Yeraze's Domain 3.0

Last night Laura & I went to the Midnight Premiere of Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix (the 5th movie in the series).  This was the first Harry Potter movie I’ve been to where I had read the book prior to seeing the movie.  That being said, my review of the movie is slightly biased since I went into the movie with a certain expectation of what I would see.

It’s a pretty good movie, although they deviated fairly significantly from the book.  Both through omissions of fairly important scenes and details, and through changing minor details, the movie was alot different that I expected.  This film also has a new director, making the look and feel of it quite different.  Of course, the 5th book has a drastically different feel from the previous ones anyway, his touch just makes it even more so. 

This movie starts with Harry & Dudley fighting it out in the local park, when they suddenly get attacked by Dementors.  From there, Harry is expelled from Hogwarts, put on Trial for underage wizardry, reinstated into Hogwarts, and begins his usual school year. But this year there are forces working to undermine Dumbledore & Hogwards in the form of the new Defense against the Dark Arts appointee, Dolores Umbridge.  It’s a good story, and Imelda Staunton makes a perfect Umbridge.

But with all the Action, and the sheer size of the book, the movie feels "rushed".  Just as one scene starts to get interesting, they whisk you away to something else.  It feels like you never really get a firm grasp on what’s going on because things move so fast from one topic to the next.  As a quick analysis, I pulled the movie runtimes from IMDB & the book pagecounts from Google & VeritaSerum.com and made the following chart:

So pretty quickly you can see that they’re covering material 1.5x faster than the previous movie, 2x as fast as any other movie.  Also, they leave out several major parts of the book.  SPOILER ALERT, Don’t continue reading if you want to be surprised.
[tag:harrypotter][tag:orderofthephoenix][tag:movie][tag:review]

• Everything to do with Quiddich is gone.. The word "Quidditch" is never uttered throughout the entire movie.
• This means everything to do with Ron becoming the new Keeper is never mentioned
• Ron & Hermione becoming Prefects is never mentioned
• All the scenes with cleaning the Black Mansion are gone, including Mrs. Weasley & the Boggart
• Everything to do with St. Mungo’s hospital is missing and never mentioned
• The personal disappearances play no part in the movie, aside from a quick 10s radio note halfway through the movie
• The Centaur rebellion is basically never mentioned
• The Centaur’s appointment as the new divination instruction is never mentioned
• Dobby makes no appearance, and neither does S.P.E.W.
• The Weasley Twin’s conversion of the lobby into a swamp never happens.
• Hagrid’s trip to the Giants is mentioned briefly, but no details..
• Ginny Weasley doesn’t get a boyfriend..
• Dumbledore’s private conversation with Harry after defeating the Ministry’s arrest attempt never happens.
• and much much more…

Also, there are some slight changes from the book:

• Neville accidentally discovers the Room of Requirement
• Neville tells Harry about his parents inside the Room, since they never meet in St Mungo’s
• Luna tells Harry all about Thestrals
• Cho becomes the traitor to the D.A., but never gets boils or pimples
• The entire D.A. winds up writing lines with Umbridge’s cursed quills
• The Weasley Twins trash the OWLs with their fireworks and leave at the same time
• Harry hears the Prophecy from the Orb, not Dumbledore.
• and more..

Most of the deviations are minor, but they are numerous and they leave you wondering just what will have to change in the next movie.  Since Dobby has yet to be introduced as working in HogWarts, who will follow Draco in the 6th movie to the Room of Requirement?  Since Cho betrayed Harry & the entire DA, will they get together in the 6th movie at all?  Luna is much more "wise and eccentric" in the movie than her "loony and gullible" book counterpart.

All that said, it’s still a pretty good movie.  I give it a 4 of 5, because I would have really liked to have seen some of the cut scenes.  I was particularly looking forward to seeing the Weasley twins summon their Brooms with a rather destructive flourish, and zoom off leaving Hogwarts as a bubbling swamp.