In which I attempt to discuss everything that happened in Half-Blood Prince
I've seen the HBP movie twice now, so I feel like I've absorbed enough to come up with a fairly reasonable review that goes beyond just my initial reactions. The first night, I went to a midnight showing, fully decked out in Hogwarts garb and I had a really great time! While we were seated in the theater waiting for the movie to start, some girl got up in front and suggested that we all sing The Mysterious Ticking Noise from Potter Puppet Pals. She divided the theater into groups and gave each group a part. It was pretty awesome. I really love Harry Potter fans.
So, spoilers after the cut. Beyond the obvious
(If anyone actually finds that to be a spoiler, I have no sympathy for them. Also, I'm so glad I have a chance to break out this icon :D)
I'd like to think that I went in there with an open mind. I know that the movies will NEVER be perfect, and there will always be things that I like and things that I don't. That being said, I left the theater feeling pissed. After seeing it a second time yesterday, I was able to appreciate the good stuff more. (partially because I knew the bad stuff was coming, so I expected it.)
So, I will start with what I didn't like and then hopefully end on a positive note. (Even though the movie didn't - but I'm getting ahead of myself.)
TOO. MANY. FUCKING. SEXUAL. REFERENCES! I mean, REALLY! Yes, I get it, They're 16 year olds and they have hormones. (And don't think this is me being a prude about HP. Have you seen my fan fic preferences?) This is really what ruined the movie for me. I had heard from brianistuft that it was hyper-sexualized. And I also completely expected them to play up Slughorn's Christmas party like it was the next Yule Ball. At first, I even found some of it funny, but as the movie went on I just kept getting more and more frustrated by it. (No pun intended.) I was ANGRY by the end. Let's see...
-WTF was with the Muggle girl in the beginning? At first, I wasn't too bothered by it, I mean it was a cute scene, but looking back it was completely unnecessary. Especially the way Harry is portrayed as casually fucking around with Muggle girls. And this brings me to Dumbledore...
-WHY is the greatest wizard in the world, a wizard who also knows his days are numbered and he must do EVERYTHING he can in his work towards defeating Voldemort, bothering to spend SO much time questioning/talking about/being interested in Harry Potter's love life?! I guess I could have handled one off-hand comment, but Dumbledore questioning Harry about his relationship with Hermione was completely ridiculous. ESPECIALLY when he (and the movie) could have been using that time to talk about something important. Like, oh, I dunno...the Gaunts or the Horcruxes or any of that other boring plot-related stuff. "You need a shave, Harry." HOW exactly is that relevant to the fact that you're about to embark on a journey to steal a bit of Lord Voldemort's soul?
-Cormac McLaggen trying out for Quidditch and BLATANTLY holding his broomstick like a cock. And don't tell me I'm making this one up. The camera angle accentuated it, plus the way he was holding it. Obviously a broomstick between someone's legs is always going to look a bit phallic, but there's a difference between that and exploiting it as if it's some brilliant metaphor.
-Harry/Ginny. Again, I expected this to be played up a bit and I didn't mind the awkward hug at the Burrow. That is H/G. Ginny bending down to tie Harry's shoelace, in what I think should be nominated for the worst attempt at conveying sexual tension EVER, is not. That scene actually made me physically uncomfortable. Although, the scene where Ginny accompanies Harry to the Room of Requirement (ugh) could give that one a run for its money. And I think what pissed me off the most, is that after ALL THAT, they never even really confirm that they're together. Ginny kisses him and says "we can keep that hidden too, if you like." And then all we get is Ginny running to comfort Harry at every possible moment and Hermione inappropriately bringing it up at the end. The scene at Christmas where she feeds him the pie and then Ron sits in between them was funny and it could have been cute if I could somehow separate it from the other terrible ones, but they all just run together in a glaring display of WAY TOO MUCH!
-Hermione and Harry holding each other and crying about their pathetic love lives. As brianistuft put it, "I expected Harry to turn to Hermione and offer her a cosmo a la Sex and the City!" It was so out of character and so damn unnecessary! Maybe if they didn't spend every spare moment talking about who they liked it wouldn't have been so bad and it could have been played as a touching moment between Harry and Hermione. The scene in the dorm where Harry and Ron have a conversation about skin was cute and was well-done. It felt like a glimpse into their little dorm life. The Harry and Hermione scene felt like a glimpse into some bad fan fic.
-Also, the general, overbearing presence of sex in the movie. It was everywhere. From Cormac suggestively licking his fingers, to Ron's "did you and Ginny do it?", to random students making out in dark corridors. It was as if they wanted to make SURE that we got it! Harry and co. are 16 and they think about SEX. A LOT. "Oh wait, did the pesky plot distract you from all the SEX? We'd better throw in another blatant SEXUAL reference, lest our audience forget how important SEX is!" They could have cut out HALF of the sex stuff, and it would still have been ABUNDANTLY clear. And really, they sacrificed the plot and left out a lot of important information in favor of adding in more pointless and uncomfortably awkward sexual references. Which brings me to...
Voldemort's Horcruxes can be ordinary, common-place objects? O RLY?! Once again, Steve Kloves shown his ignorance of a MAJOR plot point. I know that they are going to have to change things and leave stuff out, but this is SO important! I mean I guess it gets them off the hook so that they don't have to show the Gaunt memories, but I wonder - how will Harry know that the Horcruxes needed to be objects of importance to Riddle, hmmm? In the books, the whole point of Dumbledore showing Harry these memories was to help him UNDERSTAND Voldemort. Not to display how ~evil~ he is! Harry (and the audience) will surely have figured that out by now! HBP is about planting the seeds that will help Harry defeat Voldemort in DH, and I really don't think they did enough of that in the movie. ALSO It would have been nice if they mentioned WHY the locket was hidden in that PARTICULAR cave. It might have given Harry a clue about how Voldemort also hid his Horcruxes in places of importance to him. Maybe to help him figure out where the rest might be after Dumbledore dies. But no. Steve Kloves would rather make sure that we all know Harry has facial hair now. And I can't take credit for this (brianistuft pointed it out to me) - Why did Dumbledore have the diary in his office in the first place? Didn't Harry give it back to Lucius Malfoy at the end of the second movie?
SNAPE! SNAPE! SNAPE! The movie is called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. You would think that we might learn a little more about Snape in this movie. Or, at the very least, a little more attention would be given to the scene where we learn he's the HBP! Two things in this book are PIVOTAL to Snape's story:
1. The fact that HE was the one who told Voldemort about the prophecy. This adds more layers to Harry's hatred of him and to Harry's anger at Dumbledore for trusting him. But FAR MORE IMPORTANTLY it is the reason that Snape renounced the Dark Arts! I guess Steve Kloves found that to be too complicated and will probably just focus on the zomg-I-love-Lily! part. Whatever. That brings me to my next point.
2. His anger at being called a coward. WHY would they take that out?! Its one, tiny little line. Four fucking words. "Don't call me coward!" Somehow, Kloves couldn't mange to fit those four little words into his script. In all honesty though, it really weakens the scene. It's like all they wanted to focus on was making Snape look as evil as possible, like the potions book was evil and Snape was the one wrote in it so it just goes to show you how evil he is. Again, Snape's whole story is based upon the fact that he is, in fact, not a coward at all. Snape didn't even seem to be that mad at the end. Ugh.
The Burrow. On fire. W. T. F?! Yes, I understand that this whole (pointless, IMHO) scene was to show how scary and dangerous the Death Eaters are. But it was WAY too freaking long, and just when I thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous than running through fields in what seemed like a misplaced homage to Signs - they set the Weasley's house on fire! I'm not even going to go into why this whole occurrence would be canonically impossible (Hello, wards? Aurors protecting Harry?) but it also didn't fit into the movie! It was a stupid detour from the story and it really didn't add anything! That was just more time that was wasted on pointless crap.
