In POA, Dumbledore is somber with the addition of the dementors at Hogwarts and his worry about Sirius getting to Harry. By the end of the movie, he is humming like a bumblebee – which was Jo’s vision of him – as the dementors are gone and Sirius is proven to be innocent.

In GOF, Dumbledore’s fear is given a freer reign when Harry’s name comes out of the goblet. Also, once Harry says he didn’t put his name in, Dumbledore starts thinking again and calms down. I see that he is feeling out of control of the situation, which naturally would upset a person. We see at the end of GOF that Dumbledore is very serious, but also has time to be friendly with Harry and that Harry holds no ill will toward Dumbledore for yelling at him.

In OoTP, Dumbledore has limited time, but still shows every bit of the avoidance of Harry that I pictured when reading the story. Also, every time he looks at Harry, all three times in the movie, he shows his grave concern.

One of the FAQs on Jo’s site is, “Will we ever hear the the school song again?” She answers that if we hear the song again we can be sure the wizarding world is safe once more. I can just see Dumbledore’s portrait singing the school song, and driving McGonagall batty, at the end of DH.

The movies show he is less than happy from POA on. To me, Gambon is simply playing the encroaching darkness correctly.

As I grossly misquoted the actual FAQ, here is the link to it.

http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=104

Plus, I saw it in 3D and how can you go wrong with the battle scenes in 3D?

I still can’t get past Gambon as Dumbledore. I am not looking forward to seeing him in HBP. I am concerned that he won’t be able to pull off the connection with Harry without appearing to be attacking or accusatory. But, we shall see….

It was suitably tense but not over the top, which I thought was handled well. Overall I think transforming the story into this film was a success. There were parts I would have liked to see expanded on. Most notably Sirius’ cabin-fever existence at the OOTF headquarters (although with everything to fit into the movie it is a small sacrifice). But the confrontation that Harry & Dumbledore have at the end was brief, maybe even slightly anti-climactic. I was expecting that to be a prominent scene with real attention paid to each characters struggles.
The last 20 mins had me on the edge of my seat.

Overall it was an excellent movie. It could even rival Prisoner of Azkaban as the best Potter movie so far. I’ll be going to see it again soon.

Thanks all.

I must say, though, that if I could change anything about the movie, it would be to make that final scene with Harry and Dumbledore longer and more like the book. I think the whole story really builds up into that emotional interaction.

Greg’s comment about Bellatrix saying Avada Kedavra was a good point. I hadn’t thought about it in that respect. At first I figured they assumed it was a killing curse. But it makes more sense that Rowling would have had to approve something like that. But that rather dashes my hope that there was a small chance for Sirius to return.

Interesting thought, jjgotaas, the locket not being in the movie may very well mean that it’s not “The” locket. It would be brilliant for Jo to leave that kind of hint in the movie and distract us with all this talk of Kreacher CANNOT be cut. Or in movie seven Harry could just go, “Guys, I remember seeing this locket in Grimmauld Place, maybe Kreacher or Mundungus has it, let’s check with them.” That’s about how well the movies have illustrated the brilliantly subtle hints in the books so far.

We had quite a few people dress up at our theater. I think we had some Slytherins, a Hagrid, and a little boy that had uncanny likeness to Harry. Of course, a ton of people were wearing HP shirts (I made my own lol), and many were reading the books while waiting in line, and there was also one interesting character who had taken all six of his HP books and taped them to his body…. I’m not sure that I would subject my books to that kind of abuse lol.

But I’ll get that review to you guys soon!

Great podcast!

Also, Dumbledore (Gambon) I agree with earlier comments about him. He does seem angry all the time. I miss Richard Harris.

Like sugary Umbridge, the pre-movie hype was just too much sweetness. I was glad that Luna Lovegood was able to balance the overly icing-drenched movie with simple observations. There was not enough time dedicated to the movie and should have probably been left in the oven a bit longer with a few more ingredents added.

My son noticed the “non-verbal” spells. He hasn’t read the books and felt there was so much attention drawn to proper wand motions and verbal commands and then all of a sudden they can do spells by just pointing their wands and with no verbal commands. He also felt that the movie didn’t go anywhere except that Sirius dies. From the last movie to this it took an hour and a half to get everyone to believe Harry and then everything goes back to the way it was in movie 4 — Voldemort is back. He liked the fancy CGI and minor character development ~ Ron is more mature now and Harry and Cho’s relationship helps the audience to understand that Harry and Hermione’s relationship is platonic.

I did explain to my son that JKR was using a traditional fantasy literary device that has a character become holy by having to endure the ridicule and scorn of disbelieving peers (and/or community). The disbelieved character is redeemed in the end by being true to themselves and upholding Truth. This doesn’t translate very well to the screen however.

I will have to see the movie again to become reconciled to its deficiencies.

I think it’s a movie that requires undivided attention to get the single lines of dialogue that set up much of the character developement. Sirius set up Umbridge’s half-breed biases in one line in the fire, her measuring Flitwick reinforced that but without that line from Sirius it might have made less sense. Harry scolding Sirius for leaving Grimmauld Place to see him off followed by his mentioning his volunteering his home for the Order was all the expanation given, and really all that was needed- it isn’t all that important after all. I also liked the line where Sirius called Harry James, i thought that was not only accurate but appropriate. Sirius not so much as falling but enveloping into the viel was really well done.

I thought the pace of the movie was so furious it left lttle time to absorb what was happening, which is fine because most of the story telling was in dialogue which is harder to remember. I also like the way things were rearranged for better pace. The story of the Black family tree, Sirius saying the world is divided into more than good and Death Eater. They gave the the story a flow that didn’t detract from the amount of the novel that was ommited, it made it feel like a regular movie.

I really disagree with Penny about Emma Watson. I still think she is adorable and i always thought Hermione took herself too seriously and everything she says is improtant, and i think EW gets that. I also really liked Harry’s lines fighting off the possession:

“You’re the weak one. You know knothing of love and friendship. And i feel sorry for you”.

I didn’t take that as a “get out because”, but more of Harry understanding the prophecy, which he heard. I think this when/ how he figured out his real power, what separates Harry from Voldemort.

I also disagree with Greg on this theme’s of the books. Yes Order is about truth and disallusion. but i also think this book is about unity versus isolation, which is theme for the movie as well. The Sorting Hat omitted, they used the forest scene with Harry, Luna, and the Thestrals, where she explains how it is Voldemort’s plan to make Harry feel alone, that it’s to make him weaker. If you read Order in this light, you might see that a lot of the scenes where Harry is disallusioned he is also alone, but when he is persuing truth he is with his friends.

I liked the movie but i am hoping the DVD is a Directors cut that is about 45 minutes longer with more development in some of the scenes. I certainly liked it more than Transformers.

I know what you mean about thinking about stuff to point out while watching the movie and forgetting them the second you walk out of the theater. I’m seriously considering taking notes when I see it again – and I don’t even have a podcast! Perhaps I should look into that support group with Aaron…