The Deathly Hallows Has Arrived

Order of the Phoenix

At midnight last night, I found myself breathless with anticipation in a darkening theater with family and friends. Many people were dressed in wizard gear (myself included), and some in full character costumes. We had a fantastic Mad-Eye Moody and Draco Malfoy in our row. Luckily we had arrived two hours early and gotten our preferred seats. The theater we attended sold out all 18 screens (!), so every seat in the house was filled.

I was pleasantly surprised, right from the start, with how much was taken verbatim from the book. This installment actually did the least twiddling with the plot out of all the movies, in my opinion. There were a couple of notable changes and omissions that disappointed me. However, seeing as Ms. Rowling signs off on the scripts before production, I can only assume that they are unimportant in the long run. It seems that she did insist that one character be put back into the film who was not previously included. Apparently this character will play an important role in Deathly Hallows. My immediate guess when I read about this was that it was Kreacher who must be left in. I then found an article at The Leaky Cauldron quoting the director that confirms my guess, but I can't get it to load properly, so I don't know if this link to it will work.

In short, we all enjoyed the movie a great deal, but we all agree that a second viewing will be in order very shortly. It seems everyone missed quite a bit of the dialogue because of our own laughter and gasps along with those of the rest of the audience. Hopefully our next theater trip will be this Saturday morning.