i havent read one word of the HP books, but have seen all the movies and i like them a lot. apparently its a bit of a benefit if you havent read the books, because you dont get so sidetracked. i will probably read them all after ive seen all the movies...

I'm not quite sure what to think. The part of me that enjoys movies thought it was good, but like Trey said there was a lot missing and plot changes that just weren't necessary. I had hoped they would have been somewhat more faithful to the book.

*sighs* I was just expecting....more.:(

Went with my two sons to the 12:01 showing at Universal City Walk here in Orlando. Pike/Son bought our tickets Monday so we would make sure we saw it on the biggest screen. We liked it a lot, but spent the whole ride home disecting scenes we felt they shouldn't have left out, could have done better or altered for no explainable reason. I persoanlly thought they did a better job with Order of the Pheonix than Goblet of Fire.

Went with my two sons to the 12:01 showing at Universal City Walk here in Orlando. Pike/Son bought our tickets Monday so we would make sure we saw it on the biggest screen. We liked it a lot, but spent the whole ride home disecting scenes we felt they shouldn't have left out, could have done better or altered for no explainable reason. I still thought they did a better job with Order of the Pheonix than Goblet of Fire.

Sorry about the double post:rolleyes:.

Saw it last night pre-relaease too and thought it was great!

Actually, that was the part of the movie that disappointed me the most -- that and the lack of a real conversation with Dumbledore at the end. My reasons: The thing that makes the scene in the Department of Msyteries so compelling in the book is that the 6 members of Dumbledore's Army don't just manage to run from the Death Eaters, they actually give them a run for their money. They have been fairly well-trained by Harry and that, coupled with their determination, makes them an actual challenge to the DEs, both offensively and defensively. Some of them actually get hurt, but so do some of the DEs. In the movie, basically all they did was yell Stupify. (Okay, Neville seemed to get in one Petrificus totalis.) I thought all of this really mangled what is one of the major thrusts of the book. (I also missed seeing the prophecies rise up and recite when the globes were broken -- that would have been a cool effect -- as well as V's anger at Bellatrix.) The fight between Dumbledore and V was better, but again the major plot point was mangled -- it wasn't that Harry fought off V's possession; V could not stand to possess Harry for more than a minute because of Harry's ability to love. That's been a fundamental theme since Book 1. It seemed to me that the change there really went to the heart of the story.

Overall, I liked it. Umbridge was fantastic. (Would have liked to have seen more of her and McGonagall, though.) Like all of the previous movies, major plot points were omitted (face it -- almost all of JKR's plot points turn out to be major), but for the most part I could live with that, even if I was sorry not to see them. I liked the mood of the movie a great deal -- better than PoA or GoF to me.

And I think Yates is on for HBP.

Yeah IMDB has him listed as the director for HBP, but I wonder if he gets enough moderate to bad reviews if they wont try and replace him. Warner Brothers wants the movies to be as large as they can and if Yates is leaving major things out, even though he could have easily had up to another 25-30 minutes, it just seems as if it wasnt very well thought out to me. I guess we will see when all the money is finished rolling in, if it has dropped drastically from GoF, then we may be in for a new director, if it remains the same....well we will see I guess. But I have a feeling that they are already rolling on HBP and its too little to late to get a new Director, maybe he will get the hint from peoples ideas and criticism on this one :rolleyes:

I doubt that will be a problem -- they'll be more concerned about box office than reviews, and I haven't seen any bad reviews -- but even if it is, they won't replace him.

All of the movies, except maybe the first one, have left major things out. That may be partly the director, but it's also the producer(s) and the screenwriters.

Even though there have been a number of directors so far, all of the movies have had the same principal producer: David Heyman. He's the guy who negotiated the film rights for Warner Bros and who has been perhaps the main contact with JKR about making sure the movies do the books justice in her eyes.

FWIW, I just saw Daniel Radcliffe on Larry King (which I usually avoid like the plague) and he said Yates has been his favorite director and that he's thrilled he's back for HBP. Granted, that may have been some puffery, but since he usually seems to be very careful about being evenhanded, I'm taking him as sincere.

Whew. I was getting worried that I must have been one of the few people who felt like I did about the movie. Don't get me wrong, the movie is good. However, I feel like they deviated too much from the book. A little in the past movies wasn't much, but it was TOO noticeable tonight.

I really liked it, but I was disappointed. I was very angry with Sirius' death. I mean she just casually said "Avada Kedavra" and he just kind of fell. I don't fell it did him justice by any means. It was such an important part of the story and I didn't feel like they portrayed it well. My boyfriend, who loves HP but refuses to read the books because he thinks JKR is long winded. :rolleyes: The only book he's read was Prisoner of Azkaban and it was on cd. lol. He came out of that movie full of questions. There was a little boy next to me who kept asking his Dad questions. "Dad, where'd he go? Dad is he dead?" I think it is becoming harder to follow the movies if you haven't read the books.

I haven't read any of the books but I liked the movie. I even went to the midnight showing for it. First time for any movie. Although a lot of my friends tell me that there is a lot of stuff missing.

Add another moviegoer who was a little disappointed. I understand that for editing purposes, everything from the book is not going to be able to fit into a 2hr 18 min movie...but at least (as others have said) get the major points covered (and not "re-written" - what's with Cho being the one who "outed" the DA???)

That said, I'll still buy the movie, and I'm getting ready for the book to come out by re-reading HBP over the next week and a half.

My guess at the reason: It prevents the need to introduce an additional character and provides a reason for Harry and Cho not to end up together without going into the additional Valentine's Day scenes and the like.

I haven't seen the movie and am not a huge fan or anything, but I just wanted to share a little something.

Poor Emma Watson showed her panties to all of America last night on Letterman. :( He little dress was up pretty high when she sat down (why don't stylists ever think about this when women go on talk shows) and she made the fatal mistake of switching the way her legs were crossed. At least she was wearing panties, though...:rolleyes: