A Movie Confession....
I have a confession to make. I'm an HP fan, but I'm not necessarily an HP movie fan. In fact, some of you may consider it a sacrilege, but I haven't seen any of the HP movies since Goblet of Fire. Oh, I've seen clips here and there, but a full movie? No. When Order of the Phoenix was released, I'd intended to go, but I just never got around to a theater. I bought the dvd when it came out, but I put it on a shelf and still haven't watched it. Same thing when Half-Blood Prince hit the theaters and then was released on dvd this week. I bought it, but I've been uncertain about watching it. I should just go ahead and catch up on the movies, but I'm resistant to the idea because... Well, to be perfectly honest, I really don't care for the HP movies.
I tried to like them, but directors kept cutting scenes I think are important to the plot and keeping scenes (or worse, adding things that JKR never wrote) that I think are unimportant, and yes, I understand why they do some of it, and I understand there's a huge difference between novels and movies. But at the heart of it - at the very deep down core of it - I was just unable to suspend my disbelief enough to picture Alan Rickman as Snape. Don't get me wrong, I love Alan Rickman, and in his prime, he would have made a great Snape. He certainly has the perfect voice for it, but bless his heart, like me, he's always been too old and too fond of dinner for that role. Snape is pivotal to the entire HP saga - or at least he is in the books; I'm not convinced that he matters so much in the movies - so if he's not portrayed right... ~sighs~ Well, I just kinda gave up on the movies.
At any rate, all of this has brought up something that's been nibbling around the edges of my consciousness. At some point in the near future, we're going to have two sets of HP fans - those who came into the fandom through the books and those who came in solely through the movies. It's already happened to a degree. Movie canon and book canon are two very different things, and while other fandoms have been forced to deal with that separation, it's been my experience that it can cause some rather unfortunate growing pains. Is this something that would behoove us - the book fans - to start mentally preparing for now? Or will the HG/SS corner of the fandom even have to deal with it? I could be very wrong, but I suspect that movie-Snape will not be given the same wriggle room to survive that book-Snape was granted. I don't think there will be attack by Nagini, I figure it will be a straightforward AK by Voldemort. Nor do I expect a Snape-gives-Harry-his-memories scene, since as far as I can tell, Lily (or anyone of her generation) hasn't been all that important to the movie plots. If there are any memories to be had, I figure they'll be Dumbledore's memories conveniently waiting for Harry in a Pensieve (or some scriptwriter-created device) somewhere along the way. But what the hell do I know? I haven't been watching the movies, after all. ;P
I tried to like them, but directors kept cutting scenes I think are important to the plot and keeping scenes (or worse, adding things that JKR never wrote) that I think are unimportant, and yes, I understand why they do some of it, and I understand there's a huge difference between novels and movies. But at the heart of it - at the very deep down core of it - I was just unable to suspend my disbelief enough to picture Alan Rickman as Snape. Don't get me wrong, I love Alan Rickman, and in his prime, he would have made a great Snape. He certainly has the perfect voice for it, but bless his heart, like me, he's always been too old and too fond of dinner for that role. Snape is pivotal to the entire HP saga - or at least he is in the books; I'm not convinced that he matters so much in the movies - so if he's not portrayed right... ~sighs~ Well, I just kinda gave up on the movies.
At any rate, all of this has brought up something that's been nibbling around the edges of my consciousness. At some point in the near future, we're going to have two sets of HP fans - those who came into the fandom through the books and those who came in solely through the movies. It's already happened to a degree. Movie canon and book canon are two very different things, and while other fandoms have been forced to deal with that separation, it's been my experience that it can cause some rather unfortunate growing pains. Is this something that would behoove us - the book fans - to start mentally preparing for now? Or will the HG/SS corner of the fandom even have to deal with it? I could be very wrong, but I suspect that movie-Snape will not be given the same wriggle room to survive that book-Snape was granted. I don't think there will be attack by Nagini, I figure it will be a straightforward AK by Voldemort. Nor do I expect a Snape-gives-Harry-his-memories scene, since as far as I can tell, Lily (or anyone of her generation) hasn't been all that important to the movie plots. If there are any memories to be had, I figure they'll be Dumbledore's memories conveniently waiting for Harry in a Pensieve (or some scriptwriter-created device) somewhere along the way. But what the hell do I know? I haven't been watching the movies, after all. ;P