We talk to Kumar through the floo network, are visted by Eliza’s patronus and Ben sends us a muggle recording by owl while Igor annoys Mandi.
There’s a moment in the Half Blood Prince movie that is sublime. It’s when Harry takes a shrooms tincture and hallucinated he’s at a funeral for a ginormous spider. It’s pure gold. That kid is hillarious high. Here’s a clip of him at one of his E parties.
Speaking of parties, this week we talk to Kumar through the floo network, are visted by Eliza’s patronus and Ben sends us a muggle recording by owl while Igor (seen being a creeper here) annoys Mandi.
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NERD HURDLES PODCAST 
Great episode… very entertaining if not somewhat weird with “Igor” popping in occasionally (but it worked). Even though I didn’t agree with you guys this week, the movie was pretty (style wise) BUT the fact that they left out so many things which are crucial to the plot really disturbs me (I can only assume they will make up for this in Deathly Hallows A & B). I have to agree with Ben, Ginny was not in top form and they spent WAY too much time on the “relationships” of the students. The movie would have been great if they showed more Tom Riddle/Voldemort flash backs so we can fully understand why this guy is truly evil. I’m not sure people who ONLY watch the films understand how diabolical/crazy he is and the book went more into his life story which was excellent. Eliza was hilarious with the theme song. And I am SO in Kumar’s corner, why would you want LESS books? Even with all the silliness (I concede there are many flaws) these 7 books gave us hours and hours of wonderful entertainment. Ugh, anyway… enough geekin’ out for me (sorry for the caps, I just got a little excited), this is already way to long.
I would agree with you that as purely film adaptations of the text, the movies fall short of capturing all the important details. But to do so each book would probably need to be split into two films. So in order to make entertaining single-episode films, I agree with Kumar that the cuts were needed to be made.
I agree with your assessment of the way Voldemort is dealt with in the films. My knowledge of him was from only having seen the first five films (I’d read Philospher’s Stone, but that was it). I didn’t see him as much of a threat or a big deal since in the films he’s pretty much only focussed on regaining his bodya nd killing Potter. Big deal. Why should the muggle world care? Why should most of the wizarding world care for that matter? In the books those questions are answered but even in the new film he doesn’t seem like that big a deal. It seems like his “army” is only five Death Eaters and all they did was blow up one bridge and you have no idea why he did it.
I want less books because they didn’t entertain me enough to feel those hours were well spent. There were definitely hours of enjoyment derived from the books, but I felt only about half as many as I spent reading them. A more condensed series of books, I feel would have given me a better ROI.
I don’t think they’re going to make up for things in Deathly Hallows A & B. I think they’re going to go further down the “messing with canon” road with those two.
And finally, there’s never too much geekin’ out. And thanks for listening!
You know, I have to get over my “how do you NOT love the Harry Potter books”? As I have encouraged (rather strongly) people to read the books, I’m still shocked when someone actually says, “Yeah, I didn’t really like them that much” which I always reply, “what’s wrong with you?” or wave my hands by saying, “you just don’t get it”. I guess a “nerd hurdle” for me is actually believing some people might not like everything I like. I know – a shocking revelation!
I actually forced my husband to watch all the Harry Potter movies back to back (sans the Half Blood Prince) and even though he “tolerated” them, a nerd hurdle for him was “how are these freakin’ kids outsmarting Voldermort”. After watching the movies he wants Voldermort to win and refuses to watch any more. But then again, he’s one of those people who do not believe children can outsmart adults under any circumstance – even magic.
Anyway, I understand your idea of condensing the books but the geek in me is like, “dude, you just don’t get it.” And I am waiting for J.K. Rowling to loose all her money in Vegas or on an addiction to prescription pain killers so she is forced to write another book, because I want more! But until then I have my fan fiction (don’t even get me started on that…)