There's magic in the air
I saw Harry Potter last night. Wow. I won't give any spoilers for the movie itself, but I did feel I needed to say some things about the film. Filmmakers take note, this is how you do a movie of a book. For the most part it was very true to the book. Any time you go from the written word to live you have to make changes. There are things that work on paper that just don't work well on film.
Hollywood on the other hand has this tendancy to need to change things. Actors will decide that they have final say over how the character they play would act. Producers make changes. Everyone is on their own little ego trip. So you'll see a movie suddenly change to become nothing like the book it was based on.
Harry Potter did quite a good job of really sticking to the story and bringing a fantasy world to life. One 9 year old reviewer on the radio said he loved the movie, almost more then the book, because it gave him some an idea of how Hogwarts might look. I know I can't wait to go back and read all the books now myself.
Of course now I am waiting impatiently for book 5 and movie 2.
