A/N: All right, y'all, here's the last piece of the essay...
+++
Finally, we get to the reason why it matters that H/G—meaningful, mutual, lasting H/G, that is-- isn’t foreshadowed in OotP, and hasn’t been in any other HP film. As Boorstin states, “the director and the producer may get caught up in their art, but studio executives are implacably committed to their audience.” If viewers are going to believe that the H/G relationship is meant to be genuine, lasting, real, and the final pairing, then it needs to be foreshadowed that way onscreen and in publicity materials. In particular, actual interaction between Harry and Ginny needs to be shown, which it has not been.
This has nothing to do with art, and everything to do with commerce. The audience will feel both cheated and confused by H/G that comes out of nowhere in the sixth film. Audiences that feel this way don’t spend as much money on tickets, DVD’s, merchandising, action figures, Lego re-creations of Hogwarts, admission to theme parks, fiberglass copies of Harry’s wand, and cake pans shaped like Dobby’s head. This is a situation that studios do everything they can to avoid. At this point, however, H/G has nowhere to come from. Filmmakers can’t pull a believable rabbit out of the hat when there is no rabbit in the hat.
From this point of view, the entire controversy and confusion over the Harry-Hermione content onscreen truly makes no sense at all. Warner could have easily and simply avoided any hint of it by doing only one thing: clearly foreshadowing Ginny as the love interest by showing Harry’s choices to interact with her, particularly in GoF and OotP. There is no logical reason for this not to have happened if Ginny is the true final love interest, and if all of the supposed “literary foreshadowing” actually means what pro-H/G arguments have constructed it to mean.
So there is one way, and only one, in which the massive viewing audience for the HP films will not feel cheated and confused by the H/G the films have set up. This will be if H/G is not meant to be genuine, lasting, real, or the final pairing. If the H/G we saw in HBP was none of these things, and the H/G in the sixth film will be none of these things, then everything about the way that H/G has been shown onscreen to date makes perfect sense.
The really remarkable thing is that there has been a recent steady procession of “information leaks” that supposedly do show that there’s somehow H/G foreshadowing material in OOtP after all. These include the calendar picture that showed Harry and Ginny together, the first “interview” with Michael Goldenberg, the rumor that Ginny’s Patronus was a Phoenix, and the supposed Ginny/Cho “poster.” However, each and every one of these “leaks” was soon revealed as a hoax. The two pictures were fan manipulations. Ginny’s Patronus, as we now know, is a horse. Both Warner and Michael Goldenberg debunked the faked “interview” within days. (As a bonus, the supposed Scholastic employee who leaked information about H/G in DH was outed as a fake who had made up the entire thing for a sociology project.)
In addition, Yates’s comment in a recent interview at Ain’tItCool about the “Ginny’s miserable look at Harry” scene clearly only confirms just how one-sided it is, and that it is coming only from Ginny’s side. This has been known for quite some time; the only question was whether it could be said with 100% accuracy that this scene actually was in the film. Absolutely nothing new has been added to the information we already had about its content. For some strange reason, however, the actual words of the director on the subject are being constantly misquoted to say that this is a mutual look between Harry and Ginny. Not so.
quote:
________________________________________
Quint: Another thing that I really loved about the movie, especially now that you’re coming back for the Sixth, that you laid so much bridgework. Just little things, like Ginny’s looks to Harry and Ron and Hermione’s relationship starting to show the first signs of growing to something more than friends… Was that intentional on your part to make sure all that was included?
David Yates: Yeah, no. Some of them weren’t really scripted. You’re on the floor and you suddenly go, “Oh ****! As they’re all walking out, wouldn’t it be really really cool if…” you know that Ginny moment? I was just there and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great?” You always want to keep that tension alive.
________________________________________
Quint called this "Ginny's looks to Harry" and Yates, the director, remember, called it "that Ginny moment." That's what it is-- a Ginny moment. It's not an H/G moment. All of the “H/G” moments (and in fact all Harry-Ginny interaction as far as we know) have been cut from both the script and the film. But since H/G will be shown in the sixth film exactly as it was on the page, what matters is what kind of H/G, and what kind of relationship, it actually is.
David Yates knows what's coming in the sixth film, and that's what he foreshadowed in the fifth film. That’s what is, in his words, “really, really cool,” and that’s what he shows us. If he had wanted to foreshadow meaningful, lasting, final-pairing H/G, then H/G interaction, SHARED looks, conversation, emotional connection, the chocolate in the library scene, the Lucky You scene, and the "I've chosen Dean Thomas" train scene would have been included. Since the film needed to cut a lot of material in order to fit a running time, maybe only some of them could have been included. Perhaps two could have been selected. In the last extremity, it might have been necessary to settle for one. But that’s not what happened. Every single scene from that list was cut. What clinches the whole thing is that Yates specifically tells Quint about the exact scenes that were shot and then not used, and that will be included on the DVD. None of them were Harry-Ginny scenes in any way, shape, or form. So it wasn’t even a question of Harry-Ginny scenes being shot and then discarded for time; they were never included in the script in the first place.
The only real reason for this extra-canon scene to be here when so many canon H/G scenes were cut has got to be that it accomplishes something important in less time than would have needed for those scenes. But the problem with trying to make this into an "H/G foreshadowing" scene is that it has no interaction, and the cut scenes did. The only logical conclusion is that the lack of interaction, of response from Harry, is exactly what David Yates wanted to show us.
The latest piece of silliness along these lines is the story that a “film extra” somehow miraculously recalled pages of the script, word-for-word (yet could never produce a scanned copy of it.) In this script re-creation, Harry and Ginny hold hands while fleeing from the DoM at the end of OotP. (Apparently, the creator of this story has seen Titanic one too many times.) Sadly, this footage didn’t make it into the preview of the film, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that it was never actually written or shot and existed nowhere except in the hoaxer’s head. However, the sheer amount of time and energy put into all of this nonsense does show that there’s a tacit understanding of just how important the portrayal of H/G in the films really is.
Finally, of course, we come to the OotP portrayal of Luna Lovegood, which is very much tied up with the portrayal (or rather lack thereof) of H/G. She does seem to be emphasized in OotP. She is mentioned by name and said to be a high point of the film by virtually all of the reviewers, including several who freely admit that they are not book fans and couldn’t care less about shipping. While her role has apparently not actually changed in any substantial way from the book, emphasis has been shifted so that she seems more important, more vital, and above all more connected with Harry than she did on the page.
