Harry Potter - *SPOILERS INSIDE*

[Freak-Show-Fatness]

Yes you do have to cut it somewhere but he tried to cut things that are crucial to Rowling's storyline for the books. He wanted to completely get rid of the Marauder's Map which is essential to the plot (according to JK).

[Homestar Gunner]

Books = supreme. Movies = not so much. I'll probably still see the fourth movie, but after the third was, in my opinion, completely botched, I don't have very high hopes for it.

As someone who hopes for a career in filmmaking, and having read the books and seen the movies, I'd say they're about equal.

But why, you crazy man? Why?

Because not everything can be exactly the way you want it to be. Ever see Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with Gene Wilder? I bet you love that movie. Everyone does. Except one guy, oh, what was his name...oh, Roald Dahl.

Film adaptations of existing material more often than not have to change the material to make it more accessible to all kinds of people. Sometimes, they're changed because a director or screenwriter wants their own bit of creative input, to stray a bit from the source material. I believe for this latest Harry Potter film, the writers had written something original for the story, then, when JK Rowling was asked if the material could be used, she said that it made sense that it could happen in the story (I do apologize for not remembering exactly what "it" is).

My work here is done. Commence arguing about how I am wrong.

(" 'Yeah, well I thought the book was waaaay better than the movie.' Oh yeah? Well you know what I liked about the movie? No reading." -Jim Gaffigan)

[The Sneak]

I'm gonna go see the movie in about 15 minutes. I'll let ya'll know how it is when I get back.

[Freak-Show-Fatness]

Yeah, I'm going to se it later today.

[Floyd Pinkerton]

I saw it last night. It was great! It was the best movie so far, IMO.

[Valiant]

I'm probably going to go see it tomorrow with a cool person!   I hope it is going to be good...

[Freak-Show-Fatness]

Spoilers ahead!!:

I just saw it and it was great, but as expected there were some discrepencies from book to movie, not many major changes mostly small things that would have been extremely easy to add like:

The Patil twins are in different houses (in the movie they're both in Gryffindor).
They changed the wording of the resurrection ritual.
They cut out Dobby and Winky.
Moody had a full nose and more of his leg was missing then there is supposed to be.
And they did not reveal Hagrid's heritage.
They cut out the sphinx.
No horde of lephracauns and veela.
Almost no quidditch World Cup match.

See not major things, simple easy to produce things.

[The Sneak]

More Spoilers ahead!!:

Spoilers ahead!!:
The Patil twins are in different houses (in the movie they're both in Gryffindor).
And they did not reveal Hagrid's heritage.
/quote]
A. I don't remember anything about that in the movie.
B. Hagrid does talk about his mom and dad, just not in great detail.

[tape-leg]

Film adaptations of existing material more often than not have to change the material to make it more accessible to all kinds of people. Sometimes, they're changed because a director or screenwriter wants their own bit of creative input, to stray a bit from the source material. I believe for this latest Harry Potter film, the writers had written something original for the story, then, when JK Rowling was asked if the material could be used, she said that it made sense that it could happen in the story (I do apologize for not remembering exactly what "it" is).

Good point.  Books are often difficult or impossible to accurately convert to movie form.  While we all would like to see a movie that's exactly the same as a book, for the reasons Gunner stated, we get a movie that is based on and very similar to the book but varies somewhat to give the best possible effect in three hours.

I might get to see Goblet of Fire this afternoon, still up in the air.

As for my general opinion of Harry Potter:
Most certainly my favorite books.  Some people say "lol u liek hrary pottur thts a kid bok".  I think the movies are more of a kid thing.  They were really not satisfying to me.  The first two were pretty close to the books, but they were just boring (The second book was kinda boring to begin with.) and became less enetertaining and more corny every time I watched them.  Prisoner of Azkaban remains to this day my favorite book, and I was actually very pleased with the movie.  I'd have to say the book was better, but when you look at the movie alone and not compare it to the book, it was really good.  I barely remeber Goblet of Fire, so I'll probably be pleased by the movie.  My 12-year-old cousin tells me it was the best movie he's ever seen.  We'll just have to see about that.  After Order of the Phoenix I was a little disappointed with Half-Blood Prince, but don't get me wrong, they were both great. 

[Freak-Show-Fatness]

The Patil sisters are shown both in the Gryffindor Common Room wearing the Gryffindor House crest on their robes.
And Hagrid does not say that his mother was a giantess.

And I'm pretty sure Snape kept the bottle of vertiserum on a chain around his neck not in a closet of potions. And speaking of that the potions closet is in Snape's office in the dungeons, that is not where it is shown in the movie.

[Gir]

X KILLS Y!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I've got that out of my system here's what I think about Mr. Potter. The books are okay. I think it's just past its prime though. After it got popular J.K. became kind of sell out, and I lost interest. There was like video games, books based off the books, jellybeans, you name it. It really sucked, and I'm hoping A Series of Unfortunate Events doesn't suffer the same fate, which it is already begining to.

[Freak-Show-Fatness]

More Spoilers

Also...
They did Moody's seven compartment trunk wrong.
They didn't tell that Rita is a beetle Animagus.
Ron didn't cut the lace off of his dress robes.
And they changed the trial scene excluding the Lestranges.
And they changed how the pensieve is found by Harry.
And they didn't have a dementor suck out Bartemius Crouch Junior's soul.

[The Red Dragon]

X KILLS Y!!!!!!!!!!

Now that I've got that out of my system here's what I think about Mr. Potter. The books are okay. I think it's just past its prime though. After it got popular J.K. became kind of sell out, and I lost interest. There was like video games, books based off the books, jellybeans, you name it. It really sucked, and I'm hoping A Series of Unfortunate Events doesn't suffer the same fate, which it is already begining to.

Well, she really only gave the movie rights to Warner Brothers. After that, I don't think she had any say in the matter.

[Goombazoid]

And Hagrid does not say that his mother was a giantess

Little bit of spoilers

Well he did say that he "got it from his mother" and then mentioned how small his father was...so it's not like they left out that small part completely. But they did leave out the related Hagrid insulting Madame Maxine by asking if she was part giant scene. There were many parts that they left out that I could type up by I am lazy and a lot have been mentioned. Even though it was different from the book I still really enjoyed this movie.

[The Sneak]

The Patil sisters are shown both in the Gryffindor Common Room wearing the Gryffindor House crest on their robes.

Oops,  nevermind. I got confused.