Book-Movie Comparison: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The Order of the Phoenix is a tricky adaptation for me.  While it gets some stuff gloriously right, the book it’s based on is so long that it feels like the story needs to be cut to ribbons to even get the basics in.  As a result, it sometimes feels like a CliffNotes version of itself, and some of the richer aspects of the book get lost (spoilers.)

We’ll start with the film’s new casting, which the franchise pretty much always knocks out of the park.  Imelda Staunton is hands-down fantastic as Umbridge; I love her in this role so much.  She captures everything the character is about and is so effective at communicating Umbridge’s particular brand of sinister.  Top marks on that one, with a bonus shoutout for the terrific casting of the delightfully-kooky Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood.

When it comes to the plot, there are tons of edits, some of which aren’t terribly missed, some of which are.  I don’t mind trimming down a lot of the teen romance drama (not least of which because Harry doesn’t exactly endear himself to anyone in his handling of the whole Cho situation,) along with Hagrid and Grawp.  To be honest, I’d completely forgotten that Ron’s Quidditch career starts in this book, as well as Ron and Hermione becoming prefects and the emphasis on the heavy workload for fifth-year students.  While I wouldn’t say these things are crucial, the latter two details contribute to Harry’s overall sense of frustration with Hogwarts (and Dumbledore) in this book, making him feel like Hogwarts is becoming a less happy place for him and Dumbledore is shutting him out.  The Quidditch plot contributes to this as well, in how Harry reacts to being banned by Umbridge and how the team copes with losing him and the twins.  The movie hints at Harry feeling angry and isolated, but it doesn’t come through nearly as strongly as it does in the book.

Other cuts that I miss:  Mr. Weasley’s stay in St. Mungo’s, where the trio runs into Neville visiting his parents.  Sirius feeling restless and depressed at 12 Grimmauld Place (some of his behavior here would probably feel pretty immature on someone Gary Oldman’s age – the parent-generation casting issue strikes again! – but I still would’ve liked to see it included in some form.)  The more complete version of Snape’s worst memory and the fallout from that.  Harry learning that the prophecy could have originally referred to either him or Neville.  Again, these scenes aren’t absolutely essential, but I personally miss them.

The more major plots – Umbridge and the DA, Harry’s dreams about the prophecy – hit all the most salient points, but both, especially the former, feel noticeably abbreviated at times.  This is most definitely a length issue, so the movie isn’t entirely at fault; however, this is both the longest book in the franchise and one of the shorter movies, so they could’ve added another 10-15 minutes of run time without breaking the bank.  As it is, the film makes extensive use of montages in establishing the situation at Hogwarts as Umbridge seizes greater and greater control, as well as the DA’s attempts to train in secret, and although they technically get the job done, they flatten out the storyline and make it feel a little perfunctory.  That’s disappointing to me because, while my feelings on The Order of the Phoenix are mixed on the whole, I do love that storyline and would’ve liked for the film to have let it breathe more.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)

This is a frustrating book for me.  I think some of its themes and plot elements are completely awesome, but on the whole, the book is just way too long.  As such, the great parts can get bogged down by the fat surrounding it, which keeps the book from being as good as it could be.  Even though The Goblet of Fire is also really long, this is the one that first made me think J.K. Rowling needed a stronger editor (spoilers for the end of The Goblet of Fire.)

Although Voldemort’s return at the end of The Goblet of Fire is a huge factor here, much of Harry’s time isn’t spent fighting You-Know-Who.  Instead, his largest foe in this book is the Ministry of Magic, the wizard government currently beset with fear-mongering and propaganda as the Ministry sticks its head in the sand re:  Voldemort.  The Minister of Magic and his emissary to Hogwarts, the saccharine and malevolent Dolores Umbridge, try to discredit Harry’s claims and prevent their real fear:  that Dumbledore wants to usurp the Minister and is training his students to fight in his name.  With Umbridge making sure everyone toes the Ministry line and keeping them from learning any practical defensive magic, the trio steps up to help their friends prepare themselves for Voldemort’s coming war, appointing Harry as their secret teacher.

We’re start with what I love, which is everything about Umbridge and the DA.  Umbridge is just a tremendous antagonist:  syrupy sweetness that disguises her most vicious tendencies.  I like that hers is a bureaucratic sort of villainy, controlling what people at Hogwarts can and can’t do; it can seem almost banal at first, which is partly what allows her to embed herself as deeply as she does.  By the same turn, I love Harry and co.’s efforts againt her, dissent expressed in knowledge (OMG, that is so Hermione.)  The tricks they use to avoid detection are cool, and it’s neat to see the form that their stand takes.

