[Emni Windrunner]

I think <I>The Chamber of Secrets</I> could have been a lot better if they had been more careful about what they cut and what they left in. That's the beauty of FOTR (I don't know about TTT yet, obviously): they kept in everything necessary to the story, and cut most of the extras (e.g. Tom Bombadil) without making it look like they'd cut extras. With HP, though, they made cuts for time that made sense, yet they left in other things that no longer made sense because of what they cut. A case in point: There was absolutely no reason whatsoever for Harry to come out of the fireplace at Knockturn Alley. It makes sense in the book, because that's where Harry sees Lucius Malfoy selling off a bunch of Voldemort's old stuff, but since they took that entire scene out of the movie, there was no point at all for having the Knockturn Alley sequence in there. There were some other things that should have (or just could have) been cut that weren't because they were trying to stay true to the book. Aragog was completely dispensible in the book, to say nothing of the movie, and if you take out Aragog (which I wish they had; I have arachnophobia that makes Ron's look like nothing), you don't have to even have the flying car in, if you think about it. However, best to leave the car in, since it introduces the Whomping Willow, and it stays true to the book with little time wasted. But, as my roommate pointed out, they could have removed Dobby entirely, saved stacks of time, and changed the story very little to do it (another change I wish they'd made; I hate that little runt with a purple passion). Unlike FOTR, which was tightly held together in spite of all of the cuts, CoS felt flighty, like it jumped around a lot. Thus, in terms of comparing effectiveness in translating the books to screen, FOTR kicks CoS's butt several times over, and I have a feeling TTT will do the same.