The HP movie are too untrue.

[Bextra]

I don't think that the HP movies are very good as they don't stay true to the books, they miss out some very important parts and add things in that aren't even in the books. Why don't they just take the new parts out and put the things they've missed out in?

[Gwared]

JKR has creative control, and she knows what needs to be in there and what doesn't. I'm sure a lot of the decisions will make sense in the end.

[Tanuki]

Don't tell me that the total destruction of the third book is necessary. I just think JKR is too kind for the good of her books

[Scellanis]

I don't think she does have creative control otherwise she wouldn't give interviews saying James is a chaser not a seeker and then let the movies tell us he is a seeker....

[Gwared]

I don't think she does have creative control otherwise she wouldn't give interviews saying James is a chaser not a seeker and then let the movies tell us he is a seeker....

She writes the books and she's made mistakes in them too...(the wand order!)

If you watch the extras on one of the DVD's it has an interview with the director where he states that there are scenes he tried to cut and was told no they need to be in, and scenes he thought were important he was allowed to cut.

[Nightcrawler]

Bextra, what are some things that you think they should have included and/or cut out?


If they were to include every detail that is in the books, the movies would be way, way too long. Also, some things just do not translate well from one medium to another (in this case, a book to a movie).

Did you know that in the Spider-man comics, Spidey does not actually have the ability to shoot webbing? Peter Parker invented a substance that has web like proporties, and he invented a device that fits inside his glove and fires the webbing. In the movie, Sam Raimi (director) decided that was #1, lame and #2, way too complicated to explain to the audience. And since he only had a couple of hours to tell the story, as opposed to pages and pages of comics, any plot details that was unnecisarry for the overall story should be taken into serious consideration.

Directors have to make decisions like this all the time. Of course there were still people who complained about Spider-man having organic webshooters. There were people who complained that Tom Bombadill was not in Lord of the Rings (once again, a case of potential audience confustion and a subplot with very little to add to the overall story).

Hence why Peeves has not been introduced and will probably not be introduced in later films. He's not all that important to the story, and audiences that have not read the books will wonder who/what he is and where he suddenly came from.

I do agree though, that in certain areas the book should have been followed more closely. An example of this would be the scene in the Shrieking Shack. This was the most important part of the book, but the movie kinda went through this scene way too quickly. Both my brother and my cousin were very confused. "But... Isn't Sirius Black a bad guy?"

In my opinion, the movies do fall short of what they could have been. But I think that what we have is still pretty good.

Oh, for all the flaws of the third movie, that shrunken head was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Even JKR says she wished she had thought of it!

[Tanuki]

As do I... then again, why did they spend to much time on quidditch games and ignore things like the quiet moments where they established things like Jame's history and other things? You can even work these things into existing moments, with nothing more than dialouge

[Nightcrawler]

I agree, all three Harry Potter films have suffered from over use of special effects. Quiddich, Buckbeak (I'm the king of the world!), super flying dementors, and the floating aunt have taken up way more screen time than they needed too. In my opinion, special effects should draw as little attention to themselves as possible. The primary aim of an effect should be to make it seem like it's not just an effect (pay attention to this George Lucas) and that it actually is happening. The more "showy" an effect is, the more obvious and tacky it makes the scene. Also when you are deeply immersed in a story, you tend not to notice effects so much anyway. LOTR would be the best example that I can think of. Peter Jackson used the effects to enhanse the story, not just to show off.

[Scellanis]

the trouble is they have to put in the special effects or non book fans and probably some book fans too will say it is boring....

I mean, the same goes for LotR (I totally disagree with you on that but I wont go into details because some of it is extended movie stuff), the over used the special effects in a book that has plenty of scope for special effects anyway without the director inventing his own new stuff to put in the extended movie instead of existing story.

