Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Q (Movies)

[Gaith]

A key problem is the first half of the book has no character movement: Ron only quits the gang because he's under the influence of the One Ring - sorry, the Horcrux - but unlike Gollum, who's permanently damaged by an evil object, Ron's just fine once he gets free of his burden. So it's two and a half hours that end on a cliffhanger and haven't moved any of the three mains. Fail.

 

[Thestral]

Well, I guess it's subjective, but I don't think when all is said and done that we need 5 hours (if part 2 is as long) to tell the story of a boy fighting a bad wizard.
I don't mean to belittle it as I've read all the books too, but I really think that you can adequately tell the story in 2 hours...maybe 2 hours and 15.

Granted, but by Book 7 the main plot wasn't as interesting to me as the side characters and side material. One of my personal biggest complaints about Book 7 is that we got so little time with the Little Trio (Neville, Ginny, and Luna) and goings-on at Hogwarts.

And with as much as they had to cut already for Order (for example, essentially the entire character of Tonks, and all of the Quidditch plot and the growth that gave for Ron and Ginny, and the material relating to Neville and the St. Mungo's scene), it'll be nice to hopefully get some of the smaller-scale material in there.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I too felt that they cut too much from Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, but while reading Book 7 I kept thinking "they could cut this from the movie no problem, they could cut this too, that isn't really important..." so I was a bit surprised to find that the movie would be two parts. It's the one book in the series that you actually could cut quite a bit of useless junk from without sacrificing the overall story.

 

[DigificWriter]

The early part of Book 7 is very 'exposition heavy' (in fact, most of Book 7 is very exposition-heavy, much moreso than any of the other books), and everything I've been hearing about the way that David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves approached parsing that exposition down into something that worked and didn't feel bogged down has me very excited and confident that the films - especially P1 - will surpass the previous films in terms of overall quality.

Yates also just recently offered a comment about Part 2, specifically the Battle of Hogwarts, during an interview with Collider, and I've included the relevant portion below:

Collider: Speaking of the second movie – a lot of fans are looking forward to the Battle at Hogwarts – myself included. You’ve obviously maybe done a rough cut or something like that. Is it a ten-minute sequence, is it thirty minutes? How much is that battle?

David Yates: It’s intercut with Harry’s search for the horcrux. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of battles. I like battles. I think they’re great but I’m interested in the characters and their story but we have big battle. There’s plenty of it. I couldn’t put a time frame on it but the whole second act is pretty big. Actually the whole film’s pretty big. But honestly, Steve’s not a fan of battles. I’m not a fan of battles. But I’m more of a fan of battles than Steve is so I was pushing the battles. Steve loves character and nuance. As do I of course… but we’ve got battles. It’s more about chasing these horcruxes and it’s interspersed with battle.

This has given me even more confidence that the decision to split the book into two films will not have been a mistake, since Jo sort of pushes the search for the final Horcrux into the background in the novel in favor of focusing on the battle and on Harry's one-on-one confrontation with Voldemort, and it sounds like Kloves' script and Yates' adaptation of that script sort of flip-flops that scenario while at the same time creating a bit of balance in terms of which parts of DH's climax get the focus at any given point in the story.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

The first film ends with Lord Voldemort retrieving the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb (Chapter 24 - The Wandmaker, in the book).

Excellent cliffhanger! At least for the solitary person left in the universe who doesn't know the rest of the story anyway.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of battles. I like battles. I think they’re great but I’m interested in the characters and their story but we have big battle. There’s plenty of it. ... But honestly, Steve’s not a fan of battles. I’m not a fan of battles. But I’m more of a fan of battles than Steve is so I was pushing the battles. Steve loves character and nuance. As do I of course… but we’ve got battles. It’s more about chasing these horcruxes and it’s interspersed with battle.

Heh. They don't like battles. Such nuisances! Why do those poor, poor filmmakers have to portray battles? My heart goes out to them. Truly.

Explains why we got no battle at the end of HBP and why the confrontation in OoTP was little more than a visual effects blur. Inspires great confidence for Part 2.

