Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, part 3
So I bought the Order of the Phoenix DVD as a going away present to myself before I left for Scotland. And watching the film a third time, I came across even more things that annoy me about it than I did the first and second time. Cut for your convenience (I get pretty in-depth). I really just need to exorcise these demons...
1. Is the beginning a dream sequence? Is it not? Can we use more realistic coloring and such to be clear? One of my friends (who hadn’t read the book) actually thought the whole opening scene was a dream until Mrs. Figg showed up, which ... I can totally see. It’s just filmed really weirdly.
2. Honestly, I think Harry is going to be in a lot more trouble because he was flying around on a broomstick about three feet above the Thames and directly next to party yachts than he is because he tried to fend off a couple dementors.
3. On one of the special features, someone explained why Number Twelve Grimmauld Place is so small: It was filmed to look like it’s squeezed between two houses. Okay, it’s not actually squeezed between Eleven and Thirteen, geniuses! It’s a charm. It’s just invisible to people not in on the secret; and it would look weird if there were an empty lot between Eleven and Thirteen, so the charm takes care of that. That’s why magic is awesome. It’s not like they film Hogwarts to look like a ruin just because that’s what Muggles see when they look at it!
4. After Fred and George appear, one of them (George, I think) says to Harry, “If you’re done shouting…” Only Harry wasn’t shouting. Merlin, read more than your lines in the script, Dan! If the character after you says you were shouting, maybe, just maybe, you should shout. Argh, where the hell is angry!Harry? You can’t tell me Dan doesn’t know how to do angry! And you can’t tell me David Yates doesn’t like shouting, since he has no problem letting Dumbledore shout at his students (something the real Dumbledore wouldn’t do)!
5. I can’t tell you how much it annoys me that movie-Sirius’s hair is curly.
Aside -- I so want to go to London, find that telephone box, get in, and dial 62442. A part of me fully believes that it would actually lower into the Ministry of Magic if I did that.
6. Mr. Weasley: “As the Muggles say, ‘Truth will out.’” Um ... why would only Muggles say this? Truth is a universal concept, like love and hope. It’s not exclusive to Muggles. That’s very bizarre.
7. Okay, this isn’t really a complaint about the movie, but it’s something that has always bugged me about Harry’s hearing. Harry says he conjured the Patronus because of the dementors, and in the book Fudge says something like, “He’s thought about it and decided that would make a clever cover story. Muggles can’t see dementors.” Yes, but that’s not why it’s a good explanation for his actions. It’s a good explanation because it’s the only explanation! The Patronus Charm is used specifically to ward off dementors; there is no other reason to conjure a Patronus. Well, okay, I guess if you’re in the Order there’s another reason, but it’s highly unlikely Harry would have been able to do magic that advanced at fifteen, and it’s not like Fudge knew that was how the Order communicated anyway! So why else would Harry conjure a Patronus? What did the Wizengamot think, that Harry just wanted to show off for Dudley at the risk of expulsion? Amelia Bones is supposed to be really clever, how would she miss the logic in this? Someone explain this to me! I don’t even understand...
8. It is never explained why the dementors were in Little Whinging! In fact, there are a lot of the subplots in this movie that are never tied up, but I’ll get to that later...
9. Malfoy: “I expect there’s a cell in Azkaban with your name on it!”
Harry: *huge-overreaction-lunge-scuffle-thing* “JUST STAY AWAY FROM ME!”
And I just have to say, Malfoy didn’t even try to touch him or hex him, and what he said wasn’t even that mean. In fact, it was kind of dumb. Yet this we can shout about; Dumbledore being a bastard we can’t shout about. WTF?
10. How does Hermione know Luna? Hermione is the bookworm, not the social butterfly! Luna’s not in their house, and she’s not in their year. There is no reason why Hermione should know who she is.
