Harry Potter and the Editor Who Ought To Be In Azkaban

[hwango]

I saw the film version earlier this evening. It was enjoyable, but I pity anyone seeing the film who hasn't read the book. Things were cut from the story that I think it really needed. Many of the scenes that were in the film seemed poorly linked together, and I felt significant plot points went completely unexplained. Of course, people who did read the book may be irked by the amount that was left out or moved around, so I'm not sure anyone will be happy. Probably the 4-hour extended version would better match the book.

Comments

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

I think we'll see them including less book material as they keep making the movies. They're already going to be struggling with the task of condensing the 1000+ page Goblet of Fire!

As long as the movies are fun to watch and get the basic idea of each book across I'll be pretty happy with them. I still prefer the books but I get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing things come to life on the screen.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was still fun. It's kind of neat to see some of the stuff up on the big screen and see how it compares to the little screen in your brain. Buckbeak was incredible.

I understand that they can't fit everything from a given book into its movie counterpart, but I thought they made some poor choices about what to keep this time around. Goblet of Fire is going to be a mess no matter what they do, unfortunately.

Buckbeak

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

Buckbeak had a real sense of believability about him. I'm not sure if I've ever before seen a digital creature integrated so smoothly with physical actors.

Someone really did their homework on how an animal moves - or would move if it were real!

I wish they had included some more classroom scenes. It was distracting to me that they spent nearly no time in school uniform. Not that I like the uniforms, it's more that it made me feel they weren't at school at all. It's also too bad that they didn't do the point accounting at the end of the movie. (which I believe is in every book) That would have been a good time for the new actor playing Dumbledore to have more than 2 or three speaking lines.

There are some good interviews with the cast here if you're interested.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/gateways/latest/interview/interview/index.shtml