Dirty Harry Potter t-shirt (click icon to embiggen)

Wow. I guess I'm glad that scene was deleted from A:TLA? Although the fact it was filmed is appalling.

I'm so glad M Night is on the coloured people's side. Finally, we have a voice.

One of the IO9ers, Garrison Dean, makes fake trailers for stuff (he did the two that popped up in the Firefly thread a few months ago), and he did one for The Rock's Faster that The Rock is redistributing because he liked it so much.

I was disappointed with the new Harry Potter movie. It was really a tough job for the screenwriter and director to shape a story out of half the book, and it's the portion of the book that's filled with much mopey teens in a smelly tent.

I thought the screenplay did a good job of compressing the narrative (in most cases), but I'm less confident in Yates as a director now. Thinking back on it, my favorite movies in the series were by Cuaron and Newell and it took me a while to warm up to Half Blood Prince.

There are always choices to make in adapting a book, and I understand you can't capture everything onscreen. However, there were several places where I'd disagree with the choice, simply because it wouldn't have cost the story anything and it would've added a lot.

First, it would have been very easy to include a shot of Luna's bedroom ceiling with its chain of friends. Wouldn't have cost anything in special effects or in the pacing of the scene and would've added a lot to the movie.

Another very small thing that would've added a comic touch in a dark movie was the interrogation scene of Mundungus. Would've and probably should've been so much funnier to have Kreecher beating on him with a frying pan. One minute for a funny joke there would have made a world of difference.

Another missed comic opportunity was at the wedding scene. Mean old Aunt Muriel is so impossibly bitchy and hilarious in the book, and she's wasted on a paragraph of exposition. That could've been better written to include the wicked relish she took in torturing Elphia Doge.

I particularly missed the comic moments because one of the things that redeems HBP on rewatch are the two comic set pieces of Ron on the love potion and Harry on the luck charm. There are no comparable narrative pegs in this movie.

A more defensible cut, was removing the scene where Pettigrew chokes himself. But it is both horrific and a moving callback to Harry's mercy earlier in the books. But they did need to move that scene along.

There were a couple of additions that weren't in the book that worked well.

When the trio were camping around there was a very sweet scene of Harry dancing with Hermione to cheer her up. Very loose and affectionate.

Also, in the escape from Malfoy Manor they changed the sequence of events a little bit and they do get a very funny moment with Dobby unleashing the chandelier on Bellatrix.

Generally speaking, I appreciated the narrative compression. We were spared many nights in the tent and almost no time at Grimmald Place.

That turned out to be a problem, though, in that so many of the key events in the book were much, much more suspenseful in the book than in the movie.

While I appreciate that they didn't want to spend a lot of time at Grimmauld Place, there's no sense at all of the weeks, and weeks of planning to break into the Ministry. I get that just the Ministry break-in and the Gringotts job (in part 2) each could've been done as 90 minute caper movies. Still, it really undercut the difficulty of going into the Ministry.

Similarly, the scene with Nagini at Godrick's Hollow, the escape from the Wedding, and the escape from Malfoy Manor were much more suspenseful and dramatic in the book.

Just thinking about this gives me new respect for Rowling's writing. While there were frequent complaints about the long stretches of Harry, Ron and Hermione bickering and traveling about, the corollary narrative effect is that the big events are more dramatic, much better set up, have more of a sense of consequence and danger.

I do think the script did a good job of compressing the wandlore, and stuff with the Hallows and the Horcruxes.

The part that most makes me doubt the director were all the long, lovely, travelogue shots of the British landscape. Pretty enough, and I see the choice (Hey, we're not stuck at Hogwarts in this movie! Let's open it up.) All very pretty but nothing I'd care to rewatch on DVD. And some of those sections were so fucking flat. No (continued...)

( continues...) score, no dialogue, and it's supposed to stand in for the growing tension between the trio.

This is a section where there really should have been some more insertions from the screenwriter (like the dance scene) to flesh out what was happening.

Final scorecord:

Very good things: as noted, all three teen actors were excellent. It's easily Emma's best performance, and Rupert's been really solid for the last three films. Daniel's good, but most of his stuff will come in the last film.

Also excellent, the animated segment recounting the Deathly Hallows backstory. The special effects were great, particularly the Doe patronus. The rendering of Dobby and Kreecher was great, and all the Dobby scenes worked very well.

Really liked the scene of rescuing the sword from the water, and destroying that Horcrux. Though my audience laughed at the brief scene of Harry and Hermione in the nude kissing that the Horcrux conjures to torment Ron.

Bad: Pacing, especially the travelogue shots. Missed comic opportunities. Some easy grace notes that would have been lovely. Also, there were unexplained or barely explained things like, what the broken mirror is, or the backstory on Bill or Mundungus. Those two characters show up for the first time and they should've found space for them earlier in the movie sequence because they're important.

I suspect this is the HP movie I will rewatch the least on DVD.

my audience laughed at

mine too

I really loved the way they depicted Umbridge's patronus keeping the dementors at bay.

I was distracted by how much Death reminded me of General Grievous... but maybe that should be the other way around.

We didn't get the trailer for Green Lantern but we got one for Green Hornet (programming error?) that looked pretty darn awesome.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be not pissed at the Green Hornet. IO9 said that it's getting good reviews, and that the new trailer was Kato-riffic, but apparently Seth Rogen is still in it, and he's still playing a moron. And Chou's fight scenes, at least for that trailer, were crappy and chopped up.

I wasn't asking for a grim and gritty Punisher-like treatment, but come on. This has no tonal relation to the original, and I'm old school and pissed.

I agree with all of that, however, my biggest complaint about DH1 is the distinct lack of Dursleys. That final farewell to the Dursleys was pretty paramount in the book and it would have wrapped things up nicely with Harry revisiting his cupboard and all. Like Luna's bedroom, it wouldn't have cost anything in special effects and while it would have added about ten minutes to the film, it would have been worth it. What we got just left me pissed off within the first five minutes of the movie and it took me about 30 to get back into it.

I am anxious, however, for the Snape's memory scenes in part 2. Should be rocking, if they do it well.

I'm miffed that they excluded the Potter Memorial statue and graffiti. Like the missing handshake with Dudley it would have pulled at the heartstrings and had so much emotional payoff.

Oh yeah, Suzi, that was also a thing I was really looking forward to and they biffed it.

That and Luna's room were two of the most affecting things for me in the last book.