websites about re-theming one of their roller coasters over there that's dragon (SU: Oh!) themed called The Dueling Dragon (SU: Mm-hm.) as to some kind of Goblet of Fire dragon (SU: Ooh!) sort of thing, (SU: That'd be awesome.) hich would be pretty neat. I- hadn't really occurred to me that they would be re-theming parts of their existing park (SU: Mm.) and incorporating it into that.

SU: You've been in that. I've never been to Universal, so I don't know. But I mean that's going to be a pretty- I think it would just be a huge physical task, just to undertake. To redo all of that. That just seems like...

JN: Yeah, and they apparently they've given some quotes to some sources I guess that said that the part of their park in question, their Lost Continent (SU: Mm-hm.) area of the park, would remain open (SU: Oh.) during construction. So, if it's going to remain open and I don't see where, unless maybe just parts of it are going to remain open, because it is a pretty big land for them. (SU: Oh, okay.) I don't know. I expect we'll hopefully be getting more information from these guys (SU: Yeah.) before the year's out.

SU: Yeah. But just, I mean you know, we were talking last week about the conventions' plan and stuff and then you read these kind of things and you're like, "Man! Is it 2009 yet? I wanna go!"

JN: Totally, totally.

SU: 'Cause I really did. I thought- I remember the day that that announcement came, and I thought, "You know what? I really wanna go apply to be a- work in the Leaky Cauldron and be a little bartender or something." I would work down there. (JN: Yeah!) (laughs) It would be awesome.

JN: Yeah, definitely. Oh my god. That'll be a fun day when that FAQ page goes up. "Do I have to be British to work here?" It's like...

SU and JN: "No!"

JN: (laughs) "Do you think we're gonna bring 'em over and- (SU laughs) by ship and by plane from England to work at our park? You're crazy!"

SU: Yeah. Oh, man. If they need people to be Hufflepuffs, I volunteer.

JN: You know, they probably would need people to be Hufflepuffs because...

SU: I think it would be fun. I guess they could have all types. They have to have all the houses there, so.

JN: Well, they were- I think there was a rumor that they were actually going to have an area for young children with (SU laughs) slides and ball pits and it was Hufflepuff-themed. (SU laughs) And that's where all the Hufflepuffs were supposed to play while the Gryffindors and Slytherins went on the roller coasters.

SU: Uh huh. You know what? You are such a Slytherin. (JN laughs) You are such a big ol'- I love roller coasters. I am not afraid of roller coasters. And you know, John and I are both from- I should talk about- We're from Ohio and we have- Ohio has the world's, I think, best roller coasters. And there's one called The Beast and I tell you what, I used to ride in the front seat going down on that ride. And I bet you wimped out if you ever go on those rides. Did you ever wimp out?

JN: God, The Beast, that's...

SU: At Kings Island.

JN: Is that King's Island? Yeah. No. I grew up going to Cedar Point.

SU: Oh, well. Yeah that's a good one too. They have some good ones up...

JN: Oh, they have more roller coasters at one park than anything in the world.

SU: Yeah, they do, but- so, I am not going to stay in some play ball pit. (JN laughs) I will go work on the rides. Now, Hufflepuffs are not wimpy. We're just (JN: Okay.) kind of mellow.

JN: I'll take your word for it. (SU laughs)

SU: Oh, okay. I think that's enough news though for now.

JN: Yeah, I think they've got plenty of news to go for. We'll have many future shows, I'm sure (SU: Yes.) themed all about the Harry Potter park (SU: Woo hoo!) as we get more information on it because that's just too much fun.

SU: Oh, too much fun. I can't wait. (Whispers) Wait, wait, wait. Oh man, I'm kind of in a musical mood. It's Christmas time.

JN: You are? Oh, God. We better get out of here.

SU: Yeah, or I'll start singing. (JN laughs) You know, I'm gonna come up- I'm gonna write me a Hufflepuff theme song. I think I need to do that. (JN: Yeah?) Yeah.

JN: I think you should video blog, Sue. (SU laughs) I think you should have the video blog for the Hufflepuffs out there. (SU laughs) Like "How to be a Hufflepuff" video blogs.

SU: You know that would be fun.

JN: And you could have like one video at a time. Like, "Hufflepuffs do this" and, you know, "We cook this for dinner." (SU laughs)

SU: And what would we have for the Slytherins? "And we go and we set our meat balls on fire." Yeah, (JN laughs) that's it.

JN: How to Handle a Slytherin, (SU laughs) would be one video. That could be very popular.

SU: It could be. I will consider it. I'm so old fashioned. But I do not have a little video camera yet. But if I ever get one...

JN: Oh, all you need is a little webcam.

SU: I'll get one and I'll...

JN: If you think Sue should do that everybody, you should email sue@the-leaky-cauldron.org (SU: (laughs) No!) and we'll see how many people agree with me.

SU: Well who would watch this besides the Hufflepuffs? Now I mean, come on.

JN: You tell her who would watch it, everybody. You email Sue.

SU: No! (laughs) And then I'm gonna to have John come on and I'm gonna tell them what not to do. There we go.

JN: I can help you with for your re-enactments of how to deal with Slytherins.

SU: (laughs) I just want to see the cooking. I think we should do that cooking cast. And we could do that, how Hufflepuffs and Slytherins would cook. And that would just be- 'cause we're (JN: That could be totally cool.) a festive- Jo said they were a festive bunch so, you know.

JN: Yeah, for sure. (SU laughs) Oh golly. All right, let's get out of here.

SU: Oh, okay. We better go.

JN: This is crazy.

SU: Okay.