Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
by Nathan on Jul.12, 2007, under Uncategorized

Kim who was very excited, and I went to see the 8pm showing last night. This is the first Harry Potter movie I have seen in the theater and will probably be the last. We first arrived about 30min early, only to find that all the good seats were taken. We ended up sitting on the edge looking at the screen on an angle. Then right before the previews a women from Rave comes to talk to all of us like we are in a school auditorium about to see the Seniors put on a play. It just felt weird, and childish.About 5min into the movie I start thinking, damn this movie isn’t anything like I imagined. I was remembering what I had imagined while reading the book, and comparing it to the movie, this make the movie suck. I knew they couldn’t fit all the information from the book into a 2hr long movie, but some things they left out seemed obvious. The whole story behind the prophecy, getting lost in the Ministry of Magic, some of the fighting, these were all left out of the movie. These are the conclusions I have come up with.
If you have read the book, DON’T SEE THE MOVIE!
If you haven’t read the book, see the movie THEN READ THE BOOK!
Rating: 



Since I read the book first.
Rating: 



Otherwise


August 12th, 2007 on 1:28 am
My thoughts exactly. It was as though the producers belabored themselves over just touching on each central plot point within the movie’s timeframe, without doing any particular part of the story justice. They barely covered the development of Cho and Harry’s relationship, and skipped out entirely on much of the issues in Harry and Ron’s friendship. The result was a movie which serves more as a live-action companion to the book than as a good film on its own merits.
– SPOILER WARNING for those who haven’t read Half-Blood Prince… –
On the other hand, it was interesting to see the filmmakers apply their advance knowledge of at least the next book in the series. Reading Order of the Phoenix, it didn’t strike me that Rowling fully anticipated Harry and Ginny’s relationship to be developed later in the series; however, the movie contained some subtle foreshadowing of this romance which was not present in the book.
Anyway, I absolutely agree with your assessment. Seeing Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort duke it out in the Ministry of Magic was one of the coolest things that this Harry Potter fanboy’s seen on the silver screen in a long while – but on the whole, this movie doesn’t hold a candle to the book itself.