I'll say it upfront: I'd love this to be a discussion between those who have already read the books and/or seen the movies, so no need for spoiler tags. If you are still reading / watching, go elsewhere if you do not want spoilers.

My wife and I watched all the Harry Potter movies through as they came out. We thought they were pretty good, but both of us got more and more confused as "Goblet of Fire" and "Order of the Pheonix" progressed. Then I ran out of other books in the house, so I picked up the copy of Sorcerer's Stone my wife had bought a long time ago and read it. Then grabbed all the rest and read them. So over the last 4-6 months, my wife and I have read through all of the books, and then over the last 3 weeks we have re-watched all the movies on DVD.

My conclusion is that I'm glad Deathly Hallows is set to be 2 movies, and I wish most of the existing movies, especially Goblet of Fire and Order of the Pheonix, had been closer to 3 hours than two, more like the Lord of the Rings movies. Just too many tidbits left out that make the story hard to follow unless you've got the background of the books. Things like:

They haven't spent much time on the relationships between James, Lily, Severus, Sirius, Lupin, and Pettigrew back in their past at Hogwarts. They only mention the name "Padfoot" when Harry warns Snape that Sirius is in trouble near the end of Order of the Pheonix, and they just suddenly start dropping the name "Wormtail". No mention of where the map came from, how well they knew each other, nothing. And dropping those names in are part of what made Pheonix so hard to follow.
Kreacher is such a small sidelight, and barely one mention of his testy relationship with Sirius. This is probably a good example of things that they spend 10 pages explaining in the book because they are so important, but you get one line in the movie.
Percy is there if you know what to look for, but has his name even been mentioned yet in the movies?
Not nearly enough on the politics inside the Ministry of Magic. It's obviously a key central focus of the Pheonix, so it gets discussed some, but I got lost enough the first time through the movie that I had no idea WHERE they were fighting the final battle. The Ministry of Magic itself is such a big role in the books and a small one in the movies.
Related to that, no explanation of the Prophecy, really? When I watched the movie the first time I left it thinking "what were they fighting over again? why?". Makes a LOT more sense after reading the book.
Not nearly enough attention on the Deatheaters in the Goblet of Fire. What the Dark Mark was, etc. That's another reason Pheonix was confusing.
Where did Dobby go? I get not having the liberation society, or the female house-elf, but Dobby is such a big deal through the books I can't believe he's gone.
They turned Cho into the bad-girl in Pheonix? I know Snape clears her near the end, but I remember thinking through on the first viewing "why on earth would they write their names on a list?", and only the book explains that, and why they were betrayed.Some of the key examples. One thing I really appreciated about the books was that by the end of the series, pretty much everything made sense. Even stuff that seemed out-of-place or a convenience was explained nicely and to my satisfaction by the end. I feel like the movies are missing out. We're still looking forward to the remaining movies now that we've read the books, but I wonder how non-HP fans are going to follow along with the Half-Blood Prince movie if they have not read the books.

I have read all the book and watch the movies and have the same comment. IT seems it would be hard to follow without knowing alot of the details from the book.

+2

Have never read any of the books, but, have seen all of the movies, they are not hard at all to follow.

Don't have time to read through Greg's post yet but I would just like to add that one of the best experiences I have had was listening to Jim Dale's audio versions of all 7 books last summer (115 hours). Far better than the movie experiences (except for the first one, which really needed to have been visualized).

They haven't spent much time on the relationships between James, Lily, Severus, Sirius, Lupin, and Pettigrew back in their past at Hogwarts. They only mention the name "Padfoot" when Harry warns Snape that Sirius is in trouble near the end of Order of the Pheonix, and they just suddenly start dropping the name "Wormtail". No mention of where the map came from, how well they knew each other, nothing. And dropping those names in are part of what made Pheonix so hard to follow.
Kreacher is such a small sidelight, and barely one mention of his testy relationship with Sirius. This is probably a good example of things that they spend 10 pages explaining in the book because they are so important, but you get one line in the movie.
They turned Cho into the bad-girl in Pheonix? I know Snape clears her near the end, but I remember thinking through on the first viewing "why on earth would they write their names on a list?", and only the book explains that, and why they were betrayed.

