Order of the Phoenix Film
Jul. 17th, 2007 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackOn Friday, Tina and I met A, M and M to see Order of the Phoenix.
By the way, the Zebra has become a Polish theme pub! The food is very nice, but the pizza has gone!
I enjoyed it, I thought it worked well on film. Lots of the things that happened are dramatic and visual and filmed well.
Obviously lots of the subplots and explanations were all cut out. I felt it showed a fairly continuous narrative, but I don't know if it would make sense to someone who hadn't read the book or not. Lots of things happened that didn't have reasons explained, but then that's de rigeur for films. And I didn't want to sit through any more exposition.
Many events were turned into good action scenes. Very Saint Trinian's as A says. I thought the effects in the final battle were well done -- whether or not dissolving into sand is apparating or not it looks impressive exciting.
Although I was disappointed by Dumbledore's Bigby's Big Ball of Water. Yes, it was cool, but it was the old sort of magical battle. Animating the statues suggested he wasn't just better at magic, but also by virtue of being better at using it.
I though the casting was great. Although not how I imagined, all of the new minor characters fit their role really well. Notably Luna; maybe it was just because she was pretty, but while she was quite loopy she seemed to have a presence that made her seem nice as well. And Neville's parents. They *did* look like Neville, but *also* like heroes, which is quite an impressive balance to show. You can imagine them defeating dark wizards by sheer perseverance. And Kingsley and Tonks were great too.
Rumours
It may give us another point to triangulate from. Can we deduce anything about book 7?
Well, most of the plot points at all were left out. You might guess anything left in without apparent reason might be important later, and anything left out can't be absolutely vital.
For instance, rumour says JKR asked that Kreacher be left in the script because he was going to important. (Woo, vindication for wikipedia citation policy :)) But I hardly think that's a great surprise, he's around, it doesn't give away much that he does *something* important. He lives in a house frequented by R. A. Black.
I notice the Big Grey Smoking Door to the Afterlife TM was left in as well, though the rest of the dept of mysteries was gone. I always assumed that was going to be important philosophically (if not plotwise) at the end -- some people didn't seem convinced, can we call it confirmed now?
The exact wording of the prophecy *wasn't* used. So I guess Harry's marking as anti-Voldemort won't be revoked at the last minute, but was just supporting Dumbledore's descriptions of free will at the end of this book.
By the way, the Zebra has become a Polish theme pub! The food is very nice, but the pizza has gone!
I enjoyed it, I thought it worked well on film. Lots of the things that happened are dramatic and visual and filmed well.
Obviously lots of the subplots and explanations were all cut out. I felt it showed a fairly continuous narrative, but I don't know if it would make sense to someone who hadn't read the book or not. Lots of things happened that didn't have reasons explained, but then that's de rigeur for films. And I didn't want to sit through any more exposition.
Many events were turned into good action scenes. Very Saint Trinian's as A says. I thought the effects in the final battle were well done -- whether or not dissolving into sand is apparating or not it looks impressive exciting.
Although I was disappointed by Dumbledore's Bigby's Big Ball of Water. Yes, it was cool, but it was the old sort of magical battle. Animating the statues suggested he wasn't just better at magic, but also by virtue of being better at using it.
I though the casting was great. Although not how I imagined, all of the new minor characters fit their role really well. Notably Luna; maybe it was just because she was pretty, but while she was quite loopy she seemed to have a presence that made her seem nice as well. And Neville's parents. They *did* look like Neville, but *also* like heroes, which is quite an impressive balance to show. You can imagine them defeating dark wizards by sheer perseverance. And Kingsley and Tonks were great too.
Rumours
It may give us another point to triangulate from. Can we deduce anything about book 7?
Well, most of the plot points at all were left out. You might guess anything left in without apparent reason might be important later, and anything left out can't be absolutely vital.
For instance, rumour says JKR asked that Kreacher be left in the script because he was going to important. (Woo, vindication for wikipedia citation policy :)) But I hardly think that's a great surprise, he's around, it doesn't give away much that he does *something* important. He lives in a house frequented by R. A. Black.
I notice the Big Grey Smoking Door to the Afterlife TM was left in as well, though the rest of the dept of mysteries was gone. I always assumed that was going to be important philosophically (if not plotwise) at the end -- some people didn't seem convinced, can we call it confirmed now?
The exact wording of the prophecy *wasn't* used. So I guess Harry's marking as anti-Voldemort won't be revoked at the last minute, but was just supporting Dumbledore's descriptions of free will at the end of this book.