11. In the D.A. scene where Hermione stuns Ron, why do Fred and George bet each other? They share money! It’s not like Fred has thirteen Sickles and George has eleven, or whatever. It’s not like either of them know (or care) whose Sickle it “technically” is. They don’t have individual things (except brooms, I guess). Like, I’m sure when Fred died, George got all his stuff, because it was George’s anyway! Betting each other is just so pointless! Like, “Cool, I won, and now ... I have exactly as much money as I did before.”
12. Who the hell is “Nigel” related to that he gets so many freaking lines, while Draco Malfoy gets hardly any! Whoever it is, I want to hunt them down and hurt them for infiltrating my canon! Nigel fills me with such inexpressible anger!
13. Why do they pan up Harry and Cho’s bodies as they’re kissing? To show that they awkwardly aren’t touching at all? And no, Hermione, Cho isn’t worried about failing her O.W.L.s because Cho has already taken her O.W.L.s! Because Cho is in the year above Harry! Also, Hermione laughs way too hard at her own joke, which was actually funnier in the book when she said it nastily instead of ... the weird way she said it in the movie. The older the movie-Trio get, the less they are like the canon-Trio. This makes me sad.
14. Mr. Weasley wasn’t in the Hall of Prophecy when he got attacked, he was guarding the door to the Department of Mysteries! Which made much more sense tactically anyway! Honestly, people, don’t be such fools when you block scenes!
15. Having the family tree tapestry covering the walls of an entire room is the most illogical thing ever! Why would anyone do that? It doesn’t look like a family tree anymore; it takes a lot more work to make; it’s a huge waste of perfectly good wall space; it must be hell to try to read it. Why would you ever think it was a good idea? And Sirius and Harry are so calm and mature in this scene, and Sirius and OotP-Harry aren’t calm or mature! And Sirius sounds genuinely sad that his mother disowned him, like he loved her or something; and I’m sure Sirius was sad and stuff deep, deep down, but the point is that Sirius is bitter. That’s just part of his personality, it’s what makes him Sirius: he’s really, really bitter. And movie-Sirius isn’t bitter, and that’s really annoying!
Aside -- “When all this is over, we’ll be a proper family.” While I don’t think it’s really something Sirius would say, this line still kills me every time!
16. Harry: “A full-bodied Patronus is the most difficult to produce, but shield forms can also be equally useful against a variety of opponents.” Um, no, they can’t, not least because there are no such things as “shield forms” of Patronuses. Either you succeed with the charm and produce a corporeal Patronus, or you produce some silver vapor, which can hold off the dementors temporarily but is certainly not as “equally useful” as a corporeal Patronus. And no, the Patronus Charm isn’t “useful against a variety of opponents”; it is useful against dementors, which is what it’s for!
17. I know I’ve mentioned this in both my previous posts, but it bugs me every time! There were not 119 educational decrees! Umbridge became Headmistress under Educational Decree Number Twenty-Eight! How did they get ninety-one extra educational decrees? Who decides these things? They’re very stupid!
18. The D.A. didn’t get detention for a very simple reason: Dumbledore’s dismissal was the punishment. He was considered responsible, and the kids got off. Not to mention that Fred and George would never just sit and carve words on the back of their hands! They didn’t care about being in school that much! That was really one of the sub-points of OotP!
19. There are so many things wrong with the Marauder scene, I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like a whole separate post.
20. Look, Fred and George are made of awesome, but I don’t think they were that good with the younger kids. I really don’t think they’d be the kind to come across a crying first year and be all comforting. Personally, I think they’d walk past and pretend they hadn’t noticed. That, or they’d give him some Puking Pastilles to “take his mind off the pain” and then Ginny would get mad at them.
21. Wow, Harry has the most passive friends ever! None of them struggle against the Slytherins, most of whom aren’t really holding them that tightly anyway, so they could probably get away! If I wanted to take someone hostage, those kids were definitely be on my list! Easy prisoners.
22. It’s never explained that Snape alerted the Order after Harry tried to tell him about Sirius being held in the Department of Mysteries. In fact, no one ever mentions that scene again. So Snape actually looks like a bastard who didn’t care if Sirius lived or died. And Harry doesn’t even care if that’s true!
23. Centaurs can talk! That scene made them seem like intelligent-yet-vicious beasts, rather than the wise beings they actually are!
24. Morons, don’t edit the prophecy! Now it’s just like ... I mean, how do they know it means Harry? The way it was edited it became so ambiguous that it could mean anyone! The only reason Harry’s like, “Oh, it’s about me,” is because it has his name on it. But how did they know to put his name on it? It doesn’t have any identifying marks of “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord”, like when he’ll be born or something about his parents or anything! WHY WOULD YOU EDIT THE PROPHECY??? This will always make me angry!
Aside -- “Nice one, James!” kills me every single time! Every. Single. Time.
25. Here’s what annoys me about the scene where Harry is possessed by Voldemort: Voldemort didn’t possess Harry because he wanted to turn Harry evil; Voldemort possessed Harry because he wanted to get Dumbledore to kill Harry thinking this would also kill Voldemort. It had absolutely nothing to do with turning Harry evil. Harry was in excruciating pain, but he never once felt evil throughout the ordeal. And Harry didn’t get rid of Voldemort by telling him he felt sorry for him; he got rid of him because he wanted to die because he was in so much pain, and he realized that by dying he could see Sirius again. This involuntarily filled him with love, which Voldemort couldn’t endure. Argh, this is all in the book, people! Read it, and you could do the movie correctly!
26. I hate the scene in Dumbledore’s office so much! Harry just accepts everything so calmly, and Dumbledore really doesn’t explain anything, and no one talks about Snape! Harry is really bitter toward Snape, and that actually has a lot to do with the next two books! Of course, since they obviously didn’t think the prophecy was very important, and it has to do with, let’s see, EVERYTHING, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.
27. Harry: “We’ve got one thing that Voldemort doesn’t have: something worth fighting for.” Forgive me, but I’m fairly certain Voldemort thinks he is fighting for something worth fighting for: immortality and wizard domination. I don’t think he would have gone to the lengths he did to achieve either ambition if he didn’t think it was worth it. So, sorry, I have to disagree with you, Harry.
28. Since when is the train station in the middle of the Forbidden Forest?
1. Is the beginning a dream sequence? Is it not? Can we use more realistic coloring and such to be clear? One of my friends (who hadn’t read the book) actually thought the whole opening scene was a dream until Mrs. Figg showed up, which ... I can totally see. It’s just filmed really weirdly.
2. Honestly, I think Harry is going to be in a lot more trouble because he was flying around on a broomstick about three feet above the Thames and directly next to party yachts than he is because he tried to fend off a couple dementors.
3. On one of the special features, someone explained why Number Twelve Grimmauld Place is so small: It was filmed to look like it’s squeezed between two houses. Okay, it’s not actually squeezed between Eleven and Thirteen, geniuses! It’s a charm. It’s just invisible to people not in on the secret; and it would look weird if there were an empty lot between Eleven and Thirteen, so the charm takes care of that. That’s why magic is awesome. It’s not like they film Hogwarts to look like a ruin just because that’s what Muggles see when they look at it!
4. After Fred and George appear, one of them (George, I think) says to Harry, “If you’re done shouting…” Only Harry wasn’t shouting. Merlin, read more than your lines in the script, Dan! If the character after you says you were shouting, maybe, just maybe, you should shout. Argh, where the hell is angry!Harry? You can’t tell me Dan doesn’t know how to do angry! And you can’t tell me David Yates doesn’t like shouting, since he has no problem letting Dumbledore shout at his students (something the real Dumbledore wouldn’t do)!
5. I can’t tell you how much it annoys me that movie-Sirius’s hair is curly.
Aside -- I so want to go to London, find that telephone box, get in, and dial 62442. A part of me fully believes that it would actually lower into the Ministry of Magic if I did that.
6. Mr. Weasley: “As the Muggles say, ‘Truth will out.’” Um ... why would only Muggles say this? Truth is a universal concept, like love and hope. It’s not exclusive to Muggles. That’s very bizarre.
