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How all the Harry Potter movies should have been handled/made...

#1
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7/15/09 at 7:45pm
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 The producers of the Potter movies should have taken a note from the Lord of the Rings movies.  As of now the HP movies are 2 to 2 1/2 hrs long.  And I still read about how much is left out.  They should have filmed another 1/2 hr or so.  And when the movies come out on dvd.  They should have also released a seperate extended version (ie-Like the LOTR's did.).  

And a side note...To have to wait another year and a half stinks.  They should move it up to the summer of 2010 instead of November.

Bring back John Doe! Or at least resolve the cliff-hanger with a 2hr movie or as an extra on a dvd release.

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#2
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7/15/09 at 8:44pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by todd s View Post

 The producers of the Potter movies should have taken a note from the Lord of the Rings movies.  As of now the HP movies are 2 to 2 1/2 hrs long.  And I still read about how much is left out.  They should have filmed another 1/2 hr or so.  And when the movies come out on dvd.  They should have also released a seperate extended version (ie-Like the LOTR's did.).  

And a side note...To have to wait another year and a half stinks.  They should move it up to the summer of 2010 instead of November.

I disagree on both counts. The Potter movies improved beginning with Prisoner of Azkaban precisely because Alfonso Cuarón had the chutzpah to go to J.K. Rowling and ask her blessing to start leaving out things for the sake of making a good film instead of a slavish and plodding adaptation like Chamber of Secrets.

And the LOTR release schedule was terrible. I'm sure the marketing people loved it, but the non-stop pace led to creative exhaustion -- and it showed.
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#3
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7/15/09 at 9:58pm
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 This would have been difficult, seeing as how both Fellowship and Sorcerer's Stone came out in the same year.  So at best they could have started with the second movie -- imagine the DVD collectors' screams if all the movies had extended editions except for the first one!

And personally, I like the first two movies.  Prisoner, for me, is a non-event whether it's slavish to the novel or not.
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#4
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7/16/09 at 4:22am
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Put me down for agreeing with Todd and disagreeing with Michael.  HP is one of those franchises that has enough fan base and material to follow the LOTR approach taken to adapting material.  The Harry, Ron, and Hermione relationship could be bolstered by this approach if nothing else.

Also Michael's comment about creative exhaustion on the LOTR movies is puzzling.  Never noticed any myself, especially since the trilogy finished on such a high note.

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#5
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7/16/09 at 4:25am
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I respect the books as a fantastic collection that achieves consistency from the first book through the 7th.  Rowlings broke none of her own set rules about how magic worked and there were facts and events from the first books that figured into the overall storyline and conclusion in the last book.  To me, that is a wondrous achievement to keep that consistency and evolution of a story over 4000 pages.

For me, that is my problem with how some of the movies were made.  Some of the things that were left out were some of the most appealing parts of the books for me because the clues in earlier books were call-backs in the next book, or even later.  I understand that maybe it does not make a good movie to drop a hint in one movie and not have a payoff til the next movie, but it's what I dislike most about the movies.  I'll stay away from examples as there are many, but without spoiler tags it could ruin it for some who may wish to go back and read the books.  I still enjoy the movies, but it helps that my memory of the books fills in the gaps.
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#6
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7/16/09 at 6:02am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lou Sytsma View Post

Also Michael's comment about creative exhaustion on the LOTR movies is puzzling.  Never noticed any myself, especially since the trilogy finished on such a high note.
 

I know mine is a minority view, but I found that LOTR increased in noise, and declined in quality, as the series progressed. I find Fellowship to be by far the best of the three.

And while I agree that the ideal solution for the Potter films would have been to have a single directorial vision overseeing it (which would be the only way to create something as closely integrated as the world of the novels), as a practical matter that was never going to happen. That being the case, the sooner Chris Columbus could be removed from the director's chair, the better.
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#7
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7/16/09 at 6:37am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Solosan View Post

 This would have been difficult, seeing as how both Fellowship and Sorcerer's Stone came out in the same year.  So at best they could have started with the second movie -- imagine the DVD collectors' screams if all the movies had extended editions except for the first one!

