Harry Potter Premiere

Very true. I don't anticipate sleeping when the book comes out and got out of work that night to get it at midnight. It's one of the few times I'm glad I work nights.

 

So fucking disappointing. It's by far the worst adaptation of a book to a movie I've seen. So pissed off right now...

 

I could give two shits - or as many as Jones cares to share - but our paper sent our photographer to get web only photos of the opening in our town and he said there were tons of people there, so I guess it is a big deal.

 

My paper is treating it like the World Series, only bigger.

 

I'm looking forward to the book waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than the movie, but who isn't?
That said, I'll definitely go see it. It's second on my list of movies I want to see, right behind the Simpsons.

 

Considering this series also had Prisoner of Azkaban . . . that's a bold statement.

 

I plan on seeing it in IMAX [w/3-D scenes] a few weeks after the release. Hopefully the crowds won't be as ridiculous by then.

 

Based on that review alone, I'm stoked.
Really, I was concerned when I read that they took the longest book in the series and made the shortest movie.

 

Ok , just got in from seeing the movie. Here it is in a (relative) nutshell ...

It's pretty good. They got the message right, the emotions right and everything you heard about it taking a dark turn (like the book) is true. Not surprisingly, it's sad at the end for obvious reasons.

Having said/typed all that I was really disappointed in a lot of the things they didn't include from the book. No. 1 on that list was the big fight scene at the end, which in the book goes through all these wild and crazy rooms. Not in the movie. They go straight into the room with the prophecies, and then to the room with the arch, and that's it. No flying brains, or the clock room, etc. Also, they flew through the first 100 pages in like 10 minutes. I fear that people who haven't read the book won't really know what's going on. They also skipped the scene in which the boggart shows Mrs. Weasley everyone in her family dead. And so on ...

I wish they had added 20 minutes or so and developed it more. So it's good, but missed out on being great.

 

To me, that is where they have really gone wrong with this series (though I haven't seen this film yet). They need to decide whether to throw in things from the book and explain them, or leave them out entirely.
I think they have insulted the intelligence and attention span of the viewers with these films a little too much, but if they really think the movies have to be shorter than three hours, they should put a LOT more thought into what to cut and what to keep.
For example, I remember reading one person's review of Azkaban where they said, "Cut out all those shots of the whomping willow going through seasons and spend that time explaining Mooney, et al." I agree.

 

My biggest disappointment in Azkaban was that they didn't explain where the Marauders Map came from. That was a friggin' big point to miss, considering it was Harry's dad, Sirius, Lupin and Pettegrew that made it. Also, no tie between Harry's patronus is a stag -- and his father changing into a stag as an animagus. Overall, I liked it less than the others, but it was still pretty good.

This one? No way they can catch everything, so I don't have high expectations. The only thing I'm interested in seeing is (SPOILER?) how they treat a locket the book has them coming across when they're cleaning out the headquarters. It's mentioned in the book, and I'm convinced it's the horcrux that Dumbledore and Harry were trying to get in Half-Blood Prince. RAB would be Regulus Black, Sirius' brother who was killed by Voldemort after being a Death Eater. Locket is mentioned in passing in Order of the Phoenix and nobody could open it. If they make a somewhat bigger deal of it in this movie, I think I'm right.

 

I still stand by it