GoF highlights (and OotP observations)

[Richard]

Saundra wrote:

>Favorite scenes: Too many to reiterate here. But heres some (not in
>any order):
>
>1. Harry entering the Weasley tent at QWC the look on his face and the 
>quote "I love magic!"

I wasn't so keen on that line the first time I saw the movie, and cringe at 
every subsequent viewing when it comes up. One of the things not only I, 
but several others, liked about PoA was that magic had become "normal": we 
didn't have a huge explosion (notably in the music, but also visually) 
almost every time something magical happened.

Harry's got used to being around magic and accepts it as part of his life. 
This movie undoes that achievement, not only with that line (completely 
OOC, IMO), but also every time we have a bit of magic, we have an explosion 
of music and cinematography to let us know something "special" is 
happening. I would've preferred the explosions to be reserved for the 
character moments, which as things are, get a little lost in the spectacle. 
The movie makers are going to have to play close attention to this  with 
the next two movies, because they are very much character pieces rather 
than a series of spectacular moments.

>8. The Maze (wasn't it creepy even sans creatures)

It was creepy, but it wasn't particularly *dangerous* in and of itself. 
Dulbleore's "the maze changes people" line was a bit strange as well, under 
the circumstances.

>12. The ending (the best ending since SS)

As I've said before, I wasn't all that keen on the scene. The last *shot* 
was fairly standard for this kind of movie, but the last conversation 
between the Trio was handled wrongly and (IMO) badly performed. Whilst I 
appreciate the idea behind taking out Hagrid's input and leaving the kids 
to realise what awaits them, I would've liked Draco and his posse to have 
been there, to underline that their enmity is now about the big picture, 
not personal dislike (bookending the scene at the QWC).

>My only fear is that this movie set a bar so high that the expectations 
>for next film will be impossible to meet. Because the 5th & 6th 
>books/movies are more drama acting vehicles than action flicks. Let me 
>stop worrying about what's next and enjoy what's here.

I just flicked through OotP and I feel that the only way to put the heart 
of the book onto the screen is to re-write the plot structure. And I don't 
see how the GoF ending can possibly lead into Angry!Harry, given that it's 
meant to be barely a few weeks later.

Movie!Harry is a little different from Book!Harry in a few subtle ways, 
implied rather than stated. For instance, several people have bemoaned the 
cutting of Harry's Accio practice from GoF. Obviously, the movies can't 
really spend too much of their precious running time dwelling on how 
average (if not sub-average!) Harry is at picking up new skills, but this 
means that the DA plotline in OotP will resonate slightly differently, as 
Movie!Harry doesn't have Book!Harry's issues with new spells - his doubts 
over teaching the DA can appear somewhat petulant.

In fact, whilst the DA *should* be the middle act of a five-act OotP 
adaptation, I suspect that it'll more like the romance angle in GoF, as an 
incidental element to the other events.

Several people (here and elsewhere) have commented that GoF is the most 
cinematic of the books, but this isn't just because it is punctuated by 
spectacular set pieces - as I've already noted,  it also has a structure 
that naturally divides itself into five acts. OotP is nowhere so clear, 
going in all kinds of directions. Not to mention that it's possibly the 
most episodic of the books, and episodic stories do not generally make good 
movies. Furthermore, GoF has the clearest central question: who's 
responsible for Harry's participation in the tournament (it's fairly 
obvious that Voldemort's behind it, so the final showdown is just a part of 
that). The "who/why/how dunnit" aspects of OotP are so varied and not 
really connected so it's difficult to keep track, and thus building a 
linear narrative is going to be tricky. We all have to be prepared for some 
*significant* trimming of various storylines to streamline the plot, never 
mind cut down the running order. Otherwise, Movie!OotP might well fall 
between stools and be little more than a mess with some occasional fancy 
visuals.

The four movies to date have already made it clear that it's difficult to 
show what's needed for the immediate story WHILE paving the ground for 
further developments, as testified to by several professional reviewers, 
who have expressed surprise at the introduction of certain sub-plot 
elements, which are only apparent to book readers. And the fact that the 
movies are being made one at a time rather than planned as a series (with 
the adaptors working with one hand tied behind their backs because 
apparently JKR is unwilling to give away the end-game, never mind its 
result) doesn't make life any easier.

OotP doesn't really stand up on its own as a story, and despite his stated 
reasons for bowing out (work on "Curious Incident..."), I suspect that 
Kloves is simply at a loss how to adapt it. Ultimately, for book readers, 
it's all about confirming the content of the first prophecy (which, 
incidentally, came as no great surprise to anyone, given that we had been 
mulling it over for three years and most people got the gist, if not the 
exact wording, right) - Movie!PoA included the second prophecy but didn't 
make enough of a deal about it to make people realise it was Important 
(with a capital "I").

On the other hand, the uninitiated viewer (i.e. non-book readers) should 
assume that every smallest scene is included in the movies for a Reason 
(capital "R") which means that the pacing suffers, because scenes or 
sequences have to be included which aren't necessarily germane to the 
immediate plot of the movie being watched. You can fill a book with all 
kinds of stuff that  isn't going to have a pay-off until two or three books 
down the line, but you can't really do that with a movie which has to tell 
a self-contained tale and shouldn't really concern itself  with what is to 
come (especially as the adapters don't know for a fact what will come).

So we have Dobby's introduction in CoS, paving the way for Winky (and, 
indeed, SPEW) in GoF (plus Kreacher, of course, in OotP) but there are no 
Elves in Movie!GoF at all, and IMO unless JKR is hiding something, OotP can 
be more easily adapted without Kreacher.

A common complaint has been cutting Harry's sick-bed scene at the end of 
GoF, largely (if I understand most comments correctly) either because 
people miss Snape chewing the scenery, or the touching scene with Molly. Of 
course, itm also sets up the "parting of the ways" between DD and Fudge, 
but IMO, DD and Fudge not seeing eye to eye (plus Crouch!Moody describing 
himself as a "Ministry malcontent") have been set up well enough for OotP 
to make sense introducing the whole storyline on its own, especially as 
that IS one of OotP's storylines, and doesn't actually belong to GoF.

One of the things I really enjoyed about GoF was the fact that so much of 
it was in the sub-text and in hints, rather than being explained (although 
I maintain that Priori Incantantem should have been properly explained - as 
it stands, it makes a mockery of the concept of duelling as it gives the 
impression that this is a common occurence). The only way to bring OotP 
successfully to the screen will be to do more of the same.

I realise that most people here won't have seen Peter Yates's main claim to 
fame, last year's "State of Play" TV series 
(http://www.bbcshop.com/invt/bbcdvd1493&source=583), but I would say that 
it does have similarities with OotP as it presented a whole series of 
apparently disparate storylines which eventually all came together, much as 
OotP does. The big difference is that Yates had (if memory serves) 6 x 1 
hour episodes on State of Play to tell it (note that these are *real* 1 
hour episodes, not the usual US TV "hours" which only last 40 minutes to 
allow for commercials).  The other big difference, as far as I was 
concerned, having religiously followed the series, was that the final 
denouement was a serious cop-out which demeaned the whole exercise, but 
that was a problem with the script, not the direction. And, to come full 
circle, OotP potentially has the same problem, ending rather 
anti-climactically (in terms of discovering who/why/how dunnit), and the 
big emotional payoff - Sirius's demise - suffering from a serious lack of 
under-development of the Harry-Sirius relationship, which is going to have 
to come pretty much from nowhere given the way GoF glossed over the issue.

--
Richard AKA GulPlum, who's been going on for far too long and doesn't have 
the energy to proof-read, so apologies for any lack of sense in the above