Well then, what to keep in GOF movie?

[scoutmom21113]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "Elizabeth Catherine" 
<ephilipbar at y...> wrote:
> Wow Dina, your original post gave me a lot to think about!  I 
agree 
> that perhaps the whole Rita Skeeter sub plot could be axed.  She 
> could be left as a "referred to "character, for ex: "can you 
believe 
> what the Skeeter woman is writing; how does she know all that?" In 
> OotP, Hermione, desperate for a way to help get Harry's side out, 
> stumbles upon the whole Rita/Beetle secret animagus info and 
> contacts her with the blackmail.  The fact that Rita 
> is "downtrodden" in OotP could be altered to suit the movie 
> storyline.  

Bookworm:
That would just add time to the OoP movie script as someone would 
have to "explain" Rita's background.

Liz: 
> I still maintain that in order to keep the movies as authentic to 
> the books, something that I believe JK wants and why she retains 
> control, is for Warner Brothers to make a longer movie out of both 
> books 4 and 5 than perhaps they realize at this stage.  We will 
see how PoA survives the editing process.

Bookworm:
IMHO, people are making too much of an issue about the length of 
movies 4 and 5.  A quick check of the imdb.com shows the following 
movie lenths (for comparison):

HP-SS: 152 minutes
HP-CS: 161 minutes

LOTR-FR: 178 minutes
LOTR-TT: 179 minutes
LOTR-RK: 201 minutes

I haven't heard anyone complain about the length of the LOTR movies, 
and nothing but raves from the few who have seen the sneak preview 
of the new one.  The studio has to know by now that kids will sit 
through these movies; if they don't they aren't very consumber-
savvy. And while the directors all have different styles, they all 
seem to care about doing justice to the books.

Just a couple of other comparisons:
Titanic [remember that one ;-)] - 194 minutes. Only 35 minutes 
longer than HP-CS, and only about 15 minutes longer than the first 
two LOTR movies.  (And the only time Titanic seemed long to me was 
when the soda I had just consumed started calling to me about the 
time the ocean was washing over the deck of the ship!)

And the classic Gone With the Wind? 238 minutes (US release)

Movies 4 and 5 will be long, no question.  Just as with the others, 
some things that are in the books will need to be cut.  At this 
point, only JKR knows what is absolutely necessary to keep in so 
that all of the clues are presented before the last episode. From 
the interviews I've heard/seen, she is working with the scriptwriter 
and the directors to make sure those things aren't cut out. 

So whether or not you think the the Warner execs are evil, money-
grabbing fools, everyone else involved seems to care about making 
good movies.  Let's let them do their work before we panic about the 
quality.

Ravenclaw Bookworm <now going back to lurkdom>