We also get deeper into Voldemort, which goes more into his mysterious connection with Harry.  This leans on the “chosen one” angle, which I’m not super crazy about, but the story does some unexpected things with it, and there’s a nice sense of atmosphere surrounding the scenes that explore this connection.

What doesn’t really work for me is some of the teen drama stuff:  the Quidditch plot really drags, neither Harry nor Cho are well-served by their storyline together, and while this time through, I better recognize the elements fueling the whole Angry!Harry thing, it can still grate.  I’m also not especially interested in the Hagrid and Grawp stuff.

It all adds up to just too much.  I wouldn’t quite equate it with The Hobbit movies, because it doesn’t get to those lengths, but it does create a similar effect.  As awesome as the Umbridge and DA scenes are, it’s harder to fully appreciate them when you have to read through so many flabby, less interesting chapers to get to them.  If the plot were tighter, this could’ve been one of my favorites in the series, but as it stands, it’s far more middling.

Warnings

Violence (including torture,) strong thematic elements, scary moments, and drinking.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007, PG-13)

This is an odd one for me.  There are big parts of this movie that I really love, but others are major disappointments.  The book was hit-or-miss for me, too, though for mostly different reasons.  While the film nicely truncates what didn’t work for me in the book – much of the interminable teen romance drama has been cut – it runs into other issues that, despite liking the movie a lot, keeps it from being one of my favorites.

Although Voldemort’s return at the end of The Goblet of Fire is a huge factor here, much of Harry’s time isn’t spent fighting You-Know-Who.  Instead, his largest foe in this movie is the Ministry of Magic, the wizard government currently beset with fear-mongering and propaganda as the Ministry sticks its head in the sand re:  Voldemort.  The Minister of Magic and his emissary to Hogwarts, the saccharine and malevolent Dolores Umbridge, try to discredit Harry’s claims and prevent their real fear:  that Dumbledore wants to usurp the Minister and is training his students to fight in his name.  With Umbridge making sure everyone toes the Ministry line and keeping them from learning any practical defensive magic, the trio steps up to help their friends prepare themselves for Voldemort’s coming war, appointing Harry as their secret teacher.

As in the book, I adore Umbridge, her efforts to turn Hogwarts into a police state, and Harry and co.’s rebellion through the underground defense classes.  To me, Umbridge is one of the most interesting characters in the series, and the movie captures her brilliantly.  From her deceptively soft, pink-swathed-fluff-ball appearance and cloyingly sweet voice to her shocking undertones of menace, the execution is tremendous.  Imelda Staunton hits every note just right in the role – amazing work all around.  The DA classes are also well done, finding a balance between the thrill of rule-breaking, the triumph of learning something important, and the seriousness of the stakes involved (the scene between Neville and Harry about Neville’s parents is wonderful.)

My biggest complaint, then, is that there’s not enough of either plot.  The Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series, and even after trimming a lot of romance, there’s oodles of story leftover.  Bizarrely, though, this is the second-shortest movie in the franchise; only The Deathly Hallows:  Part 2 is shorter, and that’s on half of a book.  As such, plenty of good stuff doesn’t get its due.  Much of it is touched on, but the movie employs multiple drive-by montages to pack huge plot progression into fragments of screentime.  Umbridge’s first in-roads at Hogwarts get this treatment, as does a large chunk of the DA story.  Other developments are recapped through quicker news-headline sequences, and the popular Snape’s Worst Memory scene is similarly piecemeal.  Besides not doing these threads justice, it also makes the movie feel a out of place, because it’s the only film in the series that uses montages so extensively (it’s worth noting that it’s also the only film with a screenplay by Michael Goldenberg instead of Steve Kloves; Kloves has his own issues, but he does tend to approach cuts with a scalpel instead of a hatchet.)  While it’s all undeniably well-made – I can see why the franchise kept David Yates as director for the rest of the series – I’d have killed for another 10-15 minutes of runtime.  With such a long book, it’d have been justifiable, and it would’ve allowed these plots to build more organically. 

Warnings

Magical violence (including torture,) scary stuff, and some disturbing elements.