Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) (1 Viewer)

[Chris Farmer]

Goblet, Prisoner, Chamber, Sorceror's for me.

The first two books were far too slavish to the books for my taste. Columbus set out to cram as many scenes from the books into the screen as he could, but in so doing the pacing was shot to hell and there was never any sense of progression through the school year. Even when nothing is happening Rowling always puts in a few paragraphs to show that the year is moving on and what Harry is learning so it never feels like we've jumped ahead six months without warning, but Columbus jumped from time to time without any real flow at all.

That and the magic are the two things I thought Cuaron did best. The passing of the seasons at the Womping Willow did a great ob of giving a feel of real time passing over the course of the movie and keeping everything from happening in a few days, and he also got by far the most magic of the four movies. It also has the only portrayal of Dumbledore that comes close to the character as I'e seen him in the books (I'm sorry, I know it's considered fantastic but I always hated HATED HATED Harris' version of the character) Where Prisoner falls short is that it was just too damn short. Unlike Columbus Cuaron knew when to let go of scenes and cut them from the movie, but in the end he cut too much and started trimming muscle and bone and not just literary fat. There were too many key plot points that got cut for me to give it my full approval. That said, it still comes to closest to catching the pure magic of Rowling's books for me.

And that leaves Goblet. It's not as magical as Azkaban nor does it cram in as much plot as the first two, but I think it strikes the best balance between the two of the four movies thus far. It also gets bonus points for doing a pretty good job of adapting by far the toughest of the four stories. Despite its girth, GoF is an incredibly tightly plotted book and even the most vicious editor couldn't trim more than a hundred pages out of its 700+ length. OotP and HBP will be far easier since there's a lot more fat between their covers that can be comfortably trimmed from a movie adaptation.

 

[TheLongshot]

My wife would disagree with you. She thinks that too much of Austen's dialog gets tossed away and inserts some melodrama where it shouldn't have existed.

Personally, tho, I think he did a great job with it. He also did a good job with the party scene, condensing it to its basic essense. I saw the Colin Firth version, and there the scene is just longer.

As for Prisoner, while there is a lot to like, he does tend to rush through it. The Shrieking Shack should be the centerpiece for the whole film, but in the movie I felt it ended way too quickly. I also think that they should have did more with the Maurauder Map and who made it.

But, the look of the film was great, and you do get a better sense of time than in the previous films.

Jason

 

[Adam_S]

Actually I think Order of the Phoenix is the toughest adaptation because it's more cerebral (in Harry's head) than most of the other books. It is the most sprawling of the books, in terms of locations (and important events at said locations) and just the overall variety of the book means that most everything is fairly tightly woven together, meaning it's tough to lose subplots. Goblet of Fire had major events you couldn't miss (the world cup, yule ball, three tasks, revival) along with essential plot points (Moody, Crouch pensieve/trial) that had to make it in while more obvious plot points were easier to lose (Rita Skeeter, Dobby, SPEW etc). Outside of the endless explanation of Grawp (OotP's SPEW) it's harder to pull subplots loose from Order of the Phoenix, imo.

In comparison to 4 and 5,Half Blood Prince should be a nearly fool proof adaptation, but that's kind of what I thought about Prisoner of Azkaban, only to see them bungle the marauders (to be fair, the PoA ending is really ridiculous to try to sustain all that exposition and explanation in the supposed centre of the climax, Bondvillain style)

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Prisoner of Azkaban was tricky simply because it was so weighed towards a very short span of time. It probably spends as much screen time on those few hours as it does on the entire rest of the school year. It was also the first explicitly emotional book of the series. I think Cuaron had trouble capturing the emotion.
For me HBP is just okay, so it'd be easy to adapt since I wouldn't miss what was gone. I think Rowling was really stung by the "bloated" criticisms of OOTP and just boiling things down to the barest minimum to get the story across. I missed the color and I disliked having such explicitly delineated storylines. All of the negatives as a book will be positives in a movie.

 

[Adam_S]

Perhaps, but it's my favorite because she's blending important character payoffs that have been planted throughout the series with almost all the exposition for the final book, which seems it will be practically a different series entirely.
To me Half Blood Prince succeeds because of the maturation of the trio, along with the wider supporting cast at Hogwarts (Neville, Ginny, Draco, Luna etc) HBP provided a lot of closure and satisfaction to a great deal of the ongoing story (basically the Hogwarts experience of being a child in a magical world), and that, in and of itself, allowed for a more cathartic and complete ending than any of the other stories--all the more remarkable because it isn't a complete ending in any sense of the word, because all the new material in Half Blood Prince was left to entice us for the final novel where she resolves the other ongoing story, the one that extends back two generations before the trio--Voldemort. It's really quite a feat of writing to do all that, in my opinion.

