James--Biggerstaff as Wood/Flight Scene

[Cindy C.]

Luke wrote:

> Maybe I 
> misinterpreted your reply and you meant that you do have a strong 
> enough impression of Wood's personality; you just don't mind if 
they 
> change it a little in the movie?


Luke, I think you hit the nail right on the head.  I have read all of 
the fabulous reviews, impressions and criticisms on the list, and one 
idea keeps surfacing.  To the extent most listies have criticisms of 
the movie, it is that their favorite lines of dialogue or scenes were 
omitted.  "Are you a witch or not" is a frequently cited example.  
This omission doesn't bother me at all, and as I've said, I wish more 
had been cut to focus better on what mattered.

But why do I feel that way, and hardly anyone else does?  Your 
observation provides the answer.  I think deep down, I was hoping for 
more "new material" and changes to the book.  For me, the book 
exists, it is static, and it is what it is, for better or worse.  
Seeing the setting come alive in the movie was new and exciting, 
that's true.  But seeing the actors say the very same dialogue in the 
books isn't very interesting to me (and to the extent they do the 
dialogue in a way inconsistent with my own mental image, it can 
actually be rather jarring, e.g. "VoldemorT").  

When I saw the movie, having the screenwriter add something to the 
book made it more exciting and refreshing for me.  For example, the 
screenwriter added "I shouldn't have told you that."  Aside from the 
fact that it was amusing, it quickly focused the audience on the fact 
that whatever Hagrid had said was important for solving the mystery.  
Another example is the wand selection scene, which gives me another 
way to visualize Harry picking his wand apart from the one in the 
book.  A third example is the vanishing glass -- now I have two ways 
to remember this great scene.  Chocolate frogs are another example of 
being pleasantly surprised in the movie.  My appreciation for the 
story was enriched by these changes.

On the other hand, to the extent the movie stuck to the book, it 
sapped a bit of the excitement out of the experience for me.  There 
was not much excitement or sense of peril in the Voldemort 
confrontation, because we knew everything that was going to happen:  
that Harry would win, how he would win, and that he would be injured 
but would be all right in the end.  There's nothing to be done about 
that -- that is to be expected anytime you go to a movie having read 
the book first.

So, Luke, your comment above (in addition to your observation on 
another post that everyone wants to see their favorite dialogue and 
scenes brought to the screen) was insightful and helpful, because it 
helped me see why I have such different impressions from the rest 
group.  


Luke wrote (about the winter owl flight scene):

>A couple people--I believe Cindy and Rita--said that 
> they thought at first that Harry was sending a letter somewhere.  
> This is a quite logical assumption, and exposes an issue that 
writers 
> of speculative fiction can run into, which is that since there are 
> all sorts of "implausibilities" in this genre of story, sometimes 
> things are meant literally and the metaphors are therefore harder 
to 
> identify.  

I agree that finding a way to convey this message is difficult.  
However, I think the method of using Hedwig was doomed from the 
start.  We are told earlier in the movie that owls deliver letters 
and packages.  We never see them do anything else.  So how are we, 
the innocent audience, supposed to figure out what is going on?  For 
all we know, Harry has decided based on his imprisonment at Privet 
Drive that it is wrong to have Hedwig live in a cage, so he is 
setting her free.

So here's the challenge:  how could the filmmakers have conveyed the 
idea of letting go in the context of the movie such that more than 
one clever viewer would have caught it?

Cindy (typecast in the role of Movie Group Oddball)