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I've been waiting a long time to vent about this little matter...

COAL FACE! COAL FACE! WHAT THE FRIG?! That's not Sirius, that's a talking lump of coal! He'll be dead in a year; you do THAT to him?! He only appears in the fireplace, and you don't even see his proper face! And the CAVE SCENE! I LOVED that scene in the book! I LOVED it! And they CUT it! It was blocked so well and everything... Sirius gets all these interesting mannerisms and stuff. And he ended up with a newspaper in his mouth when he was in human form for a second there at the beginning, I think. Unbelievably endearing, him sitting there with the Daily Prophet in his mouth. Always meant to draw that... except I can't draw him.

I think they were doing OK up until the 4th movie... that was... eh. They deviated from the plotline too much. It was too rushed.

Well, all books-to-movies are fraught with peril because changes are always made. They have to be made, not only because of length, but because some things that work well in a book may not translate as well to the screen. Case in point, "Lord of the Rings", which I loved dearly, but which still was far too short when compared with the books. And I am an old Tolkien fan, dating back to around 1969-70.

Harry Potter, of course, is no exception. Short cuts are made, minor characters eliminated or combined with others, and whole scenes are missing. Characters are not interpreted quite the same. For example, Snape in the books is a nasty old creep, in the films he is more of a John Houseman style professor whose face would crack if he smiled, and he is actually rather lovable.

But as far as the books-to-movies go, the only one so far that made significant changes was "Goblet of Fire". That is too bad, because I really enjoyed the book, which was the most fun to read. I still liked the movie, but I liked the book better.

Waiting for both "Order of the Pheonix and book #7 (whose name slips my mind)

YES! Finally, a topic I create that doesn't hit the dust!
*gets back on topic*

Like Lullabee, I've looked for a good place to vent like crazy on this particular topic. I can't stand the idea of taking the real Sirius out of GoF, and even moreso that they took out the post-Quidditch World Cup fiasco. That was pretty important in the book, I thought...
Anyways, my main rant:

Peeves, good ol' Peeves. Where'd he go? I'm reading the books and loving anything and everything with Peeves, especially in OotP with Umbridge and all that. And then the movies come along, and they've got Nearly Headless-Nick, and the Bloody Baron, and several others, but no Peeves! And I suppose that's fine, in the long run, but my sister goes to play the video game of PoA and they've put in Peeves and she's got no clue what's going on. Because of course she's not what I'd consider a true fan; she only goes by the movies. But I digress.

*big breath*
Prisoner of Azkaban. Great book, in my opinion, and it gets my vote for best adaptation. Remarkable job with the Time-Turner stuff, that really worked out well. And then the Map. The Marauder's Map. Brilliantly done, I think. Only Professor Lupin knows it's a map too. How? And right after Sirius Black declares he's been in Azkaban for 12 years, locked up, he agrees that "the map never lies!". WHAT???? How can you tell from the movie alone how they know about the map? Snape knew both Sirius and Remus, apparently, but he didn't know about any map, clearly.

At least if you watch the movie 3 or so times..well, at least the Shrieking Shack scene.. there's a slight chance that you'll catch on that Lupin says that he and Sirius and Pettigrew were all James Potter's friends. Otherwise, the fact that Sirius and Remus are friends doesn't make much sense.

And then, the Weasley twins bring up a great storyline: the Marauders. Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. You'd never guess that they fit into the story so much as they do. I mean, nobody would even be close to guessing that you meet three of them and find the reason behind Prongs in the movie because it's never explained! GAH!!! scream


Anyways, that's my main pet peeve: PoA....

yay, somewhere else to rant~ (my friends all agree with me, but are getting bored of hearing about it...)

I was looking forward to Bill~! I don't even care quite so much about Charlie, but it's going to be so ODD if we don't have a Bill. I mean, how will all the bits in 6 and possibly 7 with Fleur fit in? Will they fit in at all?? Cos I think that "even though there's a war going on, love is still around" is quite an important message through the books. And I'm really worried about Fred and George leaving in the next film. They'll screw that up too... I just don't like the films. 1 and 2 were ok, in a way. People said they were "kiddy" but so were those books. (more so than later ones, anyway. And if I, at 7, could read the first book, they can't exactly be at the same level as Tolkien or something, right??) But then 3 got "dark". The ONLY bit I liked about 4 was Alan Rickman (though not how they had Snape portrayed, just the actor) and David Tennant (who knew I would WANT to watch Barty Crouch Jr?! ^^;; )

I'm bored now...

Just saw Prisoner of Azkaban the other day, too. And am I just nuts, or did they totally ruin Lupin? Movie-Lupin gives me the creeps, for some reason. In the books, he's just about the sweetest guy ever, I'm honestly impressed that Rowling somehow avoids him coming across as a Gary-Stu, but somehow he doesn't. But in the movie, he's not particularly nice at all. He does nice things, but in the books, he comes across as almost a candidate for sainthood. He's this weird jazz-music guy in the movie... the jazz music was nice, but for some reason he just doesn't seem quite right.

And the whole scene with the boggart, it makes no sense. Any idiot can tell that the boggart hasn't turned into Voldemort... if it's already turned into a dementor, there's no point in him stopping Harry from facing it... gonk

I keep rambling on and on, don't I?

Also, I must admit-- I can't say that I have my own image of Barty Crouch Jr at all. (By contrast, when I'm watching the movie, I hardly see Gary Oldman at all. The Mary GranPre illustration of Sirius just superimposes itself on that frizzy little tattooed guy who has no place on the screen!) He's definitely David Tennant. Because he just seemed like a nonentity for the longest time, so of course, who wastes a thought on this random side-villain? And then I saw the movie, and no, I didn't really notice him then. Just this guy who does as a matter of fact look like someone would indeed believe it if they were told he'd just sort of wasted away after his first year in Azkaban. sad But by now he's just about my favorite two-bit villain in the whole series. xd

No, see, in the books he almost seems like some kind of saint, but it's believable. In the movie, he just seems... weird. I don't know. I think the main problem is just that my expectations are a bit too high. I think I'll be quiet now. The problem is that when they're making a movie, even a real, living person on the screen doesn't seem quite as real as what you imagine after reading the book three or four times, and reading fanfiction, and looking at fanart, and all of that.

Plus, Thewlis's mustache needs to go die.