Book-based films: To see or not to see?

<b>KIDS' MOVIES</b><br><br>Harry Potter fans know just what their hero looks like. There's the black, unruly hair. The thin, lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. The glasses. The robes. And,

Monday, April 24th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

KIDS' MOVIES

Harry Potter fans know just what their hero looks like. There's the black, unruly hair. The thin, lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. The glasses. The robes. And, ooh, how about that swift, highly polished Nimbus 2000 broomstick Harry soars on in his Quidditch matches at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry?

And yet, will the image that each individual reader has in his or her head line up with whatever image director Chris Columbus fixes on the screen in the film version of Harry Potter coming next year?

How can it?

"I'm kind of looking forward to it, but also not, because sometimes the books are better than the movie," says Dane Jerabek, 11, of Dallas, who has performed in many books-turned-plays at Dallas Children's Theater.

"I really hope they get Hogwarts right because in the book they show it as a magical place with all the stars in the main hall, and it sounds like a really cool place to live."

Marc Hairston, who helps teach a film course at University of Texas at Dallas when he's not working as a research scientist of physics, says that's a common reaction.

He recalls a National Public Radio program last year with a sixth-grade teacher saying his students prefer not to see the illustrations for Harry Potter because they get so involved with their own thoughts of how the characters look.

That doesn't mean a film shouldn't be made, although there probably are literary purists who might argue that.

But it does open up the question of whether kids should be encouraged to read the Harry Potter books before seeing the movie - so they get a chance to work their own imaginations. (The fourth and latest Potter book is coming out July 8.)

Or do you wait for the movie to excite kids about reading?

Mr. Hairston, the professor, is pretty philosophical on that point.

"In an ideal world, you say, 'Go read the book first.' But sometimes it takes a movie to get kids to read. I saw Sword in the Stone when I was four or five. It wasn't until I was in junior high school that I even realized there was a book that went with it. And as soon as I saw it, I went and bought it. So in a sense, it works both ways."

Actually, the idea of the movie getting kids to read may be more of an issue for Lord of the Rings than it is for the Harry Potter saga, which is already selling very briskly even in the absence of movie, television and toy tie-ins. Lord of the Rings, the first of the three-part, live-action film version of the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy, is also being readied for a 2001 release from director Peter Jackson in Australia.

The two projects are superficially different. Harry is a relatively ordinary-looking boy growing up in contemporary England who discovers in his 10th year he's a wizard who is destined to be taught his craft at the Hogwarts, where spell and potion books are standard reading and wands, robes and cauldrons are required equipment.

Lord of the Ring's Frodo, who lives in Middle Earth at a time that predates ours, is a hobbit - a smallish human-like creature with hairy feet who lives in a nice, cozy hole in the ground.

But what the two stories share is the creation of fantastic, yet fully believable worlds with invented creatures: goblins and elves, wizards and dragons. Good and evil face off, and someone as young and new to this strange world as Harry or Frodo can make all the difference.

It also dips into the same but decidedly nonliterary mythological construct as Star Wars,with his Dark Side battling the Force, and even PokÃ©mon, again with youth caught in the midst of a battle between good and evil with fantastic creatures on either side.

But the greatest difference between the upcoming Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies is that there aren't as many children today who have read the Tolkien books.

Mr. Hairston predicts a "renaissance" in readership for the books after the movie comes out, and that's why he likes the multimedia approach to storytelling.

"It's broadened the audience because there are more ways for people to access a story, not just as a book but as a show. For a student who is more visually oriented, the movie may capture their imagination."

Montgomery Sutton, 13, of Dallas says that "unlike most people, I usually enjoy the movie more than the book."

It's not because he isn't attached to his vision of it, however. It's because he's fascinated by other people's ideas.

"I like to see stories from someone else's point of view," he says.

But he still likes to read the book first, and he has plans to plunge into both Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings this summer.

He's both read and performed in The Hobbit, which is the precursor to The Lord of the Rings, at the Dallas Children's Theater. And he checks out the Lord of the Rings Web site regularly at www.lordoftherings.net.

"When you read the book before, then you're not just seeing the director's view," Montgomery says. "You're still seeing your view. And it adds to the movie."