Spoiler; CoS script non-sequiturs

[GulPlum]

Jeremy Davis wrote:
> Nicholas

> > In the movie, they missed out the bit about loyalty to Dumbledore
> > in his speech in the hut, though Harry says it in the Chamber to 
> > Tom Riddle. They did include Dumbledore saying that help would 
> > always be given. There should have been a payoff to that line in 
> > the Chamber; all that it would have taken would be Harry 
> > saying 'help me, someone, please', when confronted with the 
> > Basilisk; which I believe he did say in the book; but not in the
> > movie.
> 
> I've only seen the film one, but I'm pretty sure Dumbledore stared
> at them in the invisibility cloak and said it then........ ???????

Nope. As Nicholas said, Dumbledore only said that help would be 
available to anyone who asks for it. No mention of loyalty.

As it happens, whilst agreeing with Nicholas (certainly all Harry had 
to do was shout "help"), I don't necessarily see Harry's statement as 
a non-sequitur within the confines of the movie script; I see it as 
another huge jump of lateral thinking of which book-Harry isn't 
really capable, at least not in CoS (the even BIGGER one being using 
the Basilisk fang to "kill" the diary).

Changing the subject ever so slightly...

Something which puzzled me as I watched the movie for the erm... 
twelfth time today (Sorry, Nick) :-) was why Kloves changed an 
element of the book which resulted in taking up more time than if 
they'd stuck closer to the book, and also resulted in a non-sequitur 
of sorts.

I'm talking about something I've mentioned before, namely Riddle's 
Award for Services to the School (a prop of which was famously made 
for the first movie, partially seen immediately to the right and 
behind James's Quidditch trophy). In terms of non-sequiturs, 
the "irony" of Ron & Harry having been awarded one at the end of the 
movie is completely lost. In terms of plot development, after 
Harry's "Diary flashback", the Trio are walking through the grounds 
and Ron says something like "This Tom Riddle sounds like a dirty 
rotten snitch to me"; they start discussing Hagrid's possible 
involvement, at which point Hagrid interrupts them. 

Why not conduct that scene in the trophy room (nicely mirroring the 
scene from the first movie, but this time with a more canonical Ron 
leading the way), with Ron pointing to the trophy rather than just 
making assumptions. The kids can then mention Hagrid, who happens to 
walk by. 

Doing the scene that way would have had a five-way pay-off: Ron 
actually gets to have played a part in the resolution of the mystery; 
there's a nice parallel with the (non-canonical) trophy-room scene in 
the first movie (which would send people rushing to their DVDs of the 
first movie as soon as they got home to find an amount of planning 
worthy of JKR!); we establish that Riddle was seen as a hero for his 
part in the mystery 50 years earlier, making a connection with the 
flashback scene; there's a neat parallel with Harry & Ron getting 
awards at the end of the film (TBH I'd've liked to have seen 
Dumbldore conjure up a couple of trophies to hand to them at that 
point); it's shorter than the scene as it appears in the movie.

Lost opportunities like that are one of the things which *REALLY* 
annoy me about Kloves's attitude.

-- 
GulPlum, AKA Richard, who's having a bit of a Ken Branagh day today, 
consisting of CoS and Rabbit-Proof Fence at the cinema, and currently 
watching Frankenstein on TV. :-)