Bittersweet (with an OT tangent thrown in)

[eggplant107]

"Cat" <CatMcNulty at ...> wrote:

> Not meaning to pick nits here but Mike Newell
> Directed GoF and Steve Kloves wrote the 
> screenplay for GoF (as he did for SS/PP, CS,
> PoA, HBP and will be HD I & II). 

You are absolutely correct and thank you for pointing out my error,
that's the way I learn new things. I still think it is true that
Phoenix will be the only one of the 8 Potter movies that Steve Kloves
didn't write, but I could be wrong.

> let's not forget the true Grand Creatrix of
> the whole WW herself JKR.

ABSOLUTLY! And compared with the books the movies are just a sideshow,
a well crafted and entertaining sideshow but a sideshow nevertheless.

> remember how she insisted that
> Kreacher be left in OotP? 

I don't think she insisted, she just said if I were you I'd leave
Kreacher in. The movie makers are not fools, they figured that it's
possible that any author that can write a book that a half a billion
people want to purchase just may know what she's talking about, so
they decided to follow her advice.

> Also, she put the kibosh on a throw away line 
> in the script about Dumbledore having a crush
> on a girl while he was at Hogwarts 

Yes and that was the source of lots of grossly unfair criticism of
JKR. She was just trying to help the filmmakers when they were trying
to move one of her characters in a direction diametrically opposed to
the direction she saw. She must have known her advice would be leaked
eventually so she went public with the idea. Small souled individuals
criticized her for this.

> I think Steve Kloves has done a fine job, 
> bearing in mine the constraints of the 
> medium he has to work in. With the exception of PoA

All the movies had to abandon something from the books, but of all the
movies I think the decision of what to leave out was the more
incompetent and more ham fisted in PoA than that of any of any other
Potter movie. On the other hand, I think that what was decided to
actually put on screen In PoA was the most competent, downright
brilliant, of any Potter movie. If they had not abandoned the most
important subplot in the entire sage and the movie was 15, maybe 20
minutes longer, it could have given Citizen Kane a run for its money. 

Eggplant