Made for the movies?

[Kirstini]

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Kneasy on reviews:
> As it turned out, I needn't have worried, they were suitably circumspect.
> However, the reviews included one from an 11 year old (how the hell 
> he'd managed to read the book and dictate a review in time to meet 
> the print deadline defeats me) but he made a telling comment:
> "It'll look great on film."
> 
> No doubt it will.
> The set-piece fights, the English countryside  complete with quaint 
> villages, the slick (dare one say superficial) resolution of plot puzzles,
> teenage angst complete with cod philosophising, a modicum of tasteful
> romantic stuff, the flash-backs, and so on, including the final fade out 
> scene of the next generation toddling off to Hogwarts in a cloud of 
> locomotive steam.
> A director's delight.
<snip>
> 
> There were occasional mutterings of the previous two books being
> 'filmic', this one is the most filmic of the lot IMO. Never forget that
> Harry Potter is a business, a franchise, the bottom line matters, and
> so far as the money is concerned the books are not the most 
> important aspect.

<snip> In this continuing situation it would 
> be difficult if not downright impossible for a writer not to wonder 
> how such-and-such a scene would look on the big screen and set
> it up in those terms in her minds eye, even as it was being drafted 
> in manuscript.


Kirstini: Really? Do you know, I came away from my first reading dizzy, panicky at the huge 
amount of galloping about that had happened, and thinking 'how on earth are they going 
to make a coherant cinematic narrative out of that sprawling mass?' I actually wondered 
whether it was her final revenge on the filmmakers - presumably her part of the contract 
is already gold-plated.  Some of the scenes will *look* lovely, for sure: Fiennes flying 
through the night sky with the CGI robes swirling about him, Snape's Patronus by the lake 
and the sword in it. But really? How on earth do you make a film narrative with most of the 
important information picked up from Pensieves or read in books (please not Emma 
Watson and her all-knowing forehead, please not Emma Watson and her all-knowing 
forehead), with long periods of static, with so many huge battle scenes all over the place 
that no-one's sure where they are? I particularly can't see how all that Elder Wand back and 
forth stuff will make for a satisfying movie climax. I was amused to note that certain 
things she's obviously told them to leave in - well, Grawp - didn't turn out to be 
significant at all.
Ooh, does anyone know what killed Fred, by the way? Could do with a bit of enlightening, 
and I've read that twice now.