[HPFGU-Movie] Directors ad-libbing book material

[Karen]

On Saturday, February 4, 2006, at 12:32 AM, mugg1eb0rn at aol.com wrote:

>>  One of the main criticisms against TLOTR was that Jackson invented
>>  stuff, and that what he invented was way poorer than the original
>>  material. So, what do you think about the same sort of thing in HP -
>>  Snape banging the boys' heads together for example?
>
> .
> .
> I could understand why Peter Jackson felt he had to invent some 
> material in
> LotR, because with the extensive cuts they had to make to keep the 
> movies under
> 12 hours, they sometimes had to do something to fill in the gaps that 
> were
> caused by the cuts.
>
> In PoA, one very nice additional scene was the one of the Gryffindor
> roommates fooling around with the candies, with Harry the locomotive 
> and Ron roaring
> like a lion--while the dementors were swirling right outside their 
> window.
> After the scenes of Harry with Aunt Marge and the Dursleys, it 
> beautifully
> pictured all that Harry loved about Hogwarts, about how the kids were 
> simultaneously
> just kids as well as how they lived different lives in the magical 
> world, and
> the menace they were facing from the dementors without realizing it as 
> of
> yet--and it was all done in about a minute of screen time. I thought 
> it was
> extremely effective, and I'll bet JKR appreciated it, too. She was 
> quoted as saying
> she loved a lot of the additions Cuaron had made, and I bet that was 
> one she
> especially liked.
>
> m

That was, indeed, a great scene for showing the school/boyhood 
camraderie that existed.  One of the nicest things that Cuaron brought 
to the movies was atmosphere. There was a real sense of presence rather 
than performance with that movie. Some called it "being artsy" but it 
was really stepping up the  level of "this world"liness IMO.