Fun with Franchises: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Part IV — “Then a Dog Shows Up and Drags Ron Into a Tree Vagina”

Today we continue with another entry in our Fun with Franchises series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Part four.

In case you don’t know how this works — a while back, I decided to rank my favorite Disney movies and rank my favorite James Bond movies. And the Disney ones were mostly straight synopses and not too much fun, but when I got to Bond, I enlisted the help of my friend Colin (whose blog is TokyoRemix.com. Fuck yeah, promotion!), who knows everything about the Bond franchise that I do not, for those articles, and along the way, learned how to have fun with it. And, by the end of the Bond articles, we were having so much fun that I said, “Man, we have to do this again with other stuff.” Because I spent about a straight month and a half putting together those articles. That’s how much time and effort actually goes into something like that. And not once did it feel like work. It was so much fun that I knew, as long as we were doing it for comedy purposes and able to riff off of each other — we could do pretty much any film and it would work.

And very quickly, the first ones you come up with are the major franchises, because those are not only the most fun, but also the most universally known. Everyone’s gonna understand all the jokes we make (well… most of them. Some of them might be limited to three people) about them. So that’s what we’re doing. And if you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them.

And that’s Fun with Franchises. Right now, we’re doing the Harry Potter franchise, and today is the fourth part of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

We begin Part IV right after Buckbeak has (presumably) been killed and Scabbers has run away.

“Their pace has quickened. They must have caught our scent.”

Oh, wait… wrong franchise.

Colin:

Ginny does love her man flesh.

That’s a Whomping Willow. You might want to move, Ron.

Or maybe YOU might want to get the fuck out of there.

Hermione’s reaction is priceless.

This looks like the werewolf from The Beast Must Die.

(Which — let’s pause a moment to plug that film. It’s incredible. It has a Werewolf Break! What film do you know that has a Werewolf Break? I’ll tell you what film… that film.)

Again, with the Hermione reaction.

“OPTIMUS!!!”

“I’ll never let go, Ron!”

Oh… you let go.

Colin:

Then a dog shows up and drags Ron into a tree vagina.

Subtitle.

Just like the gypsy woman said.

“Don’t make me use my pimp branch.”

TWHAP!!

I think we just found out how to cause a wizard miscarriage!

That’ll take care of your troll in the dungeon.

(P.S. You think the wizarding equivalent of “shooting blanks” is “shooting squibs”?)

“Oh come on. Come at me, bro. I’m just getting loose.”

You think this is retaliation for the car?

♫ “I can show the world…” ♫

Oh no, not the glasses!

(I bet we all know the spell to fix them if something happens…)

She jumps right over that shit! Muggle Double Dutch State Champion, baby!

Oh, but there’s another one.

Yeah, just like she be straddlin’ that DICK!

I won’t say anything about this next part, except – here’s an email I got shortly before I wrote my synopsis:

Colin:

There’s exactly one moment where it looks like Hermione’s being tentacle raped. You’ll know the one. And she’s making the sounds, too.

I should really feel bad about the use of that last screenshot, but – I don’t.

Colin:

I can’t wait for Goblet of Fire. We gonna get some Giant Squid action?

Colin:

Right, cause Hermione’s jacked enough to hold onto him by his shirt. That works. That’s what she’s known for, right? Hittin’ the gym?

Misuse of the time turner, really. Shouldn’t she be using it to go bang Ron in the Room of Requirement while she’s also sitting in her Ancient Runes class? Shit, imagine what use that thing could be in the right hands.

But let’s all appreciate the progression of those screenshots up there.

This is how I was conceived.

Colin:

Oh, she likes to be on top. I can work with that.

I can be unemployed with that too.

(I would be amenable to partaking in sexual intercourse with her as well, was what I was saying.)

Wouldn’t it be weird if they came out the other side and were in Mordor?

I’d totally do that, too. At the top of all my trap doors, just leave a trail of dry blood, just to send that message of, “You sure you wanna come through here?”