 

[DigificWriter]

Jo uses climactic action sequences (such as the battles in Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows) as an integral part of her storytelling, but there's a delicate balance to strike between realizing that type of sequence and letting it become a crutch.

Regarding Order of the Phoenix, I personally feel that Yates and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg (Steve Kloves took a hiatus from scripting the HP films after Goblet of Fire and returned for Half Blood Prince and the two parts of Deathly Hallows) realized the battle sequences in the Department of Mysteries incredibly well (even though there were some portions of that sequence as described in the novel which were excised), in particular the confrontation between Dumbledore and Voldemort, but, as they say, 'to each their own.'

Regarding Half-Blood Prince, Yates was of the feeling that it might get too repetitive to include two huge climactic battle sequences that take place in the same location (Hogwarts) essentially back-to-back, and I agree with him; the reason for this is that, IMO, there is really only so much you could do, visually, within the context of the films to differentiate the two sequences from each other; Jo was able to do so in the novels by making the Second Battle of Hogwarts much grander in scope, but doing so on film would have added more money to the budget of what is already a very expensive-to-produce franchise.

 

[MNM]

Granted, but by Book 7 the main plot wasn't as interesting to me as the side characters and side material.

Honestly, the main reason I read book 4 onwards was to see Harry/Hermione. The main plot line got duller and more tedious every book after POA.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I can understand not liking too many battles...in all films.

For example, in Star Wars it's good to have the attack on the Death Star as it gives the hero something big to do...but it's not necessary in The Empire Strikes Back as we can follow the characters more without long bouts of time where people aren't talking and only fighting.
That's why many people get tired of James Bond movies where Bond spends the last 25 minutes of the movie entering the bad guy's volcano lair, fighting and shooting and stopping the bomb etc. etc.
Of course we need some interestingaction and fighting, but not formulaic stuff that we know we have time to go to the parking lot and beat the rush of people that will soon leave the theater.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

Erm ... The Empire Strikes Back has a battle during its entire climactic sequence (the shootouts and duel at Cloud City) and opens with the very definition of a battle sequence (Hoth).

Battles for the sake of battles don't do a whole lot of good. But HP is a series that most definitely has battles. I find it curious that Yates and Kloves have decided to make participate in making HP movies, despite having such an aversion to battles, knowing full well that HP ... features battles. That quote explains a lot about the rather shoddy way battles have been depicted in HP, particularly since Yates took the helm.

 

[Nardpuncher]

Erm...if you think the end of Empire has battles like anything I described in my previous post then we're working with completely different definitions of "battle"
And for the movie to have the battle of Hoth near the beginning was a great idea. I meant that a lengthy battle near the end can sometimes bore the audience instead of excite it.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

I can understand not liking too many battles...in all films.

For example, in Star Wars it's good to have the attack on the Death Star as it gives the hero something big to do...but it's not necessary in The Empire Strikes Back as we can follow the characters more without long bouts of time where people aren't talking and only fighting.

The implication in this post is that, somehow, there was "something big to do" in Star Wars but not "something big to do" in Empire. My reply was to point out that Empire does in fact features battles, that range in scale from planetary invasion to shootouts to personal duels, all of which feature our heroes and, generally, are significant to character development. Specific to what happens at the end of a film, the "battles" at the end of Empire are rather extended. So using that film as an example of one that doesn't need or require "battles" (or conflicts, or action, or however you want to distinguish them) doesn't quite make sense. If I've misread your post, then it needs some clarification regarding the point you're trying to make.

Either way, my point is I've found the "battles" in HP 5 & 6 severely lacking (or curiously nonexistent), and the Yates quote provides a fascinating insight why. I'm intrigued that Yates (and Kloves) would take part in making movies that feature battles -- when they admit they don't like battles. It's like someone who dislikes sci-fi making a sci-fi film. Not that it can't be done (and done well), but in this respect I've been underwhelmed by Yates (even though I loved the visual style he used in HP6).