The director has to keep the audience interested, especially for a set of 7 films...he needs people to come back for the next movie which unfortunately means special effects and love interest

[Cedric]

You have 3 hrs of filming time. Anything over that would seem a waste of money and time because most of the audience can't pay attention that long. In order for certain elements to seem real, special FX are needed. Dobby, Quidditch, Dementors, and even Buckbeak were in my opinion well done. But its the actors who use the special FX that make it look cheesy. Yes the king of the world was stupid, but for anyone who hasn't read the books, it gives them a sense of Harry is great and can do anything (he IS the king of the world). These movies weren't made JUST for us who've read the books. The director has to keep the audience who haven't read the books interested and can only afford to put in elements focused on HARRY and nothing else or it would become confusing to them. Only the key elements that focuses on THAT book alone.

[Nightcrawler]

That's like what I was trying to say in my first post; the movies are aimed at both fans of the book, and people who have never read the book. You put it into better words than I did. And it only focuses on the important stuff, which is why there was no Peeves, no ghost party etc. etc. The people that get overly upset at this sort of stuff ussually aren't thinking about the practibility of making a movie.

I wasn't trying to undermine the importance of special effects, just that I, personally feel that they are being overused.

Of course you would need CGI and possibly animatronics to show Buckbeak. I just think they went a little overboard when they had him flying over the lake as I mentioned earlier. Dobby would simply not have worked without special effects also. Same goes for the Dementors, but once again, I think they went overboard by having hundreds of them and giving them the ability to fly around like Superman. (Faster than a Nimbus 2000, more powerful than werewolf, able to leap huge castles in a single bound. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Dementors!) I know the book doesn't specify how many there actually were, but I would have thought there should be a few dozen of them at most. I don't think Dumbledore would have hired enough Dementors to black out the sky. And I felt that having them fly around was just plain dumb.

And there are moments like the Quiddich games, the floating aunt, the Knight bus, and the Buckbeak ride that (IMHO) go on for far too long. They don't actually enhance the story, they just seem to be there to wow us with the effects they can use.

Don't get me wrong, I think that all three films have been good quality entertainment, I just think that a bit of subtelty at certain moments would work really well. Tanuki said earlier that a few throwaway lines here and there about James or Godric Gryfindor would really enhance the "feel" of the movies, give them a bit of history and set up the scene for the future films (less screen time would then have to be devoted to explaining everything because the previous films would have given a fair bit of info anyway). It doesn't have to be anything spectacular or obvious, like a five minute monologue, but something simple and effective would be great. I felt that they should have padded out the shreiking shack scene with more information. Still the third movie has been my favourite so far.

As for LOTR, I havn't seen any of the extended editions yet, and I've anly seen the theatrical versions a few times, so Scellanis would have a much wider view than myself. But the only moment where I felt that they were showing off with special effects was in ROTK, when Orlando Bloom killed the giant elephant. And that was meant to be over the top because it was setting up a gag with Gimli. But I'm sure there was plenty of other stuff that I didn't notice. My main point is that I was so totally ingrossed in the story that quite a few flaws would have passed me completely without me even noticing them.

[Scellanis]

I actually thought the dementors were over the top but I don't think its the director's fault this time, I think its all they could do to make them impressive but stop people saying 'Ooo look! Its a nazgul!' because nazgul can't fly without the black beast things but dementors were supposed to glide along the ground in the books so they have exagerated it...

Also, I think there were alot of dementors at Hogwarts that surrounded Harry and Sirius, also the blacking out of the sky may have been just a way of showing that Harry was passing out...not seen the movie in a while though.

I can't really comment on special effects in LotR anymore becaause I only have the extended editions now so I forget what wasn't in the theatrical editions.

[Tanuki]

Nightcrawler brought out my point well. It's not that I DON'T like the special effects, but that they spent too much time on them

[Cedric]

Ok, then I can go for that. I too agree that you shouldn't over use special FX. Just the necessities can be the best for the film. Leave it for pixar to do that stuff. Although, I'm interested to see how they'll do the dragon scene. I know they actually made a dragon but...yeah, its going to be interesting.

[Tanuki]

all they have to do is remember that the actual challenges take up less than a quarter of teh book and we should be okay