While we can’t know the subtleties of what we’ll see with Evanna Lynch’s onscreen Luna, we do know that she is apparently very prominently featured in this film. Considering how much had to be cut from it in order to release it as a single film, it does seem that there had to be some kind of reason for this choice. Indeed, as others have noted, all of the publicity about the dramatic audition process and “search for the perfect Luna” seemed on its own to hint at this character’s importance. (Nothing like this was done in order to find “the perfect Fleur,” for example, or “the perfect Bellatrix.”) We know that certain lines have been left in that seem rather pointless, such as Harry’s statement to Cho about nargles in the mistletoe, although we don’t know if this means that Luna’s scene with Harry just before the H/C kiss remains in the film or not. What we do know, however, is that two major scenes involving Harry-Luna interaction have been changed from what they were in the book, and that in both cases, this caused extra screen time to be added.
In OotP, Harry does not learn about thestrals from Hagrid, as he did in the book. Instead, he is told by Luna as they walk together in the woods. We don’t know why Luna tells Harry this information onscreen; Hagrid has certainly imparted information to Harry in films before. And from what reviewers have said about the preview of the film, there seems to be nobody else around during this walk. It has become a Harry/Luna moment, which is decidedly was not in the book.
The second scene, of course, is the one that takes place between Harry and Luna very near the end of OotP. Harry feels some kind of emotion towards Luna when she tells him that other students have stolen her things, and they talk about his grief over Sirius’s recent death, Luna relating it to the death of her mother. We don’t know the exact emotional tone of this scene on film, and we won’t know until we see it for ourselves. However, we do know that Luna holds Harry’s hand at some point. The film frame that showed this was leaked quite some time ago, and it’s significant that many claims were made that it had to be some kind of Photoshop hoax. As I argued at the time from past professional experience, the level of talent needed to fake this particular kind of imagery ranges far beyond a proficient use of Photoshop, and indeed beyond almost any home computer system. Anyone with this ability is highly unlikely to put in that kind of time, effort, and computing power into this sort of project. As we all later learned, of course, the film still was absolutely genuine. This scene exists in OotP. It was kept in when every unnecessary plot element had to be cut for time, and it was clearly expanded beyond the content on the page.
While Luna’s portrayal in the film and her greatly expanded presence in Warner publicity materials have certainly pleased H/L shippers, it’s important to remember that this information does not, in and of itself, prove that Harry and Luna will end the series as a romantic couple. In strict truth, Luna’s film role works a little better as evidence bolstering arguments against H/G than for H/L. It simply makes no sense to cut virtually every shred of interaction between the hero and a female character and then suddenly spring her on the audience as the love interest in the sixth film of the series, if her role in that capacity is meant to be seen as anything genuine. But it’s infinitely worse to go one step further and also show the hero bonding with a new female character, while ignoring the first one. If we’re applying the strictest possible standards of logic, however, it still hasn’t been proven that this means that the hero is 100% guaranteed to end up with the second character, either. What it really means is that the chances of the hero ending in a romantic relationship with the first character in any permanent way have become infinitesimal.
A good example of how this technique seems to have been used in OotP is its treatment of Harry/Cho. We certainly know by now that H/C isn’t going to be the final pairing. The filmmakers would have been justified in treating that relationship very dismissively and lightly, or perhaps even cutting it altogether, simply from that point of view. But that apparently isn’t what has happened at all. The Harry/Cho kiss is described as “an intense make-out session” by one reviewer, and is mentioned as being very long and detailed by several others. The relationship is given a pretty fair amount of screen time, at least as much as it had in the book, and proportionately even more (since so many other plotlines were cut, such as “Weasley is our King” and Quidditch.) Its ending now carries more obvious emotional weight than it did in the book, since Cho is now the unwilling betrayer of the DA to Umbridge through the use of Veritaserum. The drama and emotions surrounding Harry/Cho have been made more obvious onscreen, not less so.
We really don’t know why these choices were made, but their final effect is to show that the filmmakers aren’t exactly afraid of showing Harry’s emotional involvement in relationships. And yet the choice was made to show absolutely no true interaction of any kind between him and Ginny, the supposed “final love interest.” These are two choices that simply would not go together in that case. And has already been pointed out, the one-sided miserable look from Ginny to Harry and Cho is even more fatal to that point of view. This is all especially important because one point has been emphasized over and over again in the books: that Harry’s power to defeat Voldemort depends on his “power to love.” If we see him emotionally involved in a relationship that has been clearly foreshadowed in the previous film—which is the case with onscreen Harry/Cho—then we see that he does have that power. But the filmmakers still made the choice to cut virtually all Harry-Ginny interaction to date, even as they punched up a romantic relationship that crashes and burns in the fifth film, and showed Harry interacting a great deal with yet another female character besides Hermione.
All of this having been said, the preponderance of evidence right now, if taken simply from the films, does point to the idea that if Harry has a final pairing, it will be with Luna. It’s true that there is a precedent for the extremely unusual step of showing a female character as very important without building her up to be the hero’s love interest, and that’s the treatment of Hermione’s character. However, there is one crucial difference between onscreen Harry/Hermione and onscreen Harry/Luna. Hermione has had her own romantic foreshadowing with another character for several films now, and H/R has been very clearly and pointedly shown onscreen. Luna has not been treated in the same way at all. She isn’t linked with any male character besides Harry. (In fact, as we know, J.K. Rowling went out of her way to specifically sink Neville/Luna.)
In the end, the reader of this essay must decide for herself or himself how all of this evidence fits together. My opinion has not exactly been excised from this writing, but then again, I’m not getting paid to do that. When I do get paid for non-fiction and essay writing, my personal opinions may not have any proper place at all. If not, then they’re fair game. However, I have also tried not to bash the reader over the head with my own conclusions, and above all, I have tried to use strict logic in all of my arguments. (It may surprise readers to know, for example, that as a matter of personal preference, I do not ship Harry with anyone at all. I’m Lone Hero all the way! However, this essay isn’t about personal preference, but about the places where logical analysis of the films lead us.) In addition, I have applied the same rules used by FictionAlley Park, even though there is no requirement here to do so: I may heap scorn upon illogical arguments, but not upon the shippers who make them. Ultimately, we are really only talking about the fate of fictional characters in a book, and none of it is worth insulting other human beings who hold different opinions. Every day in every way, however, we can choose to create arguments that are either logical, or illogical. What we choose for the little things, we will also choose for the great. And as Dumbledore might say… choose your arguments wisely.