The above points not being included/altered in the movies were bad decisions. I think these plot points are major contributors to the story.

Have never read any of the books, but, have seen all of the movies, they are not hard at all to follow.

I don't think it's really a question of being hard to follow...I just think you're missing out on a lot of great detail and storytelling by not reading the books.

I don't think it's really a question of being hard to follow...I just think you're missing out on a lot of great detail and storytelling by not reading the books.

Well, from my perspective there were things that just seemed questionable by the time I reached the end of Goblet of Fire, and I was downright confused by the end of Order of the Pheonix. I just never quite understood why this prophecy was all that important, for example. I did okay, but some things just never quite made sense and I left scratching my head.

Have never read any of the books, but, have seen all of the movies, they are not hard at all to follow.

Me too.

I think the point that there are details which make the whole experience better in the book but left out of the movie applies to every full length novel that was turned into a movie. I would probably agree that the books were more enjoyable if I bothered to read the Harry Potter books.

But, I don't think the movies have been hard to follow at all.

I actually saw the first 5 movies before I read any of the books.

One thing that definitely seems different is I always had a feeling that the movies were trying to play up a Harry/Hermione/Ron triangle, but I don't get that at all from the books. In the books, it's just more Ron's jealousy of Harry related to that.

Another thing I got when reading the books was how prevalent Ginny is, especially in OOTP. She's really been shoved to the side in the movies.

And yeah, the absence of Kreacher and Dobby for several of the books is annoying and will hurt some of the great payoff that is in the 7th book unless we get alot of screen time for them in HBP.

HBP will be the first one I've seen after reading the book, so it'll be interesting to see how that affects my opinion of the film.

I am super excited for the two films revolving around the 7th book. There are alot of cinematic moments in Deathly Hallows that w ill play very well with audiences. The dragon escape should look amazing.

I just think you're missing out on a lot of great detail and storytelling by not reading the books.

Oh, totally agree with you on that. I'm just saying that, not reading the books, I don't think a viewer misses out, as the movies are entertaining and enjoyable.

Unlike an untold number of Stephen King novels that have been turend into movies. A lot of those are still bad, regardless if you have read the book or not.

If you don't read the books and just watch the movies, I think you can still have a good experience with it. But it definitely isn't the full, awesome experience that Harry Potter actually is. I read all the books and seen all the movies (books first) and I absolutely love them both - but I don't think any movie could do those books justice.

They haven't spent much time on the relationships between James, Lily, Severus, Sirius, Lupin, and Pettigrew back in their past at Hogwarts. They only mention the name "Padfoot" when Harry warns Snape that Sirius is in trouble near the end of Order of the Pheonix, and they just suddenly start dropping the name "Wormtail". No mention of where the map came from, how well they knew each other, nothing. And dropping those names in are part of what made Pheonix so hard to follow.

I'm not sure on this, but IIRC, they tackled the Marauders' nicknames on the Prisoner of Azkaban film. Not as in-depth as the book, but they did mention and use Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail, and Mooney, if my memory serves me right.

I'm not sure on this, but IIRC, they tackled the Marauders' nicknames on the Prisoner of Azkaban film. Not as in-depth as the book, but they did mention and use Padfoot, Prongs, Wormtail, and Mooney, if my memory serves me right.

Unless I completely missed it (and I watched it late last week), they did not, that's only in the book. The names briefly show up on the map whenever it opens, but they may use the name "Wormtail" at most once in that film, they are always calling him "Peter Pettigrew". "Wormtail" doesn't get much use until GoF. The first time I heard "Padfoot" was in OotP. "Prongs" and "Mooney" have not yet been mentioned in any of the films, unless I missed a passing reference. Let alone explain that they were the ones that made the map.

If I recall, they purposely put off the details on Padfoot et al until the later movies.

I think, in some cases, to get the details the people want, the movies would be far longer than 3 hours. However, my criticism of the Goblets movie (which I hated) was they focused on a lot of the wrong things. In other words, while other movies simply left out plot lines and story arcs, I could think of several scenes in GoF where they should have done this instead of that.

