The Quick 10: 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Harry Potter

With Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince coming out in the U.S. later this week, it’s time to out myself as a Slytherin Supporter. Maybe you already knew that. Nothing against Gryffindors – I’m no Voldemort or anything – but I always tend to like the villains a little more than the do-gooders. To celebrate Harry and Co.’s sixth movie (and sixth book), here are a few facts that you may not have known about the gang in gold and red (and maybe a couple about the set in silver and green).

1. Hermione’s name was almost “Hermione Puckle.” It has a sour tone to it, doesn’t it? J.K. Rowling thought so, too, and changed to something that suited the character better. Rowling has said that Hermione has a healthy dose of herself in there, as she was quite the know-it-all herself as a child. Hermione was originally going to have a younger sister, but Rowling never found the right moment to stick her into the books.

2. Gilderoy Lockhart, the insufferably vain professor and celebrity from The Chamber of Secrets, was based on someone Rowling knows in real life. The rumor is that she based him on her ex-husband, but she has been quite adamant about denying that. “He used to tell whopping great fibs about his past life, all of them designed to demonstrate what a wonderful, brave and brilliant person he was. Perhaps he didn’t really believe he was all that great and wanted to compensate, but I’m afraid I never dug that deep,” she has said. “He’s probably out there now telling everybody that he inspired the character of Albus Dumbledore. Or that he wrote the books and lets me take the credit out of kindness.”

3. Hedwig, Harry’s Snowy Owl, isn’t entirely accurate. After the first book was accepted for publication, she found out Snowy Owls are diurnal. And it was during the writing of book two that she realized that Snowy Owls are silent, meaning that Hedwig’s knowing hoots and conversational noises weren’t quite true-to-life. She admits this was just a research hole on her part, but says readers should feel free to assume that her unusual talents are just part of her magical ability. Incidentally, although Hedwig is female, she is played by a male in the movies because females aren’t wholly white like males are.

4. Collecting unusual and interesting names and words has been a lifelong habit for Rowling. She has said that she loves reading lists of them, from war memorials to baby name books, and made it a point to remember her favorites. Some of them found a new home in the Harry Potter books. She makes up some of the words too – “quidditch” is a Rowling original. She filled up five pages of made-up words that started with “Q” before she hit on one that sounded right. “Voldemort” and “Malfoy” were also invented.

5. If a muggle were to happen across Hogwarts, all they would see is nothing but a ruined castle with large signs on it saying ‘keep out, dangerous building.’ This might sound a bit suspicious to those of us in the States, but it seems like the U.K. is rife with castle ruins.

6. Fred and George Weasley were born on April Fool’s Day. Go figure. While we’re talking about the Weasleys, there was a Weasley cousin named Mafalda who got edited out of The Goblet of Fire in order to make room for the love-to-hate-her invasive “journalist” Rita Skeeter. That’s probably best – Ginny Weasley is supposed to have been the first girl born to the Weasley family for several generations, so scrapping Malfalda supports that backstory.

7. Harry, Ron and Hermione all have wand cores based on their birthdays: the Celt assigned trees to people based on that kind of like we assign gemstones today. She had already assigned Harry’s holly-based wand when she discovered the Celt tree calendar and found that she had accidentally assigned him the “right” type of wood. She did the same thing with Draco Malfoy (Hawthorn wood). But Ron and Hermione both purposefully received wands based on their birthdays – ash for Ron and vine wood for Hermione. She didn’t carry this convention out for all of the characters, though.

8. Filch’s cat, Mrs. Norris, takes her name from the Jane Austen book Mansfield Park. Fittingly, Austen’s Mrs. Norris is also rather sour and bitter.

9. Snape was partially based on a teacher J.K. Rowling once had. She likes to write him, though, because she finds him such a pathetic creature.

10. As you probably know, King’s Cross station is where young wizards hop on the Hogwarts Express to get to school. What you might not know is that the station holds special meaning for J.K. Rowling: it’s where her parents met. They were coincidentally both headed to Arbroath in Scotland when they met on the train. King’s Cross was intentionally chosen as the gateway to Hogwarts in homage to Rowling’s parents.

There’s obviously a ridiculous amount of Harry Potter trivia out there, and since Harry Potter fever is about to sweep the world again, we might as well share it. If you’ve got some good HP trivia, share it in the comments! And if not… well, let me know if you’re a Slytherin supporter too.