+++
Addendum:
Since this essay is being posted on a D/G site, I’ve added some D/G film material just for FIA readers. (Now, don’t y’all feel special?) We know that we’re sailing a fanon ship, and few of us really expect D/G to become a pairing in DH. Yet Creamtea has made some fascinating arguments that canon D/G does indeed exist as a one-sided obsession from Draco. I firmly believe that material from all five HP films foreshadows plot developments and character relationships at the very end of the series. So basically, the question is this: do the films support this “canon D/G” point of view at all? The truly interesting thing is that when film material is thoroughly analyzed, it actually might do just this. However, all readers should be warned that this section should be read just for fun. While the foundation of these ideas is built on logic, it branches off into speculation rather soon.
To be more precise, CoS can be seen as supporting this particular view of canon D/G, which mirrors the fact that this is the only book that has been filmed to date that can be said to contain material that does this. The filmed changes in D/G interactions are more than worth examining, since what was kept in may very well be just as significant as what was left out.
As we can see in the film, Ginny’s singing Valentine to Harry was omitted. What this means is that we also lost Draco’s spiteful response to Ginny (“I don’t think Potter liked your Valentine much.”) There are a number of reasons why this might have been cut. It certainly saved time to get rid of this scene. Yet it’s interesting to speculate on how differently the emotional arc of the film might have read if this one scene had been kept in. It served the vicarious purpose of keeping Harry from looking like a jerk for ignoring Ginny, which he otherwise would have done. And it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this filmed scene would indeed have read very clearly as Draco being unwillingly interested in Ginny, because that’s how the vicarious eye reads scenes like that on film. By omitting it, the viewing audience doesn’t see that at all.
Or do they?
The Draco/Harry/Ginny scene at Flourish and Blott’s was certainly retained onscreen, and it has some very interesting content when analyzed from an editor’s point of view. One of the main ways we understand things both visually and emotionally when we see them onscreen is through eyetrace. In other words, we know what to look at by seeing what the characters look at, and we generally know why it’s important to them. Sometimes the way this is done is extremely obvious, as in a point-of-view shot. We see Harry’s eyes move so that he is looking at something offscreen, for example. The next cut shows us Hermione, or Ron, or Hagrid, or Dumbledore. We now know who and what he was looking at, so we know this person is important to him at that moment, for whatever reason. If Hermione/Ron/Hagrid/the giant squid/whoever then says something, we that it’s important to hear what they say, and that since Harry was paying attention, it, or they, or both, are important to him as well. This relationship between two shots is completely created in the editing room (as I know very well!) So this is an editing technique that shapes our emotional understanding of characters’ relationships, often in a very subtle way.
We see Harry unhappily standing next to Gilderoy Lockhart at the book signing. But the very next thing we see is that the camera pans up. We don’t yet know why, but we quickly figure out that this doesn’t make a lot of sense unless this is a POV shot as seen by some other character. We then see a reverse of Draco Malfoy standing on a balcony, watching the scene.
The first really significant thing is that a very deliberate choice was made to temporarily switch to Draco’s point of view of this scene, rather than Harry’s. This choice is virtually never made in any of these films, since we’re seeing the story through Harry’s eyes. Whatever we see is almost always what Harry is seeing. (In fact, in the opening scene of GoF, Harry’s POV dominance was made far more obvious onscreen than it was in the book. Everything we see was clearly framed as Harry’s vision, rather than as a separate narrative.) We certainly switch to other characters’ views of Harry when they look at him, because that’s been part of the visual language of film since the days of D.W. Griffith. But what the films don’t do is to change to the POV of another character when this character is not interacting with Harry or being watched by Harry—except for this scene.
It would have been extremely easy to show only Harry’s POV of Draco coming up to him and starting the sneering comments, and this would have been by far the most obvious and natural choice. It would have matched the way that POV’s were shot throughout the rest of this film series. In the Borgin and Burkes scene, for example, we see Lucius and Draco Malfoy through Harry’s eyes, since he is watching them. No other character gets a matching scene where we see his or her POV of Harry. Yet that choice was made here, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this aberration must have happened for some kind of meaningful reason. Even if the Flourish and Blotts scene can be put under this category, however, there’s one huge issue left to deal with.
Gilderoy Lockhart happily tells his audience that Harry had no idea he'd be leaving Flourish and Blotts with Lockhart's entire collected works. Next, we cut to Hermione applauding rapturously, then to Ron, looking rather disgusted. But then the edits stop, and look at where the camera goes next. It becomes a POV pan, and it very clearly "sees" Ginny. The very next thing that we see is Draco in the balcony, watching... what?
If we follow where Draco’s eyetrace actually leads in this scene, we can see what and who he’s actually watching. The most obvious choice would seem to be Harry. But that isn’t where his eyetrace leads at all. Instead, Draco is looking at Ginny, who is standing in the audience across from Harry. Draco watches Ginny, and Ginny watches Harry. If we follow all the characters’ eyetraces, those are the only places they can possibly be going. Draco’s eyetrace is especially obvious because she is the last thing the camera sees before showing us that Draco is unobserved, unseen by any other character, and watching her.
Draco certainly looks at Harry when he’s talking to him a few seconds later (“Potter, you’ve got yourself a girlfriend!”), but again, his eyetrace shifts very quickly back to Ginny. Hers goes to Draco as well when she replies (“Leave him alone!”) and then shifts away. But the most fascinating part of all is that Draco’s eyetrace never really moves again. Lucius Malfoy joins the scene and begins his altercation with Arthur Weasley, insults are traded, things happen, there’s a lot of dialog, Harry certainly speaks again, and so on, and so forth. It’s quite a long scene, but Draco never really stops looking at Ginny. He keeps his eyetrace on her even when other people are speaking, right up until the very end of the scene, when his father takes him away.
