It's never easy, I daresay, to adapt 652 tightly-written pages (part six of seven) into a movie that humans can sit through without an intermission. I think, charitably speaking, the scriptwriters probably even read the 652 pages. Once, at least.
So yes, Jonathan and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. I actually kind of liked it. It's much less tense than the book, almost restful, actually (except for the zombie scene). The adaptors naturally had to cut and condense and invent elements left, right, and center, and then relied on "scary" almost-colorless cinematography like in the third Pirates movie to try and add the creepiness back in.
I think the adaptors' worst problem was that they didn't have anyone to read the script over their shoulders and say, "Huh?" It has details like, the entire sequence of events hinges on getting the Death Eaters into Hogwarts, but once they're there, they stand around and watch Draco and Snape kill Dumbledore; Bellatrix smashes up the Great Hall*; they go outside and burn Hagrid's cottage; and that's it. I was sort of puzzled. Why did they waste screen time on totally apocryphal (and pointless) fight scenes at the Weasleys' house and then cut out the climactic awesome final battle at Hogwarts?
Entire subplots were either cut or handled poorly. We saw a fair amount of Lavender kissing Ron, but they never actually referred to her by name. (!) Jonathan points out she was wearing a lavender shirt, though. I suppose that would be a clue. Ginny doesn't break up with Dean before she switches to Harry, but that somehow never really got going either. We never see Bill or Fleur at all, or how Mrs. Weasley comes to like Fleur at the end, and naturally not why Bill now likes really rare steaks. We also don't see how Tonks and Lupin get together. It's assumed. They also left out the bit where Harry inherits Kreacher and the house.
I find it interesting that nearly all the angst from the prior films got cut. There are several love triangles, but overall it's so clean. The adults are mostly helpful and kind; Harry doesn't have it in for anyone particularly except Draco, who's very obviously up to something; nobody gets after him for using Sectumsempra; Harry even does what Dumbledore tells him in the last scene without having to be petrified. Bizarre. As I recall, the book is stressful to read because Harry insists on doing things that are an Incredibly Bad Idea, but in the movie he just... doesn't.
Subplots can be expended, I suppose. But it's a problem when a script bungles the main plot. I would argue, I think, that would be Dumbledore helping Harry learn what he needs in order to find the Horcruxes and destroy Voldemort in the final installment. We only see two of the memories from the book, three if you count the two versions of Slughorn's conversation with Tom. Absolutely huge plot elements are ignored. Why does Voldemort pick certain objects to hold his soul? He does have a rationale, of sorts. How did Dumbledore know to look for the locket in that seaside cavern? It was in a part of the orphanage memory that got cut from the movie. What is the significance of Tom's ring, that he made it one of the horcruxes? And most of all, why is it Dark magic to make a horcrux, anyway? What does murder have to do with splitting your soul, and is that really a problem? Horcruxes were reduced to a McGuffin, not a nature-of-the-universe thing. And it's hard to win genuine emotion for a plot full of McGuffins. Hence, I daresay, the reliance on color and camera technique.
Ah, well. For all its incoherence, I'm really not sorry we went.
*Laughing maniacally. I have a particular fondness for Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix. She's so crazy. She flaps around in her black dress, destroying things and laughing maniacally. Batty, quite batty.
Although I've read and enjoyed the books, I haven't seen any of the movies, strangely enough. They somehow haven't interested me much. From reading about them, the earlier movies seem to suffer from a combination of trying to please hardcore don't-change-anything fans and lack of scriptwriter knowledge about what is actually important (since the story was not actually complete). Since this movie was the first to be made with the end of the story known, did you notice any differences in their general approach?
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point. I would have expected the scriptwriters for this one to know more clearly what would be important to the seventh part, also.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think that knowing the end helped the screenwriters for this as much as it should have. The feel of the movie was somewhat different, less dark and angst-ey and more camera-ey, but they still did a poor job prioritizing plot elements. And, of course, they chose bizarre noncanonical things to add.