Harry Potter - love or hate it?

[emmasi]

Well, at some point I totally forgot that Draco had anything to do with this lol. I blame the movies, they totally phased him out of the last one. He had something like a minute of screen time.

[Drew]

If anything, the 5th book should have been cut in half... But I think they would be two very boring movies... The 5th book doesn't phase me as much, however I did like the movie because they did cut alot of the boring stuff out. Like all the Quiditch stuff... I like it, but there was alot of it in the 5th book... It would have been nice however if they mentioned Ron joining the team to keep with the continuation.

Anyway, from memory, I don't think Draco was in the 5th book much at all... But I haven't read it in awhile, so don't quote me on that.

[Formerly Known as FKAJ]

I liked the 4th one (except for Hermione PMSing throughout the entire movie.) I think I got lost on the Crouches, but other than that I thought it was pretty well done. They ditched the House Elves, but I didn't find myself needing them. They always felt like filler to the book. The explanation of Barty Jr sending up the Dark Mark himself, and Neville giving Harry the Gillyweed worked for me. Although it might become an issue in the 7th movie... or whatever number it will be, if things are getting split up into parts... when the House Elves become more significant.

I was indifferent to the 5th movie. Because I hated the book so much, the movie is better by virtue of being shorter (by about two weeks of my life I'll never get back). Plus it has Luna and Thestrals, so I was happy. Oh, and there was a Sirius/Remus moment where they were practically sitting in each other's laps. Nice. The Sirius... incident... was crap, but it was always gonna be. The book didn't give them anything to work with.

The third movie should be stricken from the history books and replaced by something adequate before our generation can be tried for crimes against films, literature, and humanity.

I loved all of those books, perhaps the fourth one not as much, but the 5th is my personal favourite. I can't really explain why, but I don't think that there was as much non-essential stuff as in number 4. And I loved the Umbridge character, possibly the most detestable characters in the series, which added to the satisfaction of seeing Harry rebelling against her.

I hated the film of Prisoner of Azkaban because of the unexplained set changes (even in in Harry Potter, "a wizard did it" is not satisfactory!) and the total lack of detailed exposition regarding the Marauders. I will admit though that there was some more powerful acting from the teens than in 1 and 2.

Goblet of Fire was often pretty exciting, especially the scene with the dragon, but cutting the Quidditch World Cup?! And the resolution to the Rita Skeeter story? And the blowout between Dumbledore and Fudge? And any kind of information about the Crouches? And Bertha Jorkins, the whole reason why Voldemort knew about the tournement and that Barty Crouch Jr. was alive? And Ludo Bagman, one of the most entertaining yet devious and unscrupulous characters in the series? But I'm glad the house-elves were cut, that did get annoying. And I was impressed by the merging of the Karkaroff trial and the Crouch trial in the pensieve scene. Ralph Fiennes was excellent, too, as were most of the actors.

Order of the Phoenix would stand somewhere in between. I was pissed off by the minimal information given about the prophecy, which would never have made sense to anyone who hadn't read the books. The Harry-Cho relationship was underdone, as well, not given the closure that it was in the book. The Quidditch matches should have been in there too, and the faillure to even hint at Kreacher's involvement in the trap at the end is not going to help either of the next two movies. The other thing I didn't like was the omission of the article that Harry writes for the Quibbler. Again, though, I have to give credit Imelda Staunton and the rest of the cast. And I did like the merging of the scene with Snape's pensieve with the scene where Harry uses a shield charm and sees flashes of Snape's memory, a tactic which I can believe Harry wouldn't have got detention for, unlike in the book. But even that is problematic because we don't see enough to foreshadow Snape's unrequited love for Lily.

Overall, I don't think any of the movies since Chamber of Secrets were satisfactory adaptaions of the source books, not the way Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia were. But I do maintain shred of optimism for Deathly Hollows, because with a two part film we can expect a good 4, maybe 5 hours to see the the story told right. But I wish they'd thought of that before screwing up Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix.

[lolajaney]

i haven't read the seventh yet, but i enjoyed 6th and hated the 5th one

[Jen]

From what I've read/seen Nat Tena (Tonks) revealed at a fan conference that they never shot the funeral. I guess that doesn't mean there won't be any sort of memorial, because they can just as easily have Harry & Co. saying they've just come from the funeral without actually showing it. But I like your idea Jem of them using it to start #7. Because even reading the book I got muddled about all the wand transference of loyalty, so I have no idea how people who have only seen the movies are going to understand the whole Elder Wand thing. *sigh*

[Jen]

New. Trailer. *SQUEE!*

Won-Won/Lav

And the ending is hilarious. *thwack!*

[jenlee]

*Goes to find trailer* Yay!! So lookin foward to all the Ron scenes...love Ron

[Formerly Known as FKAJ]

Oh, one other thing: the reason I didn't like the book Goblet of Fire is the idea that it wasn't possible to just disqualify Harry on the basis that Hogwarts already had a champion. They know the Goblet was rigged, if it's not obeying its own rules, why should they do what it tells them to? Anyone else find this a little too convenient?

[Cerise]

The new trailer pissed me off. I can't believe they're teasing us with that

[jenlee]

New trailer here