A challenge for people who really liked the movie

[demetra1225]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, Kathryn Wolber <katydid3500 at y...> 
wrote:
> [snip] Having seen it with my best friend, who was
> really excited about sharing the experience with me
> even though she doesn't really like reading so hasn't
> gotten into the books, gave me a very different
> perspective than if I had seen in alone or with other
> Potterholics. Seeing it with her caused me to spend
> the entire movie thinking, "It is so choppy there is
> no way she is understanding any of this."  [snip]

Demetra:
This is exactly what I was thinking during the Shreiking Shack and 
final scenes.  Up until that point I kept thinking that they could 
fill in the blanks and fill the gaping plot holes during those 
scenes.  That never happened and that is why after liking the movie, 
even loving quite a few parts, I left the theater vaguely 
disappointed.  How could they have totally dropped the ball in what 
should have been absolutely brilliant on screen.  What a waste of 
tremendous talent.  There were sparks of it there, Oldman in 
particular was fantastic.  But really, did we need that much time on 
the Knight Bus, watching Marge blow up, shots of the Whomping 
Willow?  A couple more minutes in the Shreiking Shack explaining what 
the hell was going on was sorely needed, IMHO.  

In yesterday's Chicago Tribune there was a quote from Steve Kloves 
who said that in the first two movies Chris Columbus (who read the 
books and loved them) kept putting things back in the film because 
they were parts of the book that he liked.  Kloves said he thought 
that Cuaron's having never read the books served the film well 
because he had no compunction about cutting stuff out.  IMHO, they 
needed a happy medium between the two, because with the background 
stuff they cut out of PoA, it just didn't make a whole lot of sense.

I saw the movie yesterday with my 9 y/o, and we both love the books.  
Next week we are going again with my husband who hasn't read any of 
the books but has seen the movies.  It will be interesting to hear 
his perspective.  I suspect he'll like the movie, but he will not 
have figured out that Sirius, Lupin, James, Peter and Snape were all 
classmates or even that Sirius and Snape have hated each other for 
years.