Okay, so to preface this entry, the large majority of my home friends are excessively annoying. The minute I graduate from college, I'm gonna move in with one of my college friends in not-this-state (as much as I love NYC) or something. But anyway, a few days ago, we went out to celebrate a friend's birthday, and the subject of Harry Potter was brought up (of course; they all think it's flawless, eyeroll). They all kept bitching about the fifth movie and how it was bad because it "cut so much out."
Whoah.
Here is the main point of this entry: movies and books are different things. Shocking! I know! And yes, sometimes these two forms of art can combine. And when they do, and here is my second main point: movies do not have any sort of obligation to be exactly like the books they are adapted from. Should they completely change, well, that's kinda BS (though they wouldn't be claiming it was based on a book any way), but those that make the movies have the right to do that. It's crap that fans of books/comic books/whatever they adapted complain about what they left in and what they didn't, and judge the movies primarily based on that. Movies are completely different. Of course Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix couldn't put everything from the book in the movie. The book was...I don't even remember how many pages, 800+? 900+? 1000? The movie would have been ten hours long. In fact, it's a credit to the movie (or a detraction from the book, which is how I prefer to think of it...) that it's the shortest and best of the series (without leaving anything important out - maybe the locket could have been in there, but what would they have done? just shown them all holding a locket? that would have been tooooo obvious), while the book is the longest and absolute worst of the series. I mean, we are all fans of certain books or whatever, and I'm sure many among us has held his or her breath in the hopes that that movie based on that book you loved would turn out just as good. And I'm sure you all whined when whatever scene was cut out... but I'm also sure you appreciated the movie on its own terms (unless, say, that book was Bonfire of the Vanities, in which case you have every right to be upset).
I can't write. But my basic point is: movies and books are different. The directors, writers, and editors of movies have every right to cut out what they want from books, if they feel it will make their movie better.
