Deathly Hallows Might Be Two Films

Reyhan,

Again another great and well thought post.

I don’t want to say that I had predicted this, but I was surprised after reading Deathly Hallows that there wasn’t more talk of splitting it into two movies (since I thought WB had considered it for Goblet of Fire). Without a common backdrop of Hogwarts for most of the book, it would be more difficult to condense the scenes and themes from the book into the movie like the other movies had (But not impossible).

It would be interesting to know where they intend to make the split?

Whether this was financial or artistic, we will just have to believe what they say. Although I’m sure if the screenwriter said to the producers and the studio, that if they want this, this and that in the movie, it might be better if they split it, the executives at WB were not going to turn down the opportunity to produce an additional film from one of their most successful movie franchises.

Agree entirely with reyhan. If this were really “practical” and “artistic,” they’d have done the same thing with GoF, OP, and HBP, all which could easily span two films. They abandoned the direct book-to-screen thing after Columbus stopped directing them, and they should finish that way. Make a brilliant, artistic film adaptation of Book 7 in 2.5-3 hours, and let it be.

I’m confused: are there two Matthews?

Matthew (1?)

I agree that it will be challenging telling the story of the Elder Wand coherently. I confess that I still haven’t figured out the provenance of that wand: from Grindelwald to Dumbledore to Voldemort to Harry? And why wouldn’t the wand AK Harry again? Perhaps the story of the wand can be told more compellingly through images (with visual and sound effects, perhaps?)

Matthew (2?)

The backstory of the Hallows and Dumbledore is almost a separate story. Could conceivably be its own story, especially if JKR fleshed in some details. And what do you bet she hasn’t already worked it out, or couldn’t, on a napkin, if asked to do so?

It makes me think of the Godfather, Part II, and Robert De Niro playing the young Don.

I have mixed feelings about that. The focus should be on Harry, with a climax in three parts: the walk in the forest culminating in Harry’s death (Barber’s Adagio for Strings comes to mind as sound track, except it’s already been done, in Platoon); King’s Cross, and the duel with Voldemort. I wouldn’t really want that diluted with the secondary story. But that would almost be better than what I’m afraid of: making a big set piece of the battle of Hogwarts, with flashy CGI effects. That would definitely take the focus away from the Death and Resurrection story.

I don’t think the two movies should or would be released concurrently. They’d compete with each other in every which way: box office, and attention wise.

Matthew (korg20000bc), have you ever thought about running for political office?

Quote of the day:

“I’m not ‘Matthew’.

Matthew”

(I am Matthew, however.)

“I still haven’t figured out the provenance of that wand: from Grindelwald to Dumbledore to Voldemort to Harry? ”

Depends on whether its physical ownership or “mastery”.

And I can’t believe the Gambon hate! (Well, maybe I can after reading his quote above.)

One of the Matthews

There are two scenes in DH that Dumbledore and Harry are on screen together: King’s Cross, and the portrait scene. Dumbledore could have other scenes without Harry, depending on how the scriptwriter and director decide to tell the backstory, but he would presumably be played by a much younger actor. So Gambon only needs to be on screen twice.

Unfortunately, one of those scenes is part of the key to the whole story. For it to work, the actor playing Dumbledore has to project quite an array of feelings: happiness, pride (in Harry and to a certain extent in his own prescience), humbleness, regret, shame, remorse, and above all, love. And he also needs to do this while being dead.

Don’t laugh. There are certain things we expect from the dead: a certain dignity and decorum, a sense of peace and inner quiet, of being removed from the day to day hassles, of being one with the universe. We don’t expect histrionics, yelling, shouting, grabbing and otherwise acting like an immature middle-aged lout.

And as much as I wish it could be otherwise, I can’t see them changing course so late in the game. Because it is only two scenes, there would be a striking lack of continuity.

It’s like a bad marriage with no option of divorce for the sake of the children. We’re doomed.

I love it. Not the idea of two movies, but all the comments here. You are all so spot on with the reasons WB would even consider itht (artistry over money? yeah, right), and the comments about Gambon, as well. Especially reyhan’s last–perfect description of how many of us feel.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen him in other things and he’s fine–he’s just not good as Dumbledore. But I think reyhan is right about Dumbledore’s backstory. If Rowling hadnt’ said anything about the relationship I don’t think it would be a problem, but now people will be expecting it to show that their relationship wasn’t just a strong friendship of two young wizards.

I really think that reyhan has it right in the 160 minute version, give or take a few minutes here and there. Except I’d hope they take more time for Snape’s memories. If they rush that too much it will lose the importance of why Harry suddenly understands that Snape was helping him all along and that he loved Lily. It can’t be as rushed as it was in OP. Actually, OP was OK, it just needed to be longer and include Lily. If the Snape’s memories bit is too short, it won’t give the audience time to get it, unless they have read the book.

I’d really like to see Yates stay on to finish it out, unless HBP turns out to be awful. He seems to get it more than the others. I definitely don’t want to see Speilberg, and I’d hate for Cuaron to come back. Not to get into that again, but POA is the one that irritates me the most when I watch it now because of all that he cut out or changed. Yes, even more than GOF–my main complaint there was Gambon.