Speaking of which, I do enjoy following the various discussions on DH 1 and 2. There are a lot of ideas as to how the movies should be split and what scenes to be included in each.

That's why I brought up Jim Dale's audio versions. After seeing the movies, you have a good visual of what everyone and what everything looks like. Using those visuals, you get to "see" EVERYTHING from the books played out in your head.

I have read all the book and watch the movies and have the same comment. IT seems it would be hard to follow without knowing alot of the details from the book.

Ditto. The last two movies seemed like reading the books was almost a requirement to be able to follow along and find out the finer points.

Of course they have to drop a few things, but the amount made me wonder how someone who never read the books followed anything!

If I recall, they purposely put off the details on Padfoot et al until the later movies.

So they said, but I'm not sure how they are going to pull it off. I think they'll just shelve it really.

So they said, but I'm not sure how they are going to pull it off. I think they'll just shelve it really.

Come to think of it, it is irrelevant. So three of them shows up in the forest - easy enough to explain.

Yeah, but a lot of the fun of HP is the rich side stories.

I don't know what to make of the movies. The first 2 were fairly ho-hum, my favorite is the third (the fifth is a close 2nd), the fourth was downright dreadful.

I think Gambon, the guy they have playing Dumbledore, is awful. Half the time he's so out of character it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.

The 4th and 5th movies were cut to oblivion. I think that, for an outsider, the 4th would be harder to understand than the 5th, but they should have arguably both been split. Maybe the 6th should've been, too. The 7th is NOT a movie I think should be split. Yes, it's long (not nearly as many as 4th and 5th books), but a lot of its length comes from a) describing scenes vividly, which is easier to do in a picture medium than spoken/word medium and b) the trio traveling or otherwise being mopey.

I adore the books, I have all 7 in hardback and I have the first 6 in audio (Jim Dale audio, but I really want to get at least book 7 in the UK Stephen Fry audio--Jim Dale's voices annoy me, especially his voices for the trio). I think WB has made a lot of bad decisions, I'm contemplating not even bothering with the 6th or 7th (a) and (b) movies.

/tk

Just read that the part of "Mrs. Granger" is cast for the Deathly Hallows movie.

http://www.colerainetimes.co.uk/news/Local-woman-lands-Harry-Potter.5038481.jp

Ok, seriously? This part we get maybe 1 or 2 LINES about in the entire series is being cast? No wonder they're going to make it into two movies. Money grubs, this is pretty irritating to me.

/tk

Just read that the part of "Mrs. Granger" is cast for the Deathly Hallows movie.

http://www.colerainetimes.co.uk/news/Local-woman-lands-Harry-Potter.5038481.jp

Ok, seriously? This part we get maybe 1 or 2 LINES about in the entire series is being cast? No wonder they're going to make it into two movies. Money grubs, this is pretty irritating to me.

/tk

IMO, it;s almost impossible to fit a good book into a movie. Since I don't mind long movies, I don't see this as bad at all. The more time spent, the more likely they'll get the key stuff in.

I think Gambon, the guy they have playing Dumbledore, is awful. Half the time he's so out of character it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.

/tk

If Gambon's not any better in this next movie, they ought to think about killing the character off, IMO.

Just read that the part of "Mrs. Granger" is cast for the Deathly Hallows movie.

http://www.colerainetimes.co.uk/news...ter.5038481.jp

Ok, seriously? This part we get maybe 1 or 2 LINES about in the entire series is being cast? No wonder they're going to make it into two movies. Money grubs, this is pretty irritating to me.

Is it more irritating than the fact that the Internet will be burning with the flames of the great war to come as fans debate whether the right casting decision was made? :p

You're really going to be pissed when Harry turns into a glittery vampire who stalks junior high schools for dates in the last movie, aren't you? :)

If Gambon's not any better in this next movie, they ought to think about killing the character off, IMO.



lol

Is it more irritating than the fact that the Internet will be burning with the flames of the great war to come as fans debate whether the right casting decision was made? :p

You're really going to be pissed when Harry turns into a glittery vampire who stalks junior high schools for dates in the last movie, aren't you? :)

Luckily (or not?) I stay away from the HP fan sites by and large, I read their posts through an RSS feed and don't actually look at their forums/comments. That does help miss the flame wars. I can't imagine there will be too many wars, as we know nothing about the character.