The end. I thought the CoS movie had the worst ending. I was wrong. Fine, they left out the funeral. I get that, they can always explain that he's buried at Hogwarts later on. But there were several other things that pissed me off about this:
- The overall feeling of the ending was not one of hopeful determination. Or even resigned determination. It fell completely flat. The first time I saw it, at midnight, we were in a very loud and interactive theater. I fully expected a thunderous round of applause when the movie ended. Instead it was slowly scattered applause that finally built up into everyone joining in. I don't think this was because people were shy, or even because people didn't like the movie. It was because the ending is awkward and not even really very final. The second time I saw it, I heard someone near me say "What? That's it?!"
- Hermione awkwardly assuring Harry that Ron is ok with him and Ginny (as long as they keep the snogging to a minimum) in the middle of Harry telling her about some Very Serious events. I think it was supposed to bring some comic relief and levity to the scene, but it didn't. It was just awkward. The scene basically played out as:
Harry: Dumbledore is dead and I have to destroy the Horcruxes on my own!
Hermione: Yeah but...you and Ginny! SEX, remember? Lulz.
Harry: I'm not coming back to school next year.
Ron: I'm just going to sit by myself on these steps because I clearly can't compete with Harry and Hermione's EPIC friendship.
Harry: Hogwartz iz so pretty u guyz!
THE END.
- And in all seriousness, I really don't think that we got to see enough of Harry's frustration. He's frustrated that he couldn't save Dumbledore, he's furious at Snape, and everything that happened that evening was in vain because the Horcrux wasn't even real. None of this really came across.
Things that I didn't hate with a blinding passion, but are still worthy of mentioning:
- What was up with McGonagall's pointy robe? I mean, it was fine for one scene I guess, but why did she have to wear it ALL the time? The costume designer seems to have gone a bit crazy with pointy stuff. Did you notice those creepy dark-haired twins at Slughorn's party were wearing equally weird and pointy dresses? I mean they were cool, but a little intense.
- On the subject of clothes, I have to admit that I found it a bit odd that Ginny shows up to Slughorn's slightly formal dinner wearing a fancy sequined dress, but then wears a boring homey-looking dress to his very fancy Christmas party.
- Why didn't Harry get into a shit ton of trouble after, you know, almost killing another student with a dark spell? It also bothered me that Draco didn't try to Crucio him first.
- I really wish that they had showed the diadem at some point. We spent so much time in that room, would it really have been so hard to give us one teensy little glimpse of it?
But I promise, I didn't completely hate it! There were some REALLY awesome things about this movie and they did such a great job with so much of it. Except, uh, all that stuff I listed above. So yeah...
Things I liked:
- The acting of the trio, overall. I've always though that Rupert Grint outshone the other two by so much, but in this movie they finally caught up with him. Daniel Radcliffe seems to have finally learned how to alter his facial expressions and vocal tones to convey emotion. And THANK GOD Emma Watson stopped acting with her eyebrows!
- On the subject of acting - Tom Felton, you fucking rock! Draco was SO FREAKING GOOD in this movie!
- The staircase scene at the Burrow was so awesome!
- Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was pretty much perfect.
- Slughorn in general was great. (...although the Draught of Living Death is a sleeping potion, not a poison. But I'll let Kloves slide on that one)
- The scene where Ron and Harry struggle over the newer potions book was so funny and such a good addition!
- I talked a lot about the sex crap in my hate section, but I didn't mention Ron and Lavender. Because that was actually well done. She was funny and Ron was funny. I loved the scene on the train where she draws the heart and then Hermione walks by and sees it. It was well-placed, cute, and not over the top.
- Luna will ALWAYS bring the awesome.
- Harry under the influence of Felix Felicis was probably my favorite part. They did such a great job with that.
- Also the bit about Lily's magical fish was sweet.
- The scene in the cave was pretty much as close to the book as it could possibly be, and it was awesome. And Dumbledore's epic use of fire was, well, epic.
- I really liked the way they changed the astronomy tower scene to Harry choosing to trust Snape. It added more weight and drama to it and was a cool change.
- THANK GOD Draco disarmed Dumbledore. If they had fucked that up, I might have actually flipped out and pulled some crazy Misery-type shit.
