Harry Potter and The order of the Phoenix (movie)

[bipper]

I am rather suprised I have not seen a thread for this yet (unless I am blind)

I got a sneak peak at this movie yesterday (through work at Great Clips) and it was rather awesome. IT was a bit hard to follow, imo, and it seemed very rushed - though, for some reason, I still really enjoyed the movie. It is almost as though the rushed feeling made Harry's confusion more believable!

Luckily, I seen it in IMAX, and the last 20 minutes were in 3-d, and done quite well. I don't really want to spoil it for anyone, so I won't go into why. I also heard a lot of complaints on the pace and how different the movie was from the book.

What did you guys think? And was it too different from the book?

[cloud21zidane16]

well i havent seen it yet but the book was one of the worst of them all, it wasnt bad but the others were much better very dark as well so i imagine the film is even darker

[LunarWeaver]

I haven't seen it yet either, but I expect all the things everybody in the world is going to complain about. This is the longest book and will have the most changed and cut out, and I assume many characters will appear on screen for 10 seconds and then never again. A lot of fans will freak out and be all WORST EVAR, but they can't make it 23.6 hours long :x_x:

I'm excited for it. I'm glad to hear you liked it =O

[bipper]

I loved that new girl character - the blond/white haired girl that is a bit quirky. Her character is absolutely adorable in every manner. Her character is just so - real.

[Peegee]

I've read all the books except the first 3 (because the movies were good enough), and I haven't been able to read this book in years. I just utterly loathed it -- the pacing was bad and as stated, it was the longest book.

I ended up reading the wikipedia article about it to find out the plot details (no spoilers in this post). What I will say is that I will be going to watch it tonight, thankfully in a rare large blob of people. Finally!

Harry Potter!

[Araciel]

i am going to see it tonight (in IMAX also)...it looks awesome from the previews and the actors seem to be growing just as i had pictured them in the books. i read OoTP when it first came out and i thought i should reread it to catch up but decided against it

[I Don't Need A Name]

I loved that new girl character - the blond/white haired girl that is a bit quirky. Her character is absolutely adorable in every manner. Her character is just so - real.

Luna, yeah, shes surely different

I've read all the books except the first 3 (because the movies were good enough), and I haven't been able to read this book in years. I just utterly loathed it -- the pacing was bad and as stated, it was the longest book.

I ended up reading the wikipedia article about it to find out the plot details (no spoilers in this post). What I will say is that I will be going to watch it tonight, thankfully in a rare large blob of people. Finally!

BLASPHAMY

All of the past movies i have hated (number 3 was bearable) because they make them WAY too fast, and dont go into details.
With HP5 they miss out Quidditch, which im annoyed at, and im really not expecting much from it.

[GooeyToast]

So, this movie is dark, fast, and stylized. Oh wow, MTV style editing in Harry's nightmares! Extreme close-ups of eyeballs! How totally rebellious and edgy! Unfortunately the plot was completely raped by the screenwriter, who pretty much strung together the entire story hoping it would work without putting any damn effort into making it connect in any way. Also, key events that took the span of many pages in the book were pretty much reduced to minute long clips with no emotional response whatsoever. For example, (SPOILER)Sirius' death...so yeah, he's dead. Oh well. No bother mentioning it again. All that heart-wrenching dialog between them earlier, and yet Harry doesn't bother to show remorse at having lost his only father figure.

Key characters such as Luna, Sirius, Tonks, Bellatrix were reduced to one-dimensional plot points that had pretty much one characteristic, be it insane, quirky, sad, or evil, and no back story or explanation as to why they are there. Half of them just come out of smurfing nowhere, like Bellatrix. Cho is only there to kiss Harry and make a nice, loving scene....and then we never see her again. It's just ridiculous, and it's horrible writing, especially considering the source material is so intricate and involving.

As a functional story with worthwhile characters, conflict, and drama this film fails. As a visual orgasm for ADD America, it works. Good job guys, you ruined my favorite book of the series.

[bipper]

yeh, even thought the books are out, you may want to spoiler tag you blurb on Sirius. Yeah, I see what you mean through this rant, but how else would they have tact the long book into the movie? It is the problem with screen writing, especially on time constraints

[Rye]

As I said in my LJ entry:

WAH I AM SO DISSAPOINTED WITH THE NEW HARRY POTTER MOVIE. I SUPPOSE IF YOU DON'T READ THE BOOKS IT'S AWESOME, AND IT WAS STILL AN EPIC MOVIE, BUT THEY DIDN'T HAVE WEASLEY IS OUR KING OR CHO DATING OR FRED AND GEORGE'S SWAMP AND THEY BARELY MENTIONED THE GIANTS AND WHERE IS THAT SNITCH GIRL AND NEEDS MORE TONKS AND (SPOILER)WHEN SIRIUS DIED HARRY WAS LIKE "NOOOO oh wait nvm lolololol! :]"

Waaaaaaaaaaaah. I am a broken shell of a girl!

I felt like they left out so many great details, like St. Mungos and everything. The movie was still decent, but this was probably the best book in the whole series after HBP and if they took out the ty 1 hour vignette of stuff that Umbridge didn't even DO in the book (Wow, chasing the Room of Requirement, how COOL!) and upcloses of EYEBALLS (Hahah, GooeyToast) and Voldemort in a sexy suit, and including even just freaking WEASLEY IS OUR KING, I would have been so much happier. And what was up with Harry when (SPOILER)Sirius died?! Jesus christ, he was like WAAAH MY ONLY FATHER FIGUR- wait nevermind, I'm going to give a mushy speech about fighting for a cause now.

With that said, I hope Dumbledore can get his head out of his butt for the next movie, since he has such a major role in it. He's so unbelievable in these movies.

But still, despite my QQ whiny rant, it was still an enjoyable movie. It's just that it was more of a giant cinematic fight scene than a movie. Sorry, makers of Order of the Phoenix movie, Vegeta says he wants his Super Saiyan back.

PS: One good point of the movie was lots of hot Fred and George. I was not dissapointed in that aspect.

[GooeyToast]

I wouldn't expect people to come into this thread without having seen the movie first, so unless they want it spoiled that's their fault. But I'll tag it anyways.

[Shlup]

Books and movies are entirely different creatures. Comparing the two is a fools errand. Or something.

[GooeyToast]

I agree. I'm not denying that films are going to make sacrifices, but when you completely ignore any kind of emotion or backstory at all, it just makes for a bad film, which is what I expressed my opinion on. Even though I was never a big fan of the first four, at least they managed to be coherent as a whole.

[Rye]

I think the only movie that was accurate to the book was the first one, to be honest. I think the problem with each movie is that it can't balance between serious and fun and image and script. Each movie is either a total joke (lol Prisoner of Azkaban!), or up it's own butt in serious SUPER SAIYAN HAAAAh action. And it's either all QQing script, or just, as I said, SUPER SAIYAIN HAAAAAH! BEHOLD MY GIANT WATER BALL!

[GooeyToast]

I don't know, the more I watch PoA, the more I like it. Cuaron did a great job directing, and though a lot was skimmed over and changed from the book, I find that it works well as a separate entity. And yes, the first two did remain true to the books, but then again those books were much shorter, and aimed more towards kids.

As a side note, am I the only one who hated the way Luna was portrayed in the film? It seemed to me like she was spaced out of her mind the entire time like she was high or something. And what was with that horrible grin she had on all the time? It made me cringe.

Edit: Also I forgot to mention that those bastards left out Dung. And Kreacher had two scenes in the entire movie, and played no part at all in the end. Anyone who's read the book would know why this was a horrible decision.