A number of disjointed thoughts about HBP
So I went to see HBP on Sunday, and this is my Official Review Post!
Things I thought worked
- I really liked the direction and the design of the whole thing. There were so many little touches I liked - the Slug Club picture with Lily in where they all had on really ugly 70s clothes was a nice touch. The inkdrops-in-water look of the memories worked really well too. Also, when the trio were in Ron's room and burning the newspaper, and the flames sort of licked round over the picture of Draco. Speaking of whom...
- This is already becoming cliche, but Tom Felton has come on enormously as an actor, and was truly awesome as Draco. His angst (and the pride tied up with it) were perfect and believeable. He really got a chance to shine in this one, and to say things other than "I'll get you, Potter, you slag", and he was brilliant. Also, he looked HAWT in all those awesome black suits. I would immensely like to buy that boy a drink. :D
- When Harry took the Felix Felicis, it was like he was on cocaine. (I've been insisting for a while that it is effectively the same thing, so this pleased me greatly.) However, he was hella funny and awesome in this condition.
- LUNA. OH, LUNA, SWEET LUNA OF MY HEART. YOU ARE MADE OF AWESOME AND WIN.
- The Harry/Ginny stuff was considerably more bearable in the film than in the book. I liked that they took out the big-damn-hero kiss and replaced it with the Room of Requirement one, which was much more tender and (in my view) in-character for Harry.
- Both young Voldemorts were awesome. I liked Frank Dillane as teenage!Voldie best of all, although I admit to being biased as he is a sort of friend-of-a-friend (LOL, worst namedrop ever y/y?). Seriously, I thought he was excellent. I also really enjoyed how small-child-Voldemort had a pretty rough, sort of estuary-English accent, and wasn't enormously polite or refined, and by the time he was teenage-Voldemort he had that sort of slimy, charming public-school poshness to him.
- Seriously, Luna. I especially loved her being the one who found Harry on the train, and the line about her sleeping in her shoes. ♥ ♥ ♥
- I liked Slughorn much more here than I did in the book. He was much less creepy and child-molester-ish, and more sort of "old boys network", which worked better. Here, I can imagine his motivations being all about wanting to boost up promising students, perhaps because he'd received that kind of a leg-up as a young man (or whatever), and not about wanting to violate them. This was enjoyable.
- DRACO SMUGGLING THE PIMP CANE INTO SCHOOL OMG I DIED
- I'm very glad the R/T subplot was removed (apart from that brief implication that they were a couple, when she called him "sweetheart"). I get the impression that non-fans, or people who only watch the films, probably wouldn't even have noticed it or thought anything of it; fans who like the ship are happy because it's there; and fans who don't like it don't have to put up with it for long. My only concern is that it added nothing, and the film was already quite disjointed and plotless in places (which I'll come to), but it wasn't a big deal.
- Draco's mum has awesome hair and I shall bitchslap anyone who says otherwise. XD
- I'm probably going to make myself unpopular here, but Harry and the muggle waitress? I thought that was cool. He wasn't overly cocky or anything and - as the boyfriend pointed out as we discussed this on the way home - when you're sixteen, you will jump at any opportunity, even if you do have a crush on someon else already. (Anyway, that waitress was cute!)
- McLaggen brought the LOLz. I was more convinced by the movie version of him than by the book version.
- I couldn't give a shit about all the stuff they removed/changed, for the most part, because it's a film. However...
Things I thought were iffy
- For all the above little things I liked, the film as a whole seemed a bit incoherent. I get the impression that people who aren't familiar with the books are likely to find it kind of indecipherable (and those who are familiar with the books are going to find it unrecognisable). A problem I've had with the whole series, actually, is that there seems to be this tendency to try and keep in as much as possible - by which I mean, things like the string of DADA teachers, Hagrid's dragon in the first movie, quidditch in general - to the detriment of the overall story. So you end up with films that are abridged enough that most fans are pissed off for one reason or another, but that still don't make sense as films. I think there is a middle ground between "completely butchering the plot" and "mindless faith to the source material", but these films have never quite found it, instead sort of swinging between the two. (Of course, I'd also argue that it's a pretty incoherent book in the first place, without much of a story structure, so they must have had a difficult time shoehorning this one into shape in the first place.)
- Related to the above: something that occurs to me is that the half-blood prince subplot could very easily have been cut completely, and I strongly suspect the only reason it was kept is because it's the title, and if they'd changed the title for the film, the uproar from fandom purists would have been volcanic. But really, it adds nothing to the plot, seemed a bit confusing, and when Snape did his whole "... I... AM... THE... HALF-BLOOD... PRINCE!" routine, I burst out laughing.
- Neville as a waiter? WTF? I'm guessing that was only in there because otherwise the film didn't have enough Neville. It seemed terribly OOC, though, especially because there was this implication that he was so desperate to be in the Slug Club that he'd lick their boots if it meant being allowed in. I don't think so.
- Emma Watson isn't very good at fake-crying. :-/ I feel bad saying it because in general the acting gets better with every film, but in the scene with the birds she obviously wasn't really upset and it sort of grated.
- Finally... normally I don't care too much about changes to appearance/character design (porntache exempt, obviously), but... why did Tonks have a mullet?