It’s like at Christmastime. Just leave a trail of Kool-Aid from your front door all the way to the backyard. It’ll keep the kids from playing in the yard.

I should have my own magazine.

What better place for a quickie than the Shrieking Shack?

The walls are extra thin.

If these walls could talk, indeed.

Yeah, I’m sure that’s smart. Go up to your delirious friend who was kidnapped and has a trail of blood at his feet. I’m sure he’s fine.

“Where’s the dog?”

“It’s a trap!”

Not the wrong franchise, he actually says that.

“He’s the dog!”

Gary!

Colin:

Gary.

“If you want to kill Harry, you’ll have to kill us, too.”

Presumably this is a murdering psychopath. How you think that one’s gonna turn out?

Colin:

“Cool.”

“No. Only one will die tonight.”

“Then it’ll be you!”

Jesus, man. You have a wand.

Well damn. Threw him to the ground and got a wand on him.

I mean, I’m sure he let him, but still, that’s impressive.

“Are you going to kill me, Harry?”

God, I love him so much.

“Expelliarmus!”

“Wow, that looked NOTHING like when Snape did it last year!”

“Well, well, Sirius – looking rather ragged, aren’t we?”

“Finally the flesh reflects the madness within.”

“Well, you’d know all about the madness within, wouldn’t you, Remus?”

Let’s stop to point out – HIS NAME IS REMUS LUPIN! How many fucking hints do you need?

Colin:

It’s like how parents that name their daughters Bertha just know that she’ll grow up to be a fat piece of shit.

Reaction shots are the key to comedy.

Colin:

Twist.

“You motherfucker!”

“I found him! He’s here! Let’s kill him!”

“No!”

Colin:

Don’t you think 99 percent of the tension in this scene could be spared if they just did an aside to Harry, like, “Oh, not you”?

Yes. That’s why this scene worked so well in the book. All I remember about reading this is that EVERYBODY WAS TALKING IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

AND EVERYTHING THEY SAID WAS ENTIRELY DONE BY YELLING.

I GUESS BECAUSE THEY WERE IN THE SHRIEKING SHACK.

“I trusted you! And you’ve been his friend, all this time.”

Why did you trust him? I didn’t even know you’ve interacted with him.

Are we sure that wasn’t Harry’s line?

“He’s a werewolf!”

So… you trusted him because you knew his secret and didn’t tell anyone? I’m not following. Did you guys have a “thing” in the Potions closet?

“Well, well, well, Hermione, you really are the brightest witch of your age I’ve ever met.”

That’s a backhanded compliment. How many witches of her age has he met?

Look at Oldman in the background during this. He’s brilliant.

“Enough talk, Remus. Come on, let’s kill him!”

“Wait.”

“I did my waiting!”

“Twelve years of it! In Azkaban!”

That should be all of our answers whenever we’re told to wait for something.

“Well damn, son. You don’t have to play that card. Make a brother feel bad.”

Colin:

I heard Azkaban serves a mean pepper steak. Seriously, it’s an island prison that starts with ‘A’ and has a ‘z’ in the name. Are we even pretending for a second that Rowling isn’t just thinking of Alcatraz? For that matter, can someone PLEASE make a wizarding version of The Rock?

Only if it involves the line, “Your ‘best’! Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”

“All right, let’s kill this fuck.”

That’s the right angle on the head tilt, too. That’s the “let’s fuck this guy up” head tilt. Twenty degrees more is the ‘the fuck did you say?’ head tilt, and twenty degrees more from that is the ‘dat ass’ head tilt.

Is it me or does the left one seem bigger now?

(Or is it just magnetized toward Harry?)

“All yours.”

Beautiful shot.

“But wait one more minute. Harry has the right to know why.”

It’s actually really funny how much easier they could have made this on Harry by not being so vague.

