[davem]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

No they wouldn't. Authors almost never have any clout over what film makers do with their works when the right have been sold .... a notable exception being JK Rowling who had the advantage of not having completed the series at the start of filming and could say you can't do x because it compromises something in a later book.

.

On the subject of JKR & the Harry Potter movies, Orson Card makes some interesting points

The only point of comparison is Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Without denying his magnificent filmmaking achievement, I still have to point out that in almost every case where he changed significant plot points from the book, leaving some out and adding new ones, he cheapened and worsened the resulting story.

Part of this is that Jackson's writing team was not as good as the two writers who have worked on the Harry Potter films. LORD OF THE RINGS reeks of film-school bushwa in its silliest and most damaging changes.

But most of the difference is simply that Tolkien did not need cutting. He was already quite spare. Scene for scene, there is no waste. Rowling, on the other hand, is not (and has never claimed to be) a writer of Tolkien's talent, skill, or insight. Her novels COULD be cut, and indeed needed to be, and so better writers working with more uneven books were able to improve on Rowling, where Jackson's team could only damage Tolkien.

The result is that in a way, the Harry Potter series becomes, after the first two films, a FILM achievement that was more difficult and more remarkable than Jackson's undoubted achievement with LORD OF THE RINGS.http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/...4355119093.txt