HP and the Hollywood Script Writers

[cactuswatcher]

I got to see the latest HP flick yesterday. I have to say that it was a fun film. The abridgement to squeeze the 850+ page novel into a 2:20 minute film was at times ingenious. At other times you have to wonder why so many small details were changed for no apparent reason. Why have Dudley and Harry attacked in an underground passage? If the Ministry of Magic can detect minors doing magic anywhere at any time, why can't they detect Lord V doing the same? The attack should have been out in the open where people could see it! Why other than to entertain kids in the audience were the broom-fliers buzzing boats on the Thames? In the book they were hiding themselves from muggles with spells at the time. No time for that in the movie? The most obvious of these questions was why was the lovable, clumsy 'freak', Tonks turned into a graceful hottie? Luna was too cute as well, although the actress did a fine job of portraying the strange girl with the time she had on screen. I was not as pleased with the portrayal of Umbridge as some were. I felt in reading the book that her smile was less frequent, often unpleasant in appearance and mostly smug in nature, where as in the movie it was almost constant, cheerful appearing and mostly sadistic in nature.

I liked the movie, but perhaps it should have been titled Larry Porter and the Order of Scottsdale: A Film Vaguely Based On a Book by J K Rowling, With the Author's Approval.

Comments

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Why have Dudley and Harry attacked in an underground passage? If the Ministry of Magic can detect minors doing magic anywhere at any time, why can't they detect Lord V doing the same? The attack should have been out in the open where people could see it!

Well, in the book, no one saw the attack but Dudley and Arabella Figg, so that doesn't change anything. The way I saw it, Yates wanted to stress the dichotomy between the magic world and the Muggle world, and how foreign it was to have that divide crossed, and so he chose the an industrial Muggle setting, which I thought worked beautifully. The flickering lights, the concrete...The ingeniousness of it is it's a Harry Potter scene set in a decidedly un-Harry Potter setting.

I felt in reading the book that her smile was less frequent, often unpleasant in appearance and mostly smug in nature, where as in the movie it was almost constant, cheerful appearing and mostly sadistic in nature.

Just re-read the book, and as far as I recall, her smile was fairly constant. And it is very hard, on screen, to capture Umbridge's sort of evil, so I have no problem with them amping up the sadism, which I'm not sure that they did. The only area in which Umbridge isn't perfect is that visually she doesn't look like a toad, though finding an actress as brilliant as Imelda Staunton who has that sort of appearance would have been difficult.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I agree the attack was done cleverly in the film. But I think there was a line here that should not have been crossed in making a film from a book. You're free to disagree. (The scene flying over the river was worse, clearly violating the way wizards have conducted themselves out in the open world.)

Besides the question is how the Ministry found out. The Dursleys didn't report it. Did Mrs. Figg?

Stauton is short, squad and broad faced. That adds up to toad, at least in the mind of unhappy teens. I don't think Staunton's looks were a problem.

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Besides the question is how the Ministry found out. The Dursleys didn't report it. Did Mrs. Figg?

The Ministry is able to tell when underage wizards do magic outside of school, instantaneously, by magic. This was established in Chamber of Secrets when a letter from the Ministry was sent to Harry seconds after Dobby ruined Aunt Petunia's pudding.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Then it's Rowling's problem. Can't the Ministry come up with magic that would instantly detect when any of the unforgivable curses are used?

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

Possibly, but the indication in the series seems to be that Hogwarts students are instantly monitored by this magic. Monitoring everyone might be a different story, not to mention the fact that there is corruption at the Ministry- Lucius Malfoy, for example.