GoF screenplay (WAS Harry Potter Movies In Trouble In the Long Run)

[cindysphynx]

Richasi wrote (about writing a GoF screenplay without the QWC):

> I dunno. It sets up the entire Dark Mark stuff. It sets up the
> Krum stuff. It sets up Winky. It sets up a lot of things that
> we take for granted. You COULD leave all that out and perhaps
> have Harry or someone read something in a newspaper that explains
> what happened, or some other cop out like that. :)

I won't rule out the possibility that it would be cheesy.  :-)  My 
problem with including the QWC is that we'll have seen Quiddich in 
several movies by the time GoF comes out, and it will no longer be 
novel.  Instead, we'll be asked to watch Quiddich involving a number 
of adult strangers (the players) we have never heard of before and 
only one of whom we will ever care about (Krum).  I think it would 
even be less interesting than the Quiddich scenes with Harry and 
Malfoy.  

No, if I were in charge <ignores collective sigh of relief that she 
is not in charge>, the goal would be to tell a simple, exciting 3-
hour suspense story of a kid who is in the Triwizard tournament, gets 
kidnapped, and the Dark Lord gets reborn.  There's no time for all 
the other great stuff that happens in the book.  So I think the 3-
hour screenplay would go something like this:

Initial scene before the credits is the Riddle House scene.  Then, we 
skip straight to Harry waking up with his scar hurting, followed by a 
shot of the Hogwarts express winding toward school while the opening 
credits roll.  Yup, that's right, no Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and all 
the great things that happen before Hogwarts.  The few key facts you 
have to have to make the Moody plot twist happen are Accio, Priori 
Incantantem, Moody's kidnap, Crouch Jr.'s escape from Azkaban (there 
might be others, but I can't think of them right now).  They learn 
Accio in class later, so the early Accio scenes can be cut.  Moody's 
kidnap is a Rita Skeeter story maybe, or a conversation with Hagrid.  
Whatever.  Crouch Jr.'s escape from Azkaban is forshadowed by Sirius 
and the Pensieve.  

Priori Incantantem is the hardest element to establish without "The 
Dark Mark" scene.  Maybe this comes up in the Draco the Bouncing 
Ferret scene.  You combine the Ferret scene with the subsequent scene 
where Harry and Draco duel and Hermione gets big teeth.  Moody comes 
across Harry and Draco dueling, and to find out who hit Hermione, he 
does Priori Incantantem on Draco's wand.  Moody still gets to teach 
all of his DADA classes because we need to get to know him, not to 
mention the Unforgivable Curses.

Then the screenplay picks up with the Harry's name going into the 
Goblet and the Three Tasks.  To save time, the Champions do not 
figure out the Egg's clue; they are told exactly what the Second Task 
is, just as they are told what the Third Task is.  

The Unexpected Task and Yule Ball never happen.  The Bagman gambling 
subplot never happens.  The House Elf Liberation Front never 
happens.  Harry doesn't face the sphynx in the maze.  No Winky.  No 
Dobby (Harry gets the gillyweed by researching it with Hermione and 
Ron).  No Blast-Ended Skrewts.  

Now for some real controversy:  it might be possible to eliminate the 
Second Task entirely, particularly since it might be really hard and 
expensive to film it well.  Maybe they do the first task, which 
determines their start position for the maze, and that's the whole 
tournament.

Even then, we're probably not down to 3 hours, but it's a start.  
There are probably 20 more issues that still need to be addressed, 
but enough already!

Cindy (who would love to try to cut down PoA, too)