- Bellatrix Lestrange. She is so wonderfully deranged! I fucking LOVED the scene in the great hall where she runs down one of the tables and kicks shit over.
- And the scene near the end where all the candles go out. It created such a haunting effect. THAT is what a good scene looks like! It was fucking PERFECT!
- I totally cried when everyone lifted up their wands for Dumbledore! It was a great way to convey that emotion without having the funeral.
And so, like I said in the beginning of this extremely long post, the movies will always have things that I like and things that I don't. Unfortunately, the first time I saw HBP I was so overwhelmed by all the things I didn't like that it ruined the movie for me. The second time, though, I did really enjoy it. It's far from perfect, but it's not a bad movie either. And I'm sure that I will see it a few more times in the next couple of weeks. I still haven't seen it in imax 3D. :D
So, spoilers after the cut. Beyond the obvious
(If anyone actually finds that to be a spoiler, I have no sympathy for them. Also, I'm so glad I have a chance to break out this icon :D)
I'd like to think that I went in there with an open mind. I know that the movies will NEVER be perfect, and there will always be things that I like and things that I don't. That being said, I left the theater feeling pissed. After seeing it a second time yesterday, I was able to appreciate the good stuff more. (partially because I knew the bad stuff was coming, so I expected it.)
So, I will start with what I didn't like and then hopefully end on a positive note. (Even though the movie didn't - but I'm getting ahead of myself.)
TOO. MANY. FUCKING. SEXUAL. REFERENCES! I mean, REALLY! Yes, I get it, They're 16 year olds and they have hormones. (And don't think this is me being a prude about HP. Have you seen my fan fic preferences?) This is really what ruined the movie for me. I had heard from brianistuft that it was hyper-sexualized. And I also completely expected them to play up Slughorn's Christmas party like it was the next Yule Ball. At first, I even found some of it funny, but as the movie went on I just kept getting more and more frustrated by it. (No pun intended.) I was ANGRY by the end. Let's see...
-WTF was with the Muggle girl in the beginning? At first, I wasn't too bothered by it, I mean it was a cute scene, but looking back it was completely unnecessary. Especially the way Harry is portrayed as casually fucking around with Muggle girls. And this brings me to Dumbledore...
-WHY is the greatest wizard in the world, a wizard who also knows his days are numbered and he must do EVERYTHING he can in his work towards defeating Voldemort, bothering to spend SO much time questioning/talking about/being interested in Harry Potter's love life?! I guess I could have handled one off-hand comment, but Dumbledore questioning Harry about his relationship with Hermione was completely ridiculous. ESPECIALLY when he (and the movie) could have been using that time to talk about something important. Like, oh, I dunno...the Gaunts or the Horcruxes or any of that other boring plot-related stuff. "You need a shave, Harry." HOW exactly is that relevant to the fact that you're about to embark on a journey to steal a bit of Lord Voldemort's soul?
-Cormac McLaggen trying out for Quidditch and BLATANTLY holding his broomstick like a cock. And don't tell me I'm making this one up. The camera angle accentuated it, plus the way he was holding it. Obviously a broomstick between someone's legs is always going to look a bit phallic, but there's a difference between that and exploiting it as if it's some brilliant metaphor.
-Harry/Ginny. Again, I expected this to be played up a bit and I didn't mind the awkward hug at the Burrow. That is H/G. Ginny bending down to tie Harry's shoelace, in what I think should be nominated for the worst attempt at conveying sexual tension EVER, is not. That scene actually made me physically uncomfortable. Although, the scene where Ginny accompanies Harry to the Room of Requirement (ugh) could give that one a run for its money. And I think what pissed me off the most, is that after ALL THAT, they never even really confirm that they're together. Ginny kisses him and says "we can keep that hidden too, if you like." And then all we get is Ginny running to comfort Harry at every possible moment and Hermione inappropriately bringing it up at the end. The scene at Christmas where she feeds him the pie and then Ron sits in between them was funny and it could have been cute if I could somehow separate it from the other terrible ones, but they all just run together in a glaring display of WAY TOO MUCH!
