Arts & Entertainment
 

Potter plot takes risks that pay off

Nerd Alert

Barrett Goldsmith

Making movies for nerds is tough. 

Adapting any material into a film is tricky, but with some works the task is almost impossible. How do you make a film that is palatable to wide audiences but doesn't disappoint the millions of fans who hold the original to be sacrosanct? 

Whether it's Harry Potter, Peter Parker or Frodo Baggins, certain icons of the page demand a kind of reverence that even Jesus himself doesn't always receive. If Peter Jackson hadn't done so well adapting The Lord of the Rings, he would have faced a lot more wrath than Mel Gibson ever did. 

Before anybody gets the wrong idea, let me just say that I have no problem with such nerdiness. In fact, I practice it on a regular basis. I was at the midnight showing of all three of the movies in which the aforementioned characters were featured, and though I haven't yet worn a costume to one of those films, I defy anyone to stump me with a question about Harry Potter or Rings. 

But some fans of the book get the wrong idea about what a movie is supposed to be. I use the examples of Rings, Potter and Spider-Man because all three were excellent adaptations of the source material. 

Many hardcore Potter fans have griped that the latest film in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, omits too many scenes or plot elements from the book by J.K. Rowling. 

But for the most part, the problems are simply questions the film did not answer, questions to which fans of the book already know the answers. What do the names on the Marauder's Map mean? Who sent the Firebolt? Why does Snape hate Lupin so much? 

Another criticism is that some lines have been taken from one character and given to another. Filmmakers often have to give characters more lines to increase their dramatic weight in the story, and often those lines are supplied by similar characters. 

These grievances, while misplaced, are at least understandable. What bothers me is the people who insist that every minute detail of the book must appear on film. 

What these people and fans of other series fail to grasp is that movies can never hope to include all elements from a book or comic series. Not only would the length of any such movie be impractical, but also the nature of film would make some elements impossible to represent on screen. 

What they can hope to do, and what Azkaban does so well, is establishing its own identity and setting its own tone. The film is more faithful than the first two were, even if the actual story elements were less meticulously reproduced. 

And above all, Azkaban is the first film of the series that should inspire non-fans to finally break down and become nerds.

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