Things I thought worked
- I really liked the direction and the design of the whole thing. There were so many little touches I liked - the Slug Club picture with Lily in where they all had on really ugly 70s clothes was a nice touch. The inkdrops-in-water look of the memories worked really well too. Also, when the trio were in Ron's room and burning the newspaper, and the flames sort of licked round over the picture of Draco. Speaking of whom...
- This is already becoming cliche, but Tom Felton has come on enormously as an actor, and was truly awesome as Draco. His angst (and the pride tied up with it) were perfect and believeable. He really got a chance to shine in this one, and to say things other than "I'll get you, Potter, you slag", and he was brilliant. Also, he looked HAWT in all those awesome black suits. I would immensely like to buy that boy a drink. :D
- When Harry took the Felix Felicis, it was like he was on cocaine. (I've been insisting for a while that it is effectively the same thing, so this pleased me greatly.) However, he was hella funny and awesome in this condition.
- LUNA. OH, LUNA, SWEET LUNA OF MY HEART. YOU ARE MADE OF AWESOME AND WIN.
- The Harry/Ginny stuff was considerably more bearable in the film than in the book. I liked that they took out the big-damn-hero kiss and replaced it with the Room of Requirement one, which was much more tender and (in my view) in-character for Harry.
- Both young Voldemorts were awesome. I liked Frank Dillane as teenage!Voldie best of all, although I admit to being biased as he is a sort of friend-of-a-friend (LOL, worst namedrop ever y/y?). Seriously, I thought he was excellent. I also really enjoyed how small-child-Voldemort had a pretty rough, sort of estuary-English accent, and wasn't enormously polite or refined, and by the time he was teenage-Voldemort he had that sort of slimy, charming public-school poshness to him.
- Seriously, Luna. I especially loved her being the one who found Harry on the train, and the line about her sleeping in her shoes. ♥ ♥ ♥
- I liked Slughorn much more here than I did in the book. He was much less creepy and child-molester-ish, and more sort of "old boys network", which worked better. Here, I can imagine his motivations being all about wanting to boost up promising students, perhaps because he'd received that kind of a leg-up as a young man (or whatever), and not about wanting to violate them. This was enjoyable.
- DRACO SMUGGLING THE PIMP CANE INTO SCHOOL OMG I DIED
- I'm very glad the R/T subplot was removed (apart from that brief implication that they were a couple, when she called him "sweetheart"). I get the impression that non-fans, or people who only watch the films, probably wouldn't even have noticed it or thought anything of it; fans who like the ship are happy because it's there; and fans who don't like it don't have to put up with it for long. My only concern is that it added nothing, and the film was already quite disjointed and plotless in places (which I'll come to), but it wasn't a big deal.
- Draco's mum has awesome hair and I shall bitchslap anyone who says otherwise. XD
- I'm probably going to make myself unpopular here, but Harry and the muggle waitress? I thought that was cool. He wasn't overly cocky or anything and - as the boyfriend pointed out as we discussed this on the way home - when you're sixteen, you will jump at any opportunity, even if you do have a crush on someon else already. (Anyway, that waitress was cute!)
- McLaggen brought the LOLz. I was more convinced by the movie version of him than by the book version.
- I couldn't give a shit about all the stuff they removed/changed, for the most part, because it's a film. However...
Things I thought were iffy
- For all the above little things I liked, the film as a whole seemed a bit incoherent. I get the impression that people who aren't familiar with the books are likely to find it kind of indecipherable (and those who are familiar with the books are going to find it unrecognisable). A problem I've had with the whole series, actually, is that there seems to be this tendency to try and keep in as much as possible - by which I mean, things like the string of DADA teachers, Hagrid's dragon in the first movie, quidditch in general - to the detriment of the overall story. So you end up with films that are abridged enough that most fans are pissed off for one reason or another, but that still don't make sense as films. I think there is a middle ground between "completely butchering the plot" and "mindless faith to the source material", but these films have never quite found it, instead sort of swinging between the two. (Of course, I'd also argue that it's a pretty incoherent book in the first place, without much of a story structure, so they must have had a difficult time shoehorning this one into shape in the first place.)
- Related to the above: something that occurs to me is that the half-blood prince subplot could very easily have been cut completely, and I strongly suspect the only reason it was kept is because it's the title, and if they'd changed the title for the film, the uproar from fandom purists would have been volcanic. But really, it adds nothing to the plot, seemed a bit confusing, and when Snape did his whole "... I... AM... THE... HALF-BLOOD... PRINCE!" routine, I burst out laughing.
- Neville as a waiter? WTF? I'm guessing that was only in there because otherwise the film didn't have enough Neville. It seemed terribly OOC, though, especially because there was this implication that he was so desperate to be in the Slug Club that he'd lick their boots if it meant being allowed in. I don't think so.
- Emma Watson isn't very good at fake-crying. :-/ I feel bad saying it because in general the acting gets better with every film, but in the scene with the birds she obviously wasn't really upset and it sort of grated.
- Finally... normally I don't care too much about changes to appearance/character design (porntache exempt, obviously), but... why did Tonks have a mullet?