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Author: repicheep22

Apr 20th 2010 at 7:06:32 AM

How can you call ''HarryPotter'' "slavishly loyal to the books" when it omits just about every major Snape scene in the entire series?  (It's not like Snape is a minor character.)  I went to see ''The Order of the Phoenix'' specifically to see one seemingly minor but crucial (character-wise) scene from Snape, and walked out at the end grousing that they hadn't even alluded to it.

That aside, I can see how you'd put it there, I guess :)

Oh, and as far as fan reactions to this stuff: If you have a work you really like, then you definitely want the feel of the original and no less.  While it's possible to take the Disney approach and reinvent the source material with a whole new mood, it's not the sort of thing that's going to please the fans.  But if you keep the mood and stick fairly close to the characterizations, you can easily do a series reboot (as with the first X-Man film) and have us clamoring for more.  (Not to mention, you've sown a whole new field for fanfic writers to grow plots in.)

I'd call Miyazaki's ''HowlsMovingCastle'' for Category 2.  It hits at plenty of the original, but the changes are striking: The main villain gets neutered, the climactic final battle gets cut entirely (in favor of a weird feel-good "aww guess she's not so bad after all" moment), a war that was merely background gets foregrounded, and a background character gets raised to the level of BigBad.  Apparently in large part because Miyazaki was mad over the Iraq war at the time.

It's all the more disappointing to me because I had actually been working (unsuccessfully) on a script for that book for years.  My skills weren't yet up to the job, so I was excited to hear the project taken on by one of the foremost directors in Japan, whose work I already adored.  Not to say the film was bad (in and of itself), but... what a letdown.