PoA movie vs. book

[Theresa]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "vlngrrl" <vlngrrl at y...> wrote:
Snip
> I am rereading the series now, and I am once again bothered by a 
> discrepancy.  In the book, Peter Pettigrew is discovered alive by 
> Lupin using the Maurader's Map after H/R/H had already met up with 
> Padfoot and Crookshanks.  He then goes into the Shrieking Shack 
> after them.  In the book, however, Harry tries to find Pettigrew in 
> the school one night after he (Scabbers) disappeared.  Harry 
follows 
> the map by wandlight and appears to walk right past him.  
> 
> Unlike the other discrepancies in the plot details, I don't see any 
> cinematic reasons for changing this pretty significant (in my 
> opinion) detail in the story line.  Is anybody else bothered by 
> this, or does anybody have any explaination as to how this change 
> had ANY positive effect to the story or why the director chose this 
> means to an end?  
Snip

Well whether or not we discussed this or not (cannot remember right 
now but I thought we touched on it but didn't beat it to 
death)...anyway, I have seen POA 4 times now and have decided that in 
my humble opinion they changed this to combine a few scenes. Having 
Harry out of bed looking at the map shows visually how it works, we 
find out that Peter is still alive, and we have the Snape catching 
Harry with the map, it insults him and Remus shows up, Remus gets 
angry with Harry for wandering around with the map (he does mention 
it as a map) and Harry mentions that he saw Peter on the map and we 
learn that Remus is really bothered by that fact - at least I thought 
he looked freaked out (good job Mr Thewlis - he sure knows how to 
show emotion with his eyes). Anyway, I truly believe that when Steve 
Kloves was writing the script he was trying to condense a few scenes 
into one and show the map visually. But as I said that is my opinion 
and not really based on any facts just a gut feeling about why the 
film makers might have done this scene this way. Incidentally, I was 
not troubled by the way they handled this scene either. In fact the 
only things that really bug me are no backstory on the marauders (or 
limited story) and the werewolf was naked and had no tail - what is 
up with that? Peter even mentions in OotP OWL test he put the 'tufted 
tail'. Sorry I found it gross looking not scary at all and all the 
kids I have taken to see it have said the same thing. Why couldn't he 
have looked scary like the one in Van Helsing or even like American 
Werewolf in London. Those were some scary werewolves.

Theresa