Funny reference to Twilight. Talk about a series that could have been something special if the author could actually write. As they are right now, they're mediocre at best...and the movie...well, it actually stayed true to the book, which is too bad.

As for the Harry Potter movies, I think I may really be done with them. I may change my mind in July when it comes out, but right now I can't see myself seeing it until it comes out on DVD (a big change considering I've been to midnight releases for movies 2-5).

/tk

I think Gambon, the guy they have playing Dumbledore, is awful. Half the time he's so out of character it's like nails on a chalkboard to me.


Well, the guy refuses to read the books. And he's been quoted to say "I don't have to play anyone really. I just stick on a beard and play me, so it's no great feat. I never ease into a role – every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. I’m not really a character actor at all..."

Worst choice for Harris' replacement. Dumbledore is supposed to be the one single calm influence in Harry's life, and he's the only guy who actually knows what's happening behind the scenes throughout the entire series... Harris' portrayal of him was spot-on. Gambon plays him like a panicky stooge bereft of wisdom.

Well, the guy refuses to read the books. And he's been quoted to say "I don't have to play anyone really. I just stick on a beard and play me, so it's no great feat. I never ease into a role – every part I play is just a variant of my own personality. I’m not really a character actor at all..."

Worst choice for Harris' replacement. Dumbledore is supposed to be the one single calm influence in Harry's life, and he's the only guy who actually knows what's happening behind the scenes throughout the entire series... Harris' portrayal of him was spot-on. Gambon plays him like a panicky stooge bereft of wisdom.


Perfectly said.

Perfectly said.

+1

I actually saw the first 5 movies before I read any of the books.

One thing that definitely seems different is I always had a feeling that the movies were trying to play up a Harry/Hermione/Ron triangle, but I don't get that at all from the books. In the books, it's just more Ron's jealousy of Harry related to that.

Another thing I got when reading the books was how prevalent Ginny is, especially in OOTP. She's really been shoved to the side in the movies.

I think the Ginny disappearing act occurred because she was cast before anyone had any idea she would be very important. OOTP came out as a book in 2003. Chamber of Secrets came out in theaters in 2002. Before OOTP, she was best known for being possessed and sticking her elbow in butter dishes.

I'd expect them to continue to cut her role out. The issue is that now you have a famous, rich, etc. Harry Potter, and as far as movie goers are concerned, he's going to pass over Emma Watson (Hermione), or even Evanne Lynch (Luna) for the little redhead? (Bonnie Wright)

I can buy magic wands and dragons, but I really can't buy that. In that reality, Harry latches on to Hermione in 4th year while Ron's on his little snit fit over the Goblet and they run off to have kids with completely uncontrollable hair.

They'll probably just ignore any romantic angle for Harry, citing things they had to cut.

I think the Ginny disappearing act occurred because she was cast before anyone had any idea she would be very important. OOTP came out as a book in 2003. Chamber of Secrets came out in theaters in 2002. Before OOTP, she was best known for being possessed and sticking her elbow in butter dishes.

I'd expect them to continue to cut her role out. The issue is that now you have a famous, rich, etc. Harry Potter, and as far as movie goers are concerned, he's going to pass over Emma Watson (Hermione), or even Evanne Lynch (Luna) for the little redhead? (Bonnie Wright)

I can buy magic wands and dragons, but I really can't buy that. In that reality, Harry latches on to Hermione in 4th year while Ron's on his little snit fit over the Goblet and they run off to have kids with completely uncontrollable hair.

They'll probably just ignore any romantic angle for Harry, citing things they had to cut.

They can't ignore the last chapter of the entire series.

They can't ignore the last chapter of the entire series.

If you're talking about the epilogue, they could easily ignore it, and just end it with him saying he's had enough trouble for a lifetime. It even saves them casting a dozen extra roles.

The actual last chapter doesn't have any Ginny-Harry interaction that you absolutely have to have. He even bypasses her to go talk to Dumbledore's portrait with Ron and Hermione.