Goblet of Fire.

[Shockeye]

I also get the feeling that she has started to dislike writing Quiddich into her books - she killed it in book 4, and tried to push it off in 5 and 6.  She stated on her website that she has written her last Quiddich match.  That is, that there won't be another one in book 7.

It wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the fact that Quiddich is a very stupid game? Is there any kind of point to the game outside of the seekers?

[Samwise]

There was one game in one of the books where Harry's team was down by 150 points for a while, such that he had to NOT go for the Snitch lest the game end while they were still down in points.

The Quaffle points are also much more important in a series of games, since I think the scores for a series of games are all tallied together; if there are two games and each team got the Snitch once, it comes down to the Quaffle points to decide victory.

That said, yes, 150 points for the Snitch and 10 points for a goal seems pretty damn stupid given how much effort is expended on each.   

[Roac]

It wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the fact that Quiddich is a very stupid game? Is there any kind of point to the game outside of the seekers?

Yeah, the game itself makes no sense.  The 150 point rule is just a mechanic to let Harry be the hero.  Nevermind that, at age 11 and with zero prior experience, he is better than anyone else in his house up to and including 17 year olds.  Or that 15 year olds are team captains.  Or that the game ought to be lethal, what with no safety anything and falls from multiple stories up.  The only good concept was to include a "wizard sport" - everything she thought up after that was terrible.

[Llava]

I actively disliked the first movie, to be honest.  Kids that young irritate me, and the "Happy Christmas, Harry!" "Happy Christmas, Ron!" scene made me stabby.

I felt Chamber of Secrets was okay.

I really enjoyed Prisoner of Azkaban.

I had a blast with this one.  I liked it better than Prisoner of Azkaban, to be honest.  PoA seemed like it just missed some of its potential, probably because it's a kids movie- same way Star Wars missed its potential for some really cool stuff and interesting themes in the name of keeping it safe for teh children!1!!  Of course, PoA wasn't /nearly/ as bad about this as Star Wars, but I left the movie feeling just a bit of disappointment.  This one seemed darker.  Hell, that maze was creepy, and SPOILER seeing Cedric get pwnt in two seconds really gave you an idea of how evil and powerful these guys are.  Instapermadeath sucks.

Though the killing curse still sounds like "Abra Kadabra" whenever anyone says it.

[Shockeye]

I enjoyed PoA because it was with that movie I really started taking an interest in the characters. The first two movies were a bit flat for me except for Harris' performance.

[Samwise]

I think I still like the first movie best out of all of them.  It had Harris as Dumbledore, it wasn't at all hurried, and it hit on all the major plot points.

Chamber of Secrets annoyed me because the screenplay completely omitted the clues that (OMG SPOILER) Ginny was the one doing all the stuff, aside from a couple of throwaway reaction shots.  The "solving the mystery" aspect is about half of what draws me to Harry Potter stories, so that was an unforgiveable omission IMO.

Prisoner of Azkaban was excellent except for the lack of Harris.  And the change in wardrobe, which seemed to me like laziness on the part of the costume designer; Rowling goes to great lengths to describe how wizards don't dress like muggles, but around PoA they chickened out on translating that to the big screen and started dressing everyone in ordinary clothes.  (E.g. translating "dress robes" into "tuxedos" for the Yule Ball in GoF.)  Boo.

Goblet of Fire was as good as it could have been, but as has been stated, I think the book was just too long and complex to make into a really good movie.  The Tri-Wizard tournament was the background against which everything else in the book happened, so bringing it to the foreground and dropping everything else feels a bit odd, even if there was really no better way to do it.

[Ironwood]

Awful.  That film was God-Awful.

[Merusk]

I was about to say that's not quite correct.. it wasn't awful, then I stopped to think about it.  If I hadn't read the books, and it weren't Harry Potter, we'd all be ripping it to shreds for not only the pacing, but how slapped-together it feels.

So I concur.

[Ironwood]

I don't understand how any child that hadn't read the books was supposed to follow ANY of that.

Creaky, Clunky and about as natural as Moody's left leg.
Dumbledore was awful.  I know that some of you have tried to rationalise this but you should really stop.  This is not Dumbledore at all.  It's an awful portrayal of what should be a man who's always calm and confident to the last.  The Dumbledore I watched on screen tonight deserved my utter contempt.
Oh, and please God STOP putting hot young women in the films.  The actress who played Fleur is 23/24 and by God does it show, especially in the swimsuit.  Almost ALL of the females in that school look over 20 and maybe it was just me but it kept putting me off. 
Maxime was awful too - she's meant to have Giant parents, not stick insects.  Bad, Bad, Bad casting.  Someone with BEEF please !
The dragon scene was overlong and the underwater scene was too convoluted and what the fuck was going on in the hedge maze I do not know.  Hard drugs I feel.
Someone please help Emily Watson - She really needs your support.  And acting lessons.  You're character is meant to grow dear girl, so fucking quit it.  You can't be an actor if it's only the weepy performance we give two hoots about.
Rita Skeeter was there as a total pointless character.  Hey, guys, if you're going to cut out the plot point you may as well fucking cut out the character.  Like you did with so many others.
Voldemort was almost done well, but could we have a little more 'assuredly evil' and a little less psycho please ?  When Harry came out from behind the fucking grave I expected another 'I HAVE THE HIGH GROUND' speech.  Jesus.
And why the fuck did we elongate the bathroom scene so that moaning Myrtle could make a series of painful dick jokes ?  Really ?  FUCK OFF.

Moody was good.  The actor.  The actual Barty Crouch thing was anorexic to the point of pointlessness.

I have more to say (imagine your surprise) but I'm not going to.

This was a bad film.

[Samwise]

I agree with everything you said.  Except on the dick jokes, which I found funny in a cringing sort of way.

[Ironwood]

I agree with everything you said.  Except on the dick jokes, which I found funny in a cringing sort of way.

Maybe it was just that I couldn't get out of my head that Moaning Myrtle is played by a 40 year old Scottish woman.

Urg.

Leave the poor boys todge alone.

[Hanzii]

My wife, who's the big HP fan in the family loved it, I thought 'meh'. But the two last books were also pretty meh for me.
After reading Ironwoods rant, I'm disliking oit more...
Prisoner was clearly the better movie of the lot.

[rattran]

Ironwood has it just right. I went with someone who hasn't read the book (she was waiting until she saw the film first) I enjoyed the film, she was mostly confused through the whole thing.

Too many cuts, too many jumps, and too much fucking dragon, prom, and bathtub.

[Morfiend]

I thought it was "ok". But having read the books, it was easer for me to figure out what was going on. Why did we have a 20 minute dragon scene, and yet cut a bunch of good plot stuff? Sorry HP is not an action series.

Also, the two guys sitting behind me, one had read the books, the other hadnt, and he kept having to explain to his friend what was going on. I did have to cringe at one point when the one guy exclaimed rather loudly "Oh look, FISH people".

Anyway. All I could think of was that it really needed to be about twice as long, and cut in to two movies some how.

[schild]

Haven't read the books. Insert my opinion of mediocre. Super mediocre. So mediocre in fact that I didn't give a flying fuck for any of the characters and wished Gary Oldman was actually in it just so I could enjoy it half as much as Azkaban. Not giving two shits about the characters wasn't so bad for the first 3, but here they really wanted to stuff it down my throat with that funeral at the end. Sorry, but I just can't be asked to care when I've paid $6.50 and sat in a crowd of 150 wee tots. This series definately needs more cowbell when it's transplanted on the silver screen.