Observation, not really spoiler - missed potential

[G Miller]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "madam_author" 
<kateydidnt2002 at y...> wrote:
Snip 
> What was even more disappointing to me is the fact that I could see 
> the potential in the movie, it *could* have been better! The 
> director has a beautiful style, but it went to waste because so 
much else was lost.

Now me:
I agree with most of the above paragraph.  I liked the movie with the 
new look and the Dementors flying.  And I did not go to do a 
movie/book analysis (I analyzed COS too much and when I left the 
theater, I found I didn't really like it, so I was determined not to 
do the same thing this time).  However, afterwards I began thinking 
that there were a few places that tweaking it slightly (or not 
tweaking it as much as they did) would have made it even better.  To 
me, it was a good movie, but it had the potential to be a really good 
(or great) movie. 
There were some places where a few more seconds of explanation or a 
minute or two extra in a scene could have helped without adding too 
much to the overall length (Dare I say that maybe Columbus should 
have taken a little heavier hand as producer).  But I think I can 
best sum up my thoughts on the missed potential by relating two 
unrelated scenes that were added to the movie.  By doing this, a big 
HUH? could have been avoided and Harry would have looked better 
during the Time Turner sequence.  
(I have tried to go through as many posts that I could, so if this 
has already been thought of, I apologize)
The main scene I am talking about is the Hermione howl.  The big HUH? 
comes from the fact that it was stated earlier that a werewolf would 
only respond to the call of one of it's own.  It is quite obvious 
that it is someone pretending to howl, so why did Lupin respond??  
Does Hermione have some werewolf in her?  Maybe that's the
revelation for book 6 & 7
..  I don't think so.  Also, Harry just 
seems to be along for the ride during the Time Turner sequence.  Up 
until the Patronus, Hermione is figuring out everything.  But what if 
the scene had gone something like this:
Harry & Hermione see Lupin getting ready to attack in-the-past 
Harry.  Harry gets a look of realization on his face as he reaches 
into his pocket and pulls out some candies like the ones in the dorm 
scene where they are making animal noises.  Harry looks down and, 
sure enough, one of them says wolf.  He pops it in his mouth and howls
like a wolf, which Lupin then responds.  

Although this makes Harry save himself twice, at least he has a 
little dignity back and there is no HUH?.  

All-in-all, the movie met my expectations, but after watching it, I 
felt it did not live uo to it's potential.  

glpm93
I was unable to see POA until Sun night because of certain conditions 
my daughter had to fulfill prior to being able to watch POA (Is your 
room clean?), so when I saw it, there were only about 50 people in a 
fairly large theater.  I do not know if this affected my level of 
enjoyment because there was very little crowd reaction to feed on.