“I know why. You betrayed my parents. You’re the reason they’re dead.”

“No, Harry, it wasn’t him. Somebody did betray your parents, but it was somebody who, until quite recently, I believed to be dead.”

“Peter Pettigrew!”

Colin:

TWIST.

“And he’s in this room! Right now!”

“Come out, come out, Peter!”

Snape’s here! (And his body is ready.)

“Expelliarmus!”

Isn’t it great that they’re only disarming people and not using other spells? Imagine the things that could have been done had we learned about them.

Colin:

This is a fucking soap opera. Hermione should fall for some jock with an accent. Maybe an Asian chick or two in the mix. Oh, and if there are ever twins, one has to die.

Someone’s already gotten amnesia.

“Oh – vengeance is sweet. How I hoped I’d be the one to catch you. I told Dumbledore you were helping an old friend into the castle and here’s the proof.”

“Brilliant, Snape. Once again you put your keen and penetrating mind to the task and as usual come to the wrong conclusion. Now if you’ll excuse us, Remus and I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

Well damn.

“Hold on, there, playa.”

Colin:

Oldman’s the best. Ever. “Why don’t you run along and play with your chemistry set!?” He just said fuck you, fuck your livelihood and fuck your favorite subject. In the same sentence.

All that with a gun to his head, essentially.

“I could do it, you know.”

That’s pretty cold-blooded.

Gary knows. That motherfucker will do it. And this is the guy who was in The Professional.

Totally looks like he’s gonna cop a feel.

But he’s doing that instead. Which – shouldn’t he not be able to use that wand? Can you just pull someone’s wand out of their pocket without disarming them and use it? Or is it like Pokémon? You have enough badges and they just listen to you.

Colin:

I think anyone can use any wand, it’s just how well it works for them. People start trading wands later on in the franchise like crazy. This person’s broke, so they have to use so and so’s instead. That sort of deal. Swapping wands is a great way to pass around diseases. That’s actually what HPV is. The Harry Potter Virus.

Oh man — everybody has that!

This is how rape starts, isn’t it?

Ron should not be doing that right now.

“Expelliarmus!”

How did you not see that one coming, Snape?

So there’s just no rhyme or reason to how Expelliarmus works, is there?

Technically this could be him only knowing the second year version, which, in that case, is good continuity, but something tells me that’s not the case here. I understand them wanting to get Snape out of the way for a while, but we JUST saw TWO Expelliarmus spells work differently. Also – is there no way for them to actually learn how to use spells and shit? It seems like the only time they truly learn shit in practice is when shit’s dangerous or Harry takes it upon himself to be like, “I learned this shit in year three. I guess I can teach you bitches now.”

It’s like me and French. I had the best grades in my school in it (no joke. I won an award that I didn’t even know about until they gave it to me because I had the highest grades in BOTH Latin and French my senior year of high school), yet couldn’t fucking speak a word of it and forgot it all within three months of not taking the class anymore. Because when do they actually get to practice the spells at Hogwarts?

Colin:

Ooh. Mike’s getting nit picky. I like it. Technically, they were supposed to have learned and practiced Expelliarmus during Dueling Club with Lockhart and Snape in Chamber of Secrets. But yeah, I totally agree with this point. We have this spell doing like seven different things at different times (which I’ve pointed out in detail in the Goblet of Fire articles) and then there are dozens of other spells that Harry supposedly teaches other students starting in Order of the Phoenix, and we’re just supposed to go with it.

Did he learn all these spells on his own in books, or something? He doesn’t spend time in the library like Hermione does, shouldn’t she be better? Who does he practice with? We see him teach them Expecto Patronum, cause that’s the one spell where we can explain why he randomly knows it. The other 99 percent of his spells…there’s no good reason for him to know them and everyone else not to.

That is sort of what he’s doing at the beginning of the movie, teaching himself spells and practicing in his room. But still, that only goes so far with certain spells.

