The HP movies happen to be awesome however.

Doesn't make 'em as good as the books, though.

Movie makers/writers have a tendency to mangle things. They change the order of events to suit them, and often change things that happen throughout the books or even remove them. (Yes, I have seen the HP movies).

Whether it does or not is left to speculation.

I think they work well together hand in hand, when I read the book I picture the characters in the movie.

Works for a good movie, can ruin things for a bad one. And I LOATHE when people come to think of book movies as the movie first, book second, unless it the movie is itself an absolute classic, and better than the book it was based on.

NOOOOOOOOOOO.

Someone spoilt it for me on a clan 'cause they thought I'd read it. But I hadn't, because my brother stole the book and then went on a holiday to China for 3 weeks.

It's ok, Shiri. Harry might come bck to life in the next book.

OMFG DIE!

someone please tell me that's not right...

Poor Shiri. You should strongly display your displeasure to the Spoiler in question.


Bau, I completely agree with you about the movies vs the books. The Prisoner of Azkaban immediately pops into my mind. That movie and its director who decided that 2/3 of the content of the book wasn't worth using, was the main reason most of my friends and family started reading the books. They read the book to see if I were right about how much got left out and not only agreed with me, but liked the book so much they went back and read the whole series from the beginning.

I AM looking forward to Goblet of Fire coming out in November, but I'm really hoping that they don't cut important stuff. I'd much rather go to a 3.5 hour long movie that includes eveything meaningful from the book than a 2.5 hour one cut to shreds to save time.

It's not (I gather), Revan is just being a pain.

better not be or I'm whooping some Revan arse later.

Saw a story about that last night, and the problem is the movie are geared towards kids (as per the books). While adults read them, the draw of the series is kids, and the movies need to fit that target audience. Kids tend to squirm after 5 seconds in a chair, so they cut a lot out to keep the audience interested. The producers said they try to keep enough intact to tell the story, but are forced to hack out the stuff in between. They said each movie could easily be 4-5 hours, but in the end they are limited by what the production company wants...which is a movie for kids aka shorter length.

I still haven't gotten the book yet. The reason movies tend to cut out a lot of material isn't only to keep the kids interested, it's also because a lot of portrayal involved in writing (certain characterization techniques, for example) are hard or impractical to convey through the film, or because they have an easier method on screen, so they change it.

1: I totally loathed the last HP movie, well at least till midway through it, then I figured I had the wrong book in my mind and this was a completely different story

2: I'm quite sure there's another twist comming too, it'll turn out DeadMan isn't really all that dead and BadMan will turn out to be a GoodMan after all and it was just Thingie that forced him to take DrasticActions™ and DeadMan played along to secure BadMan's position.

3: I think the HP movies, just like LotR, are pretty neat telling the story they do, if you'll watch it expecting to see all your favourite details you'll hate it, if you watch it expecting to see a really decent movie based on the book you'll be fine.

4: Wasn't that cool when NosyBoy used ThatOtherSpell on NastyBloke and got all panickish 'cause of WhatHappened?

Actually, the kids interests thing came from the movie producer/director themselves!

Look at the CNN stories on it, some kids complained the last book was too long...this one is 200 pages less. This whole series tailors to kids, but I do agree some things may not be easy to portray on screen. But if you look at what they cut out...it was nothing that was beyond the scope of what could easily be done. It simply was filler that a movie did not need...

Maybe the movie didn't need it, but the story did. I mean, I had to explain to a friend of mine how Harry's dad had anything to do with the Map.

Why did they waste time making the cat's eyes Red. When Harry is supposed to have green eyes and Daniels are blue!

*nagnag*

Don't get me wrong I like the movies as a separate entity. It's like how marvel likes to make new "universes" so they can sell more books. Same characters told differently.

Although I did fall asleep during the *cough4thcough* time I saw chamber of secrets.

And David.. your post made me giggle. Badman *giggle*

I guess I'll be getting the book, as soon as I finish with the WoT serie (yeah, all the books in a PDF, my PDA is finally useful for something!) and while A feast for crows (4th book on A song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin) doesn't come out in november. As soon as that book is published I won't exist for the world until I've read it at least twice.

I won't say HP is the best serie in the world for an adult, nor that it deserves so much popularity, but I must admit is fun to read (once, twice gets boring for me). And probably if I had kids I would have them read it (besides, if the Pope disagrees the books must be good for young kids).

For the record, this book was not J.K.'s usual style. She did NOT keep the ending a secret. It was fairly obvious, and exceptionally expected. There are some twists and surprises, however, but none in the usual manner - As can be seen in, well, just about every book, the ending is kept a secret until the end. There's hints, you might have a theory, Harry might have a theory, but it always ends differently. Quirrel in the S.S., Ginny in the Chamber of Secrets, and Tom Riddle being Voldemort. In the third book, what with A) Black being a good guy and Peter still being alive, and Hermione's time glass. As can be seen (in the fourth and fifth, too), Rowling tends to surprise us. This one was as obvious as a brick to the head since the second or third chapter - when it's entirely spelled out with their names, what's going on, who's to kill who, and who's to do it if the original person couldn't.

I am, honestly, slightly dissapointed. A lot of this seems, at least to me, forced. There was not the usual Holloween spirit (Which I honestly enjoyed - As did she, I thought), abandoned entirely during her week-skipping, to get to the part where Harry does something else entirely stupid and pointless.

All in all, it's still a good book. But by no means is it Rowling's best, here-so-far. I hope the seventh and final book is vastly superior - it needs to be. I've qualms with this book, and the previous one. Goblet was really good, if not a bit forcedish. But Order gave me a few eye-twitches, all in all, it was alright. This one though...

Maybe she'll pull a Lucas, and the last one will just be pure awesomeness in hardback form. Honestly, Harry's decision about the next year somewhat irritates me - and for those of you who've read the last few pages know why. It just kind of bugs me is all. It seems like such a splinter.

All the same, though, it seems expected. I'd do the same in his situation. And, in the item that him ad Dumbledore found. R.E.B. Isn't that Black's younger brother's initials?

It's sad. Jordan's book comes out before Martin's, doesn't it?

They're both fat angry men who don't get any anyway. They need to finish their series so I stop throwing hard-earned money at them.

While you mention the number of pages of this book is geared towards a younger reader, the content definitely isn't. As I've previously mentioned, this has definitely taken a turn for the darker. However, you are right about the attention span of movie-goers. They want to attract the kids so they're gonna film all the flash and bangs, and not as much of the character development. Personally, I'd rather they do that then just not make the movies because they couldn't get funded because not enough people went to the first 4 hour movie.

Sidenote: I wish audio books weren't so expensive, especially the cd ones.