Question for Harry Potter fans

This is a somewhat unusual request, but I need your help compiling a list of all the scenes with snakes in the Harry Potter series. You see, my wife wants to watch the series with me, but she's mortally frightened of snakes. Even the sight of one on the TV screen is enough to give her a panic attack, and from the few times I've seen some of these movies, I recall that snakes and snake-like motifs are featured prominently. My solution? Do a quick-and-dirty fanedit removing all the snake scenes. I did this with the Indiana Jones movies, and it worked out quite well (dramatic pacing was damaged at times, but it beats the alternative, which is not watching the movie at all).

One problem: as I mentioned, I've only seen the first five films (and only one or two viewings per film), and am thus not very familiar with the intricacies of each one. So if those of you who are more acquainted with these movies could help me complete the list of scenes with snakes (or snake-like creatures, apparitions, etc.), I would be most grateful.

The few scenes I do recall are:

Sorcerer's Stone

-Snake at the zoo who speak to Harry

Chamber of Secrets

-Snake that appears during the wand-duel

-Basilisk at the end (not sure how I'm gonna pull this one off)

Goblet of fire

-Snake is shown after Harry teleports toward end of film

Thanks!

The climax of the last movie pretty much is Nagini, so they'll be a lot of you filling in the blanks...

Sorry, I'd have to watch them in fast forward to remember them all. A tough challenge though for you!

If the scenes are important plot-wise, why not change the reptiles into something else with cg? I'm actually half serious right now. If you're going through the trouble of editing them, might as well try to save what you can...

thejediknighthusezni said:

     If you want to go the easy route, you could place a bug on the screen whenever a viper is about to appear and a noise or tone when the reptile scene is over.

     Or, you could simply place a black box over the creatures. :/

 

That's the basic idea. For plot-important scenes, delete the video on frames where snakes are shown, leaving the audio. That way the screen blanks out, but you can still hear what's going on, thus tracking the storyline to some degree. Like I said, it worked pretty well with the Indiana Jones films. Created sort of a "strobe light" effect during the escape from the well of the souls, but it was actually less distracting than you'd think. I'm not going for quality worthy of a public release, just a quick hack-n-slash treatment that's watchable and followable.

The reason I wanted to get everyone's input on a list of "offending" scenes is so that I don't accidentally miss one.

TV's Frink said:

I can't imagine how difficult this scene was for her:

Actual LOL

Snapes. Why'd it have to be Snapes?

Akwat Kbrana said:

That's the basic idea. For plot-important scenes, delete the video on frames where snakes are shown, leaving the audio. That way the screen blanks out, but you can still hear what's going on, thus tracking the storyline to some degree.

The only serious point people have been trying to make here is that a giant snake features heavily in the plot, particularly in the climax/finale of the final film. We're not sure what you're asking is doable.

Your insight serves you well, captain obvious. I'm aware of the challenges involved. That's why the question posed by this thread isn't "Do you think this kind of edit is doable," but rather "Would you mind assisting me in compiling a list of snake-scenes in these films?"

Oh, I agree completely. In fact, I've tried to do as you recommend on more than one occasion. Unfortunately, it's an irrational fear. Even though she knows full well that most snakes are harmless, she has been thus far powerless to suppress the reaction...

Read the books.

Why don't you just jump up in front of the screen and waggle your arms saying 'No Snakes here! No snakes here! wwaaaaaaaa wooooooooo la la la!!!!"

That'll stop her worrying about the snakes on TV

greenpenguino said:

Why don't you just jump up in front of the screen and waggle your arms saying 'No Snakes here! No snakes here! wwaaaaaaaa wooooooooo la la la!!!!"

 

That'll stop her worrying about the snakes on TV

But, won't she still see a snake?

...Oh wait - Do you wear clothes while doing this?

darth_ender said:

Wow, I know no one who can confuse me quite like Bingowings.

Well, he's doing something right.

Davnes007 said:

greenpenguino said:

Why don't you just jump up in front of the screen and waggle your arms saying 'No Snakes here! No snakes here! wwaaaaaaaa wooooooooo la la la!!!!"

 

That'll stop her worrying about the snakes on TV

But, won't she still see a snake?

 

 

...Oh wait - Do you wear clothes while doing this?

Clothing is optional, but I doubt she's scared of... those kind of snakes....

In case anyone's interested/curious, Just thought I'd mention that I finished this project a couple weeks ago. All in all, it was pretty easy. The simplest film was the Half-Blood prince (no work required) while the hardest was definitely Deathly Hallows part 2.

Contrary to what you might expect, not one plot-essential scene was rendered incomprehensible by the editing. For the final battle of Deathly Hallows 2 (which posed the biggest challenge), my task was made easier by the fact that the fighting takes place on multiple fronts. The Harry-Voldemort scenes were able to be left intact, and during the Ron-Hermoine-Nagini sequences there were sufficient reaction shots without the snake visible that I was able to leave untouched, thus creating something of an interesting "strobe light" effect and allowing the action to be trackable.

Thanks for the ideas and input, everyone.