Goddamit, why isn't Deathly hallows out yet?!

:p

 

[Chris Atkins]

My order of preference (I know I'm late to the party):

1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Goblet of Fire
3. Sorcerer's Stone
4. Chamber of Secrets

 

[Chris Farmer]

Agreed with you entirely Adam on why HBP is my favorite in the series. Really in terms of actual events very few things actually happen over the course of the book (although the ones that do are, of course, enormous), but we get some much needed backstory and explanations and the characters are handled extremely well. That was my single favorite part of the book, because after 2000+ pages with them Rowling knows just how familiar we are with the various characters and their actions, including what they normally do AND don't do, so that when she subtly shifts those we pick up on it and what it means. I really found that she completely let the characters take wing in HBP even more in the other books, and that gave the book a character that was strong in the other books but at its peak in HBP.

Really the series took a strong shift in terms of dramatic direction with OotP. The reason that book took 3 years to come out wasn't its enormous length (GoF took only a year or so after PoA after all, and it's no slim read either), but rather that Rowling realized that to bring the series to a full and satisfactory conclusion she had to map everything out, so she took a full off from writing OotP to outline the last three books. that meant that OotP also bore the responsibility of bringing up a lot of elements we hadn't seen before that would be necessary in book 6 and especially 7 if she wanted to play fair and not spring things out of nowhere, which is why there's a lot of things in OotP that seem like meaningless deviations from the plot that I expect will be critical in Deathly Hallows. It's also why I suspect that OotP, HBP, and now DH are taking two years each to write, even with the outline, because she knows that it's time to start brining things to their conclusions and she has to be far more systematic and organized. Through the first four books she could leave as many things unresolved as she wanted to knowing she had plenty more books to wrap it up, but starting with OotP that momentum that will carry the series the rest of the way because essential and therefore every step had to be totally set.

Dammit I can't wait for Deathly Hallows. The movie will be great fun, just like the other four, but despite an amazing summer across the board for movies this year, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows stands as the absolute highlight for me.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

Wow. Emma Watson and Bonnie Wright are growing into beautiful woman. Of course, I made that same prediction for Lindsey Lohan and look how that turned out....for a few years.

My rankings
1. Prisoner of Azkaban
2. Goblet of Fire
3. Chamber of Secrets
4. Sorcerer's Stone

 

[Tim Glover]

Seems like alot of us really love Prizoner of Azkaban.

 

[TerryRL]

Add me to the list of Azkaban admirers.

#1 Prisoner of Azkaban
#2 Goblet of Fire
#3 Chamber of Secrets
#4 Sorcerer's Stone

 

[Malcolm R]

Me too, same ranking.

 

[Travis_S]

Same for me as well.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Because then we'd have nothing to look forward to.

:p[/quote]

 

[todd s]

Thanks to the poor box office by Grindhouse. The new Harry Potter movie is being trimmed. Hopefully, they will re-insert the scenes on the dvd. I said it once and I will say it again. The producers of HP should take a cue from the producers of Lord of the Rings. Make a theatrical version. Then make a special extended version for dvd with an additional 45-60 minutes.

Here is the story...

 

[DavidPla]

I think the newspaper is making up the reason being the failure of "Grindhouse". I mean, how in the hell did they put "Grindhouse" and "Harry Potter" together. I think the plan was to always make sure it was under 3 hours... I don't think "Grindhouse" had anything to do with it.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Yeah, EW's article on Harry Potter from a couple of weeks ago (pre-Grindhouse release) mentioned that it would be the shortest one yet. Since that would put in the 2 hour 20 minute range or less (hardly an extravagant movie-length these days) I can't imagine they are being forced to trim it anymore than that.

 

[JonZ]

Hmmmmm. Grindhouse will appeal to a miniscule crowd compared to Harry Potter so why the comparison at all??

BTW, I miss the hippie hair. Theyre wizards! Whats with all the short haircuts??

 

[DavidPla]

I think they reflect whatever the kids are doing to their hair anyways. So each movie kinda represents "hair fashion for kids" in the years that they're released.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Coming this summer, in IMAX 3D: