"out of order" - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Reviews

I'll start by saying I totally understand that film versions must and will differ from the book versions and I never expect to see my personal vision up on the screen. HOWEVER this director missed badly on this film. We all understand that going from the literary to the celluoid there will be scene casualties...but those casualties should happen for a reason...i.e. to be more efficient for the film process. But why make changes for no reason??? From what I have read here on these pages...a lot of fans are asking the same questions and I agree with most. (not all) for example: NO PREFECT FOR RON & HERMOINE - OK, I can live with this, afterall eventhough it was cool in the book...the story can certainly progress without this tid bit...so I will call this an acceptable casualty of adaptation. NEVILLE DISCOVERING THE ROOM OF REQUIREMENT?? - OK...no real biggie I suppose, but WHY? that change served no purpose. PERCY WEASLEY - Hmmmm...fine, maybe you choose to not go into the story about his falling out with his family (though, I am not sure why you wouldn't)...but if that is your choice, then why show him in Dumbledore's office holding onto Harry when the D.A. gets caught... Either decide to explain it or leave it out...but for those who didn't read the book, but happened to recognize Percy, boy they must have been confused. WHERE WAS THE ORDER??? - This was called OOTP right? perhaps the order deserved more than just a few minor mentions. I mean in each of the previous installments (book and film) the relevance of the title was obvious: Sorcerer's Stone? no doubt about the stone...CoS? think we all knew we would end up in the chamber...P of A...well, Sirius Black enough said... G of F? Yep again Goblet was pretty predominant throught both movie and book.... so what happened with OOTP? If you didn't read the book...how much could you say about the significance of the Order based on its almost NON-existence in the film??? CHO VS. MARRIETTA - Again...here I am fine with Cho being the one who gets the blame for busting the D.A. ... I mean why introduce a whole new character just to blame her a few minutes later. So fine... give Cho the rap BUT why, why, why...change the way the D.A.'s secret was revealed... Cho signed the parchment...the director went out of his way to show us that the students were signing the list...why not have Hermoine still mention that she put a spell on it.... He could have still made Cho out to be the sneak if that made it easier but without having to introduce a perhaps more damaging idea.... Yes, of course I am talking about this notion that Umbridge found out about the D.A. by using Veritaserum on Cho (and a numbe of students) Veritaserum provided by Snape??? Here is why this causes problems: We learned in G of F (both book and movie) that veritaserum is forbidden to use against students...big deal you might say, Umbridge would have no problem breaking that rule...well, true enough but what about Snape.... which brings me to: SNAPE - all HP fans who have read all the way through book 6 HBP of course no that one of the pressing questions of the day is none other than is Snape good or bad??? well we have to wait for book 7 of course but that is my point....in the book version of OOTP we of course learn that the veritaserum that Snape gives Umbridge is phony (in the book she was only using it against Harry)...the point is by giving her a phony potion WE the readers are still allowed to NOT make up our minds about Snape just yet. NOW if we are to believe (as the FILM suggests) that Snape knowingly gave Umbridge the truth potion fully aware that she would use it against people who have info on the Order...doesn't that undermine all of the effort that JK Rowling puts into keeping us guessing about his true alliance?? There is a reason she informed us in the book about the phony potion...she did not want us to make up our minds just yet. CRITICAL ERROR??? R.A.B. - of course to the non book readers these inititials mean nothing... as a matter of fact these initials don't even enter our story until book six...HOWEVER popular theory is that RAB refers of course to Sirius' brother Regulus Black whose name and existence is introduced to us in OOTP while in Grimauld place.... not to put to fine a point on this BUT if that theory is correct, why didn't this director choose to introduce him??? He had every opportunity seeing as in the book Regulus was introduced when Harry and Sirius were talking about the Black family tree....they showed us the tapestry and talked about some of the relatives... Careless to not introduce. I of course could go on...but this is way to long as it is. As i said when I began this...i understand that sacrifices must be made to go from book to film....but the filmmaker should still be held accountable to the spirit of the story...to not change things that may be key elements to future installments. After all the previous 4 films while taking some creative license were still true to the book regarding key elements...and more importantly were movies that could stand on their own. Unfortunately for OOTP... if you read and loved the book and fully appreciated its nuances you were probably left feeling at least a bit let down...If you didn't read the book....well while you probably enjoyed the movie well enough...what a shame because there is a whole story there that you didn't get to see. Overall I think this was lazy filmmaking depending on the support of a huge fan base rather than making the best film possible. I hope that the powers that be...find away to get back on track for the 6th and 7th films.