“Harry, you just fucked up a PROFESSOR!”

“Tell me about Peter Pettigrew.”

They say that Pettigrew is alive. Potter says that’s bullshit. (Obviously not, since you’re listening to them.) The map lied.

“The map never lies. Pettigrew’s alive.”

“And he’s right there.”

“Me?”

“Not you, your rat.”

“But Scabbers has been in my family for—”

“Twelve years! Curiously long life for a common garden rat. He’s missing a toe, isn’t he?”

“So what?”

“All they could find of Pettigrew was his—”

“Finger! The dirty coward cut it off so that everyone would think he was dead!”

Well damn.

Colin:

Not exactly the Sundance Kid, is he?

Well, by the end of the franchise…

Colin:

Look at THIS rat looking motherfucker.

See, this is the spell that I was talking about before in the Chamber of Secrets articles. About how there would be a spell to return something to its true form? If they were using Scabbers as transfiguration practice, how has this spell not been done on him before?

“Remus? Sirius! My old friends!”

This always amused me. Like, motherfucker, weren’t you JUST listening to that conversation? They know it was you. They ain’t gonna hug this shit out.

“Harry! You can help me, can’t you. I knew your father.”

“How dare you speak to Harry!”

“You sold James and Lily to Voldemort!”

“Well, you see, what had happened was…”

Seriously though, I’d have loved it if Sirius just upped and killed him like that. Like, straight up killed him and walked away.

“Don’t kill him.”

“Oh, Harry… you little bitch.” (There’s that “Expelliarmus” look again.)

Wouldn’t it be great if he curb-stomped him?

But no. He says they’re gonna give him up to the dementors and prove Sirius innocent first. Which is smart, but still — just kill him and then bring the body.

This is a great moment. Sirius is like, “Sorry I fucked your leg up. Normally I’m pretty awesome as a dog.”

Colin:

So there was a whole group of friends that could become animals. Why was this never done with Harry, Ron, and Hermione? Only the parents’ generation gets to do it? Seems like a missed opportunity, cause if Pettigrew could do it, Harry definitely could have.

Apparently it’s one of those things that takes a shit ton of time to learn how to do. Which automatically precludes Ron. Hermione probably could if she wanted to. Harry is 50/50. I bet if he felt the need to he could, but otherwise wouldn’t put in the effort. But I do like that it’s not some random hereditary thing and anyone can figure out how to do this.

It would be fun to know which people not only did end up doing it but what animal they end up turning into. Weird that it’s like a patronus and is based on completely arbitrary rules about their personality, but sure.

I also just looked this up — apparently part of the process to become an animagus involves keeping a mandrake leaf in your mouth for an entire month for the purposes of creating a potion, and speaking an incantation once a day. Magic is weird sometimes, guys.

The Miracle of Life – Tree Vagina Style.

How come the tree’s not hitting them right now? Did somebody stun it? Because how come Hermione didn’t know to do that? (Note how my natural inclination is to assume she knows how to do everything, because she does.)

Nice moment.

Colin:

Go talk to Gary Oldman so Ron can spit G at Hermione.

Sirius talks about how he remembers his first time entering Hogwarts and how it’ll be nice to do it again as a free man. He also says it was a noble thing Harry did, saving Pettigrew.

Fuck noble. But even so — why are you letting that fuck walk around right now? Knock him the fuck out and take him back.

Harry says his father wouldn’t have wanted his two best friends to become killers. Plus, if he’s dead, the truth goes with him. If he’s alive, Sirius is free.

That’s not true. That body turns up now, he was clearly alive. He’s missing a finger. He was Ron’s rat, for Christ’s sake. There’s a lot of evidence here to overturn a conviction. At the very least, minimum security.

Or this is all just because we didn’t learn how the Pensieve works yet?

I love how Pettigrew is the lowest form of sniveling prick. Anything to get out of the bed he made.

“This motherfucker’s ruining our moment.’

