[HPFGU-Movie] Referendum on the Director

[Shannon Compton]

At 03:46 AM 12/12/2001 -0000, Cindy wrote:

>
>And that is my question.  If you were the producer of PoA and GoF, 
>and the only information you had to go on was his work in PS/SS, 
>would you hire Columbus for PoA, GoF, both, or neither?

Absolutely, I'd hire him for both, and I'd hope I could keep him for the
whole series.


>1.  I'm not fond of the idea of splitting GoF into two movies.  I 
>just don't think it can work.

Even considering the amount of things that could be cut, I can't imagine
how else this movie could be made any other way. There are a lot of things
that could be cut, yes, but there are also so many things that simply
couldn't be cut at all.  There is so much in the details.

>2.  I think he made far too many mistakes in PS/SS.  We've beaten 
>this to death of course, but for me, the glaring blunders include the 
>coaching of Emma Watson, Snape's sprint to the front of the class for 
>his potions speech, the boring opening sequence, having all of the 
>kids do a "Home Alone" scream in the troll Great Hall scene and again 
>when they confront Fluffy.

Oh dear, I disagree with all of those things!  Emma was wonderful as a
snotty/insecure little girl, and I've already gone over my reasons for
liking the Snape scene.  I didn't think the opening sequence was boring at
all.  Certainly no moreso than in the book.  And, really, if you saw a
giant three headed dog about to bite you in two, you'd probably scream too.
:)  

>3.  I think he showed an inability to combine scenes to save time 
>that could be spent better elsewhere.  For instance, do we need 
>several Mirror of Erised scenes, or could all of it have been 
>accomplished in one scene?  Can't we combine the hut on the rock with 
>Privet Drive, both to save time and to enhance continuity?

I think this is funny, considering the thread elsewhere about whether the
Mirror scenes properly conveyed the passage of time.  I confess though, I
don't see how combining Privet drive and the hut would enhance continuity.
It's one of my favorite scenes, with Harry drawing himself a birthday cake
in the dirt, and Hagrid bursting in.

>4.  He is not very good at deciding what to keep and what to cut, 
>which will be critical in the next two films.  Keeping Norbert and 
>the Troll wasn't wise given the important things that were deleted.  
>If JKR "wouldn't let him" cut certain things, then we need a director 
>who can be a bit more persuasive.

I can almost see cutting out Norbert, but if they had then they'd have had
to write a whole new reason for our Heroes to be out at night and get
detention. And it was also an important key in how they worked out the
whole mystery about the Stone.  The Troll definitely needed to be in there.
 It's a turning point in the relationship between Harry, Ron and Hermione,
not to mention setting in motion the Snape misdirection.


>6.  His mastery of special effects techniques is questionable.  When 
>a character (Peeves) is cut not because the story requires it but 
>because the special effects were poor, I think the director has to 
>take responsibility.  I'm not even going to mention the centaur.

Well, they just made kind of a bad choice in their effects company.  I've
heard they switched to ILM for CoS.  The effects didn't bother me, except
for the centaur.  He was really kind of bad.  But you notice, they barely
show him. It's really hard to get a good look at him...I tried at my last
viewing.  I have a feeling someone knew the effects weren't quite up to
par, hence the switch for the next movie.

>design and costume design, I think we need someone who is more adept 
>at telling a story with continuity.  So Mr. Columbus gets a gold 
>watch and free tickets to PoA and GoF from me, but not the directing 
>nod.

Personally, I'm tickled with how he handled it.  I like a lot of Chris
Columbus' movies. He also did Young Sherlock Holmes, which is easily one of
my favorite movies from my youth.  I think he handled the necessary
trimming and rearranging with remarkable grace. I have a very few quibbles,
but only a few, and they are fairly minor. Actually, the level of general
disappointment and outright dislike I've seen on this list is startling.
Until I joined, I hadn't heard of one single person who didn't love it,
readers and non-readers alike.  Oh well, I guess that thing about varying
mileage is true after all!

Shannon