This scene really constitutes Draco’s filmed interaction with Ginny to date, but then, there would have been no real opportunity to have more unless non-canon material was added. This choice obviously wasn’t made, and yet the interesting thing is that the filmed D/G situation is very similar to the way in which Ginny’s crush on Harry has always been treated onscreen in the HP films. Just enough material has been retained so that perceptive viewers know her obsessive interest in him does exist—but no more. Yet there is no reason to believe that their HBP relationship will not be shown in the sixth film, whatever its actual nature may turn out to be. For all we know, filmed D/G may have certain parallels to this.
We don’t yet know if Ginny’s Bat-Bogey hex of Draco in OotP was retained, and it almost certainly wasn’t filmed, since it didn’t happen from Harry’s POV in the book at all. It will be interesting to see if it gets mentioned, however. It’s also fascinating to speculate on whether Draco’s reaction to news about Ginny in the train compartment in HBP will be retained. By the time this sixth film is actually shot, of course, the final pairings and final storyline of the series will be known. If one-sided interest from Draco to Ginny really does exist in canon, then my guess is that it will be foreshadowed onscreen in HBP.
As Creamtea has argued, this kind of canon D/G really might exist, and the idea could be bolstered by the fact that we see this kind of content onscreen. Even if this is the case, of course, it’s highly unlikely to constitute romantic D/G in any successful sense in DH. But what could be a better setup for tortured, angsty, miserable D/G after the end of the series? Just think of the fanfic we could all get out of that!
P.S.: BTW, a word to the wise, which is sufficient.... if y'all leave an "anonymous" review, your IP address is logged and viewable, which is a fact of which everyone may not be aware. On the web, there is no real anonymity. Flames will be used to roast marshmallows.
P.P.S. 7/11/07: Quick, quick addendum before I have to go and paint my house... I just saw the film, so if y'all don't want to read a couple of spoilers, it might be a good plan to turn back now. I was... ahem... VERY happy with it. How could I not be? Everything I talked about in this essay was in that film, and even more. Harry said exactly two words to Ginny in the entire movie: "Fantastic, Ginny." This was after seeing her Reducto curse. And he was only speaking the truth; it was pretty impressive. Ginny truly is being set up as a powerful character in her own right, not as some appendage of Harry.
There are even MORE scenes of Ginny looking sadly at Harry than we knew from the early reviews. In each and every case, he does not notice her. He does not make eye contact with her. He does not acknowledge her in any way at all, and this is only made more obvious by the fact that she is in these scenes. The first time she does it, in fact, she has just directly addressed him, and he's simply ignored her. Her crush is certainly set up, but we already know that Ginny has a crush on Harry at this point. We know that they dated in HBP. None of this is a mystery, nor a matter of debate. The question is what happens after the part that we currently know about. Everything about the specific manner in which H/G interaction is depicted onscreen points only one way-- and it isn't to lasting, genuine H/G at the end of this series. As for the H/L, well, I really DO have to go paint that house... so I'll let y'all analyze that if you care to. ;)
However, Draco's line about Neville getting caught because he was trying to help Ginny was left in, which certainly was interesting. Whether it was significant or not, only time will tell... ten more days, to be exact. ;)
+++
WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED
Boorstin, Jon. The Hollywood Eye. Perennial, New York, New York: 1990.
Boorstin, Jon. Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker. Silman-James Press, New York, New York: 1995.
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:9691
“False Report Regarding OotP Scriptwriter Michael Goldenberg.” Posted April 10, 2007 at http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:9689
“First Review of Order of the Phoenix, from Chicago Screening.” Melissa Anelli - March 4, 2007, 11:08 pm. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/?articleID=9592
http://www.harrypotterfanzone.com/?ID=ootp-review
http://scribbulus.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/exclusive-brand-new-ootp-film-review/
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31863
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher%27s_Stone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Chamber_of_Secrets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Goblet_of_Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Order_of_the_Phoenix
“Harry the Fifth: David Yates Makes $200 Million Debut With Potter’s Phoenix.” By Harry Haun. http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003600960&imw=Y
“Heyman Talks Potter V Cuts.” Patrick Lee, posted April 11 at http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=41032
“Introducing Michael Goldenberg: The OotP_ Scribe on the Harry Potter films, franchise, and fandom.” Posted April 10, 2007. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:9691. Note: This was the genuine interview.
+++
Notes
Since the faked interview was pulled very quickly, everyone may not have seen it. So here it is, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy… but remember, it’s made up from beginning to end!
New OOTP details from Michael Goldenberg
MuggleCast listener Matt e-mailed us the other day with some interesting news. He is currently an undergraduate student majoring in Writing For Screen and Television in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and was recently treated to special guest lecturer Michael Goldenberg, who is the screenplay writer for Order of the Phoenix.
Matt sat down with Goldenberg for an hour to talk about writing the fifth film, and some very interesting details were revealed. Here's a summary of what was said:
- He and J.K. ROWLING have never officially met beyond emailing each other during the first month he spent outlining the screenplay.
- He will not be involved in any way with the last two films.
- He feels that in terms of plot elements, characters, locations, and dialogue, OOTP will be the most lenient in keeping true to the source material; he reasons that because the book was so dense, it was amazingly difficult to try and find the structure of a 2-and-a-half hour movie without having to combine character roles and places in order to maintain a sense of narrative drive.
- His favorite HP book is Sorcerer's Stone.
- He personally nicknamed the third draft of the screenplay "Harry Scissorhands" because he went through the 168 pages and excised any scene that did not directly involve Harry and/or Voldemort.
- The last updated shooting draft ended on page 139.
- He candidly predicted that this would probably be the least favorite of the films because most of the fun, non-Harry material was left out.
- J.K. ROWLING was not happy with some of the omissions that were made that may "come back to haunt the next film adaptations."
- He revealed that Rowling, in an email, seriously suggested that after she finished Book 7 she should probably take reign as co-screenwriter and/or become a serious player in the screenwriting process.
- He mentioned that in late 2004 he took the liberty to write a new scene between Harry and Snape that eerily predicted events in both Half-Blood Prince and, according to Rowling's notes, Book 7; so much so that he felt it be best to leave it out of the final shooting script.
- Overall, Mr. Goldenberg came off as a sweet and humble person who genuinely enjoyed his partaking in Potter Mania.
Thanks again to Matt for providing us with these details!
