POA "actor"

[Carol]

Carol earlier: 
> > I think they're referring to Ekow Quartey (Boy 1), who had the
line about catching Sirius Black being like catching smoke with your
bare hands.
 
zanooda responded::
> 
> It was also this kid who explained what The Grim was at Trelawney's 
> first lesson. And poor Dean, who had been there from movie one, 
> didn't get one single line in the whole PoA! Is it fair :-)? 

Carol:
Nope. Not fair at all.
> 
> They made some unnecessary changes in old characters and added 
unnecessary new ones in PoA - for instance, Draco gets a new sidekick
 for some reason. And what they did to poor Flitwick and Tom from "The
Leaky Cauldron" - yuk :-)!

Carol responds:
I can't explain what they did to Flitwick (though I confess to liking
the idea of a chorus at Hogwarts and the Macbeth-themed son,
"Something wicked This Way comes"), but I think they may have tried to
make Tom a bit more like the toothless old bartender that JKR
describes (still, he's a little too like the "Igor" character in bad,
uncanonical "Frankenstein" movies). But Draco's new sidekick is easily
explained: the boy who plays Gregory Goyle was sitting his
OWLs--sorry, I mean his O-level exams or whatever exams for fifth-year
students are called in England. He wasn't written out of the films,
just temporarily replaced by an unnamed fellow Slytherin with an
uncanny resemblance to the as-yet unmentioned Theo Nott. (I prefer to
think that it wasn't him, though!)
> 
Carol earlier:  
> > Carol, who found the prominence of an unnamed, unknown character
mildly annoying but less so than the shrunken heads, Muggle clothes,
(magically powered?) "electric" trains and Victrolas, and unwolflike
appearance of Werewolf!Lupin
> 
> 
zanooda responded:
> 
> But isn't it always like this in the movies? Werewolves never turn
into wolves, they turn into some unidentified creatures - evidently
movie-makers think that ordinary wolves are not scary enough, and 
maybe they are right :-).

Carol again:
I don't know. I've seen You Tube clips from "An American Werewolf in
London" and "An American Werewolf in Paris," and even given the
limitations on special effects at the time those films were made, the
wolf creatures, and particularly the transformation itself, looks
pretty scary. Transformed Lupin could at least have been hairy! No one
would mistake his film form for that of a real wolf!

And I can't find any reason for making the WW look like the Muggle
1930s or '40s in some respects while retaining quills and parchment
for writing and candles or torches for lighting. IMO, Hogwarts *needs*
a Gothic atmosphere where everything from heating and lighting to
clothes and discipline methods verges on the medieval.

Carol, who does at least prefer the Dementors of the PoA film to those
of the OoP film--much scarier and less mechanical looking