Films filter out less important scenes

[Amy Z <lupinesque@yahoo.com>]

Steve wrote:

> We all know that there are scenes in every book that seem 
irrelevant at
> first, but then becomes important in another book. When the 
screenplay is
> written, they have to eliminate many of the scenes in order to get 
the film
> with 2-3 hours. But they must be careful not to eliminate scenes 
that will
> play a greater importance later on.
> 
> A couple examples of this are:
> 
> 1. When Harry goes to the zoo and speaks to the snake (we learn 
Harry is a
> Parselmouth).

Actually, I think this is dispensable.  I read CS before PS/SS and it 
gave me all the backstory I needed:  Harry saying "I set a boa 
constrictor on my cousin Dudley once."

I'm very glad they included it anyway, as I'm a big fan of that scene 
in the book.  I think they needed it for another reason:  we need to 
know that Harry does magic unintentionally, and it's either that or 
the things like growing his hair back that the book doesn't describe 
as vividly.

The problem with using the movies to guess at what subplots are and 
aren't important to future books is that the movies might not presume 
the same familiarity with previous installments as JKR is doing.  
They have to fill in the crucial backstory for the current 
installment, knowing that the viewers might not have seen the 
previous one(s), and that if they have, a year has probably elapsed.  
JKR does the same, of course:  Polyjuice gets mentioned as an aside 
to Myrtle's griping in "The Egg and the Eye"; we also get a reminder 
of the connection between Harry's and Voldemort's wands in "The 
Weighing of the Wands" (in fact, it seems that the sole reason for 
the "wand weighing" is to remind us of this crucial information . . . 
boy, she's sneaky).  That way if any readers don't recall PS/SS or CS 
very well, they'll still know the background for two essential plot 
twists.  I think the movies are more likely to rely on such things 
and not even put in the early clues.

Of course, only time will tell.

Amy Z