Kloves

[GulPlum]

Petra Pan wrote in reply to my previous musings:

<snip>

> > The Ravenclaw match will probably fall by the wayside - it's really a
> > Draco moment - showing Harry's Patronus to be ineffective can be
> > established in other ways.  <snip>
>
>'Ineffective'?  I'm confused...

Sorry, slip of the gears between brain and fingers. That was meant to be 
"ineffectual", i.e. weak.

>Remember the extra scene in potions from the DVD in which Harry snaps
>sarcastically back at Snape?  That was in the script and in fact was shot but
>edited out by the director (and producer?).  There are many other
>moments of characterizations in Kloves' script that never made it onto
>celluloid.

Oh, I'm absolutely sure of it. You're one up on me in that you've seen that 
draft script whereas I haven't. I agree that the full Potions scene should 
absolutely have been kept in the movie - in the space of a few seconds we 
establish that Harry isn't a goody-two-shoes and that he has a sarcastic 
way with words. It also establishes his relationship with Snape (or more 
particularly, Snape's relationship with *him*).

Harry's gift for sarcasm is one of the major things that both PS/SS and CoS 
lost *completely* and I simply cannot believe that *every* instance is down 
to Columbus editing Kloves, or indeed the possibility that Dan couldn't 
pull it off (judging by the full Potions scene and his appearances as 
himself, Dan doesn't seem to have any trouble at all with it).

Ditto, I can't believe that excising an important paragraph from 
Dumbledore's exposition scene in the hospital scene which establishes why 
Snape hates Harry ("it's funny how people's minds work...") is down to 
Columbus. That paragraph is of  particular interest to me: it was in the 
hope of finding an explanation that I read the book in the first place, as 
that question was at the front of my mind when I came out the cinema. Had 
the paragraph been left in the script, I may well not have bothered reading 
the book (which then led to reading the others, etc, etc...) . :-)

After I read the book, I simply could not understand why they left it out, 
and  who was to blame. Out of the two major suspects, I know which one I 
prefer. I don't suppose you remember whether or not it was in the script 
you read?

And are you *really* saying that making Ron out to be little more than a 
witless dork is entirely Columbus's work? Giving most of his best lines in 
CoS to Hermione was down to Columbus, or even shadowy script doctors? Whose 
idea was it to drop the reference to why he's scared of spiders?

>But mistake me not for a Kloves apologist.  <snip>

And please don't mistake me for a Clumbus apologist either. ;-) I think 
each is as bad as the other. The thing is, Kloves has sole credit for the 
script and he bears full responsibility. I honestly don't believe that 
*everything* is his fault, but as far as I can tell, he's not done anything 
else since embarking on the HP bandwagon and it was his job to supervise 
the re-writes (apart from being the connection to JKR) so if he's as "into" 
canon as you seem to suggest, he should have put his foot down more firmly. 
(As it happens, of his other work I've only seen The Fabulous Baker Boys of 
which I didn't think too much; I've somehow managed not to get around to 
Wonder Boys, though not willfully, so I can't really comment on him in 
general).

I have, on the other hand, seen all of Columbus's work and, well, I'm not 
impressed. He's OK with slapstick but not much besides. He can't do 
sentiment without going into slushy sentimentality (both in his directing 
and writing work), which is a major turn-off for me.

<snip>

>None of the articles I've read that mentions the adaptation of the HP
>books have outlined the process step by step (more's the pity).  But
>I never get the impression from the "Written By" article (nor from the Q&A
>that I attended) that JKR corrected the scripts...if by that you mean
>something as complete as editing or proofing the entire script.

Oh, I don't mean anything of the kind. I'm absolutely with you on this one: 
JKR appears to have taken a very hands-off approach to the adaptation 
process, and only, as we both seem to agree, pointing out errors in the 
plotting in draft scripts. However, I wish she'd paid as much attention to 
the characters as she appears to have done to the sets, etc.

>I agree that distortions have crept into the fanon that are the movies.
>But I suspect such distortions are several generations deep and some are
>more than a degree of separation from Kloves - there may have been too many
>cooks in the kitchen!

Sorry, but I think you're letting him off too lightly. He is the chef and 
he's signed the dish. He should be prepared to take all the flak. (His 
reluctance to address the "Irish Chappie" issue is, in my mind, very 
telling.) It's not as if after submitting the first/second/third draft of 
CoS he had more pressing obligations (other than to work on CoS) so he 
should have been available to ensure that more of *his* voice was heard. 
And it's not as if he had a lot on his plate while CoS was going through 
re-writes either.