HP-Wank that's not about Snape
Over at the Leaky Cauldron, they post to a news article with the Order of the Phoenix's director David Yates stating:

"The book's huge, but it actually distills quite easily... That said, I've shot a movie that's probably over three hours, so I'll have to lose 45 minutes in the edit."

Will the fans take this news lying down?
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/comments.php?entry_id=9173

16 pages of whining, begging, and bitching at the moment.

~We don't make 5% of the audience. If hard core fans are 0,5% of the audience it would be too much. And not even all the hard core fans would like a 3h movie. Iam one and I'd hate it. I think the only 3 hour movie I didn't think was too long was 2001. Even The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins I really think would be better if they had been more cut.I think all the three LotR were awfully long and the end of the last one was very bad and anticlimatic. I haven't been near King Kong because I don't like Peter Jackson's style and every critic said it was way too much long.

I know I'm a minority here, but I'm saying all this just so that you know that there are a lot of HP fans that would like to really see a movie with a movie pace and not a somewhat visual version of a book. That's why I think PoA is way much better than CoS.
You must remember as well that if we can even see some of our phantasies turned into visual effects it's because the films are a success and make money enough to pay all the crew that's needed to make them. If the film was as long as you want, people would not pay for them and the producers wouldn't be interested in making them. So stop whining and thank them for making it all possible.
As for Yates, I don't know what he really meant. Every film must be edited and scenes get cut before it is ready. What he filmed is longer than what we'll se. That's just the usual thing. Does Yates mean just this or is he really implying he will cut much more than he'd want to? Will he cut because WB men will make him do that or is he convinced that if the film gets very long it won't be very good? I don't think we have read enough to know exactly what he meant.
Posted by Lilyp on October 28, 2006 at 10:29 AM


~Do you people not understand that a 3 hour film would seriously turn off the general public and the critics from the films and anything Harry Potter? Did you not pay attention to the reviews of every one of the past films, especially PS and CoS, all of which criticized the films for being TOO LONG and TOO BLOATED? Yes, hard-core Harry Potter fans might want to see the entire book translated to film, but they make up a TINY MINORITY of the film audience. Do you really think WB and Yates should be that idiotic to completely ignore what the critics want and what 90% of the audience is looking for, and to ignore the basic principles of good filmmaking, just to satisfy the demands of a small section of the audience who will be watching the films anyway? If you want to see OOTP in all its details brought to film, try to urge for an EE edition or better yet read the book again and use your own imagination instead of demanding that absolutely everything in the book be visualized for you.
Posted by Grindelwald on October 28, 2006 at 12:36 AM


~I just have to shake my head at all the pretentious fools here who imply that the movie should pander to the attention spans of the subaverage movie goer. These stories are deliciously detailed and should be given the best possible representation on the screen. If a theatre cut and a separate EE have to be made, fine, but good heavens don't cut OOTP into tiny disjointed pieces like PoA (bad) and GoF (worse!) were. Cutting Dobby, Quidditch, what next ? Hey, no one thought that PJ would wander off into Tolkien's meanderings about the origins of the Hobbit families, etc - and there are some sidebars that might be less than critical to include in OOTP - but why the heck can't 'they' find a director who is willing to print a longer film !???
Posted by Jeff on October 28, 2006 at 2:10 AM


~I think everyone here is forgetting the bottom line for the WB execs is...the bottom line. Money. They have dollar signs in their eyes.

The shorter a movie is, the more times it can be played during a day. Which means more ticket sales...more butts in the seats...more dollars for corporate. They don't care that we're willing to sit through it. They care about their profit margin. That is the unfortunate truth.

I, like most good HP fans, would be willing to sit in the theatre for 3 hours to see a HP film done right. And the argument that they can't make a long movie because the mass stupor of moviegoers will be turned off is poor at best.

Look at it this way: Alfonso Cuaron publicly stated that if he wasn't going to use it (a scene), then he didn't shoot it. That's his choice, unfortunately, because it cheated us out of any sort of extended edition for future DVD releases of PoA.

