The eternal dilemma: Did the movie do justice to the book?

Since the time I picked up Order of the Phoenix to read, I’ve wanted to watch it as a movie. The itch to watch the motion picture is higher, especially when I have read the book.

With this 5th Harry Potter book, perhaps the thickest book so far, things take on a different color… Harry and his friends have grown up, so to say. The dark lord strengthens. It’s more like, the characters are gaining more vivid characteristics.

Also, when a book is more descriptive, it leaves so much more for imagination. I am a very visual person. I remember things in images. I make visual story boards out of things I read, listen to or what I have to remember. And so, in a case where the book is descriptive and has a lot of events and characters, I freak out making my own world around that book and its characters. When I am reading such a book, it’s more like I am in that world and I take breaks to come to this ‘real’ world to do mundane personal stuff.

If it’s a shorter book, its easy, since I finish it off pretty fast and the story world may linger for an extra day, but with a book like Order of the Phoenix – the world stretches with you till you finish the book and sometimes fights for its space and dominance.

Anyways, coming back to the book versus the motion picture; I happened to watch the movie finally on Thursday night. I went with my partner with much fan fare. Booked tickets online, reached there just 20 minutes early. Picked the tickets at the counter, had a marathon dinner… bought extra popcorn and coke… all in anticipation to a Harry Potter treat!

Once the movie started, it ended, of course obvious. We contemplated walking out mid-movie, but I can be a hopeless optimist at the wrong times. Scene after scene, we moaned and groaned with unhappiness. About, how a particular episode in the book could have been translated into the script.

I felt that I had watched trailers / promos of the Order of the Phoenix, the movie and the actually movie was yet to come. When we walked out of the theatre, we dint even feel like we’d watched a movie, sadly. The images from my world of Order of the Phoenix were so vivid that I thought the movie was an utter injustice to the book and the series.

After all this disappointment, I am sure I will go and watch the Half- blood prince when it releases and the rest of the Potter movies…. But, I really wish more movies were made that did justice to the book. Yeah, I know this is an argument that swings both ways – as much as I’d say that a movie did justice to the book; I also account to the fact that opinions are subjective. Therefore, this is my subjective point of view 

Final Verdict: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – bad movie! Good Book!