I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good!

Word of the Post
Today's word is: pluvial
/ploo"vee*ul/ adjective
Of, or having much, rain.
Today there was a pluvial downpour, resulting in a river falling off of my roof.
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I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I went to see the Midnight Premiere showing on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. On Wednesday night at church, I was asked what I thought about it. I didn't answer then. I have to say now, that the more I think about it, the less I hate it. Yep, I hated it. But it is growing on me. Let me explain.

I was angry. Much like the beginning of the movie for the Goblet of Fire, I thought the small changes that were made were more plot killings than artistry. There were several details that were left out, because the movie would have to be 12 hours long without editing. There were a few minor changes of who said what, and the only house elf seen is Kreacher, and he was not nearly as vile as he should have been. We don't see the heavy locket nobody could open. No cleaning of the headquarters, whatsoever. We heard mumblings, but no shrieking from dear old mother's portrait. Professor Umbridge was not nearly "froggy" enough, and they never really showed the little black-fly bow on her head. I have to admit that I am sad that we missed Hermione's clever charm on the DA list, and therefore, we did not see S*N*E*A*K plastered on the face of the tattletale, Marietta. I think that was my biggest (while still inconsequential) disappointment.

Now to the positive. The Weasley twins' exit is PHENOMENAL. It is a feat of cinematic and creative amazement. I warn you, it is loud, but it had our whole theater cheering. The Room of Prophecy was pretty cool. They didn't have the other rooms, but concentrated on the Prophecy room and the room with the Shroud. Again, 12 hours otherwise. Professor Umbridge had the little "hem, hem" just exactly as I imagined it, as well as a wonderful presentation of the fury with pink frills that is described in the book. The looks and movements are precisely evil enough, yet sugar-coated sweetness drips from her. It is hard to hate Snape. It really is. Alan Rickman is a great actor, and this character is such an enigma. The Room of Requirement was also pretty cool.

Best of all, in my small opinion, is Filch. He gets to do that funny, leg-stretching, backward-leaning run of his. He thinks he is being so sneaky, watching the wall where the Room of Requirement usually shows up. The exaggeration of the number of Educational Decrees makes Filch even funnier. He doesn't get to say much, but this time he gets seen much more in the movie, and it is to his credit.

I have been a fan of the books, and have also been critical of them. I am happy that the S.P.E.W. thing was left out of the movies. It was a ridiculous waste of paper for me. JKR could have developed more background for the trio (Harry, Ron and Hermione), or more emotions for side characters like Neville, Seamus or Ginny. She could have touched more on the other Houses. There has never been much spoken about the Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw houses, because Gryffindor and Slytherin have such a long history of disdain for each other.

I have been a fan of the movies, because it makes the books a little easier to digest. Like any movie, I know that it cannot be identical to the book, because other people perceive it differently than I do. I know that there has to be a lot of work and change that goes into making a screenplay vs. the original book. They can't match perfectly. But there are details that the readers know, and are looking for in the movies, and they will not find many of those hints. This may be a detriment to the next two movies.

I will be waiting in the line at Books-A-Million on the night of the 20th, to pick up 6 copies of the final installment of the books, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I will likely even be wearing my cloak, and carrying a stick (masquerading as a wand) to dress up and be a character like so many children, teens and geeks in my town. Don't worry, I won't be selling them. I have ordered them for my friends with my membership savings card, and will be delivering on Sunday, or letting the friends come get them sooner. I will be reading, you think I would stop to make sure that others can read it first?!?! What, are you crazy?

So what do you think? Do you even care? I know there are people who have not read one book of the series, and won't bother. That is fine. There are many people who have read them, and who have opinions and suspicions about what the Horcruxes all are. Are the Horcruxes actually half of his soul each time he made one? Does that mean he only has 1/64 of his soul left? There are several fan sites that even JKR endorses, so go out there and see what people are saying. I personally wonder how powerful Lord Voldemort was before he split his soul at all.... he seems pretty powerful now, and that is with only a tiny piece of his soul. Or... does it make him more powerful that his soul is in pieces? He has no conscience to stop him from using the Unforgivable Curses, so that would help him find, use and create more evil magic.

I think that JKR could write other useful texts to back up the stories... like writing "Hogwarts: A History" that Hermione always quotes out of. I also have a few ideas about the possibility of fan fiction. There are some real idiots out there. I am sure that the real fans of HP will weed out the nut jobs from the good storytellers. I think there are some very good ideas out there, and I wait to see the explosion of fan fiction that happens when the 7th book has not cleared up what fans want to know.

The best advice I can give anyone wondering if they even want to see this movie is this: Go see it. You have to see it to make your own decisions about it.

Better yet, read the book. The book is always better.

Mischief Managed.