Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Trailer

[Christopher]

Peeves the Poltergiest never did and never will exist.

The Wizard battle was quite nice.

Luna's backstory a bit non-existant.

[Mongrel]

FINALLY! It's gotten to the point where the actors have found their grooves(for the most point) and settled into them. The effects were great, and the story didn't drag. The plot was quite altered, because you have to change a lot of things to condense a story as big as Order of the Phoenix, but what it basically did was play connect the dots: most of the important scenes are there in some fashion, but we arrive at those points in a different way. It manages to tell a lot of story without boring the audience. I think this movie finally managed, if not to hit the bullseye completely, at least to hit inside the target. The fourth I've only seen once, but the first three movies were just bleh to me. Also, the young actors have really improved since the series began, and that makes the whole movie so much better.

[Bangel]

I'm seeing it in approximately two and a half hours.

I'm beating you by an hour

You saw it at 11PM?
Or maybe you're in a different timezone...

Anyway.

The girl who played Luna was perfect for the role, in my opinion.
I felt they left out two hugely important parts, which will be under the spoiler tag.

1. No mention at all of Ron and Hermione being made prefects.
2. NO QUIDDITCH.
The latter made me angrier because it is hugely important to the story. Weasley is our king, damnit. WEASLEY. IS. OUR. KING.

Kreacher = LOL.
Bellatrix was not at all how I saw her in my mind, but she was excellent.
Battle at the end was cool.
I guess it probably, in the end, stayed with the book around 70% of the time.
Which is more than you can ask of any movie inspired by a book.

[Matrinka]

I can't get into it all... but even with the changes (except for THE scene at the end) didn't bother me. They did a VERY good job at distilling an 850+ page book.

What made me dance on air was that RON FINALLY WASN'T A STUPID WUSS! They did a GREAT job with the characters, I finally believed in everyone. Luna was spot on perfect. And Ron was great! Brave and loyal! (I love Ron!)

[Pickles]

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm curious as to whether or not they added in one particular scene (that had disturbed me in the book) before I go to see it.

Was the blood quill scene included?

[Bangel]

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm curious as to whether or not they added in one particular scene (that had disturbed me in the book) before I go to see it.

Was the blood quill scene included?

Yes.

[Pickles]

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm curious as to whether or not they added in one particular scene (that had disturbed me in the book) before I go to see it.

Was the blood quill scene included?

Yes.

Oh, drat. I'd hoped they didn't. Well, I guess that'll be the opportunity for me to bury my face in my husband's shoulder and have him tell me when it's over.

[Shadow]

I waited about 2 and a half hours before the midnight showing at the local IMAX theatre in Houston. I was pumped when the movie finally started but the beginning was kind of....lame almost. There were a lot of things left out that could have been included to make the story fit a little bit better but I guess it had to be done. It would be so awesome if they did a Harry Potter extended edition movie deal like what they did for Lord of the Rings but I guess its a bit too late for the first four films.

[Mongrel]

I'm seeing it in approximately two and a half hours.

I'm beating you by an hour

You saw it at 11PM?
Or maybe you're in a different timezone...

Eastern. I think you're in Central?

Bellatrix was a bit too "typical Halloween witch" for me, but maybe it was just her cackling. I thought she was strangely pretty, though.

[hpfanfiction]

I saw it 12 hours ago and this is what I thought

Ok, but was really short (especially considering that the book is the longest by far!). Wish they'd included petunia's "remember my last" howler, and done sirius' death better, but otherwise, pretty good job

[Fiddelysquat]

I loved it. I think it was the best one so far by a longshot. They did a superb job of translating the book into a film. With the other movies it was sometimes a dry retelling, random scenes thrown together in a hodgepodge, or the insertion of VERY bizarre things that weren't in the books (rastafarian shrunken heads, anyone?). I love all the films despite their flaws, but this one was just superb.

[hpfanfiction]

I loved it. I think it was the best one so far by a longshot. They did a superb job of translating the book into a film. With the other movies it was sometimes a dry retelling, random scenes thrown together in a hodgepodge, or the insertion of VERY bizarre things that weren't in the books (rastafarian shrunken heads, anyone?). I love all the films despite their flaws, but this one was just superb.