7. Okay, this isn’t really a complaint about the movie, but it’s something that has always bugged me about Harry’s hearing. Harry says he conjured the Patronus because of the dementors, and in the book Fudge says something like, “He’s thought about it and decided that would make a clever cover story. Muggles can’t see dementors.” Yes, but that’s not why it’s a good explanation for his actions. It’s a good explanation because it’s the only explanation! The Patronus Charm is used specifically to ward off dementors; there is no other reason to conjure a Patronus. Well, okay, I guess if you’re in the Order there’s another reason, but it’s highly unlikely Harry would have been able to do magic that advanced at fifteen, and it’s not like Fudge knew that was how the Order communicated anyway! So why else would Harry conjure a Patronus? What did the Wizengamot think, that Harry just wanted to show off for Dudley at the risk of expulsion? Amelia Bones is supposed to be really clever, how would she miss the logic in this? Someone explain this to me! I don’t even understand...
8. It is never explained why the dementors were in Little Whinging! In fact, there are a lot of the subplots in this movie that are never tied up, but I’ll get to that later...
9. Malfoy: “I expect there’s a cell in Azkaban with your name on it!”
Harry: *huge-overreaction-lunge-scuffle-thing* “JUST STAY AWAY FROM ME!”
And I just have to say, Malfoy didn’t even try to touch him or hex him, and what he said wasn’t even that mean. In fact, it was kind of dumb. Yet this we can shout about; Dumbledore being a bastard we can’t shout about. WTF?
10. How does Hermione know Luna? Hermione is the bookworm, not the social butterfly! Luna’s not in their house, and she’s not in their year. There is no reason why Hermione should know who she is.
11. In the D.A. scene where Hermione stuns Ron, why do Fred and George bet each other? They share money! It’s not like Fred has thirteen Sickles and George has eleven, or whatever. It’s not like either of them know (or care) whose Sickle it “technically” is. They don’t have individual things (except brooms, I guess). Like, I’m sure when Fred died, George got all his stuff, because it was George’s anyway! Betting each other is just so pointless! Like, “Cool, I won, and now ... I have exactly as much money as I did before.”
12. Who the hell is “Nigel” related to that he gets so many freaking lines, while Draco Malfoy gets hardly any! Whoever it is, I want to hunt them down and hurt them for infiltrating my canon! Nigel fills me with such inexpressible anger!
13. Why do they pan up Harry and Cho’s bodies as they’re kissing? To show that they awkwardly aren’t touching at all? And no, Hermione, Cho isn’t worried about failing her O.W.L.s because Cho has already taken her O.W.L.s! Because Cho is in the year above Harry! Also, Hermione laughs way too hard at her own joke, which was actually funnier in the book when she said it nastily instead of ... the weird way she said it in the movie. The older the movie-Trio get, the less they are like the canon-Trio. This makes me sad.
14. Mr. Weasley wasn’t in the Hall of Prophecy when he got attacked, he was guarding the door to the Department of Mysteries! Which made much more sense tactically anyway! Honestly, people, don’t be such fools when you block scenes!
15. Having the family tree tapestry covering the walls of an entire room is the most illogical thing ever! Why would anyone do that? It doesn’t look like a family tree anymore; it takes a lot more work to make; it’s a huge waste of perfectly good wall space; it must be hell to try to read it. Why would you ever think it was a good idea? And Sirius and Harry are so calm and mature in this scene, and Sirius and OotP-Harry aren’t calm or mature! And Sirius sounds genuinely sad that his mother disowned him, like he loved her or something; and I’m sure Sirius was sad and stuff deep, deep down, but the point is that Sirius is bitter. That’s just part of his personality, it’s what makes him Sirius: he’s really, really bitter. And movie-Sirius isn’t bitter, and that’s really annoying!
Aside -- “When all this is over, we’ll be a proper family.” While I don’t think it’s really something Sirius would say, this line still kills me every time!
