Ahira's Hangar

I am guessing this is the proper forum here for this. From my post on the JK Rowling forum on the Watch.

Paul and I finally got to see this today. All I can say is...



It is definitely not the book, too much is left unexplained (I so miss not seeing Lockhart again, and the explanation about Neville's parents didn't justify Bellatrix without seeing the result of Neville's love for them in St. Mungo's), but as a movie it was fantastic. I even felt more about Sirius and the veil from the movie than from what I read in the book. I became more involved in his and Harry's relationship in this movie than I ever did in the books.

That said, my minor gripes about the movie are:

1. I spent the whole film trying to see past Harry bangs, looking for his scar. The only time I saw it was when Lucius mentions it, and then it was like it was blatant. Weird.

2. Physical age is definitely catching up with the kids, yet their emotional actions don't match their bodies. Ginny looks 15, the others even older, and she's supposed to be two years younger. I have seen older actors play younger ones convincingly. I blame make up for this more than anything else.

3. I don't understand why they changed the way Sirius's head appears in the flames. I loved the way it was done in GOF, with his facial features being made out of glowing coals.

4. I did not like how trivial the OWLs seemed to be. It made it appear it was a one day test, similar to SATs. Totally misleading, IMO.

5. I would have liked to have heard that Hagrid went to the giants with Madam Maxine. Build up a little back story outside of Harry.

6. The attack on McGonagal. How could that be left out?

7. Not introducing the new Divination teacher, Firenze, the centaur. I so wanted to see him again...sigh...

8. And finally...

If Kreacher is so important that Jo made them put him back into the movie after being cut, how could they not have had the locket with 'S' on it that was found in Grimmauld Place? Unless it doesn't mean what all I think it means?

I am so glad I have an excuse to go see it again in the theater when Beorn comes home. I am sure there are a ton of things I missed!!

That said, I was really excited by a lot of the trailers I saw before the movie. Disney's Enchanted looks hysterical, I had not heard a thing about Across the Universe before seeing the trailer and now I am intensely curious to see what this is about, and what is The Spiderwick Chronicles? I never heard of it but it looks intriguing. This from someone who goes to the theater maybe three times a year at most...

Well, I am someone who goes perhaps 1-2 times a year.

I have not gone to see HP5 yet. I want to go with the kids and they keep telling me that HP5 is their least favorite book in the series.

However, we are currently planning on going next Friday, after the huge crowds die down a bit.

Now someone at work told me something and I am hoping someone here can comfirm or deny it. I was told that the theaters are charging full IMAX price for IMAX admission, but only the last twenty minutes of the movie is actually in IMAX format. Since the movie theater five miles up the road has IMAX, I was thinking of seeing HP5 that way, but I do not want to pay all of that extra money for only twenty minutes of actual IMAX.

Well the kids and I finally went to see the film, followed by a nice dinner out last night.

My impressions:

* I was reminded why I despise going out to the movie theater. It was a movie that was over two hours long, but it had something like 30 minutes of commericals & trailers in front of it. I do not mind the trailers so much, even though most of them are quite lame - but I find it truly offensive to pay that much money to get into a movie and have to see twenty minutes of the same commercials & garbage I see on TV at home. I mean, admission for the three of us was for more than my membership at Netflix, with five movies out at a time and unlimited movies per month. And that does not even count the cost of dinner afterwards. And we didn't even get popcorn or pop because we knew we were going to head out right to the restaurant afterwards.

* The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper is one of the greatest children's fantasy books & series ever. The upcoming film looks like something one of my cats puked up in comparison. And if they must film what looks like pretty awful bad movies based on the books - why didn't they start with the first book rather than one later in the series?

* Even though I dislike going to the movie theater, I will quite likely go see Neil Gaiman's Stardust. It looks like they might have done a great job with that book - and Michelle Pfeiffer looks delightful as the evil witch.

* The film itself was good, though a lot of the book was cut out. I assume they did this out of length issues, as the film was already over two hours long, and if they followed the book scene for scene it might have had to be a two parter movie.

* It has been some time since I read that particular Harry Potter book, and I had forgotten how much I hate the radioactively pink witch. And I had also forgotten how much I love the Weasley twins in that book. They are my heroes.

And now that I read DH, I understand why Jo said it is uncanny how some scenes in this movie seem to foreshadow events in the book, even though the scenes were filmed long before she finshed the last book.

Goat in the Hog's Head anyone?

Here is an interesting review of the movie by author Orson Scott Card:

Order of the Phoenix. Well, last night I saw this movie, and I liked it alot, especially after the BIG dissappointment of GoF. I think I found how Mike Newell failed in GoF, Newell failed to realize and realize as a director the epic porportion of Harry's tale. Harry Potter's narrative is an epic, it is not a mere story of school boy(and girl) adventures and school time angst and traveil. I care more now about the death of Cedric Diggery than I ever did after watching GoF.

Question to those more versed in HP lore than I, where was Dumbledore during the fight of the OotP against Voldemort fourteen years before the era of Harry? I've learned that Hagrid, in addition to being part Giant, is a failed wizard (IOW, he did not complete the Hogwarts's coursework); so is there some way his magic is bound so he cannot use it? So Sirius Black's family has been a devotee of Voldemort and his striving for the purity of wizard-dom against the encroachment of half-bloods, mud-bloods and muggles in general? How is this present incarnation of Voldemort connected to the great dark Wizard who was one of the principle and primary founders of Hogwarts so many years ago?

Hope those questions make some sense.