Source: Mentalfloss.com

The 'Harry Potter' phenomenon: 7 surprising facts

1. Warner Bros. panicked when it almost lost its HermioneIn 2006, when Emma Watson's contract was up, Warner Bros. nearly had to find another actress to play Hermione Granger in The Order of the Phoenix. The filming schedule conflicted with Watson's final high school exams, which would have meant putting off college, "and I just wasn't prepared to let it go," Watson told MTV News. Warner Bros. rescheduled the shoot around Watson's school schedule, and she finished her tests, started at Brown University, and finished off the Harry Potter movies. "I would have been public enemy No. 1, I think, if I hadn't continued," she says.

2. Harry Potter gravestone is a tourist draw — in IsraelThe "backwater Israeli town" of Ramle is happy that Harry Potter, a British soldier who died there in 1939, is buried in the local British military cemetery. Pvt. Potter was killed in battle at age 18, and sure, "there is no connection with the Harry Potter we know from literature, but the name sells, the name is marketable," says local tour guide Ron Peled. Ramle started promoting the tombstone at the beginning of the year, and Israeli tourists have responded in flocks.

3. There's an active (sometimes illegal) market in rare Harry Potter booksAn unidentified man and woman stole a limited edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book in the series, from an art gallery in Oxfordshire, England. A first trade-edition of the same book sold for $40,000 at a Christie's auction in October. And an anonymous bidder paid about $4 million for one of seven handwritten copies of Rowling's post-Potter, unpublished Tales of Beedle the Bard, with five "wizarding fairytales" that tie into Potter's last adventure.

4. Real schools have taken a page from Hogwarts' "houses"After Harry Potter became an instant hit in 1997, real British schools took note of Rowling's fictional Hogwarts academy, specifically its division into four "houses": Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. A survey by school-rewards company School Stickers found that 58 percent of U.K. schools now have Hogwarts-like "houses," and that 59 percent of those — some 8,000 schools — set them up after Harry Potter was published. A third of teachers believe that their school's houses have distinctive characteristics, but most are named after colors, not famous wizard alumni.

5. Michael Jackson pitched a musical version of Potter, and was shot downRowling has received, and rejected, lots of offers for Harry Potter tie-ins,the author told Oprah Winfrey, noting that the rampant merchandising of the series "could be so much worse." Michael Jackson, she explained, approached her to make a musical from the Potter series. "I said no to a lot of things," Rowling said, and that was one.

6. Spielberg almost directed the Potter movies — in Pixar-style animationBefore picking Chris Columbus to direct the the first of the Harry Potter films, Warner Bros. approached Steven Spielberg. Spielberg was game,says Warner Bros. president Alan Horn, but he wanted to consolidate some of the books' plots and make the movies as Pixar-style animated features. I didn't blame him, says Horns. "Because of the wizardry involved," any live-action version was inevitably going to be very effects-laden.

7. No more Potter books? Blame Daniel RadcliffeIn the Oprah interview, Rowling said she "definitely could write an eighth, ninth, tenth book." But she's opted not to, according to actor Daniel Radcliffe, as a way to "reward" him for his fine portrayal of Harry Potter. "I'm sure she will be writing other books," he added. "But I can pretty much guarantee that Harry will not be a feature."

Source: The Week

17 Interesting Facts about Emma Watson

1. Good Connection

Emma gets along very well with all the other actors in the “Harry Potter” movies.

2. Hermione Granger

Emma thinks of her character Hermione Granger as a potential role model for young girls and as a female action hero who “rocks.”

3. Hobbies

Emma plays field hockey, tennis, rounders and netball. She also dances in several different styles, like break dancing and modern, and likes to take art classes.

4. Favorite Actor

One of her favorite actors is Johnny Depp.

5. Pet Friendly

Emma is a big animal lover, and was spotted playing with the various animals in the “Harry Potter” movies.

6. Leading Ladies

Emma admires Natalie Portman and Renee Zellweger for their willingness to take on challenging roles in film, even if they are not typically beautiful characters.

7. Begginer's Luck

Emma began filming “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” at age 10. She had auditioned for Hermione because her friends did, and she thought it would be “a laugh.” It was the first audition she ever did.

8. College Girl

Going to university has always been Watson’s dream. She is attending Brown University.

9. Bonjour!

Until she was five years old, Emma lived in France.

10. History over Numbers

Her favorite school subjects are art, history and English. Her least favorites are math and geography.

11. The Blues

Her favorite color is light blue.

12. Media Impact

Watson believes that too often the media portrays only stupid girls, or smart girls who dumb themselves down.

13. Self-Definition

She proudly proclaims herself to be a feminist, as well as fairly competitive.

14. Legal Matters

Both of Emma’s parents are lawyers.

15. Touch of Reality

She loves staying in school because she feels it keeps her in touch with reality. Emma was hesitant to portray Hermione in the final two installments of the “Harry Potter” movies because she really wanted to have a normal life.

