Teta040 said:
Don't worry, withg the next two books there is NO WAY Snape will be downsized. Jo has said that Book 6 and 7 are actually a single two-part book. Considering that Snape *IS* the Half-Blood Prince, and the major role he will play in Book 7, I think Yates deliberately downplayed him so that in the next film his impact will be greater. I read an interview and he said that Snape's role is "pivotal" and he "couldn't wait" to begin filming him..he loved Snape's ambiguity. I got the sense that Yates was saving the best for later.
I agree------I think they might be doing the same thing with Ginny. I would have
loved to see more Ginny in this movie. Book 5 is where she becomes the awesome character that she is, pretty much Harry's female equal (or better!). And while they did give her some magical strength in the film, they didn't have her as a person appear as strong as I'd hoped. However, I think that with the Harry/Ginny relationship of HBP, she'll be featured a lot more in the next movie. At least I hope so!
Oh, Teta, feel free to copy your review here--no reason not to!
I also loved the "Nice one, James!" part--and how there was only the briefest odd look on Harry's face......they put it out there, but didn't make it huge. It's kind of a big moment for everyone who read the books & knows the characters, but they didn't overdo it.
As for cutting stuff, I still think they did a decent job. Unico---I'm pretty sure Hermione or someone gives a two-liner to Harry about who the Order are when Harry arrives at Grimmauld Place. It's also kind of re-explained in a way when Sirius gives him the picture. So, I thought that was okay (much better than not explaining who Padfoot, Prongs, etc. are in the Azkaban film). As for the mirror scene, I think they must've filmed it, as it's probably the scene in one of Harry's memory montages where he's looking into the mirror & Voldemort's face appears---they must've just cut it. Just like I imagine that the Umbridge teacher evaluation scenes were probably filmed much longer than what they used.
OOTP is just the hardest book to put into film. They talked about Goblet needing to be two films, but OOTP is worse---and yet two films of it would've been boring. JKR got a bit indulgent with it. I mean, she practically tells you what happens at 11:30am, then 1:15, then 2:45, then 6:00....every single day. There's far too much detail in it---making it impossible to put all the great scenes & information into one film.
As for the next one, I wonder if they'll have Quidditch. They didn't have the Ron/Quidditch bit in this one, but they can pull it off by having him join with everyone else who joins the team in HBP. Without Quidditch, they'll need an entirely different setting for Harry & Ginny's first kiss.......