Movie Troubles

This is a review of the fifth Harry Potter movie. Spoilers, insofar as they can exist for a movie made from a wildly popular book, abound. Consider yourself duly warned.

I waited in line starting at 6 pm. When the movie ended at 2:30 am, I felt much like you might after completing a transatlantic flight: tired because of the marathon length, annoyed at the minor inconviences, elated by happy coincidences, and relieved to have arrived safely on the other side. Then the credits began to roll. When JK Rowling's name showed up, I clapped wildly like a fangirl child of the night, but a girl behind me started to boo loudly. I was baffled. People actually boo things? Movie screens? Authors who weren't even part of the movie?

"Well, I'm sorry," she said loudly, with her hands on her hips in her black robe, "but that movie sucked. It completely ruined the book." Instead of feeling an urge to tell her to shut it (as I usually do for people trying to make book/movie comparisons), I felt uncomfortable and quietly ignored her, as though the topic that she had brought up was slightly taboo. Normally, I agree completely with Joni on this topic: book/movie comparisons are irrelevant; movies don't erase books; movies don't have the same purpose as books; each form should be judged on its own merits.

But in the case of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I'm not sure I can agree. My opinion may change with future viewings, but right now, the movie doesn't stand on its own very well. Courtney phrased it well this morning: it feels like an outline of the book. Anyone who hadn't read the books would miss a lot of the things that made the movie worth sitting through, like the random cameos of Aberforth Dumbledore, Percy Weasley, and for that matter Tonks and Shacklebolt. They seem like good space-filler in the movie, but you'd have to be a book reader to understand their importance. Kreacher felt very tossed in, even after JKR explicitly told film-makers he would be important to keep because of future books. The establishment of the Weasley's shop is mostly hinted at, and three scenes basically cover the whole Cho Chang angst.

In other words, the style that makes Harry Potter better than your average pulp-young-adult-fantasy-novel is completely lost on the movies. On key part of JKR's style involves including some detail seemingly for humor value early in the book--for example, Dumbledore's full name (Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, his name is my name tooooo)--and having it end up being an important key to the resolution of the book--Dumbledore's initials are on the prophecy and thus he's our link to being able to hear it after Harry smashes it. But since in the movie Harry hears the prophecy, there's no suspense about that. The inclusion of Dumbledore's name becomes an interesting detail but of no relevance. The details are there just for the coolness factor, a common flaw in children's fantasy lit where the author has fallen in love with their own ability to create--look how cool and detailed my world is! The movies turn Harry Potter into something that's just average instead of so astounding that the New York Times had to create a children's bestseller list in order to keep Harry from constantly occupying the top 4 spots of their main list (which of course rightly belong to "serious" writers *cough*).

Then there are the major alterations in the plot--Harry handing over the prophecy to Lucious, Sirius being AK'd instead of just falling through the veil, Voldemort possessing Harry. I'm not sure what to do with these. I actually like the Voldemort possessing Harry bit; it's a more solid resolution of Harry's angst problems, a better transition into book 6 than even JKR wrote (as hard as that is to admit). But the others not so much. And these changes are not just to the mechanism of the plot, but also the meaning. Mechanism changes have to happen in the movies, especially since so many sub-plots must be cut. Things have to happen in new ways. But meaning changes are problematic. How can Dumbledore trust Harry in book 6 if he's willing to hand over the prophecy to any old death eater who's going to kill some people? It simply doesn't pan out. Movie 6 & 7 could end up completely different from the books of the same title. If the movies are trying to stand on their own without the books, I guess this is one way to do it, but unfortunately for me, the main point of the movies is to be able to experience that same story with other people. (Maybe I am making the argument that the books and movies should be the same . . . well, it is what it is.)

What did I like about the movie? I liked the separate development of Neville and Luna. Their character depth was better than I expected from the movies. Ginny needs more facial expressions, but I like the implied jealousy of Harry/Cho. (Ginny could also use more purposeful strength rather than accidental power. But maybe I'm biased about that because Ginny's character development in book 5 was a major point in my IB thesis on gender roles in Harry Potter.) After all my rant about the details, this movie does feel more magical than previous movies--the existance of a wizarding world feels real. The newspaper headlines rock especially.

Yeah, so I had a blast watching the movie. But I'm glad that's over. Now I can look forward to what really excites me: book 7! (More predictions coming this week, along with some non-Harry posts this week. I promise!)

And now after all this seriousness, here's a cartoon losely based on Harry in book 5: Wizard Angst. That summarizes the whole book/film pretty well. *insert brick wall here* Angst, angst, angst, angst . . . .