Originally posted by: Han Solo VS Indiana Jones

Originally posted by: Mike O
With the exception of the spectatuclar finale, I thought that HPB was, by and large, the weakest of the six books thus far. I do agree, however, that Columbus should be kept away from the franchise now.

I always thought book 2 was the weakest one. Well, at least we agree about keeping Columbus away.

Maybe you're right. Chamber is ripping good yarn, but outside of revealing a single Horcrux, it does little for the overall narrative. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of Stone. Prisoner and Goblet are sort of The Empire Strikes Back of the series and to a lesser extent, Order. I think that Order and Prince were showing cracks in the narrative a bit. After book seven, I'd be glad to eat my words if the whole thing is connected! Columbus is, to me, kind of like Lucas. He's sort of a poor man's Spielberg. His adaptations of the book are just that: he doesn't really add many touches of his own, unlike, say, Caruon. There are some impressive action set pieces (the rough bludger sequence, for example), everything feels so stiff and doesn't move or flow the way that the almost agonizingly suspenesful narrative in the books do. The Bassilisk, far from being frightening, sort of looked like a reject from Jurassic Park. Columbus is too wham-bam, and he is faithful to the letter of the book, but not so much to the spirit. He's a good technician and a good producer (look at the third film), like Lucas, but he is not much of a storyteller. Caruon had a very clear vision, even if it did not corralate with my own. But then again, I've always thought that that was something of a bad argument. No two peoples' vision of a book ar going to be exactly the same, and nothing even the most gifted filmaker can create will ever measure up to my own imagination. Doubtlessly, as I reread HBP, I will come to appreciate it more.