Sunday, 28 November 2010

part 1, 2 and comics

Quite recently as you may all be aware of, is that the new Harry Potter film has come out and it's part one of two parts.
Now before I start I don't like Harry Potter and in my defense I gave it a good go. I watched two and a half of the first three Harry Potter films (can't remember their names) and was completely bored of them. But anyway part 1 has come out and I have noticed people coming away from the film slightly disappointed.
The disappointment is that the film feels like an incomplete story requiring you to watch part 2 to enjoy and understand the story fully.

This in film is unacceptable and is completely unfair.

The only two times I can remember where I had to watch the next part of the film were The Matrix squeals and the Pirates sequels.
If you cant explain or execute a story in one film, then the story/book/comic/theme park ride should be considered unfilmable. But in the two examples I have mentioned there was no need for a part 1 and 2 to the story (no idea on Harry Potter mind as I have not seen it) and could have been just the one film.
Also artistically a film can work over two and a half hours, look at Ben Hur, Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai for examples, so there is no excuse for this part 1 and 2 rubbish.
Use intermission's again Hollywood as you will make plenty of money back from Harry Potter...oh yeah sorry you only care about money, not the final product.
I mean I can watch The Empires Strike Back, enjoy it and not need to watch the first one to enjoy it. Just not Star Wars but James Bond, Batman, The Godfather and Indiana Jones. There should be no excuse for the audience member who hasn't seen the film before or the inevitable second part after, to enjoy the film they are watching there and then in the cinema. It's called effort!!!!!!!

I also hate it when you have to got outside the film to enjoy/understand whats going on. When I say going "outside" I mean having to read the book, read twenty years of a comic franchise or what the director says in interviews to explain what the hell is going on in a scene or even the film itself sometimes.
A good example of this is Richard Kelly's film Southland Tales as he expected everyone originally to buy the three prequel comics to the film, so everyone is up to date to what is going on in the film.
Yes I know what you are thinking and agree with you...What a pretentious prick.
So he showed his film in Cannes to film critics from around the world (who I very much doubt read the comics) and surprise, surprise got booed big time .
So Sony (who I think bought the film after Cannes, God knows why as it was clearly a mess from what I saw of the final product never mind the Cannes cut of the film) got Richard to shoot some new scenes and put the three prequel comics at the beginning of the film to explain the story better.  
At least Sony saw that the idea of people having to buy the comics to know what was going on in the film was stupid, but I think they bought rights purely to put on the TV adverts "from the director of Donnie Darko". Which is how Hollywood works I'm sorry to say and they know people will watch part 1 and 2 of Harry Potter.

Next up The Hobbit part 1 and 2.


....Great.




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