16. Harry: “A full-bodied Patronus is the most difficult to produce, but shield forms can also be equally useful against a variety of opponents.” Um, no, they can’t, not least because there are no such things as “shield forms” of Patronuses. Either you succeed with the charm and produce a corporeal Patronus, or you produce some silver vapor, which can hold off the dementors temporarily but is certainly not as “equally useful” as a corporeal Patronus. And no, the Patronus Charm isn’t “useful against a variety of opponents”; it is useful against dementors, which is what it’s for!
17. I know I’ve mentioned this in both my previous posts, but it bugs me every time! There were not 119 educational decrees! Umbridge became Headmistress under Educational Decree Number Twenty-Eight! How did they get ninety-one extra educational decrees? Who decides these things? They’re very stupid!
18. The D.A. didn’t get detention for a very simple reason: Dumbledore’s dismissal was the punishment. He was considered responsible, and the kids got off. Not to mention that Fred and George would never just sit and carve words on the back of their hands! They didn’t care about being in school that much! That was really one of the sub-points of OotP!
19. There are so many things wrong with the Marauder scene, I don’t even know where to begin. It’s like a whole separate post.
20. Look, Fred and George are made of awesome, but I don’t think they were that good with the younger kids. I really don’t think they’d be the kind to come across a crying first year and be all comforting. Personally, I think they’d walk past and pretend they hadn’t noticed. That, or they’d give him some Puking Pastilles to “take his mind off the pain” and then Ginny would get mad at them.
21. Wow, Harry has the most passive friends ever! None of them struggle against the Slytherins, most of whom aren’t really holding them that tightly anyway, so they could probably get away! If I wanted to take someone hostage, those kids were definitely be on my list! Easy prisoners.
22. It’s never explained that Snape alerted the Order after Harry tried to tell him about Sirius being held in the Department of Mysteries. In fact, no one ever mentions that scene again. So Snape actually looks like a bastard who didn’t care if Sirius lived or died. And Harry doesn’t even care if that’s true!
23. Centaurs can talk! That scene made them seem like intelligent-yet-vicious beasts, rather than the wise beings they actually are!
24. Morons, don’t edit the prophecy! Now it’s just like ... I mean, how do they know it means Harry? The way it was edited it became so ambiguous that it could mean anyone! The only reason Harry’s like, “Oh, it’s about me,” is because it has his name on it. But how did they know to put his name on it? It doesn’t have any identifying marks of “the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord”, like when he’ll be born or something about his parents or anything! WHY WOULD YOU EDIT THE PROPHECY??? This will always make me angry!
Aside -- “Nice one, James!” kills me every single time! Every. Single. Time.
25. Here’s what annoys me about the scene where Harry is possessed by Voldemort: Voldemort didn’t possess Harry because he wanted to turn Harry evil; Voldemort possessed Harry because he wanted to get Dumbledore to kill Harry thinking this would also kill Voldemort. It had absolutely nothing to do with turning Harry evil. Harry was in excruciating pain, but he never once felt evil throughout the ordeal. And Harry didn’t get rid of Voldemort by telling him he felt sorry for him; he got rid of him because he wanted to die because he was in so much pain, and he realized that by dying he could see Sirius again. This involuntarily filled him with love, which Voldemort couldn’t endure. Argh, this is all in the book, people! Read it, and you could do the movie correctly!
26. I hate the scene in Dumbledore’s office so much! Harry just accepts everything so calmly, and Dumbledore really doesn’t explain anything, and no one talks about Snape! Harry is really bitter toward Snape, and that actually has a lot to do with the next two books! Of course, since they obviously didn’t think the prophecy was very important, and it has to do with, let’s see, EVERYTHING, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised.
27. Harry: “We’ve got one thing that Voldemort doesn’t have: something worth fighting for.” Forgive me, but I’m fairly certain Voldemort thinks he is fighting for something worth fighting for: immortality and wizard domination. I don’t think he would have gone to the lengths he did to achieve either ambition if he didn’t think it was worth it. So, sorry, I have to disagree with you, Harry.
28. Since when is the train station in the middle of the Forbidden Forest?