Duplicity

I recently found out that "Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows" and "The Hobbit" are going to be
two-part cinematic adaptations of their respective books.
I started doing some math to find out how much value
we received from the previous HP film versions.

I used the page count for the 1st edition
hardcovers for Harry Potter and the standard
DVD run times. The ideal should be a 1:1 ratio,
to get the best value for our hard-earned money:

Sorcerer's Stone
Book--309 pages
Movie--152 minutes
Pages/Minute ratio: 2.03

Chamber of Secrets
Book--352 pages
Movie--161 minutes
Pages/Minute ratio: 2.19

Prisoner Of Azkaban
Book--448 pages
Movie--142 minutes
Pages/Minute ratio: 3.15 We're Getting Less Value...

Goblet Of Fire
Book--734 pages
Movie--157 minutes
Pages/Minute ratio: 4.68

Order Of The Phoenix
Book--870 pages
Movie--139 minutes
Pages/Minute ratio: 6.26 We've lost quite a bit...

Half Blood Prince is 652 pages. A movie
version that is 200 minutes long would
yield a 3.26 Pages/Minute ratio, improving
upon the "Order of the Phoenix" figure.

Deathly Hallows is 784 pages, but will be
two movies. Suddenly 784 pages is too
long to be one film.

The average length of the
five previous movies is 150 minutes.

"Deathly Hallows" 784 pages divided by 2 is 392,
divided by 150 minutes is 2.61 Pages/Minute.
We've regained our value, but we should
have had a two-part "Prisoner Of Azkaban",
"Goblet of Fire", definitely a multiple
"Order Of The Phoenix" and a To Be Continued
"Half Blood Prince" using the studio's logic
(any book over 392 pages?)

This is not even taking into consideration
that many pages were left out in the
movie adaptations, decreasing the
Pages/Minute ratio value substantially.

But beware the fan-produced HP lexicon
concocted in Grand Rapids, Michigan...

Pop Culture Nodules

Just some nuggets of thought on
several different items from the
Summer:

*MTV VMAs--what videos?

*WALL*E--where were the doctor bots?
Were the robots programmed with any
"laws"? Perhaps there were nanobots
working inside the humans, helping
keep processes going. There were no
graveyards on the ship, so the space
cruisers must have been thriving.

*"The Fall"--new movie on DVD from
director Tarsem Singh. This could
have been an M. Night film, but it
actually resonated and seemed worth
the trip. Happier than "Pan's Labyrinth"
by just a bit (double spoiler).

*"Viva La Vida" by Coldplay--got pretty
good towards the middle of the album.

*Palin for VP--I always think of "Michael"
when I hear that last name. Think of his
character's bureaucratic potential in the
movie "Brazil" (probably a Republican in that
one too).

*The Olympics in HD--the visual technology
portrays healthy individuals rather well.
What will the 2009 switch show the world
about the plastic surgeon carved visages
of Hollywood? Time for the HD filters!

*HD radio--with digitized static for free?

*The "Watchmen" trailer looks good--
we will watch the Watchmen.

*Blu-Ray technology--wants to oust the DVD,
but still priced like Laser Discs.