reason "no Wood" bothers me (was: Am I the only one? )

[Calliope]

Kewpie wrote:

>>am I really the only one who think the deletion of Oliver Wood will 
NOT play a vital factor in the quality of the film at all?!?! Are 
some of you really serious when you said the film is "ruined" because 
there'll be no Wood!?!

Honestly, I really don't understand what the fuss with all these 
complaining about Wood not being in POA at all. Really, for those who 
overreact at that please think about this: is Wood really THAT 
important and vital to the major plot!? PoA is a much longer story 
than PS and CoS, it introduced essential new  
characters/creatures/flashback of the past, in comparison, Wood is 
completely a disposable elements to the story.


Me:

It's not so much the actual lack of Wood, but the implications of "if they get
rid of this character, what else do they get rid of?"  Quidditch is more
important to this book than the rest (meeing Cho for first time; bad encounter
with the dementors causing Harry to lose Snitch for first time, which I feel
really SHOULD be in the movie as him ALWAYS winning smacks of Hollywood
sappiness; Cedric's first appearance and his noble gesture of wanting a rematch
in the dementor-affected game; success in casting the Patronus against the
Dementors - he thinks - which turn out to be Malfoy et al; Harry's extreme
happiness when they win the Cup).  The Cho and Cedric bits especially have
implications for movie #4, should it ever be made - Harry's crush and Cedric's
goodness.

Quidditch is not a solo sport, so the only way to get these points in is to have
Harry play with the *team*, including the captain.  I guess you could have the
matches without actually showing all the players; but it seems stupid to at
least not have him in the background a la Katie/Angelina/Alicia even if he never
has a single line.  Angelina being a prime example; to my knowledge, she never
had a line in either of the first two movies, but we knew who she was as LJ
mentioned her names several times in commentary.  We saw her and Wood several
times in non-Quidditch scenes with the Gryffindor masses such as in the Great
Hall at meals, in the common room when McGonagall addressed them after
Hermione's petrification, and in the Hagrid lurve fest at the end.  They're part
of the atmosphere of the place, just like when you return to school you expect
certain people to be there whether you actually hang out with them or not.  

Someone said in an earlier post that maybe they're going to pretend that Wood
has left school already. What is the point of that other than to play fast and
loose with canon for no reason?  Is the Quidditch team going to consist solely
of Harry, Fred, and George?  If not, they have to fill the other 4 spots with
*someone*, even if just to be in the background, to show the game.  Why not fill
the background with the same people that really should be there in the first
place? This just smacks of messing around with canon for the heck of it, and not
for a real purpose.  Next thing you know they'll say "well, let's make Harry
captain now, since it's Hollywood and all, and he's the hero of the story..." 
Wouldn't winning the Quidditch cup and the resultant Gryffindor lurve fest be a
good enouch "touchy feely moment" for Hollywood?  (Better than the manufactured
Hagrid lurve  fest...)  Again, how can you have a team celebration without the
team?

And I don't think they're keeping Wood and recasting...Biggerstaff's website
makes it clear that the *character* was cut, not the actor.

There's no Wood...*honestly*...

Calliope

(who will be extremely disappointed if Oliver Wood is cut, but somehow Eleanor
Columbus returns as Susan Bones, who is even *less* integral to the plot than
Oliver Wood...)

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