After seeing the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix film (the day it came out, of course), I had the typical Harry Potter Fan reaction. “It’s-too-short! They cut-out half the good parts! WTH? And they got these parts all wrong!” After thinking about it for a couple weeks, I compiled my list of first impressions.

• It’s a bit too quick-paced. It jumps right in to the dementor scene, then the Order of the Phoenix’s Advance Guard picks Harry up pretty much immediately. Hermione and Ron explain a few things at Grimmauld Place, then it’s off to the Ministry of Magic for the hearing. After five minutes of that, you have a 10-second Hogwarts Express shot, then they’re all at Hogwarts. All of that happens in about 15 minutes, while it takes up nearly a third of the 900-and-something-page book.
• Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge) and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) are brilliant.
• I liked the video montages of Umbridge’s rein at Hogwarts. It worked well to condense that part of the story a bit further.
• The soundtrack was amazing (unfortunately Borders was sold out of the CD, so I’m waiting a little on that).
• Why the heck did they play with the mechanics of the magic? In the books, the “Stupify” spell stuns the opponent, rendering them unconscious. In the movie, it just blasts them backwards.
• For some odd reason, the introduced “Levicorpus” in the film, though Harry doesn’t find out about it until book 6. Really, was that necessary?
• In the book, Bellatrix hits Sirius with a jet of red light, knocking him through the veil. Warner Brothers changed it to an “Avada Kedavra” (the Killing Curse), possibly for clarity. But if you’re going to use that spell, at least pronounce it right! It’s pronounced like Av-ah-da Ked-ah-v-ra. It’s not the way most Americans pronounce words. Hint: Study latin (or other Latin-based languages). Also, if you’re hit with an AK, you don’t have time to look around in disbelief (it’s instant).
• They skipped 90% of the Department of Mysteries. Yeah, so it shaves off a few minutes, big deal.
• They cut the parts where they’re fighting the Death Eaters (and winning). They made Harry and the rest look pathetic.
• What’s with the “Smoke-Teleporting”? They got Fred and George apparating right, so why not everyone else? Why did they put the pointless smoke in?
• The parts they showed in the Department of Mysteries looked too weird. The Hall of Prophecy was way too dark. It should be huge, with a big vaulted ceiling. What’s with the Veil Room? It as well was too dark, and unused looking. Remember, people work in the Department of Mysteries (scientist-like people). They wouldn’t let it look anything like it was in the film.
• How is it a veil if there’s no veil? It was just a big archway, with some digital bubble-liquid floating inside it.

Well, those are my major complaints. According to Melissa Anelli of the Leaky Cauldron, it gets better the more you watch it. She’s seen it at least four times so far (I’ve only seen it once, but I’d like to again before it’s released on DVD).

Well, I didn’t like the Prisoner of Azkaban movie much the first time, but now it could very well be my favorite of the lot so far. After I’ve seen Order of the Phoenix a few more times, we’ll see what I think about it then.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.