harry potter and the order of the phoenix was preety good

Is that a No, No, Yes, Yes, No, No, Yes, Yes?

It would have been difficult for them to stuff it up, which they did admirably. In particular I question the choice of making the longest Potter novel into the shortest movie. Even ten minutes more screen time would have been welcome.

They took stuff out Rowling told them to put back, and left stuff out they shouldn't have. We'll see in a couple of weeks what threads to be picked up in Deathly Hallows have been terminally struck out. They can always retcon a flashback to insert the material, or even better they could have listened to what she said.

I'm well aware that exposition works less well in a visual medium than text, and the last two novels have ended and begun with entire chapters which were info dumps. But it streaches the imagination how they could have done worse than Harry humping the ground in the Ministry atrium to a montage of memories, followed by a two sentance explaination.

Before anyone takes this the wrong way I did enjoy the film and I'm not bitching about it not being faithful to the book. Just the piss poor choices they made as film makers.

And the number one mistake--it should have been Ringo for Kreacher.

yes it may have been the longest but it would not have been hard to leave stuff out of this movie form the book.

I thought Order of the Phoenix was great  - a much simpler and linier storyline  this time.

But I think it's rather impossible to actually film a book as written.  I think the main objective of any book to film adaptation is to get the 'spirit' of the piece.

The Lord of the Rings films were fantastic in that even though quite a lot was cut out, the visuals and mood of the films, got the sense of Tolkein's books.

The James Bond films have almost never filmed what Ian Fleming wrote, but have used the 'flavour' of the character to get him across on screen.

I think if people want to see the definitive version of what the author wanted, then they should read the original book.

There have been some cinematic stuff ups of late of books - Eragon held some promise - but I think in the main, audiences should judge the films as 'based on' rather than being the actual book as filmed.

But I think if seeing a film makes someone determined to read the book, then that's no bad thing at all....and I do indeed plan to read the Harry Potter books at some stage to get the little nuances the films have missed.