Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix -- SPOILERS (film & books)

[Imran Siddiqui]

In addition, I was at the Harry Potter lexicon and I saw a reference to the book I had to check out...

In Chapter 26 of OOTP, Harry does almost EXACTLY what happened in the movie. Snape does the Legilimens charm and Harry counters with Protego (when he is somehow able to fight through his memories and sees Snape) and gets into Snape's head and looks at memories about him as a boy and teenager, but fairly disjointed. Snape does end it saying "ENOUGH".

But Snape seemed to consider it an improvement... because Harry was able to counter the Legilimancy spell with a Shield Curse, that Snape hadn't told Harry about, but worked well anyway. And then they started again, but with Harry not being as good.

A momentary triumph, but no mastery.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by nostromo
Azkaban is, IMO, the best Potter movie so far. In part because it was the best Potter book, IMO; also because the director was the most talented one of the bunch. I haven't seen 'Order of the Phoenix' yet, though.

Azkaban did the final sequence, particularly the Shrieking Shack part, even better than the book IMO.

[Kuciwalker]

Re: the thing connecting DD and Voldemort's wands: I just assumed DD had picked up Harry's wand (it got knocked out of his hand).

[Will9]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
In addition, I was at the Harry Potter lexicon and I saw a reference to the book I had to check out...

In Chapter 26 of OOTP, Harry does almost EXACTLY what happened in the movie. Snape does the Legilimens charm and Harry counters with Protego (when he is somehow able to fight through his memories and sees Snape) and gets into Snape's head and looks at memories about him as a boy and teenager, but fairly disjointed. Snape does end it saying "ENOUGH".

The only difference is that Harry didn't use the sheild charm so soon in the book.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Re: the thing connecting DD and Voldemort's wands: I just assumed DD had picked up Harry's wand (it got knocked out of his hand).

Ah, reminds me... didn't mention it before. In my second viewing, I did look at this and the meeting of the wands between DD and Voldy is FAR different than that of Voldy and Harry. At the end of GoF, Voldy's and Harry's wand spells actually connect and a shield is formed around them. At the end of OOtP, Voldy's and DD's wands spells meet and start shooting magical energy everywhere... like if two water spouts meet. The walls around them were being pummeled and breaking apart, causing Harry to duck to avoid being killed. And there was a bunch of magical energy somewhat pooling on the floor under where the wands met.

It was very, very different. The only thing that was similar was that the wand spell hit each other. After that, widely divergent.

[Kuciwalker]

It looks the same to me.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Watch 'em both again... what happens when the wands meet is decidedly different. No magic spurting from the ends of the wand spells in the GoF movie. No DE had to dive for cover for fear of getting magic shot at them.

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But Snape seemed to consider it an improvement...

Rowlings has spent a lot of time establishing that Snape despises Harry even as Snape helps him time and time again. When Snape catches Potter in the Pensive, he finally snaps, because once again, he sees Potter playing by his own rules - and he also knows that Potter really hasn't been practicing. Snape is particularly tough on Potter because of this one fact - Voldemort is not treating this as a game and will shred him to pieces if he does not take this seriously.

It is this flippant attitude (Harry looking in the pensive) and the revealing of this worst memory that causes Snape to throw his hands up in the air and finally say...'screw you.' From Snape's viewpoint, he has had enough, but yet later on, he helps Potter by informing the Order of the impending disaster happening at the Ministry HQ.

The book does it much better than the way it is handled in the movie...and if presented that way in the movie as it was written, would not have added any running time in the movie.

[Solver]

he helps Potter by informing the Order of the impending disaster happening at the Ministry HQ

This is another thing that should've been made more obvious in the movie. They should have said that Snape alerted the Order. I feel that him doing so is the strongest argument for Snape being on the Order's side after all.

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by Solver
The worst part of this movie is how terribly disjointed it is. Really, no one who hasn't read the book can follow the plot well. Lots and lots of things left unexplained.

Yea, that is how I felt watching it having not read the books. It progressed well enough that I wasn't left with any questions at the end (i.e. no big, glaring holes) but I definitely got the sense that there were some things left out. Generally though I'm pretty good at filling in holes when I watch movies or not letting them bother me, so I kept up fairly well. But it definitely felt a bit disjointed for non-readers.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Solver

he helps Potter by informing the Order of the impending disaster happening at the Ministry HQ

This is another thing that should've been made more obvious in the movie. They should have said that Snape alerted the Order. I feel that him doing so is the strongest argument for Snape being on the Order's side after all.

On the other hand if Snape turns out to be good, it's more a surprise in the movies .

[Japher]

I thought in the books they said what happened between Harry and Voldy's wands was rare and due to having a feather from the same pheonix within the wands, perhaps. The look of Harry/Voldy and DD/Voldy was noticably different, but could have been due to art direction and unintentional?

[Will9]

IIRC, what happened in the forth book was done by the wands without action from either holder. In this movie, it was magic from DD and LV trying to overcome the others magic.

[lord of the mark]

I enjoyed the movie. I think as much as Ive enjoyed any of the movies.

All of the movies (at least from the third on) have left things out, and moved things around. I dont look to the movies as an independent story, but as sort of a giant illustration for the books. GOF of course dropped virtually the entire quidditch world cup, and changed lots of things about the veelas, etc. The only movie that came close to this one was the third. In some ways the third was better, but in others not so much.

Things I liked especially in this
1. The visual of Azkaban
2. Luna Lovegood
3. Umbridge and the ministry
4. The portrayal of the ministry building
5. The flight over London, and the portrayal of Grimauld place
6. Grawp, the centaurs
7. The DA portrayal
8. The expression of all the relationship stuff quickly - instead of the long "Weasley is our King" sub plot, just a few quick scenes between Ron and Hermione - Harry-Cho reduced to "The Kiss" a few eye rolls from Ginny whenever Hermione mentions Cho and Harry.
9. Reducing the battle at the ministry to its essence.


Things POTM and I disagreed about

I liked the dementor scene, but she disliked the introducton of a previously unmentioned "rural" area in Little Whinging.
I thought the Harry-Voldy dream sequences were well done, but she didnt like the way he squirmed on waking.


I thought it was obvious from the movie that Snape had informed the order - in fact I asked her if the book had anything about that - was there any ambiguity about it, to maintain the ambiguity about about Snapes status.

POTM didnt like the details of the ending battle - we agreed that the extra rooms could be skipped, but thought that some more was needed.

[Will9]

POTM?