And personally, I like the first two movies.  Prisoner, for me, is a non-event whether it's slavish to the novel or not.
 

It may not have mattered to much with the first movie.  Since the size of each book increased with each new one.  The first was the shortest I believe and from what I have been told left out the least amount of stuff.

Bring back John Doe! Or at least resolve the cliff-hanger with a 2hr movie or as an extra on a dvd release.

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#8
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7/17/09 at 6:58pm
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Order of the Phoenix is shorter.  Go figure.

(The movie, that is.  Not the book.)

Edited by Don Solosan - 7/18/2009 at 07:40 pm GMT
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#9
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7/18/09 at 6:33am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Reuben View Post




I know mine is a minority view, but I found that LOTR increased in noise, and declined in quality, as the series progressed. I find Fellowship to be by far the best of the three.
 
Well war is noisy. 

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#10
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7/18/09 at 7:35am
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I think the goal should have been to tell the story as written no matter how many movies it took. If all the material needed to tell the story from one book did not fit into a 2.5 hour movie, then they should have broken up the entire story based on the 2.5 hour movie time limit, and not on when books end.

I also agree that the movies should have been released quicker. One of the biggest issues I have with the movies are the characters not acting their physical age. Watching OTP I kept thinking to my self "good grief when I was that age Umbridge would have been dead meat in my school". Now in HBP, we have in real life 20+ year old actors making awkward googly looks like their in a teenage Disney after school special. In the Star Wars series, there was 2 years between movies, but more than 2 years of action took place in between. With HP it was 2+ years between movies, yet only the summer passed between school years. the actors physically outgrew the roll they played.
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#11
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7/18/09 at 9:41am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drobbins View Post

Now in HBP, we have in real life 20+ year old actors making awkward googly looks like their in a teenage Disney after school special. In the Star Wars series, there was 2 years between movies, but more than 2 years of action took place in between. With HP it was 2+ years between movies, yet only the summer passed between school years. the actors physically outgrew the roll they played.
 


Their ages are close enough that it makes no difference. Assuming IMDB is correct, the newest movie was shot from September 2007 to May 2008 so Radcliffe was 19 during shooting, Grint was 20 and Watson was 18 and their characters are ages 16 to 17. I'll take a three (or less) year difference over recasting the actors just to match the age exactly.
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#12
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7/18/09 at 10:11am
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I agree recasting is the worst option, but they all look older than they are acting to me.
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#13
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7/20/09 at 1:52am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by drobbins View Post

I agree recasting is the worst option, but they all look older than they are acting to me.
 

Only because we've had the benefit of watching an 11-yr-old Radcliffe play 12-yr-old Harry Potter, and now the table has been turned slightly.  We've always had to watch twentysomethings play teenagers -- heck in the original 90210 wasn't Gabrielle Carteris already 30 when the series started?  And more recently on the OC IIRC only Mischa Barton was a teenager, the rest of the cast (that were playing teens) were all in their 20s.
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#14
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7/20/09 at 4:53am
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I read from some random website that it would've been better as a mini-series for each book. But what do I know? Look at my signature.
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#15
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7/20/09 at 8:42pm
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The biggest reason this would never happen is budgets. Peter Jackson had the benefit of an all adult main cast, meaning that while on a particular set he could shoot and shoot and shoot. Child labor laws severely restrict the amount of time children can work on set, which meant the first five or six films had to put every second they got with the young actors toward what would end up on the screen. If the extra footage had to come out of the budget for the theatrical cut, it would mean compromising both versions.

Even now, I'm debating which version of Watchmen I'm going to pick up tomorrow; is the initial benefit of experiencing the added texture and connective tissue worth slogging through an 45 minutes for every subsequent viewing?
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