And what's the fucking deal with making one of the creepiest and most violent Harry Potter's PG? P-fucking-G? Are you kidding me?

Please to be fucking off at the earliest opportunity.

I can't wait to see what they do with 2nd part of Deathly Hallows.

But here comes Harry Potter. The problem with the changes made to the latest Potter films is that I don't buy the producers' logic and reasoning one bit. To me, it just reeks of laziness rather than "we did it for the sake of the story". Its bullshit, and I ain't buying it.

To say it reeks of laziness is *not* totally idiotic. To really go in depth, we need to talk about specifics, as your comments on the editing of "phoenix" is too vague to really debate (also because I agree with what you say).

What I'm saying is lazy is leaving out certain events because the filmmakers say they "can't find a way to work them in" (I don't know if they say that, I'm just assuming that would be the excuse), and the way they don't bother to set up future films or reference previous ones. Its like they're afraid newcomers to the series (really, at this point are we still worried about what they'll think?) won't understand the references, or its that the producers want every film to feel stand-alone (which they should, but to a point). They make the Potter universe feel smaller and smaller with the extreme lack of *details*, details that enrich the story and the characters.

But, going back up above, speaking about specifics, I'll throw out an example: Cutting out the final battle from the upcoming "Prince". The excuse? They don't want to repeat themselves when they do the final battle two films later in "Hallows pt II".

Laziness? You betcha. Any good filmmaker and storyteller knows that the battles are completely different and can be approached as such so that neither feels similar. Its just a copout, in my opinion, and the resulting story changes (like most in the Potter films) end up suffering from logic problems when you take a step back and look at the changes clearly. They're rewriting themselves into a corner in some cases (Dobby, being the best example to comes to mind).

LOTR obviously isn't perfect, but that's a monumental task trying to adapt those 3 stories at the same time and give each character an arc for each film and having payoffs and plot progressions that work and keeping the timeline together; its tough. I think they did a great job. Some missteps sure, but with Shelob, I think it makes sense.

A good idea in theory, but in the end, executed terribly. I don't mean to shit on the series, I really do enjoy them. But the 5th movie pissed me off to such a high degree, it seemed like a willful ignorance of the details, or a chosen path to just make a mediocre film instead of trying to do something epic. Cuaron's film IS the best of the series for many reasons: acting, effects, pacing, details (though there is one large detail that was omitted, and that omission boggles the mind). I just don't get the sense that Yates has a real love for these stories. He hadn't read any of the books when he was hired. So, following that logic, I can see why things are omitted because he has no ties to them. Which can be beneficial in some cases, detrimental in others. Detrimental in this case because the films are not living up to what many others believe they can be.

I see these films and from a filmmaking and storytelling standpoint say "This could have been better". And that's why I get upset.

You decide write a post decrying the lack of breadth and maturity of this website and its community, and then proceed to clog up a talkback ragging everyone happy to discuss a fairly uncontroversial series of movies as "creepy idiot man-child types in their mother's basement..." ?!?

I think it would be fair to assume that the concept of irony just confuses you...

I don't need to know any of that to continue calling you an idiot. But when you insult others on a topic you obviously know nothing about? Well... yep, you're an idiot all right.

I'm not quite sure at which point I was suddenly converted from mildy interested to 'fixated' with Potter, but thanks for letting me know - I honestly wouldn't get through the day without the good ol' homespun advice of the friendly folks at Random Internet Central; you guys know me better than I do myself!.

How's the campaign to reform AIC going by the way? Spreading much of that glorious maturity of yours around?

Attaboy!

How many times have we seen a party of adventurers enter and explore a dark, forgotten dungeon like it was something out of a D&D adventure? Not very often.

FOTR made me want to pull out my old Player's Handbook, the one with the party of adventures disposing of the lizard man bodies and stealing the gems out of the eye-holes of the statue.

And if after the first year he has done lousy, I will say he is a lousy president. But first you have to admit Bush was God-fucking-awful.

By the way, anyone see Mancow get waterboarded?

We are supposed to be the good guys, the ones who set the example. We don't torture.