+++
Finally, we get to the reason why it matters that H/G—meaningful, mutual, lasting H/G, that is-- isn’t foreshadowed in OotP, and hasn’t been in any other HP film. As Boorstin states, “the director and the producer may get caught up in their art, but studio executives are implacably committed to their audience.” If viewers are going to believe that the H/G relationship is meant to be genuine, lasting, real, and the final pairing, then it needs to be foreshadowed that way onscreen and in publicity materials. In particular, actual interaction between Harry and Ginny needs to be shown, which it has not been.
This has nothing to do with art, and everything to do with commerce. The audience will feel both cheated and confused by H/G that comes out of nowhere in the sixth film. Audiences that feel this way don’t spend as much money on tickets, DVD’s, merchandising, action figures, Lego re-creations of Hogwarts, admission to theme parks, fiberglass copies of Harry’s wand, and cake pans shaped like Dobby’s head. This is a situation that studios do everything they can to avoid. At this point, however, H/G has nowhere to come from. Filmmakers can’t pull a believable rabbit out of the hat when there is no rabbit in the hat.
From this point of view, the entire controversy and confusion over the Harry-Hermione content onscreen truly makes no sense at all. Warner could have easily and simply avoided any hint of it by doing only one thing: clearly foreshadowing Ginny as the love interest by showing Harry’s choices to interact with her, particularly in GoF and OotP. There is no logical reason for this not to have happened if Ginny is the true final love interest, and if all of the supposed “literary foreshadowing” actually means what pro-H/G arguments have constructed it to mean.
So there is one way, and only one, in which the massive viewing audience for the HP films will not feel cheated and confused by the H/G the films have set up. This will be if H/G is not meant to be genuine, lasting, real, or the final pairing. If the H/G we saw in HBP was none of these things, and the H/G in the sixth film will be none of these things, then everything about the way that H/G has been shown onscreen to date makes perfect sense.
The really remarkable thing is that there has been a recent steady procession of “information leaks” that supposedly do show that there’s somehow H/G foreshadowing material in OOtP after all. These include the calendar picture that showed Harry and Ginny together, the first “interview” with Michael Goldenberg, the rumor that Ginny’s Patronus was a Phoenix, and the supposed Ginny/Cho “poster.” However, each and every one of these “leaks” was soon revealed as a hoax. The two pictures were fan manipulations. Ginny’s Patronus, as we now know, is a horse. Both Warner and Michael Goldenberg debunked the faked “interview” within days. (As a bonus, the supposed Scholastic employee who leaked information about H/G in DH was outed as a fake who had made up the entire thing for a sociology project.)
In addition, Yates’s comment in a recent interview at Ain’tItCool about the “Ginny’s miserable look at Harry” scene clearly only confirms just how one-sided it is, and that it is coming only from Ginny’s side. This has been known for quite some time; the only question was whether it could be said with 100% accuracy that this scene actually was in the film. Absolutely nothing new has been added to the information we already had about its content. For some strange reason, however, the actual words of the director on the subject are being constantly misquoted to say that this is a mutual look between Harry and Ginny. Not so.
quote:
________________________________________
Quint: Another thing that I really loved about the movie, especially now that you’re coming back for the Sixth, that you laid so much bridgework. Just little things, like Ginny’s looks to Harry and Ron and Hermione’s relationship starting to show the first signs of growing to something more than friends… Was that intentional on your part to make sure all that was included?
David Yates: Yeah, no. Some of them weren’t really scripted. You’re on the floor and you suddenly go, “Oh ****! As they’re all walking out, wouldn’t it be really really cool if…” you know that Ginny moment? I was just there and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great?” You always want to keep that tension alive.
________________________________________
Quint called this "Ginny's looks to Harry" and Yates, the director, remember, called it "that Ginny moment." That's what it is-- a Ginny moment. It's not an H/G moment. All of the “H/G” moments (and in fact all Harry-Ginny interaction as far as we know) have been cut from both the script and the film. But since H/G will be shown in the sixth film exactly as it was on the page, what matters is what kind of H/G, and what kind of relationship, it actually is.
David Yates knows what's coming in the sixth film, and that's what he foreshadowed in the fifth film. That’s what is, in his words, “really, really cool,” and that’s what he shows us. If he had wanted to foreshadow meaningful, lasting, final-pairing H/G, then H/G interaction, SHARED looks, conversation, emotional connection, the chocolate in the library scene, the Lucky You scene, and the "I've chosen Dean Thomas" train scene would have been included. Since the film needed to cut a lot of material in order to fit a running time, maybe only some of them could have been included. Perhaps two could have been selected. In the last extremity, it might have been necessary to settle for one. But that’s not what happened. Every single scene from that list was cut. What clinches the whole thing is that Yates specifically tells Quint about the exact scenes that were shot and then not used, and that will be included on the DVD. None of them were Harry-Ginny scenes in any way, shape, or form. So it wasn’t even a question of Harry-Ginny scenes being shot and then discarded for time; they were never included in the script in the first place.
The only real reason for this extra-canon scene to be here when so many canon H/G scenes were cut has got to be that it accomplishes something important in less time than would have needed for those scenes. But the problem with trying to make this into an "H/G foreshadowing" scene is that it has no interaction, and the cut scenes did. The only logical conclusion is that the lack of interaction, of response from Harry, is exactly what David Yates wanted to show us.
The latest piece of silliness along these lines is the story that a “film extra” somehow miraculously recalled pages of the script, word-for-word (yet could never produce a scanned copy of it.) In this script re-creation, Harry and Ginny hold hands while fleeing from the DoM at the end of OotP. (Apparently, the creator of this story has seen Titanic one too many times.) Sadly, this footage didn’t make it into the preview of the film, which probably has a lot to do with the fact that it was never actually written or shot and existed nowhere except in the hoaxer’s head. However, the sheer amount of time and energy put into all of this nonsense does show that there’s a tacit understanding of just how important the portrayal of H/G in the films really is.
Finally, of course, we come to the OotP portrayal of Luna Lovegood, which is very much tied up with the portrayal (or rather lack thereof) of H/G. She does seem to be emphasized in OotP. She is mentioned by name and said to be a high point of the film by virtually all of the reviewers, including several who freely admit that they are not book fans and couldn’t care less about shipping. While her role has apparently not actually changed in any substantial way from the book, emphasis has been shifted so that she seems more important, more vital, and above all more connected with Harry than she did on the page.