16. Less Success

Emma has said she thinks the chances are slim that she will ever be involved in another project that is as successful as “Harry Potter.”

17. All Grows Up

Emma was ranked #69 on Maxim magazine’s Hot 100 of 2011 list.

Ten most incredible facts about AVATAR

Avatar, the epic movie adventure by James Cameron, the director behind Titanic, is a project that has caused pop-culture ripples that have resulted in the greatest cult following seen, perhaps, since Star Wars.
Avatar has gained more attention by movie-goers than most movies that have come out lately, and a lot of people are like: “where did this movie come from?”. From the incredible storyline, to amazing visual effects, to a star-studded cast, Avatar blends the old, tried and true methods of movie making with the effects driven future to bring us a story unlike one that we have ever seen before. But, what you might not know about Avatar is how much went into making it.
It is not easy to make a movie like this, even for professionals and James Cameron knew what he was doing when he brought “Avatar” to life on the silver screen. Here are the ten most incredible facts about Avatar that you might not have known before. These facts might just blow your mind as much as the movie did the first time you saw it - well, almost as much!

1. James Cameron started work on Avatar back in 1995, but because of the technology that was available, he realized that it was not technically possible to do what he wanted to do. So, instead of making the movie with sub-quality effects, he basically threw it in the drawer and forgot about it! So, Avatar has been in the making for a long time - much longer than most people realize. It has been 15 years since the project was begun!
2. Avatar is actually not an animated film. While it might seem like any other animated film where the actors stood behind glass and just recorded voice, leaving animators to finish the work, Avatar was made in a very different way. There is a reason as to why the actions of the natives look so life-like and realistic, and that is because of these parts were played by the actors, and the bodies of the Avatars were built around this motion, making each performance different, and making the Avatars more like the actor than any regular animated character would be. So, this was very much a live-action film, with the actors playing every scene out in it’s entirety - it is just that animation has been built around the human movement to make them look like Avatars. 
3. In James Cameron’s Avatar, it was very important that the facial expressions of the animated characters be life-like. The makers of the movie realized that it was the facial expression of a character that makes a movie dramatic, makes you fall in love with the characters, and is where movies live and breath. The special effects technicians were able to come up with a way to capture actual human facial expressions as the scenes were filmed, and directly apply them to the animated body. Once this corner was rounded, James Cameron knew that he had a chance at making this movie a success.
4. In order to create the realistic environment you see reflected in the planet Pandora, real science was consulted, and in a sense, taken to the very reaches of science fiction. The designers who were working on the wildlife for Pandora said that they would have tables just stacked with books about real life nature. They studied real life animals, biology, and science to create the alien creatures you see in the film. So, in a sense, real nature was very much the inspiration behind many of the creatures in this movie. 
5. A number of live action locations were utilized for the shooting of Avatar. Among these locations were Hawaii, New Zealand, and California.
6. Avatar was filmed in stereoscopic 3-d, and utilized a new camera system called the Fusion camera system. This system was developed by Pace and Cameron, took seven years to fully create, and is now the most advanced system of it’s kind. 
7. James Cameron did not intentionally or initially have Sigourney Weaver in mind when he was writing the script for Avatar. He did work with her on Alien, and while he said he did not exclude her, he just did  not really think of her. He was looking at a lot of different actresses to play the part, but he ended up choosing her because she was such a strong actress. The two of them had not done a project together since 1986, and he believed that she would play the part beautifully!
8. It is difficult to exactly determine how much a movie like Avatar costs to make, but there have been a lot of numbers thrown out there. The estimates have ranged from $200 million, to $310 million! Add the marketing costs to a movie like this, and you are looking at a project that would need to wrangle at least $750 million to even make the money back! Luckily, Avatar is a good enough movie that this is probably not a problem.
9. While the movie was conceived and written back in 1995, it was shelved until 2005. It was then that James Cameron actually started to work on it.
10. Zoe Saldana, who played the part of the female native princess in the movie, says that the toughest part of making this movie, for her, was speaking English with a Nav’I accent. She said that this was even tougher than the martial arts, horseback riding, and fight sequences.

From BigTVFan

Fun facts about James Cameron AVATAR

Trivia

• In the original script, Neytiri's name was Zuleika, and Jake Sully's name was Josh Sully.

• A casting call was posted on the website of Mali Finn Casting in early December 2005 for the female lead. The casting call was erroneously reported to be for James Cameron's Battle Angel (2011). However, Battle Angel will be the second of the back-to-back Cameron projects with a likely 2013 release.

