MOVIE: Comparisons

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 191121

Geoff:
> My general reaction was that I had enjoyed the film and although there 
> were some tweaks which had been made, it followed the story line well, 
> except
.  
for the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort, 
> which I think moved disastrously away from the canon story. But why?

Pippin:
Movies are a visual medium. As important as Harry's blood in Voldemort's body is thematically to the books, it's still a complicated idea to convey even in words and plenty of readers were puzzled by it. It would be harder still to get across in images. I really can't blame the filmmakers for sidestepping that and concentrating on Harry's courage and the powers of the Elder Wand. They did an admirable job with that. 

OTOH, some images which are powerful on paper might come across differently on film. Sunrises imagined or in real life are amazing -- pictures of sunrises tend to be trite. 

Then again, sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words. 
I will have to see it again to make sure, but I think there was subtle similarity between Dumbledore's very light gray silk robes and Voldemort's charcoal black ones. That  would be a  clever way of suggesting  the similarity and the difference between these characters, which Harry and Dumbledore discuss in the book. 

It's amusing that filmmakers always think they need to change elements of a best-seller to make it more commercial, but there it is: Rowling only has to answer to her muse, and said once she didn't care if she had only seven readers at the end of the series. Warner Brothers, OTOH, has to answer to its stockholders. 

Pippin