Major Character’s Death Altered for ‘Harry Potter Deathly Hallows: Part 2’

For those of you who haven’t read the Harry Potter books and don’t want to be spoiled for the upcoming movie, be forewarned – there are MAJOR SPOILERS ahoy.

As with all of the Harry Potter film adaptations, changes have to be made from page to screen for a variety of reasons: time issues, medium differences, drama maximization, etc. Rarely, however, have the filmmakers altered anything so important as a major character’s death scene. Now, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, it seems they have, and with the blessing of J.K. Rowling herself.

One last time, for those hard of hearing – there are MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS ahead. If you want to go into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 completely unaware of what’s going to occur onscreen, exit your browser, turn off your monitor, and back away from your computer. Go watch television or something.

For everybody else…

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In the seventh Harry Potter book, Voldemort believes that Snape is the rightful owner of the Elder Wand – a wand he who shall not be named thinks is his only magical means to slay Harry Potter. Because Snape killed Dumbledore in book number six, thus making the wand his, Voldemort believes he must, in turn, kill Snape to once again transfer ownership. As such, he sets Nagini, his giant, evil snake, upon Snape, and voila – no more Severus Snape.

How exactly does the film differ? According to the art director, Andrew Ackland-Snow:

“We wanted to change a bit where Snape dies. In the book, he dies on the Shrieking Shack, and we wanted to get him out from, not a conventional interior, but from that kind of box, to do it in a more dramatic atmosphere. We asked J.K. if she agreed for that to happen in there, because we hadn’t really seen it before. We made a crystal house, and you can see what happens in the boathouse from there – Are you listening Harry? – but also the school is in flames…and she loved it. Besides, it’s a very romantic place to die. Snape dies in a extremely good way, I gotta say.”

I remember after reading the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, all anybody ever wanted to talk about was: Did Dumbledore order Snape to kill him, or is Snape actually a bad guy? Then we all had to wait two horrifically long years to learn the truth.

As I waited impatiently, I expected/hoped/prayed that something like 40% of the book would deal with Snape and the ‘good or bad’ plot thread. When 40% instead dealt with Harry, Ron, and Hermione trekking through the woods, and only something like…10% dealt with Snape, I was disappointed. Sure, it was great to learn that Snape was a good guy, but I wanted more. I wanted his death, and the ‘he was good all along!’ reveal, to be more climactic.

What I’m trying to say here is: I’m happy to hear that Snape’s ending has been changed for the big screen, at least in part. Snape is the tragic hero in the story of Harry Potter – he deserves a more fitting end. Perhaps his ending won’t be as drastically different as I hoped, but it’s still good to read things like “he dies in an extremely good way,”

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 hits theaters July 15th, 2011 in (sigh) 3D.

Source: Cine Premiere Mexico [via HPANA]

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New ‘Game of Thrones’ Trailer – Meet the Characters of Westeros

HBO has long been known as television’s number one place for compelling dramas, but the network’s upcoming fantasy show Game of Thrones is an entirely new challenge.

Will the network that made gritty dramas like The Sopranos and The Wire, succeed in the world of swords and sorcery? My guess would be yes, but you can’t blame them for hedging their bets with a massive marketing push.

In the last two months, HBO has released tons of content from Game of Thrones, including a teaser trailer, a huge 11-minute preview of the series, and a handful of new set photos. Over the weekend HBO released yet another trailer for the show, this time showing off the many characters in the series and their overlapping desires for the Iron Throne of Westeros.

Check out the new trailer below:

Game of Thrones is based on the popular A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series by George R.R. Martin. If you want to get caught up on the series before it premieres, I suggest you head over to Wikipedia for a more detailed summary (assuming you’ve got a few hours of free time to kill).

I am very interested to see how Game of Thrones turns out. The producers of the show have repeatedly said that it will appeal to both fantasy fans as well as non-fantasy fans, which is good, but what about people who are unfamiliar with the books? As a newbie to Martin’s fantasy series, my quick perusal of the Wikipedia article was head-spinning. Can HBO successfully translate 3,188 pages of literature into an accessible and successful TV series?

HBO rarely makes a misstep, so I will definitely give Game of Thrones a chance. At the very least, it will give me an opportunity to watch Sean Bean back in action as a bearded warrior, a la Boromir from Lord of the Rings.

I am curious to hear from fans of the book series. Having watched all of the promotional materials for this show, how do you think it will turn out? If you had to convince a non-fantasy-loving friend to check it out, what would be your biggest big selling point?

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Game of Thrones premieres April 17th, on HBO. Make sure to check back at that time for our review of the show.

Source: HBO

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Transformers 3 Characters: Meet The Dreads

Many fans and moviegoers have a love-hate -- maybe more of a like-hate relationship -- with Michael Bay’s live-action adaptation of Transformers. With its sequel, Revenge of the Fallen, it got a lot worse and many of the problems were due to the misuse of the film’s Cybertronian characters.

I’m not referring to the issue of characters following canon, as they don’t need to for a good Transformers movie to be made. It’s because there were so many characters that never spoke, didn’t have a name, and a pair (actually, twins) there were not only very controversial, but met the level of annoyance that only characters such as Jar Jar Binks could attain. From the amount of new toys being added with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, fear is rising that Transformers 3 may be offering more of the same in that department.

While the infamously stereotypical Twins were expected to return for Dark of The Moon, Michael Bay quickly shot down rumors that the vehicles were spotted on set, explaining that The Twins are not back for the third Transformers movie. We later were able to actually see them ourselves through some revealing set photos, so they will be back, likely (and hopefully) to be killed off. They will of course have a different paint job for toy merchandising purposes.

Perhaps stepping in to take the place of the Twins, assuming they do bite the bullet (laser?), there is another set of triplets! We already know about the three well-armed Nascar vehicles known as the Wreckers, and now we’re getting another set. The second triple-threat to be introduced in Transformers: Dark of the Moon are called the “Dreads” and in keeping the tradition, these 3 similar vehicles will also seemingly follow a stereotype in their design. Some images of the Decepticon SUV drones were leaked a while ago, but here are some new images of their toys picked up on by TFormers (hat tip to MovieWeb) which show their robot modes, so see for yourself:

And here’s a video of them chasing the fastest of the Autobots:

Why are they called the “Dreads” and more questionably, why do they literally have dreadlocks? I fear this cannot be good and it makes me wonder what we can expect from the Nascar-bots… Shia, do something please; You Promised.

In all seriousness, there are a ton of new vehicles joining the roster of characters for Dark of the Moon so we’ll keep you updated as we learn more about them. Transformers: Dark of the Moon hits theaters July 1st, 2011 and will be available in 3D.

Follow us on Twitter @ rob_keyes and @ screenrant.

Sources: Yahoo! Japan, DOTM Toys (via TFormers)

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