• Michael Biehn was considered for the role of Miles Quaritch. He met with James Cameron three times and saw some of the 3D footage, but in the end it simply came down to the fact that Cameron didn't want people thinking it was Aliens (1986) all over again, as Sigourney Weaver had already been cast.

• Sigourney Weaver plays a James Cameron persona for her character in this film. Sigourney stated in an interview, "I teased him because to me I'm playing Jim Cameron in the movie as this kind of brilliant, approach-driven, idealistic perfectionist. But that same somebody has a great heart underneath. So I have to say I was always kind of channeling him."

• James Cameron originally attempted to get this film made in 1999 as his immediate follow-up to Titanic (1997). However, at the time, the special effects he wanted for the movie ran the proposed budget up to $400 million. No studio would fund the film, and it was subsequently shelved for almost ten years.

• The movie is 40% live action and 60% photo-realistic CGI. Motion capture technology was used for the CGI scenes.

• Seeing the character of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) convinced James Cameron that CGI effects had progressed enough to make this film.

• Promotional items were shipped to cinemas under the name "Project 880".

• The film was shipped in two parts in the UK, first part was reels 1-5 and reels 6-10 came the following day. It was shipped under the codename "Redbird".

• To help the actors prepare for their roles, director James Cameron took the cast and crew to Hawaii, where they spent their days trekking through the forests and jungles and living like tribes (building campfires, eating fish, etc), in order to get a better sense of what it would be like to live and move around in the jungle onPandora, since there would not be any actual jungle sets to aid and guide the actors and crew. Zoe Saldanaeven dressed as a warrior during these journeys; complete with an alien tail symbolic of the one her character has in the movie. These hikes were only done during the daytime and the cast and crew spent their nights at a Four Seasons hotel.

• As of December 2009, with an alleged budget of US $280,000,000 (estimated), this is one of the most expensive movies ever made.

• Sam Worthington appeared in Terminator Salvation (2009), the fourth Terminator movie. His appearance in this non-Terminator movie is notable as James Cameron directed The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), T2 3-D: Battle Across Time (1996) as well has having being a writer (creator of characters) on other Terminator franchise video-games and TV episodes.

• First time that Sigourney Weaver has appeared in James Cameron film since Aliens (1986), a gap of twenty-three years.

• Avatars have five fingers and toes on their hands and feat, whereas the Na'vi only have four. Avatars also have eyebrows, which the Na'vi lack.

• Director Trademark: [James Cameron] [feet] Close-up of Jake's feet when he moves them around in the soil, and close-up of Quaritch's feet as he gives the safety brief.

• In much of the movie, Sigourney Weaver's avatar is wearing a Stanford shirt. Weaver attended Stanford in the early 1970s.

• According to the read out and his statement made during the last log entry, Jake's birthday is August 24, though it is unclear whether he means his "human" birthday or his Na'vi rebirth.

• The spiral-shaped, retracting zooplantae that Jake encounters early in the film, helicoradians, are presumably based off the Christmas Tree Worm, a marine invertebrate which is commonly kept in reef aquariums.

• The Na'vi language was created entirely from scratch by linguist Paul Frommer, who was hired by James Cameron to construct a language that was easily pronounceable by the actors, but lacking any resemblance or influence from any single human language. Around 500 words were created.

• Though he is not credited in the film, several of the locations have been identified as looking remarkably similar to paintings by English surrealist Roger Dean, most notably his works "Floating Islands" and "Arches".

• The Thai version of movie translates the word "Marine" into "Navi". (The Thai word for Marine is actually "Na-vig-ga-yo-tin", but to make voice over synced, the translator shortened it to "Navi".) So in Thai, Jake Sully is a "Navi" who becomes a "Na'vi".

• Even though the year the movie takes place is never stated, scenes of Jake Sully recording his video log show that the year is 2154.

• The biggest opener in the USA for a original film, previously held by The Incredibles (2004).

• The first James Cameron film not to feature any of his "regulars" (Michael Biehn, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein or Arnold Schwarzenegger).
• Is the fifth film to gross 1 billion dollars (unadjusted for inflation).
• Tour Length: When Jake is doing his first video log, Norm says that one of the benefits of keeping a video log will be to keep him sane during his 6 year tour of duty. This would be about right if there were at least two ships on the Earth/Pandora Route. When Jake wakes up from cryo, the med tech tells everyone that they have been under for 5 years, 9 months and 22 days and when Quaritch tells Jake he has approval for his legs and can now send him home it is 3 months (plus a bit) later, so the ship sticks around for at least 3 to 4 months before retuning.
• 26 Jan 2010 - Sometime early on the 26th of Jan, Avatar became the top-grossing movie of all time at the worldwide box office with almost $1.844 billion (U.S.) in ticket sales, pushing the previous record holder, Cameron's Titanic, to number 2 with $1.843 billion.