While we can’t know the subtleties of what we’ll see with Evanna Lynch’s onscreen Luna, we do know that she is apparently very prominently featured in this film. Considering how much had to be cut from it in order to release it as a single film, it does seem that there had to be some kind of reason for this choice. Indeed, as others have noted, all of the publicity about the dramatic audition process and “search for the perfect Luna” seemed on its own to hint at this character’s importance. (Nothing like this was done in order to find “the perfect Fleur,” for example, or “the perfect Bellatrix.”) We know that certain lines have been left in that seem rather pointless, such as Harry’s statement to Cho about nargles in the mistletoe, although we don’t know if this means that Luna’s scene with Harry just before the H/C kiss remains in the film or not. What we do know, however, is that two major scenes involving Harry-Luna interaction have been changed from what they were in the book, and that in both cases, this caused extra screen time to be added.
In OotP, Harry does not learn about thestrals from Hagrid, as he did in the book. Instead, he is told by Luna as they walk together in the woods. We don’t know why Luna tells Harry this information onscreen; Hagrid has certainly imparted information to Harry in films before. And from what reviewers have said about the preview of the film, there seems to be nobody else around during this walk. It has become a Harry/Luna moment, which is decidedly was not in the book.
The second scene, of course, is the one that takes place between Harry and Luna very near the end of OotP. Harry feels some kind of emotion towards Luna when she tells him that other students have stolen her things, and they talk about his grief over Sirius’s recent death, Luna relating it to the death of her mother. We don’t know the exact emotional tone of this scene on film, and we won’t know until we see it for ourselves. However, we do know that Luna holds Harry’s hand at some point. The film frame that showed this was leaked quite some time ago, and it’s significant that many claims were made that it had to be some kind of Photoshop hoax. As I argued at the time from past professional experience, the level of talent needed to fake this particular kind of imagery ranges far beyond a proficient use of Photoshop, and indeed beyond almost any home computer system. Anyone with this ability is highly unlikely to put in that kind of time, effort, and computing power into this sort of project. As we all later learned, of course, the film still was absolutely genuine. This scene exists in OotP. It was kept in when every unnecessary plot element had to be cut for time, and it was clearly expanded beyond the content on the page.
While Luna’s portrayal in the film and her greatly expanded presence in Warner publicity materials have certainly pleased H/L shippers, it’s important to remember that this information does not, in and of itself, prove that Harry and Luna will end the series as a romantic couple. In strict truth, Luna’s film role works a little better as evidence bolstering arguments against H/G than for H/L. It simply makes no sense to cut virtually every shred of interaction between the hero and a female character and then suddenly spring her on the audience as the love interest in the sixth film of the series, if her role in that capacity is meant to be seen as anything genuine. But it’s infinitely worse to go one step further and also show the hero bonding with a new female character, while ignoring the first one. If we’re applying the strictest possible standards of logic, however, it still hasn’t been proven that this means that the hero is 100% guaranteed to end up with the second character, either. What it really means is that the chances of the hero ending in a romantic relationship with the first character in any permanent way have become infinitesimal.
A good example of how this technique seems to have been used in OotP is its treatment of Harry/Cho. We certainly know by now that H/C isn’t going to be the final pairing. The filmmakers would have been justified in treating that relationship very dismissively and lightly, or perhaps even cutting it altogether, simply from that point of view. But that apparently isn’t what has happened at all. The Harry/Cho kiss is described as “an intense make-out session” by one reviewer, and is mentioned as being very long and detailed by several others. The relationship is given a pretty fair amount of screen time, at least as much as it had in the book, and proportionately even more (since so many other plotlines were cut, such as “Weasley is our King” and Quidditch.) Its ending now carries more obvious emotional weight than it did in the book, since Cho is now the unwilling betrayer of the DA to Umbridge through the use of Veritaserum. The drama and emotions surrounding Harry/Cho have been made more obvious onscreen, not less so.
We really don’t know why these choices were made, but their final effect is to show that the filmmakers aren’t exactly afraid of showing Harry’s emotional involvement in relationships. And yet the choice was made to show absolutely no true interaction of any kind between him and Ginny, the supposed “final love interest.” These are two choices that simply would not go together in that case. And has already been pointed out, the one-sided miserable look from Ginny to Harry and Cho is even more fatal to that point of view. This is all especially important because one point has been emphasized over and over again in the books: that Harry’s power to defeat Voldemort depends on his “power to love.” If we see him emotionally involved in a relationship that has been clearly foreshadowed in the previous film—which is the case with onscreen Harry/Cho—then we see that he does have that power. But the filmmakers still made the choice to cut virtually all Harry-Ginny interaction to date, even as they punched up a romantic relationship that crashes and burns in the fifth film, and showed Harry interacting a great deal with yet another female character besides Hermione.
All of this having been said, the preponderance of evidence right now, if taken simply from the films, does point to the idea that if Harry has a final pairing, it will be with Luna. It’s true that there is a precedent for the extremely unusual step of showing a female character as very important without building her up to be the hero’s love interest, and that’s the treatment of Hermione’s character. However, there is one crucial difference between onscreen Harry/Hermione and onscreen Harry/Luna. Hermione has had her own romantic foreshadowing with another character for several films now, and H/R has been very clearly and pointedly shown onscreen. Luna has not been treated in the same way at all. She isn’t linked with any male character besides Harry. (In fact, as we know, J.K. Rowling went out of her way to specifically sink Neville/Luna.)
In the end, the reader of this essay must decide for herself or himself how all of this evidence fits together. My opinion has not exactly been excised from this writing, but then again, I’m not getting paid to do that. When I do get paid for non-fiction and essay writing, my personal opinions may not have any proper place at all. If not, then they’re fair game. However, I have also tried not to bash the reader over the head with my own conclusions, and above all, I have tried to use strict logic in all of my arguments. (It may surprise readers to know, for example, that as a matter of personal preference, I do not ship Harry with anyone at all. I’m Lone Hero all the way! However, this essay isn’t about personal preference, but about the places where logical analysis of the films lead us.) In addition, I have applied the same rules used by FictionAlley Park, even though there is no requirement here to do so: I may heap scorn upon illogical arguments, but not upon the shippers who make them. Ultimately, we are really only talking about the fate of fictional characters in a book, and none of it is worth insulting other human beings who hold different opinions. Every day in every way, however, we can choose to create arguments that are either logical, or illogical. What we choose for the little things, we will also choose for the great. And as Dumbledore might say… choose your arguments wisely.
