I agree whole heartidle with that.

@Entroper

I was reading the books before the movies were being made so it wasn't an option for me to watch the movie first.

Well, I respectfully disagree. I thought the fifth movie was the best so far. I had no trouble with the story pacing, and I actually thought it moved quickly enough to stay interesting without going too fast to know what's going on. There was enough time for character reflection, and I thought Harry's frustration with Dumbledore and struggle with Voldemort were both well played out. The "I feel sorry for you" moment at the end was incredibly powerful. Also, you say you're not expecting the movies to live up to the books, but you call the plot "ridiculously truncated." Like I said above, if you haven't read the books, then you don't know the original plot, so there's nothing for it to be "ridiculously truncated" from. It just is what it is.

I don't care if they split it into 7 parts (LOL) but I don't want to enter it in different timings like part one in 2010 and part two in 2011. They should release it at the same time.

I hadn't read any of the books before seeing the first four films, but could easily tell that many elements were missing from the fourth.  Watching the fifth, this seemed even more apparent.  There is no time to develop the relationships between the characters (especially the one between Harry and Sirius), and they don't properly explain many of the events that occur.  In particular, the archway is never spoken of; it simply shows up, and Sirius falls through.  Some of the people I watched it with (who hadn't read the book) weren't even sure what had happened to him; was he dead, or had he simply gone somewhere else?  The wizard "dueling" in the Ministry of Magic was wildly inconsistent with both the other films as well as the books; they fly around in mist-like form and mysteriously defeat each other?  What the hell was that?  It smacks of laziness and poor design choices.

Just my two cents, of course.  I suppose it's good that the film was enjoyable to some.

One can speak of film incompetance all one wants, but here is nothing quite like Eragon... One of my friends had to watch it a second time when he went on a date, but he left mid-film and decided to use the alloted time to take a long good shaite instead and has not regretted it.
In fact; he maintains that it was probably the best shaite he's had all his life post-diapers.

harry potter films will never live up the books but in my belief, they do stand as gerat films on their own. Deathly Hallows being split up into 2 is both a throw to the fanbase and, the obvious, at shareholders haha. And yes, it was recently announced that both films would be recorded back2back nd released within months of e/o. So no worries on that front

My fave one would most likely be the third. The director, Alfonso Cuaron, who also made Pan's Labrynth (sp?), dis a fantastic job with the art-direction and the subtlities of the HP world... while i do admit the first nour of the film felt a bit rushed, the second hour was pure gold, and as someone here put it earlier--"It felt better than the book itself", which, really, is a marvelous feat. And i also thought the music on that film was topnotch!!

My second fave was the 5th one. I felt David Yates brought back a sense of darkness that the previous director lost. He brought to life Luna Lovegood a a character and the last half of the movie was great. Personally, i thought the special effects were good--Grawp could have used a little more of a touch-up though. And i thought Helena Bonham Carter bought Bellatrix Lestrange to life--i loved loved loved her acting in this flick--plus, she was hot!

And yeah, Emma Watson alone is a reason to watch these movies
haha
:P

Yeah I never liked the movies. :s

@aiden_cronus:

Alfonso Cuaron was a producer on Pan's Labyrinth but it was really Guillermo del Toro's film, as he both wrote and directed it. Speaking of which, I just noticed that del Toro is currently attached to direct the forthcoming Hobbit films. Regarding this, there is but one thing to say: zOMGE

I wish that they'd done that with OOtP, or at least made it longer. It was way too short. Personally, I think that the best movies so far are the first two, there have been too many director/actor/composer/etc changes since then, and the movies are not nearly long enough. I'm hoping that by splitting the 7th movie into two seperate ones will make it much better. Oh, and I miss my Quidditch. =P

And Peter Jackson is staying on as the executive producer. :D