• "Ninat is the best singer"- there IS an israeli singer named Ninet Tayeb, who won the israeli version of "American Idol" (Kokhav Nolad- a star being born in Hebrew). The hebrew translations were written in a way that can be read as both "Ninat is the best singer" and "Ninet is the best singer".
• Matt Damon and Jake Gyllenhaal were originally considered to fill the role of Jake Sully. However, Damon turned it down due to a schedule conflict with The Bourne Ultimatum, and Gyllenhaal chose to feature in Prince of Persia instead.

Goofs

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers)

• At some point Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) can be seen in the laboratory filling a pipette and subsequently holding it upside-down (which would cause the liquid to run into the apparatus and is strictly to be avoided).
• During the final assault on the Na'vi Tree of Souls, when all the aircraft take off at 0600 hours, there is a short clip of soldiers and officers cheering the attacking force on from the command room. During this cheer, one of the soldiers on the bottom left of the screen has his hat blown off by the vehicles' downdrafts. He looks around briefly to see if anyone noticed, then continues cheering.

Continuity

• During the Destruction of Hometree, the Na'vis' arrows failed to penetrate any of the human vehicles' windshields. However, during the final battle, the Na'vi arrows successfully penetrate the windshields. This is possible because the attackers, flying on their ikran, add the airspeed to the acceleration from the bowstring, which gives arrows additional velocity. Also, they are firing from near point-blank range (as opposed to arcing shots from the ground). Furthermore, the shape of the Scorpion and Samson windshields differ from those found on the Dragon Assault Ship. The windshields of the Dragon's flight-deck feature compound curved surfaces, making penetration harder to achieve, while the smaller VTOL craft have flat windshields that are much easier to break. (The first time the Na'vi attack the humans, none of the arrows that hit the Dragon Assault Ship penetrate. In the final battle, only rounds from Trudy Chacon's Samson 16 penetrate the Dragon.)

• When Quaritch is talking to Jake Sully whilst climbing into a Amplified Mobility Platform (AMP) suit, a red tag is visible hanging off its right arm, reading 'Remove before Operation'. Quaritch does not remove the tag, nor does anyone else, before he begins to operate the AMP. It is only when the AMP walks away that the tag has mysteriously disappeared.

• In a scene at the Ops Halo Station, Jake Sully takes his hands from his wheelchair and interlocks his fingers, resting on the table. In the next shot, his hands are back on his wheelchair and move to grip the table's edge.

• When Jake Sully is meeting with his superiors around the giant 3-D map of Hometree, and Parker makes a funny quip about monkeys, Sully's arms appear crossed and uncrossed between camera angles. From the angle where his arms are uncrossed, he can then be seen crossing them.

• Neytiri lets go of Jake's arm twice when the seeds of the sacred tree land on him.

• Although Jake Sully's avatar goes to sleep at night, thus enabling Jake to disconnect from it, all of the debriefings are shown to be in daylight, which wouldn't be possible had Jake actually returned to his avatar in order to learn the Na'vi ways. However, neither his location on Pandora, nor his distance from Hometree are directly specified. Considering that the size of Pandora is almost equivalent to that of Earth (and if it rotates at the same speed that the Earth does,) the days would be relatively the same. Therefore, he could be located halfway across the globe during the daytime, while his avatar is located on the other side of the globe at night. There is also some question about the range of the human-avatar link.

• Sully shoots an animal with an arrow. When he goes over to the animal's body, he runs from the opposite side of where the arrow went.

• Grace was injured in the stomach as the group escaped from the military base. However, when she is lying on the Tree of Souls, there are no scars or blood shown in that area. It is also unlikely that the bullet could have been removed, as neither Jake, Norm, nor Trudy have the necessary advanced surgical knowledge.

• When Jake is consulting the Tree of Souls before the main battle, his queue moves from behind his back to the front of his right shoulder (just before he connects with the Tree). Later, when Neytiri talks to him, his braid moves from his front to his back with no indication of him flipping it back or swatting it behind him.

• When Dr. Augustine goes to Selfridge about Jake, after he first arrives, she stands with her hands behind her back. When the camera cuts, her hands are at her sides.

• When the ISV Venture Star is approaching Pandora the shuttles are facing the engines on the forward end. A short while later when the ship is in orbit they are facing the sail on the aft end, but the docks between the ship and the shuttles are apparently unable to swivel.

Sources

james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com