[HPFGU-Movie] Washington Post/more questions (MAJOR spoilers!)

[LeeMunLim03 at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/15/02 8:12:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
plumeski at yahoo.com writes:

> Richelle Votaw wrote:
> 
> 
> >I have watched
> >PS/SS with various friends and relatives.  And every one of them 
> >was left with a "huh?" after the movie.  Each time I spent a good 
> >twenty minutes giving a brief review of the facts and filling in 
> >the missing details.
> 
> I was left with only one "huh?" after PS/SS, which was: why on earth 
> does Snape despise Harry? I bought the book on the way home from the 
> cinema to answer that question, and absolutely couldn't understand 
> why the screenplay didn't address it in the obviously incomplete way 
> the book did. It needed ONE sentence from Dumbledore in the hospital 
> scene.


  well why Snape hates Harry or loathes him.  Is here is a son of another 
student who want to this school and Snape has to keep secret that Harry's dad 
almost killed him by playing a joke on Snape

> 
> Sure, the book fills in loads of other details, but the film is 
> comprehensible on its own terms without them. Furthermore, PS/SS is 
> clearly setting up the foundations for the series as a whole, and 
> thus its more anecdotal rather than narrative-driven plot is 
> excusable. CoS (the book) had a tight narrative but the film has been 
> reduced to a series of major set pieces, each of which (as many 
> reviews have pointed out) are given equal importance.
> 
> I therefore defend his complaints about the Whomping Willow scene 
> (for instance) not on the basis that the tree is itself unimportant 
> (which we know is not the case), but it is given an importance in 
> *this* film which it does not warrant. The Willow gets more screen 
> time than Colin, for instance, which is frankly wrong.


Well I do agree we needed more time to get to know Colin, Justin, Penalope 
but I still loved every scene.  Even if it was scenes I had already seen 

> 
> Many reviews I've seen have used terms like "boring", "plodding" 
> or "pedestrian pacing" to describe CoS; Columbus (and Kloves) divide 
> it (as they did PS/SS) into a series of four minute sequences and it 
> is this insistence on surface balance which ultimately makes the film 
> structurally *un*balanced. They have some kind of checklist of 
> elements from the book which need to be covered, and give each of 
> them its own sequence, instead of intertwining the various threads to 
> create a coherent whole. Some elements are thus rushed, and some are 
> slowed down or enlarged to give them their statutory screen time. 
> 
> It's film-making by numbers which is unsatifying and, frankly, 
> patronising. In one of his interviews, Daniel came out with that word 
> to describe most kids' films, in the context that most kids' live 
> action films refuse to address "darkness". Yes, Columbus and Kloves 
> didn't shy away from covering some of the more difficult elements of 
> the storyline, but ultimately this is just reduced to a romp through 
> a series of adventures rather than an attempt to correlate, for 
> instance, Draco's behaviour to that of Riddle.


It was darker but again the market is for kids now maybe it will change when 
the Prisoner of Azkaban comes out lets hope so

> 
> Another of my pet bugs is the duelling club scene - whilst visually 
> entertaining for the kids, all they do is toss each other twenty feet 
> into the air; it seems as if there's no difference between the 
> various incantations. In particular, the "expelliarmus" doesn't 
> actually cause Lockhart and his wand to part company! 
> 
> ><snip>
> <Colin's role> 
> 
> >I must say that will be a disappointment to me as well.  The little
> >fellow they had playing Colin was so utterly cute.  Maybe he can't 
> >act worth anything, I don't know, but he sure is cute.


I do agree he should of had more screen time and the others as well.  But I 
did like it that Colin did get to take a fast action picture of Harry when he 
was playing quitditch

> 
> Yes, he's cute (he's also quite tiny). :-) I suspect that his role 
> wasn't reduced because of any deficiencies on his part, but was 
> written that way from the start.
> 
> In fact, his whole "motivation" has been changed: Film-Colin's role 
> isn't to follow Harry around and pester him, but to be a kind of mini-
> papparazzo, getting under everyone's feet. There are a few instances 
> in which he puts his camera to his face to take pictures, but is 
> stopped by the hand of people considerably taller than him (whose 
> faces we don't see and thus can't identify them). 
> 
> >I think my point is that the movies are made based on a premise
> >that 95% of people seeing them will have read the books.  The other 
> >5%, oh, well, that's their mistake.
> 
> Clearly, that is the case. However, it is a very, very shaky premise 
> on which to base a movie, and considering most (adult) film critics 
> will not have read the books, it is little wonder that critics might 
> not like it. The fact that the audience may not have read the books 
> is absolutely no defence for the film-makers being sloppy and unable 
> to tell a story.
> 
> >>SP
> >>OI
> >>LE
> >>R
> >>SP
> >>AC
> >>E
> >>
> >>SP
> >>OI
> >>LE
> >>R
> >>SP
> >>AC
> >>E
> 
> >>Harry tells her to "get yourself out" (repeat of line from PS/SS).
> >
> >I'm going to be an idiot again (hey, no comments!) and ask, where
> >is that line in PS/SS?  I watched it again Monday night and didn't 
> >catch it.  I *thought* it was after the chess scene, but Harry said 
> >something like "Take Ron and get out, send an owl, etc."  I think.  
> >Or is the repetition just similar, not exact?  
> 
> My fault. I had mis-remembered the line from the first movie (yes, I 
> was thinking about the post-chess scene too). 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> >In the hospital wing when Dobby comes to talk to Harry, what 
> >exactly wakes him up?  I mean, in the book it's Dobby sponging 
> >Harry's face.  I can't quite see them doing that in the movie, 
> >though.  
> 
> He's woken up by The Voices (although it's unsure whether he's 
> hearing them or dreaming). It's done quite amusingly, because he 
> weakes up, looks around and is interrupted by Dobby saying "hello". 
> The jolt from the tone of the voices to his jovial welcome is one of 
> the things done well. Returning to the more general comments above, 
> what's REALLY infuriating about this film is that each individual 
> scene is very well structured. It's putting them together that causes 
> the problem.
> 
> >What about Colin?  He does actually get petrified, right?  
> 
> Of course. 
> 
> >Do they bring him to the hospital wing while Harry's in there like 
> >in the book?
> 
> Yes. His arrival is what causes Dobby to disappear. He's frozen with 
> the camera at his face, which was yet another nice touch. We get a 
> closeup of his face underneath, which is just the way I imagined it



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