madara said:
I have to disagree with that. I didnt feel like the PoA book I read at all. Alot folks on biggest HP forums out there made good points about how easy casual fans overlooked 3rds many faults just because suddenly it was "mature", "dark" and "stylish". No innocent child propective most cant relate too today anymore. No one gave crap if this was still enjoyable to kids, just as long as didnt have "ewok" moments in it.
I have to respectfully tell you you're insane. You're entitled to your opinion, and that's not what makes you insane...what makes you insane is the fact that you used forums for a mainstream phenomenon as a barometer. That just doesn't fly, dude.
Really, I fall very far in the "PoA>>>>First Two" crowd, despite being a fan of the books and enjoying the first two films. However, this had nothing to do with maturity or darkness. It did, however, have to do with style.
Harry Potter is a boy in a magic world, surrounded by magic things, and yet he is still a person with real issues and real drama. That is a problem that the first two films never addressed. This is a fault with the books as much as it is the film; Rowling began delving further into drama and personal torment for Harry and yet the first two books saw his only major injuries saved by "Love" and "Pheonix Tears". Chris Columbus was given two books with aggressively happy endings, with no real consequence to the actions at hand. Harry ended up in the hospital wing, sure, but he was alright in the end and that was that. Harry's fine, his friends are fine, and everyone gives a cheesy standing ovation to Hagrid.
Cue blinding headaches, creepy soul-suckers, personal family crisis, and an apparent death threat.
...that just doesn't jive. Like it or not, the books are NOT all the same thematically. Each book is going to get progressively darker and will thus have a very different feel. This is the style aspect of Azkaban.
The style of Hogwarts, the style of the sequences...all of it was necessary to signify the general change in tone this represents. It is a shift...even the apparent happy ending is more or less bittersweet, and there is no giant applause moment. It is the film where Harry matures...and it was important that the films did the same in style.
In terms of the cuts made, there were some I think could have been included...including what exactly the Marauder's Map was would have been a smart move. However, that said, the film did all it could with the story that was given to them. A majority of the alterations made were done to make a better piece of cinema, not a truer adaptation.
That's the reality here; Azkaban is not as true in terms of being adapted from the book as the first two. I think this is a very good thing; the first two films created an absolutely IMPOSSIBLE precedent for the crazies to hold on to. They tried to cram in every moment, every scene, and it was done at the expense of filmmaking. They followed the books as guides to making films, not as the material on which to base one.
It is a better film than the first two. If you believe that it is not true enough an adaptation, or that the story has been shafted, I can see where you're coming from. I can't see, however, how Azkaban could have been a better piece of cinema, adaptation be damned.