But I don’t think it will matter much whether we want one longer movie or a two part version of DH. The studio will have to do the math to see if making two movies is worth the box office returns. And I don’t think that decision will have much to do with artistic considerations. One thing though, they’d need to film the two movies at the same time, even if they are released 6 months or a year apart. The kids aren’t changing that much now, but I’m sure all the main actors would like to be getting on with other things.

Pat

Travis wrote:
“It’s all a bit fishy, really. Does the wand’s possessor really have to be certain he doesn’t get expelliarmus-ed ever in his life?”

Not to go against my own position of taking the text more seriously than the author, but Jo did address this in one of the recent Leaky interviews. I think she said the exchange of a wand’s ownership only comes in life or death adult dueling situations. Losing your wand in practice or in some unimportant matter isn’t going to change ownership.

I think she also said in another interview that this whole thing with the wands & with LV’s soul fragment attached to Harry is magic at its most mysterious. Which gets her out of having to have a logically consistent explanation for why the wands went where & what happened when LV AK’ed Harry & all that.

But then we don’t need an outside explanation for it, just as we don’t need to know how Narnia’s economy functioned. We just get to have fun speculating.

revgeorge, a very fair point! By “fishy” I didn’t mean “dumb” or “unexplainable” or “a huge stretch on Rowling’s part,” and that answer from Rowling sheds some light on the subject. Thanks.

Matthew W,

If he’d leave out the shrunken heads, I wouldn’t mind Cuaron back. I thought the film quite good except I usually have to fast forward through the scenes of the heads, which disappoints me because I really liked the way the one actor played Stan Shunpike.

I agree that DH should not be two films. The same thing was suggested back before GOF was being filmed. Did anyone hear that John Williams wants to come back and score the final film?

And didn’t Grindelwald get both physical possession & mastery by theft? He stole the Elder wand from Gregorovitch, didn’t he?

And doesn’t the unbeatability of the elder wand seem rather farcical, seeing as how many times it changed possession just in the last half century or so?

It would need Wi-Fi just to keep track of all the many times it’s changed hands.

Let’s go in the opposite direction.

Does anyone here know Elric of Melnibone and his sword, Stormbringer? That’s one example of a weapon as a sentient being. Now Stormbringer is actually a demon disguised as a sword, and I don’t think JKR meant to go that far. But she did give her wands some of the attributes of life/intelligence. Even run-of-the mill wands manifest preferences (the wand selects the wizard), and memory (making possible the Priori Incantem spell) and a bit of personality or at least temperament (the core, whether it be made of yew or phoenix feather or dragon heart string, has some attributes)and some familial loyalty (phoenix wand won’t zap pheonix wand). So JKR has set the groundwork for an Alpha wand to manifest more of the same.

I would be interested in finding out just how far she’s worked out the logistics and dynamics of wands.

But here’s a point I meant to bring up earlier. At the risk of sounding heretical, I am not convinced that the Deathly Hallows - including the Elder Wand - were not an afterthought. An interesting way of trying to create an(other) overarching theme, but with the seams showing because they weren’t conceived until later.

Let me explain.

I think that if JKR had always known about the Hallows, she would have laid some clues before book 6 and 7. I mean, Harry’s death and resurrection was foreshadowed in the opening chapter of book 1, wasn’t it? And the people who were to accompany him in his walk in the forest were introduced and systematically killed in books 1,3 5 and 7, weren’t they?

The cloak was around from the start (i.e. book 1). But until book 7, that’s all it was, an invisibility cloak, analogous in my mind to Frodo’s mithril coat, nice to have and handy, but not central. What I think happened is that JKR conceived the Hallows sometime around book 6 or 7, and retrofitted the cloak to form one of the Hallows.

The first hint we got about the stone was in book 6 (how Dumbledore’s hand got burnt). But remember the Philosopher’s Stone, which is a fairly similar idea? Now if you were going to end with a book on a stone which confers immortality, would you have started with a book on a stone which confers - immortality? I don’t think so. What I think happened is that the Philosopher’s Stone was JKR’s first take on the concept, and that she recycled it later on to make it fit a new plot line. And I think the plot line it was needed for was the story of Dumbledore’s human frailty. Which emerged somewhere between books 5 and 6.

And the wand we only hear about in book 7. And what purpose does the wand serve in book 7? It provides an excuse for Voldemort to kill Snape, and it’s the means of Voldemort’s death.

So I’m thinking that the wand is a plot device. And as such, it’s attributes are determined by the function it provides. The wand needs not to fatally zap Harry. Since she’s already laid the groundwork for wands (memory, preference, attributes, loyalty) it’s not too much of a stretch to say that this wand knows its master.

Of course this is all conjecture. But fascinating stuff, to try to follow how the plot and characters changed over time, what was made to fit, what got recycled, and what was retrofitted.

BTW, I think that the diary in book 2 was also a retrofit, in this case, a retrofitted horcrux.

I don’t think she really means life-threatening peril. Remember that she’s distinguishing wand-loyalty situations from duels in school, where it’s simply for the sake of learning. It’s not a real fight. So I think what she has in mind is real fights vs. fake duels. People can get hurt in fake duels, and people might not be in real peril in real fights, but the difference is really about whether you’re really fighting, not about how much danger you might be in. I don’t think she expressed it all that clearly, but that’s what I think she had in mind, and it does make sense of the other things she said in a way that the more literal interpretation doesn’t.