[HPFGU-Movie] Important Negative Spoilers Request

[wynnde1 at aol.com]

Hello, Everyone,

This is my first posting to this group - I've been a member of the main group 
for several months now, though. As I saw the movie last night (in Edinburgh), 
I thought I'd reply to this request for things I noticed that were changed 
from the book. This will be off the top of my head, having seen the movie 
only once, so it won't be a complete list, but just the ones which I really 
noticed and remembered. 

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The sequence at the Dursley's is much shortened from the book, but retains 
it's integrity, IMO. The film begins only a few minutes before the arrival of 
the Mason's, so the entire afternoon preceding this (which appears in the 
book) is missing.

At least one day later (not sure - it may have been more than one day) Harry 
is rescued by the Weasleys, and Ron tells Harry "Happy Birthday" - in the 
book, Harry's birthday is the day of the Mason's visit, not the day he's 
rescued. Then again, in the film, maybe Ron is just wishing him a belated 
birthday. It's difficult to tell.

Harry does floo to Knockturn Alley, but the whole scene with the Malfoys 
talking to Borgin is not there. I really like that scene, and was 
disappointed that it was deleted.

The scene in Flourish and Blotts is much changed - Hermione gets some lines 
that aren't hers in the book, there is no physical fight between Malfoy and 
Weasley seniors, to name a few of the changes.

They added a bit of visual excitement (Harry hanging out the door, etc.) to 
the actual car flight.

It is Filch, not Snape, who "greets" H & R upon their arrival at Hogwarts, so 
we miss out on my favourite scene in the whole series so far, when R & H 
speculate that perhaps Snape has been sacked, and he comes up behind them. 
Although, we do get Snape telling them off for flying the car to school and 
making the newspaper. I do think they made some changes which put Snape in a 
bit more negative light than the way it reads in the book - in the film, 
Dumbledore seems to chastise Severus a bit for the way he reacts to H & R's 
arrival, in the book it seems that Dumbledore is merely amused by Snape's 
reaction.

(Okay - this is admittedly nitpicky) - Gryffindor is shown having Herbology 
with the Slytherins (in the book, it's with Hufflepuff). 

When called a "mudblood" by Draco, Hermione already knows what the term means 
and she's the one who explains it to Harry.

Deathday party and Peeves completely missing from film. 

Dueling club scene changed a bit, but IMO is one of the best scenes in the 
movie. 

Here's an interesting one . . . during Quidditch match, Lucius is shown 
sitting next to Snape in the stands. I just flipped through my copy of CoS, 
and don't find any mention of Lucius. Sure, it doesn't seem strange that 
Lucius would be there - his son's first appearance as seeker, after all - but 
why create something and stick it in? Are we meant to surmise that Snape and 
Malfoy are friends? Did the writer just want to give Malfoy more airtime to 
let us know how important he is to the story? It seems that with all the 
cutting they did in other places, to stick something like this in must have 
some significance.

Also, I thought the actual Quidditch looked better, but that far too much 
time was spent on the bit with the bludger chasing Harry (with Draco right 
behind). That scene seemed to go on FOREVER with them zooming around the 
inside of the stands, and I was thinking that time could have been better 
spent on dialogue elsewhere in the movie.

Binns is absent from the film, and the scene where we learn the history of 
the Chamber takes place in one of MacGonagall's transfiguration classes.
 
H & R don't hide in a cupboard in the staff room to overhear the news about 
Ginny being taken to the Chamber. That scene takes place in a school 
corridor.

As someone has already mentioned, the bit with Dobby getting the sock at the 
end is changed. And I didn't catch Lucius saying "Avada" (but will listen 
more closely next time), but I was really surprised that he was obviously 
really trying to kill Harry. In the book, he yells and lunges, but doesn't 
get any further than that before Dobby blasts him.

I'm not sure what they were thinking with the whole ending. Hagrid comes back 
from Azkaban and gets a loving ovation from the whole student population. As 
someone else wrote, it was pretty cheesy. And when Hermione returns, she 
gives Harry an enthusiastic hug, and then she and Ron do this awkward "oops, 
can't hug, must shake hands" thing which seems to definitely be setting up a 
ship. I found it really overdone and distracting. Actually, I pretty much 
disliked the entire final scene.  Plus, I don't think anyone was in their 
pajamas, as they are in the book.

I'm sure there are plenty of others that I've missed here, but those are the 
ones which struck me the most. 

A few other things I'll say in the way of a review . . . on the whole, I 
liked the movie but didn't love it the way I did PS. There are a lot of 
scenes where I was distracted by certain characters being overacted. I had a 
big problem with Tom Felton in this regard (which surprised me, because I 
thought he was fab in PS). So much of his dialogue just seemed poorly 
delivered - I blame that on the direction, however, and not on Tom. I also 
found it distracting where, in many spots, the dialogue from the book was 
changed, usually (IMO) to lesser effect. Why fix something that isn't broken? 
One good example of this is in the scene in the Chamber, I think the dialogue 
in the book when Harry says that Dumbledore is the greatest wizard ever is 
MUCH more effective than the way it is done in the film. There are LOTS of 
other places where I though they should have stuck with the original 
dialogue, as well. (I also find it a bit scary that I know the dialogue well 
enough to spot the changes when it's not word for word) <G>.

I also agree with whomever posted that Rupert Grint seems to have only one 
comedic expression, and it is definitely tired now. (But I still enjoyed his 
performance as Ron - I actually find movie!Ron more endearing than I do 
book!Ron). Also, Moaning Myrtle REALLY annoyed the heck out of me. She wasn't 
how I pictured her at all, and I found her voice really got on my nerves. But 
then, maybe it's SUPPOSED to do that, so I'm not sure I'm really criticising 
her performance. And there wasn't enough Snape, but I'm telling myself that's 
okay as I know we'll get PLENTY of FANTASTIC Snape scenes in PoA (ooh - 
temper tantrums and flying saliva and snarkiness - I can hardly wait). 
Besides, I'm not sure there is such a thing as "enough" Snape. <G>

On the positive side, Arthur wasn't at all how I pictured him but I LOVED him 
anyway. And Jason Isaacs as Lucius was simply DELICIOUS! Really sneery and 
awful and obviously evil and (will I get flamed for saying?) Dead Sexy. Okay. 
I do hate Lucius, I promise. But that doesn't mean he's not sexy. The long 
hair was a bit off-putting, (I'd always pictured him with short hair), but by 
the end of the film I'd gotten to really like it. Dobby was also not as I'd 
pictured him, but was well done and believable, IMO. And the Basilisk looked 
really good and was TERRIFYING! I jumped out of my seat with a shriek more 
than once. (And the spiders got at least one shriek out of me, as well). 

As I said, on first viewing I didn't enjoy this movie as much as the first 
one. However, I also know that I was being distracted by noticing changes 
from the book, and that once I get used to those things being different, I 
may be able to enjoy the movie more. So I plan to see it a couple more times 
before passing a final judgement. I did enjoy the film, the effects were MUCH 
better than the first, and there were some really edge-of-your-seat exciting 
moments in this film, which is something I never felt about PS. 

Hope this helps, and I hope that it's an appropriate first post from me. I 
really look forward to hearing more about what others think of the film!

Wendy St. John


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