At the very least, we now know that David Yates *shot* the footage, whether they're put into the theatrical release or not. So it's there, somewhere, on film. God bless him. There is hope.
Posted by midnight oil on October 28, 2006 at 12:25 PM


~This is my first post I hope its not too long!
Its too bad in this day and age movie management companies and bean counters are to busy staring at the bottom line in movie production. They should really checking to see if the movie conveys the points that it should. Years and years ago, (take a look at the first two godfather movies for instance) they were long enough to get the point across. They even had an intermission at the theater to give folks a break in between the halves. Going to the theater was an afternoon or evening event that was throughly enjoyed by all. Today people want more bang for their buck and arent satisfied with the length and content of movies these days. (Currently reflected in the downward spiral of movies ticket sales, Yes movie theater owners everywhere are probably screaming bloody murder saying get that man for saying that!, we're starving as it is already! But its sad and true.) I myself and several hundred other HP fans I know of would gladly plunk down $19.00 a ticket if I was presented with a double length feature movie (3 to 4 hour 5 tops long )with a 5 min intermission in the middle. I would gladly pay $28 to $38 dollars for the DVD when it came out, with the content intact and where it should be instead of in the extras bin. For once in the movie industry, WB should be innovators with bringing out a movie with quality content and of appropriate length for the amount of material to be covered. Don't get me wrong i've liked all the HP movies to date. I would have loved the last two more if I hadnt felt I was just dragged kicking and screaming through a year at hogwarts while attached to a bullet train instead of the hogwarts express. Mr Yates I know you have a budget and a time limit, but please for once could someone please stick up for the movie length and content! Im appalled that 45 mins is going to be tossed away after it has been shot. Shoving it in the extras bin is totally disrespectful towards to actors and actresses that spent their time to get it right The money has been spent on filming that already, so why not incorporate it into the movie? Surely editing costs cant be anywhere near production costs in this movie, special effects maybe. Its like a fancy wedding cake that looks good, tastes good, but leaves a funny aftertaste because somethings missing that would have smoothed the transition from the flavor to end.
Posted by D.j. on October 29, 2006 at 12:09 AM


~Grindelwald, I think we are going to have to respectfully agree to disagree. I do not believe that pleasing both HP fans and the general audience is a mutually exclusive act, and I think you have completely missed the thrust of my points. Everyone I know who has seen GoF and NOT READ THE BOOK did NOT like the exact same things about it as most of us HP fans: it was rushed, skipped out on important details, and the editing was choppy. I do not see us as being unreasonable in hoping for a slightly longer film that will address those issues effectively IF that extra length is necessary for the integrity of the movie. You seem to be under the impression that I just want it to be three hours long, regardless of how that affects the quality of the film, and that is not accurate. I do not expect them to get every scene from the book into the film. I DO expect them to get in the important ones, and there are a lot of them in a book that size. I said before, if they can do it well in 2 hours and 15 minutes, more power to them. They have not displayed that capability so far.

If they are trying to please only the general audience, they are winding up pleasing no one. Other people have pointed out numerous examples of films that have been far longer than any of the HP films and have been wildly successful at the box office. I won't repeat them here, but that just goes to show that if they do a great job on the movie it will not matter if it is 2 hours or 6 hours long. People will go to see it in droves. If they chop it up to satisfy their time frame or the evidently short attention span of your average movie goer, and the movie/plot suffers because of it, word of mouth will pass along that the movie is not worth the money and NO ONE will go see it EXCEPT hard core HP fans, who will see it no matter what. In that case, they ought to worry about pleasing us... at least a little.

Certainly, we can hope that David Yates will remain true to his artistic vision and that it is a good one to begin with. He is an unknown quantity for the HP franchise thus far. The main argument here was sparked over this artificial time frame business - if he is being held to cutting out 45 minutes of his work arbitrarily it seems likely to me that his vision will have to be compromised along with our expectations. As a fellow HP fan, it surprises me that we can't agree that regardless of the length of the final version of the film, we all just want it to be the best that it can possibly be.

As a side note, I am fully aware of what goes into making a movie and the editing process as my husband was a camera man on feature films for over five years. I know tons of footage gets shot that ends up never being used. That is not the issue here. Posted by Michele on October 29, 2006 at 2:56 PM

There is much more tl;dr and percentages abuse. And yes, someone started a petition.