Harry Potter audiobook: Better than the movie?

After being disappointed by the movie, I thought I'd give the book a quick a do-over. An intern suggested something better, he told me to listen to the audiobook series . He says its a better experience.

And I quite agree. It is better in terms of content because it is the whole book after all., but what's more, you get the feel for the story, the pacing, each character's emotion while retaining the magic of it all. Now if you're never tried audiobooks, it could get disconcerting at first, hard to keep your attention on it. I for one can't get the hang of audio books in the past, I keep having to rewind because I can't keep track of it, but not this one.

Jim Dale, the reader of this book, is so good that you will not only enjoy listening, you actually get a feel for the whole thing! He has voices for each character (that he doesn't get mixed up) and are quite good fits too. In fact he acts a lot of the characters better than the actors in the movie itself! You will have to use your imagination a bit though, but JK Rowling is pretty good in describing her scenes that its not so hard. And you get the benefits of the better written dialogues in the book too.

The only drawback is the length of the book. It takes 18 hours to finish The Half-blood Prince alone. Not that you wont enjoy every minute of it. I certainly did. Just a matter of finding something to do with it that doesn't require much thought, like exercising for one. Might even help you get fitter.

Harry Potter 6: The half-baked film

I just came home from watching Harry Potter 6, and I must say that I didn't enjoy it much. And its not because of the rather unexpected twist that most people were complaining about either. I feel that this installment is second only to Harry Potter 2 (which sucked so much they change directors after) in terms of quality or rather lack of it. And the only reason this is better is because this at least had the actors acting; in part 2, apart from the central characters, they basically relegated the other roles to mere flower vases or furniture status.

I realize that in stories like these the book tends to trump the movie primarily because of time constraint. There's no way you can show all the intricate details of the book without taking a day or two of reel time. Especially not for a book as carefully crafted and as well nuanced as this one. This is why I avoid comparing them if I can--although this is virtually impossible since there's no way for me to respond to the film as if I've never read the story or don't anticipate the story's direction. Yet, however much I forgive some of the things the director took out from the film because of time issue, I can't help but feel that he took away more than he should have. It would've been ok if time was the main reason, but I sometimes doubt this because he left in quite a number of unimportant scenes as well.

*SPOILER ALERT* If you haven't seen it and wish to see it first before knowing more, please skip to the last part of this entry. If you want to read it, feel free to highlight the seemingly blank space that follows.

The Quidditch tryouts could easily have been done away with since it wasn't central to the story anyway. I also felt that some of Malfoy's scene working out in the Room of Requirement were unnecessary since he didn't really appear to be mending the cabinet and seeing as we were informed what he was doing in the end anyway. A couple of them would've been just about right or maybe just showing him entering a number of times without actually showing us what were virtually incomprehensible things he was demonstrating in there.

I particularly didn't like how they removed the DA's (Dumbledore's Army) participation in the entire film considering their importance in HP5 and eventual importance in HP7. Including them would've given us the exciting ending I was anticipating, and taking them away basically left us with the weak and unsatisfying ending we received. I also hate the treatment of Dumbledore's death. Here is a main character, universally loved and valued highly, who dies so unexpectedly to be tragic, yet all they could manage for him was a wand raise? I think not. This was utterly weak and lackadaisical. It also made Harry Potter look like a wimp because he apparently hid down there while his mentor and protector was defenseless in front of his very own enemies. His subsequent attempts at avenging Dumbledore was pitiful at best.

If you're a fan of the book and plan to watch it, please don't get your hopes up. If your planning to watch this on IMax, don't bother. It's definitely not worth your money. On the other hand, go ahead, I suppose IMax might offer you a better experience that what the basic movie has to offer. I imagine I could mention dozens of other things wrong with this film if I set my heart to it but I won't. I have decided to re-read the book and use that to set the story straight in my mind.

I felt cheated. I think that this was a lazily done film, boring on most parts and whose only redeeming value is that it gets us to the next stage. I feel that the director took too much liberties in the shaping of the story and I suspect that he might not have even took the time to read the actual book. I hope somebody else does Harry Potter 7a and 7b, because if this is all I have to look forward to, I might as well skip 7a and hope that 7b remains as exciting as the author intended it to be.