Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. As you know, Warner Brothers has officially announced the Ultimate Editions of years 5 and 6. The product descriptions are quite wordy. There's a lot of talk about how fans should be excited about these new releases. But there are two words missing from the descriptions of both these products: Extended Cut.

What sold me and so many other fans was the extended cuts. And so I began collecting the Ultimate Editions. And what excited me even more was the idea of more extended cuts to come, especially for The Order of the Phoenix.

Then Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblit of fire Ultimate Editions came out, and of course, there were no extended cuts. And Warner Bros. spun us a tale of directors and their creative preferences. And so, we all said "fair enough" (although I, for one, never quite bought that explanation). Still, I had hopes for Order of the phonex and Half blood prince. Director David Yates is on record talking about having to cut 45 minutes from The Order of the Phoenix. And yet, here we are again with no extended cut to speak of. I'm sure the studio will spin us a tale of how busy Yates has been with the final installment of the franchise, thus making it impossible to return to these previous films and give the fans what they want,AN EXTENDED CUT.

I understand Warner Bros. desire to get these editions on the shelves before the final film hits theaters. As for me, I would gladly wait a year for these editions if it meant getting to see extended cuts of the films. But this is not about the fans. This is about the bottom line. If the WB can get a half-@$$ product onto the shelves sooner, and therefore presumably make more money in the final season of Potter movie mania, then who cares what the fans want? We will buy anything with the word Ultimate in front of it. Or maybe not.

If you already have Order of the Phoenix in the two disc set as originally released, then why buy this edition. Oh, yeah, there's the third disc. Not a good enough reason. I'm a musician, so I bought the Ultimate edition of Goblet of Fire to get words from the composers, but neither Hooper nor Desplat have lived up to the level of music set by Williams and Doyle in the first four movies.

What made the first two Ultimate Editions wonderful was the presence of the "Extended cut". I bought them specifically for that. As witnessed on ABC Family, the added footed from the "Deleted Scenes" doesn't add much, but it makes scenes have a firmer pace. In the theatrical cut, particularly in Order of the Phoenix, the pace was juttery, totally lacking in the flow it needed. It may not have been just the script that reeked. I'm thinking David Yates was just getting used to directing a big movie. Just because it's in the middle of the series doesn't mean fans don't realize how wonderful every scrap of action is.

The argument that "Director's Cut" is somehow sacred hasn't kept WB and many other companies from issuing extended cuts, alternate versions, and even extensive revisions in the theater. Not all of them came from the directors in charge either - think Superman 2 and The Three Musketeers (with Michael York, etc.) Besides the "Director's cut" usually comes about because WB says the movie must not exceed X amount of minutes.

I will try to record every movie from Prisoner of Azkaban on from ABC Family and hope I get extra footage. But even they aren't showing 45 minutes in Order of the Phoenix. In the Deleted Scenes, I've yet to see a DVD with more than 15 minutes in deleted scenes, and some of them are only alternate (more interesting) versions of existing scenes. Look at the Draco/Lucius scene in Borgin and Burkes in Chamber of Secrets. It was about 6 minutes long, some of which duplicated what was in the theatrical release. It added so much to the understanding of Draco and the dimension of his family. Yet, they cut it.

Who knows? Maybe those 45 minutes in Order of the Phoenix included the line from Umbrage that she send the dementors. I give four stars to the movie, but I have to knock it down one just because there is no extended cut. Shame on WB!

I too would like to have the DVD with the extended cut and the deleted scenes included. They show it on TV when they are doing the HP marathon. I don't see why they don't come out with that on Blu Ray, or DVD. I would gladly buy that along with everything else. I thought I saw an advertisement for the movies that had included everything. My ears perk up whenever they talk about the movie with deleted scenes. They should make that an option on all the DVDs anyway. If there is such a thing PLEASE let me know. I guess I'll just have to wait another year or so before they come out with that.

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