+++
Addendum:
Since this essay is being posted on a D/G site, I’ve added some D/G film material just for FIA readers. (Now, don’t y’all feel special?) We know that we’re sailing a fanon ship, and few of us really expect D/G to become a pairing in DH. Yet Creamtea has made some fascinating arguments that canon D/G does indeed exist as a one-sided obsession from Draco. I firmly believe that material from all five HP films foreshadows plot developments and character relationships at the very end of the series. So basically, the question is this: do the films support this “canon D/G” point of view at all? The truly interesting thing is that when film material is thoroughly analyzed, it actually might do just this. However, all readers should be warned that this section should be read just for fun. While the foundation of these ideas is built on logic, it branches off into speculation rather soon.
To be more precise, CoS can be seen as supporting this particular view of canon D/G, which mirrors the fact that this is the only book that has been filmed to date that can be said to contain material that does this. The filmed changes in D/G interactions are more than worth examining, since what was kept in may very well be just as significant as what was left out.
As we can see in the film, Ginny’s singing Valentine to Harry was omitted. What this means is that we also lost Draco’s spiteful response to Ginny (“I don’t think Potter liked your Valentine much.”) There are a number of reasons why this might have been cut. It certainly saved time to get rid of this scene. Yet it’s interesting to speculate on how differently the emotional arc of the film might have read if this one scene had been kept in. It served the vicarious purpose of keeping Harry from looking like a jerk for ignoring Ginny, which he otherwise would have done. And it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this filmed scene would indeed have read very clearly as Draco being unwillingly interested in Ginny, because that’s how the vicarious eye reads scenes like that on film. By omitting it, the viewing audience doesn’t see that at all.
Or do they?
The Draco/Harry/Ginny scene at Flourish and Blott’s was certainly retained onscreen, and it has some very interesting content when analyzed from an editor’s point of view. One of the main ways we understand things both visually and emotionally when we see them onscreen is through eyetrace. In other words, we know what to look at by seeing what the characters look at, and we generally know why it’s important to them. Sometimes the way this is done is extremely obvious, as in a point-of-view shot. We see Harry’s eyes move so that he is looking at something offscreen, for example. The next cut shows us Hermione, or Ron, or Hagrid, or Dumbledore. We now know who and what he was looking at, so we know this person is important to him at that moment, for whatever reason. If Hermione/Ron/Hagrid/the giant squid/whoever then says something, we that it’s important to hear what they say, and that since Harry was paying attention, it, or they, or both, are important to him as well. This relationship between two shots is completely created in the editing room (as I know very well!) So this is an editing technique that shapes our emotional understanding of characters’ relationships, often in a very subtle way.
We see Harry unhappily standing next to Gilderoy Lockhart at the book signing. But the very next thing we see is that the camera pans up. We don’t yet know why, but we quickly figure out that this doesn’t make a lot of sense unless this is a POV shot as seen by some other character. We then see a reverse of Draco Malfoy standing on a balcony, watching the scene.
The first really significant thing is that a very deliberate choice was made to temporarily switch to Draco’s point of view of this scene, rather than Harry’s. This choice is virtually never made in any of these films, since we’re seeing the story through Harry’s eyes. Whatever we see is almost always what Harry is seeing. (In fact, in the opening scene of GoF, Harry’s POV dominance was made far more obvious onscreen than it was in the book. Everything we see was clearly framed as Harry’s vision, rather than as a separate narrative.) We certainly switch to other characters’ views of Harry when they look at him, because that’s been part of the visual language of film since the days of D.W. Griffith. But what the films don’t do is to change to the POV of another character when this character is not interacting with Harry or being watched by Harry—except for this scene.
It would have been extremely easy to show only Harry’s POV of Draco coming up to him and starting the sneering comments, and this would have been by far the most obvious and natural choice. It would have matched the way that POV’s were shot throughout the rest of this film series. In the Borgin and Burkes scene, for example, we see Lucius and Draco Malfoy through Harry’s eyes, since he is watching them. No other character gets a matching scene where we see his or her POV of Harry. Yet that choice was made here, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this aberration must have happened for some kind of meaningful reason. Even if the Flourish and Blotts scene can be put under this category, however, there’s one huge issue left to deal with.
Gilderoy Lockhart happily tells his audience that Harry had no idea he'd be leaving Flourish and Blotts with Lockhart's entire collected works. Next, we cut to Hermione applauding rapturously, then to Ron, looking rather disgusted. But then the edits stop, and look at where the camera goes next. It becomes a POV pan, and it very clearly "sees" Ginny. The very next thing that we see is Draco in the balcony, watching... what?
If we follow where Draco’s eyetrace actually leads in this scene, we can see what and who he’s actually watching. The most obvious choice would seem to be Harry. But that isn’t where his eyetrace leads at all. Instead, Draco is looking at Ginny, who is standing in the audience across from Harry. Draco watches Ginny, and Ginny watches Harry. If we follow all the characters’ eyetraces, those are the only places they can possibly be going. Draco’s eyetrace is especially obvious because she is the last thing the camera sees before showing us that Draco is unobserved, unseen by any other character, and watching her.
Draco certainly looks at Harry when he’s talking to him a few seconds later (“Potter, you’ve got yourself a girlfriend!”), but again, his eyetrace shifts very quickly back to Ginny. Hers goes to Draco as well when she replies (“Leave him alone!”) and then shifts away. But the most fascinating part of all is that Draco’s eyetrace never really moves again. Lucius Malfoy joins the scene and begins his altercation with Arthur Weasley, insults are traded, things happen, there’s a lot of dialog, Harry certainly speaks again, and so on, and so forth. It’s quite a long scene, but Draco never really stops looking at Ginny. He keeps his eyetrace on her even when other people are speaking, right up until the very end of the scene, when his father takes him away.
This scene really constitutes Draco’s filmed interaction with Ginny to date, but then, there would have been no real opportunity to have more unless non-canon material was added. This choice obviously wasn’t made, and yet the interesting thing is that the filmed D/G situation is very similar to the way in which Ginny’s crush on Harry has always been treated onscreen in the HP films. Just enough material has been retained so that perceptive viewers know her obsessive interest in him does exist—but no more. Yet there is no reason to believe that their HBP relationship will not be shown in the sixth film, whatever its actual nature may turn out to be. For all we know, filmed D/G may have certain parallels to this.
