30 Days of Harry Potter: Day Three

[rogueslayer452]

Day 3 - Is there any of the films adaptations that have made you angry because they’ve ignored important parts of the book?

Not particularly, since I view the movies on a different and separate level from the books.

Because the entire world of Harry Potter is so thoroughly rich and elaborate, it's nearly impossible to have everything included to make everyone happy. Someone somewhere is going to be complaining about something in regards to the films. Certain scenes are left out, filmed but cut out for time, shifts and changes from the books in places, not preferred casting choices, etc. I understand the frustrations fans have for leaving stuff out and yes there are things I wished they could have included from the books in the films, but I can also understand why they would leave things out from a production perspective. So to answer the question, I have been less than impressed on specific directorial/editing decisions or an overall view, but not outright angry.


Rest of the 30 Days of Harry Potter Challenge.

Comments

[forwardish]

Okay first I want to just say:
The crazy part?
Before Goblet of Fire came out I was like "don't compare the books to the movies, juts enjoy the books (i meant to say enjoy them separately)". (I complained about the CGI of the creatures a lot in the first 2 films because look at hogwarts and then look at the troll, the quality level is WAY different, which always bugs me in films... but not comparing books to films).
I think half the reason I get my back up so much about GoF, besides that it was my favorite book, is also that I WAS IN FILM SCHOOL THAT YEAR and so I had a better understanding of everything too.

LOL, the dress, oh I am perfectly AWARE that it's SO SILLY...
Pansy was my primary muse for a good 5 years. She lives in my brain and was my main RP character for that long, and inner Pansy was pissed.

The eye color thing I get.
I mean I get why the didn't, but to me... IT IS SUCH AN EASY FIX and they mention it ALL THE TIME. If it wasn't mentioned so much, then I think people would actually care less, but because they reference it all the time, it started to become a thing. By the 5th movie I was like "seriously, if they keep talking about it, why didn't they just give the guy contacts?"
I guess I just know people who wear colored contacts pretty much daily, so it's such an easy thing to change, which is the primary objection I've heard, for a detail that get mentioned a zillion times in the book and is referenced so much in the films.

I totally didn't care until like, the zillionth reference and then I was like SRSLY, they aren't even the right COLOR, what?


There are things that I understand people nitpicking and things that I don't.

As someone who studies film, I tend to look at it from a practicality and budgeting standpoint as well as to exactly HOW MUCH WORK goes into details. And that's a LOT, you can tell just from watching the special features how much work and thought goes into these choices, all the time and work put into those details, it bothers me when things that are specifically described IN DETAIL in the books and are highlighted in the movies, when they are off when it would have been SO SO EASY to make it right (ie: the dress, it's such a silly silly thing, but this really irked me because if they had just switched the two girls dresses, it would've been FINE, so I DON'T GET IT at all, because the costumer did work really closely with the details from the book on other things, so it's a very odd choice to me).

There is such a massive amount of preparation and thought and time and effort into all these little details, especially for primary characters and locations. All the specialty costumes were custom made (the museum exhibit on this was AWESOME, by the way), and set choices and all that.

I don't know. The film student and the fangirl in me combine to get frustrated about certain things.


Speaking of, if you DO care about details: Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studies has AMAZING detail work. AMAZING.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

They tried getting Daniel Radcliffe to wear colored contacts in the first film, but it irritated his eyes so they couldn't. Now people say that they could just CGI his eyes, but I think that's too much time and energy, not to mention money, over his freaking eyes.

Still, the importance is that he has his mother's eyes. From the films, both Daniel and the actress playing his mother have blue eyes, therefore it still holds the same significance. Color is kind of irrelevant, imo.

I guess I just never really understood all the nitpicking people do over the littlest of things. But then again, I accept the movies and the books to be two separate entities altogether. Comparing the two is kind of ridiculous because, as I mentioned in the post, someone somewhere is going to complain and nitpick about something. I find it less of a hassle to view the movies through a microscope in seeing what things they got right from the books and what they didn't. I can accept changes because not everything is going to be included, not everything is going to be exactly how I envisioned it.

But I'm not a film-student, so I don't have that kind of a critical eye. *shrugs*

[forwardish]

I get you on the eye thing.
I never really cared that much, like I said until they kept talking about it.

I feel for Daniel though, I didn't actually remember that, although now that you mention it I remember reading that like, A ZILLION YEARS AGO when the movies were first out and such. I can't wear contacts because of irritation too, so I understand that.

PFFT, CGIing his eyes is just DUMB and EXPENSIVE...

I guess I just never really understood all the nitpicking people do over the littlest of things.

Like I said, I felt the exact same way until GoF.
I don't know, it flipped a switch or something?

And actually, with HBP and with Deathly Hallows I didn't have anything to nitpick really. I think I get passionate about Goblet of Fire because of what was going on around the time it came out I had all these strong feelings about it. I was very very heavily involved in HP fandom at the time, I was a film student (like, specifically film, my program now is much much broader) and analyzing everything, and it's my favorite HP book.