I agree that it was the best movie so far (in that they did a pretty good job of translating the scenes that made it into the movie). However, I believe that it was a little too short, especially given the length of the book and considering the length of the other movies (don't quote me on this, but I'm sure it was the shortest movie despite being by far the longest book). This is what I thought:

The acting has really improved beyond recognition. The trio have become more and more settled into their roles with age and maturity, and aduts such as alan rickman and maggie smith were brilliant once again. I loved the imperonation of umbridge, and much preferred this portrayal of sirius to the one in the 3rd movie (gary oldman did a great job, and they really built harry's and padfoot's relationship. Luna was perfect. Only criticisms (and even then, it's rather personal/opinion-based ones) are Mrs Figg's portrayal, and the new-look dementors
-Favorite scenes that I wish had made the cut (or fingers crossed, the extended-edition DVD!) include: Petunia's "remember my last howler", harry trashing dumbledore's office after hearing about the prophecy, Sirius' two-way mirror gift to harry and it being smashed but never used, and a longer and more detailed flashback to the marauders' era via the penseive rather than snape's direct memory.
-I loved the many obvious r/h hints and the slightly more subtle h/g hints
-I wish bellatrix hadn't cast avada kedevra (and used another curse with a red beam as in the book) before sirius fell into the veil, as this may have given the impression that the curse (rather than the veil) was the cause of his tragic death. As noted above though, they did a good job in building sirius' relationship with harry (to make up for his very brief role in the 4th movie).
-During the thestral flying scene, it would have been really cool to show a glimpse of flying from a non luna/harry perspective ie the appearance of flying in thin air!
-I understand the reasoning behind making Cho (rather than Marietta) the traitor, though I'm glad it was revealed later that umbridge used veritiserum on her
-Although I knew that Quidditch would play no part in the movie, it would have been cool to hold the "Weasley is our King" match offstage.
-As in previous movies, I loved the comic relief provided by fred and george (extendable ears, apparition, "the big bang"!, etc), and was really glad that hermione's claim that ron has an "emotional range of a teaspoon" made the cut!
OVERALL, A WONDEFUL MOVIE AND EASILY THE BEST HARRY POTTER MOVIE SO FAR, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY TO DIE-HARD HARRY POTTER FANS, A WONDERFUL PRELUDE TO DEATHLY HALLOWS

Last edited by hpfanfiction on Thu Jul 12, 2007 5:44 am, edited 3 times in total.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, this one's the shortest one yet(2 hrs and 18 minutes).

[hpfanfiction]

Yeah, this one's the shortest one yet(2 hrs and 18 minutes).

Thanks for confirming, I thought so I guess it's even more credit to them that they managed to do such a great job on by far the longest harry potter book despite it being the shortest movie!

[Fiddelysquat]

These are my extended thoughts on the film and my opinion on how it was edited. It contains some spoilers:

Don't get me wrong, I loved movie 4, but if you haven't read the books it made NO sense and it seemed to me like they crammed as much crap as they could into 2 hours and 30 minutes with no coherency or cinematic "moments". I know we'd all like to see our favorite parts of the books, but you can't just hand the actors and everyone else involved in the movie a copy of OotP and say, "Go on, then. Make the movie exactly like this."

Film and literature are two vastly different mediums. As a dedicated fan of both I'm very glad that they didn't slog as many plot points and little sidestories into this movie for the sake of "authenticity". The story was edited superbly in order to make it digestable in movie format and in order to give the audience the time to absorb the emotions that the film incites.

I think that Yates (the director) has a much firmer grasp on the true nature of Rowling's character than any of the other directors. I am especially glad that we got a chance to see Ron as more than just comic relief: his loyalty to his friends is his best characteristic, and the other directors have just been writing him off as an irritating coward and throwing a couple of laugh-track moments for him in the films.

The scene in the common room where he sticks up to Seamus for Harry and asks if 'anyone else in the room has got a problem with Harry' was very touching. The fact that he didn't react angrily or immaturely when Harry was being a jerk to him also gave his film character more depth. Even though Hermione teases him about having the emotional range of a teaspoon, Ron is grown up enough to know that Harry is going through very difficult times and he makes allowances for Harry's temper.

Luna, in short, was excellent. That was this young actress's first film and I'm very glad they picked her. I was also very glad that they included that scene between Harry and Luna when she is putting up bulletins for her stolen things. The thestral scene was also very well done. The film did a lovely job of showing the connection that the loss of a parent and the witnessing of death has forged between Luna and Harry.

As a huge Neville fan, I was extremely pleased to see how he was portrayed, and I was very glad that they showed the confidence he gained from being praised by his peers. I'm also happy about the moment between Harry and Neville.

Overall, I feel they did the characters justice and I am very pleased with the film. I highly recommend it.