Adaptation, for better or worse

A comment by a friend of mine in the Harry Potter post I did several days ago made a comment about Shell Cottage, the home of the Bill and Fleur and how the filmmakers had better not leave it out of HP7! So much happens there that I won't spoil for anyone, but Bill and Fleur have to get married first right? Well that part is at the beginning of book 7. But they get married at the Burrow...and there was a huge fire at the Burrow at the beginning of the 6th movie. That fire, along with the whole scene of Ginny and Harry being led out into the middle of nowhere, was fabricated for the movie and did not appear in the book.

Why make up a scene like that with the point being that the bad guys burned down the Burrow? maybe it's because the filmmakers aren't planning on putting the wedding into the seventh movie. Bill and Fleur weren't even in the sixth movie, so chances are they won't be in the seventh movie either. Why would the filmmakers do that? One word: Streamlining.

A movie works very differently than a book. In a book you can take detours and build character relationship in a much more intimate and intricate way than in a movie. It takes hours to read a book, and two hours (roughly) to watch a movie. You cannot possibly put everything from a book into its movie adaptation. It blows because some of the best parts of books are never in the films. Here are some examples:

- Fight Club: Ed Norton's character meets Tyler Durden on a plane in the movie. In the book he meets Tyler when Tyler is making a sun dial in the sand with sticks on a beach while Norton's character is on vacation. Why didn't this appear in the movie? To impress upon the viewers of the film that Ed Norton's character is high strung and in a bad place professionally and psychologically, you can't have him go on vacation to try and unwind. A movie-going audience won't accept his issues is he's on vacation. Plus you can't break u a gritty city movie like Fight Club with some scenes of a lovely beach in the bright sunlight with cool blue water.

- Lord of the Rings: There are two huge issues in this epic, and many more small ones. I'm going to bring up Tom Bombadil and the romance between Aragorn and Arwen. Tom Bombadil is a much loved character from Fellowship of the Ring. Frodo and Sam meet him on their way out of the Shire. Tom is very much a man of the [middle] earth. He is so in touch with nature that he is immune to the One Ring's effects. Therefore he can't be in a movie about how dark and powerful the ring is. In order for the audience to believe that the ring is this terrible thing that is the scourge of Middle Earth and must be destroyed, a character like Tom Bombadil can't exist in the film. If Tom exists, then why not give him the ring?

As to the romance bits, Aragorn does indeed love Arwen in the book and they do get married. However, Arwen's character barely exists in the book. She certainly doesn't do any fighting, nor does she have visions of the future. But a movie has to appeal to as many people as possible. In order to do that you have to give women a reason to go see a movie that is basically about fighting. It may sound sexist, but it's true. So the filmmakers trumped up the romance in order for the film to have a wider appeal.

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: I assume that Bill and Fleur will not exist in this movie for much the same reason as Ludo Bagman never existed in the fourth movie and because Winkie was never a character in previous movies either" Streamlining. The filmmakers have already set up their omission of the wedding, and they can have Dobby do his thing in the seventh book anywhere they want. Because of this they don't need to hire actors to play Bill and Fleur nor do they need to ad one more location. I could be wrong, but I think the wedding won't be there. If it is, I don't think they'll make Bill and Fleur big characters.

Of course the seventh book is being made into two films, so they will have about five hours to tell the story instead of just two and a half. We will see.

In closing, adaptation sucks, but is necessary. You have to move things around and create the illusion of cohesion for a film. I've said it before and I'll say it again: A movie is an illusion from start to finish. Everything about a movie is fake. In order to sell the story visually, you must make sure that the audience buys into certain plot points and ideas. To do that some things must be sacrificed or moved around.