Sirius/Remus was canon.... sort of

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

From the livetweet of a cast interview earlier today. http://twitter.com/#!/SnitchSeeker/status/54594602379919360



ETA: But then they later tweeted A thousand sorries, but just listened to the audio again, & Thewlis said he played Lupin as gay because of Cuaron, without JKR's knowledge.

Comments

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

To be fair; there are too many "show stopping" pyrotechnic scenes in the 7th book to put them all in one movie. They had to either split it, or leave some out.

What there *wasn't* in the 7th book was enough *story* for even one decent film, let alone two.

So, instead we get a couple of special effects extravaganzas.

WHat did we expect? Pixar?

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose you're right. I'm just an old-fashioned girl who has the silly idea that a book should be primarily a good reading experience, not just the effects-driven excuse for a Hollywood extravaganza. Come to think of it, DH did read rather like one of those movie tie-in books that's nothing but a transcript of the script with a thin veneer of description laid over it.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

What DH read like, to me, was a thinly plotted and action heavy video game. Not even a movie; not one of the modern games that some argue are art. A video game dating from the early 1990s.

My two cents!

(That said, I think Rowling really did have her eye on the movie adaptation as she wrote. Hard to blame her, really; I would guess any novelist or aspiring novelist dreams of having his/her book made into a movie! But the forms are very different, and Rowling really didn't use the novel form at all well, IMHO.)

[detritius.livejournal.com]

Parts of DH really do read like a Legend of Zelda knockoff, what with them wandering around in the woods looking for one plot object that can be used on other plot objects that they also have to find before they face down the Final Boss. The Elder Wand thing goes along with that, too - getting increasingly stronger weapons is pretty common in that sort of game. Unfortunately, it's a plot structure that works well for neither a book nor a movie.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Where is my boomarang Horocrux when I need it, I gotta wack some Snape-bats...damn I haven't gotten to the right castle yet to obtain that boomarang Horocrux...But how shall I ever get the wonderful elder sword - Damnit Link-Harry, you said this adventure would be fun.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

What DH read like, to me, was a thinly plotted and action heavy video game. Not even a movie; not one of the modern games that some argue are art. A video game dating from the early 1990s.

(That said, I think Rowling really did have her eye on the movie adaptation as she wrote. Hard to blame her, really; I would guess any novelist or aspiring novelist dreams of having his/her book made into a movie! But the forms are very different, and Rowling really didn't use the novel form at all well, IMHO.)

I've never played any of those games, so that didn't occur to me, but I can see where it makes sense.

However, I think you're being both too kind and inaccurate when you present Rowling when she wrote DH as a newbie writer overwhelmed by fame and success. PS/SS was published in 1997, and the movie rights were bought in 1998. By the time she wrote DH in 2006, she'd had almost a decade to get used to her fame and money, and to the idea her books were going to be movies. (Info from Wikipedia) She was also a 41-year-old married woman with three kids, not a girl just out of school or college.

Compare the DH train wreck to the work of two hugely-popular adult action/adventure writers, Iris Johansen and Stuart Woods. Neither Johansen nor Woods writes great art; their books are the literary equivalent of summer blockbuster popcorn thrillers. But their books are tightly-plotted, exciting, fun reads, with a clear delineation between good and evil. I wasn't expecting a masterpiece from JKR; she clearly doesn't have the talent or imagination for that. If she had just come up with something like the kids' version of a Woods or Johansen novel, I don't think too many people would have complained. What we got instead was boring, vapid, badly-written trash that contradicted much of the previous canon. That is inexcusable. As va32h once said about this on DTCL, "It's insulting, really."

And in case anyone wants to point out how huge and overwhelming Rowling's success was in comparison to Johansen's or Woods's, well--

JKR's success has been compared to that of the Beatles. The only thing that could make her look worse than she does already is to do an in-depth comparison of (1) how she handled her fame and success vs. how they handled theirs, and (2) her creativity vs. theirs. Abbey Road vs. Deathly Hallows. 'Nuff said.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Deathly Hallows contradicts itself. Multiple times. That takes a whole other special level of skill.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I suppose you mean "whole other special level of skill" in the Orwellian sense, i.e., "gross incompetence on a historically epic level." ;-)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

But - where did I present Rowling as a newbie writer overwhelmed by fame and success? I don't think I did? It is true, as Jodel has said, that the Potter books, taken together, constitute her first published story. But there are seven volumes, and one would expect to see some growth and improvement as the series goes on. The reverse happens. Perhaps, as others have surmised, she wasn't being edited any more; perhaps she got bored with her material; perhaps she was under time pressure to finish -

Good point about the Beatles!