We don’t yet know if Ginny’s Bat-Bogey hex of Draco in OotP was retained, and it almost certainly wasn’t filmed, since it didn’t happen from Harry’s POV in the book at all. It will be interesting to see if it gets mentioned, however. It’s also fascinating to speculate on whether Draco’s reaction to news about Ginny in the train compartment in HBP will be retained. By the time this sixth film is actually shot, of course, the final pairings and final storyline of the series will be known. If one-sided interest from Draco to Ginny really does exist in canon, then my guess is that it will be foreshadowed onscreen in HBP.
As Creamtea has argued, this kind of canon D/G really might exist, and the idea could be bolstered by the fact that we see this kind of content onscreen. Even if this is the case, of course, it’s highly unlikely to constitute romantic D/G in any successful sense in DH. But what could be a better setup for tortured, angsty, miserable D/G after the end of the series? Just think of the fanfic we could all get out of that!
P.S.: BTW, a word to the wise, which is sufficient.... if y'all leave an "anonymous" review, your IP address is logged and viewable, which is a fact of which everyone may not be aware. On the web, there is no real anonymity. Flames will be used to roast marshmallows.
P.P.S. 7/11/07: Quick, quick addendum before I have to go and paint my house... I just saw the film, so if y'all don't want to read a couple of spoilers, it might be a good plan to turn back now. I was... ahem... VERY happy with it. How could I not be? Everything I talked about in this essay was in that film, and even more. Harry said exactly two words to Ginny in the entire movie: "Fantastic, Ginny." This was after seeing her Reducto curse. And he was only speaking the truth; it was pretty impressive. Ginny truly is being set up as a powerful character in her own right, not as some appendage of Harry.
There are even MORE scenes of Ginny looking sadly at Harry than we knew from the early reviews. In each and every case, he does not notice her. He does not make eye contact with her. He does not acknowledge her in any way at all, and this is only made more obvious by the fact that she is in these scenes. The first time she does it, in fact, she has just directly addressed him, and he's simply ignored her. Her crush is certainly set up, but we already know that Ginny has a crush on Harry at this point. We know that they dated in HBP. None of this is a mystery, nor a matter of debate. The question is what happens after the part that we currently know about. Everything about the specific manner in which H/G interaction is depicted onscreen points only one way-- and it isn't to lasting, genuine H/G at the end of this series. As for the H/L, well, I really DO have to go paint that house... so I'll let y'all analyze that if you care to. ;)
However, Draco's line about Neville getting caught because he was trying to help Ginny was left in, which certainly was interesting. Whether it was significant or not, only time will tell... ten more days, to be exact. ;)
+++
WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED
Boorstin, Jon. The Hollywood Eye. Perennial, New York, New York: 1990.
Boorstin, Jon. Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker. Silman-James Press, New York, New York: 1995.
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:9691
“False Report Regarding OotP Scriptwriter Michael Goldenberg.” Posted April 10, 2007 at http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:9689
“First Review of Order of the Phoenix, from Chicago Screening.” Melissa Anelli - March 4, 2007, 11:08 pm. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/?articleID=9592
http://www.harrypotterfanzone.com/?ID=ootp-review
http://scribbulus.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/exclusive-brand-new-ootp-film-review/
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31863
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher%27s_Stone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Chamber_of_Secrets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Goblet_of_Fire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_book_and_film_versions_of_Harry_Potter_and_the_Order_of_the_Phoenix
“Harry the Fifth: David Yates Makes $200 Million Debut With Potter’s Phoenix.” By Harry Haun. http://www.filmjournal.com/filmjournal/features/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003600960&imw=Y
“Heyman Talks Potter V Cuts.” Patrick Lee, posted April 11 at http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=41032
“Introducing Michael Goldenberg: The OotP_ Scribe on the Harry Potter films, franchise, and fandom.” Posted April 10, 2007. http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:9691. Note: This was the genuine interview.
+++
Notes
Since the faked interview was pulled very quickly, everyone may not have seen it. So here it is, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy… but remember, it’s made up from beginning to end!
New OOTP details from Michael Goldenberg
MuggleCast listener Matt e-mailed us the other day with some interesting news. He is currently an undergraduate student majoring in Writing For Screen and Television in the USC School of Cinematic Arts, and was recently treated to special guest lecturer Michael Goldenberg, who is the screenplay writer for Order of the Phoenix.
Matt sat down with Goldenberg for an hour to talk about writing the fifth film, and some very interesting details were revealed. Here's a summary of what was said:
- He and J.K. ROWLING have never officially met beyond emailing each other during the first month he spent outlining the screenplay.
- He will not be involved in any way with the last two films.
- He feels that in terms of plot elements, characters, locations, and dialogue, OOTP will be the most lenient in keeping true to the source material; he reasons that because the book was so dense, it was amazingly difficult to try and find the structure of a 2-and-a-half hour movie without having to combine character roles and places in order to maintain a sense of narrative drive.
- His favorite HP book is Sorcerer's Stone.
- He personally nicknamed the third draft of the screenplay "Harry Scissorhands" because he went through the 168 pages and excised any scene that did not directly involve Harry and/or Voldemort.
- The last updated shooting draft ended on page 139.
- He candidly predicted that this would probably be the least favorite of the films because most of the fun, non-Harry material was left out.
- J.K. ROWLING was not happy with some of the omissions that were made that may "come back to haunt the next film adaptations."
- He revealed that Rowling, in an email, seriously suggested that after she finished Book 7 she should probably take reign as co-screenwriter and/or become a serious player in the screenwriting process.
- He mentioned that in late 2004 he took the liberty to write a new scene between Harry and Snape that eerily predicted events in both Half-Blood Prince and, according to Rowling's notes, Book 7; so much so that he felt it be best to leave it out of the final shooting script.
- Overall, Mr. Goldenberg came off as a sweet and humble person who genuinely enjoyed his partaking in Potter Mania.
Thanks again to Matt for providing us with these details!
To Be Continued.
Anise is the author of 56 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 8 members. Members who liked Creamtea's Stunning Fall-of-H/G Theory also liked 375 other stories.
This story is a favorite of 8 members. Members who liked Creamtea's Stunning Fall-of-H/G Theory also liked 375 other stories.
Leave a Review