A Grouchy TOP TEN (was:POA comment SPOILERS sort of)

[pippin_999]

Entropy:
> > > 8. Werewolf Lupin: Don't get me started on Werewolf Lupin.  
Why  in  the world would Harry's class have to write a whole 
essay on how to tell awerewolf from a real wolf when the 
werewolf is the one that's  seven feet tall, hairless and looks like 
a cartoon when he runs away?

David:
> Yes, that was bizarre.  Clearly special effects were not in short 
> supply, judging by the rest of the movie, so one assumes it 
was a  deliberate decision.  The most likely explanation to my 
mind is that  Cuaron wanted us to remember that this is a 
diseased and transformed  human, not a wild animal.  Certainly 
a real wolf would seem rather  anticlimactic at this point, as the 
wiewer would have to remember  that the danger is not death but 
lycanthropy from even a small  bite.  But still, one wonders if they 
couldn't have done something a  little more naturalistic.<

Pippin:
In the book, Hermione figured out how recognize a werewolf in 
human form after having been set an essay about how to tell the 
difference between a werewolf and real wolf. Okay, that proves 
she's brilliant, but it's potentially confusing in a movie. Snape's 
essay in the movie: How to recognize a werewolf, (ie,  in human 
form) makes more sense. 

The resemblance between a real wolf and a werewolf isn't a plot 
point in the movie or the book--and I'm not sure it ever will be.  
There aren't any wild wolves in Britain today, I believe, so this bit 
of the Hogwarts curriculum is obsolete anyway, I think. Just one 
of JKR's little jokes about the teaching profession.


> Entropy:
> 
> > > 9. Boggart Class: Harry actually gets up to the boggart and 
it  turns into a dementor. *Then* Lupin steps in. Later, Harry asks 
him  why he stepped in, and Lupin said he was afraid Harry's 
boggart would take the form of Voldemort. But it was already a 
dementor! Aargh!
> 
> Shirley:
> > 
> > Oh!  That made me *so mad*!!  Yep, I don't think Cuaron read 
the book  (or maybe it was Kloves that didn't read it - isn't he the 
screenwriter?).  At any rate, I can't believe JKR didn't step in 
 and  say "Uh-UH, that's not the way it goes."   Another thing for 
the guy  next to me to groan at (and me right along with him)....

David: 
> This really isn't about reading the book, IMO.  It seems 
inconsistent on its own terms.  However, I have always been a 
bit  suspicious of Lupin's explanation to Harry anyway.  A worst 
fear is  a worst fear, so all the other class members had already 
seen something *more* terrifying for them than Voldemort.  So I 
wonder if canon Lupin is making up a pat explanation for an 
action with some  other motive anyway, and movie Lupin is just 
reflecting this in a  more blatant way for the cinema audience.  
The real motive  (Consipiracy ESE!Lupin theories aside) would 
presumably be that Lupin didn't want Harry exposed to what the 
Dementor stands for: the  exhuming of the horrors of the past.<

Pippin:
It's canon that if Riddikulus fails the boggart will assume another 
terrifying form--remember what happened to Molly in OOP? So 
staging the scene as they did  is  reasonable from a canon 
standpoint, and much more dramatic than having Harry stand 
there not doing anything.  

As for Lupin's explanation, I don't think he's telling us everything 
either, but I have to admit it makes sense. Voldemort might not 
be everyone's worst fear, but he is something that everyone in 
the class would be afraid of, unlike, say, spiders, so Lupin's 
concern about mass panic is at least reasonable.

I was of course gratified to see that nothing in the movie puts 
ESE!Lupin to rest --although his boggart is clearly the full moon 
(another change from canon) the crystal ball connection appears 
when Lupin's face shows up in Trelawney's crystal and says 
"Harry Potter" in a gratifyingly menacing tone. 

 I loved the movie.  I don't ever expect an adaptation to recreate 
the  book-- movies are *visual*. Trying to recreate literature with 
movies would be like trying to recreate  a painting with words. 

The most the filmmakers can do is extract the story from the 
book and tell it visually--and their version of *the* story is their 
own. Cuaron and Kloves clearly saw Harry in a race against time 
to learn to overcome his fears--and that's the story they told.  The 
Marauders, lovely as they are, aren't needed to tell that story. 
Much as I love Snape, by PoA Harry isn't really afraid of him 
anymore, so he's not part of it either.

I think there's a clock, or a reference to time in every scene and I 
had lots of fun spotting them in my second viewing. The music, 
toad choir and all, is part of that--music, like filmmaking, is an
art that takes place in *time.*


Pippin
who doesn't care what Flitwick looks like and thinks the 
 realistic, grubby, and down-to-earth castle is in keeping with 
canon