http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,48466,00.html Potter Fans Should Love the Film By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) 11:30 a.m. Nov. 16, 2001 PST Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is less an intrepid cinematic undertaking than a painstaking attempt not to vex the book's millions of fans. Few films have ever been as true to their origin: Nearly every dragon, goblin and troll who graces J.K. Rowling's insanely popular novel flaps, crawls or stomps its way across the big screen version too. From the pig tail on the rear of Harry's porcine cousin to Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Rowling's whimsical touches have survived the transition intact. By the time Harry crosses the lake to Hogwarts, even the most ardent Potterphiles will forget they had ever imagined the book's characters looking any other way. That, combined with the generally splendid special effects, is all that should be necessary to transfigure the movie into a magical success. While the film may have cost an estimated $150 million, the hordes of Muggles and their offspring already queuing up to see it should make Harry Potter one of the most profitable movie franchises ever. Yet the price that director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves paid for their punctilious adherence to Rowlings' Holy Writ is a movie almost as bulky as cake-swilling Dudley: It tilts the hourglass at 2 hours, 23 minutes. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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