“… anyway…”

Sure, just ignore all that. We’re in the clear now. Let’s not make sure we don’t fuck up the one thing that keeps me from being killed by dementors.

Some security those dementors have going on, too. Do they not see the dude they’re looking for on the grounds? Because there’s like a hundred of them here.

Sirius then says – if Harry ever wanted a different home, he could always stay with him.

And right there, he becomes my favorite character in the franchise. (The Gary Oldman part helps.)

Uh oh.

Colin:

Waxing gibbous.

Oh man – those moons. Always rising within seconds…

Did no one bring a sniper rifle? One shot’ll take care of that shit NO PROBLEM.

When you’re trying to keep your shit together at the club and your jam comes on.

Requiem for a Werewolf.

He didn’t take his potion tonight.

They have meds for werewolves?

Or does potion mean a lil somethin’ somethin’? I didn’t take my potion tonight, either… if you know what I mean.

And now he’s turning into Mathieu Amalric.

Does someone get that for him or does he have to search the grounds for it afterward?

You look a bit bloated there, Pete.

Look at that pose. A born model.

Oh, so NOW Expelliarmus works that way…

Also, what happened to Snape? Did they just leave him lying there, unconscious? Because that’s like, super bad for you.

Colin:

I could have sworn that in the book, they did a Levicorpus and floated him out like Han Solo in carbonite. But it looks like they didn’t. They should have, though. Levicorpus. It’s the sex swing spell.

I don’t know if I’m into any form of wizard sex that involves a spell with the root of the word “corpse” in it. I know it’s Latin for “body,” but still — phrasing.

Look at Hermione’s face. “Motherfucker, don’t even try.”

That’s my flirting face.

That too.

He looks like the kid from That’s So Raven.

And he’s gone.

Colin:

What? Why is it that when they made Pettigrew a human again, he has clothes on, but when he goes rat this time, he leaves his clothes? We’ve seen McGonagall pop out of cat form several times, always with her clothes on. Does she leave empty robes wherever she transforms?

Oh man oh man I fucking HOPE SO!

Colin:

What is it with us and elderly British ladies?

Now THERE’S a subtitle!

Jeez… werewolf transformations take for-EVER. Come on, man, we got dinner reservations. I was ready like thirty minutes ago.

There’s a shot.

Yeah, I’m sure bones do that.

Why are you holding onto one another and not either getting the fuck out of there or trying to catch Pettigrew?

“Left, two three four, left two three four…”

Uh oh. You know what that means…

Yup!

“… are you all right?”

Reaction shots are the key to comedy.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

You guys are still just fucking standing there.

As Harry gets ready to Leeroy Jenkins this shit.

Impeccable timing, Severus. Truly impeccable.

I love that he was about to fuck up Harry and is now trying to protect him. I love Snape. His priorities are always in the right place.

PIMP SMACK!

The sound effect here is AMAZING.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - 1100

OH BUT THERE’S SIRIUS!

ANIMAL FIGHT!!!

This is tight. Usually you can only have these sorts of fights in Mexico.

Which one do you think is more turned on right now?

“No! Just when I was gonna have a happy home life!”

You have a wand and you throw a rock at it? Try like, the tickling charm or something.

Typical CGI monster. Growls first. Like, “WHY DID YOU HIT ME WITH THAT ROCK?” By the time he gets done growling, I’d have already been sprinting for twenty paces at Harry, ready to tear out his jugular.

He knows it, too.

But wait…

A were-booty call.

“I’m so torn right now… I want to kill him, but I also want some pussy.”

You made the right choice.

And then he awkwardly just peaces.

Don’t the sets just feel better here?

If Lupin has sex as a werewolf around this trees, does that make that some randy moss?!

(I have no shame.)

So he has his clothes on, but not Pettigrew? Is it like a sexual thing for Pettigrew? Because that was a pretty nice pinstriped suit to just be throwing away like that.