-Hermione and Harry holding each other and crying about their pathetic love lives. As brianistuft put it, "I expected Harry to turn to Hermione and offer her a cosmo a la Sex and the City!" It was so out of character and so damn unnecessary! Maybe if they didn't spend every spare moment talking about who they liked it wouldn't have been so bad and it could have been played as a touching moment between Harry and Hermione. The scene in the dorm where Harry and Ron have a conversation about skin was cute and was well-done. It felt like a glimpse into their little dorm life. The Harry and Hermione scene felt like a glimpse into some bad fan fic.
-Also, the general, overbearing presence of sex in the movie. It was everywhere. From Cormac suggestively licking his fingers, to Ron's "did you and Ginny do it?", to random students making out in dark corridors. It was as if they wanted to make SURE that we got it! Harry and co. are 16 and they think about SEX. A LOT. "Oh wait, did the pesky plot distract you from all the SEX? We'd better throw in another blatant SEXUAL reference, lest our audience forget how important SEX is!" They could have cut out HALF of the sex stuff, and it would still have been ABUNDANTLY clear. And really, they sacrificed the plot and left out a lot of important information in favor of adding in more pointless and uncomfortably awkward sexual references. Which brings me to...
Voldemort's Horcruxes can be ordinary, common-place objects? O RLY?! Once again, Steve Kloves shown his ignorance of a MAJOR plot point. I know that they are going to have to change things and leave stuff out, but this is SO important! I mean I guess it gets them off the hook so that they don't have to show the Gaunt memories, but I wonder - how will Harry know that the Horcruxes needed to be objects of importance to Riddle, hmmm? In the books, the whole point of Dumbledore showing Harry these memories was to help him UNDERSTAND Voldemort. Not to display how ~evil~ he is! Harry (and the audience) will surely have figured that out by now! HBP is about planting the seeds that will help Harry defeat Voldemort in DH, and I really don't think they did enough of that in the movie. ALSO It would have been nice if they mentioned WHY the locket was hidden in that PARTICULAR cave. It might have given Harry a clue about how Voldemort also hid his Horcruxes in places of importance to him. Maybe to help him figure out where the rest might be after Dumbledore dies. But no. Steve Kloves would rather make sure that we all know Harry has facial hair now. And I can't take credit for this (brianistuft pointed it out to me) - Why did Dumbledore have the diary in his office in the first place? Didn't Harry give it back to Lucius Malfoy at the end of the second movie?
SNAPE! SNAPE! SNAPE! The movie is called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. You would think that we might learn a little more about Snape in this movie. Or, at the very least, a little more attention would be given to the scene where we learn he's the HBP! Two things in this book are PIVOTAL to Snape's story:
1. The fact that HE was the one who told Voldemort about the prophecy. This adds more layers to Harry's hatred of him and to Harry's anger at Dumbledore for trusting him. But FAR MORE IMPORTANTLY it is the reason that Snape renounced the Dark Arts! I guess Steve Kloves found that to be too complicated and will probably just focus on the zomg-I-love-Lily! part. Whatever. That brings me to my next point.
2. His anger at being called a coward. WHY would they take that out?! Its one, tiny little line. Four fucking words. "Don't call me coward!" Somehow, Kloves couldn't mange to fit those four little words into his script. In all honesty though, it really weakens the scene. It's like all they wanted to focus on was making Snape look as evil as possible, like the potions book was evil and Snape was the one wrote in it so it just goes to show you how evil he is. Again, Snape's whole story is based upon the fact that he is, in fact, not a coward at all. Snape didn't even seem to be that mad at the end. Ugh.
The Burrow. On fire. W. T. F?! Yes, I understand that this whole (pointless, IMHO) scene was to show how scary and dangerous the Death Eaters are. But it was WAY too freaking long, and just when I thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous than running through fields in what seemed like a misplaced homage to Signs - they set the Weasley's house on fire! I'm not even going to go into why this whole occurrence would be canonically impossible (Hello, wards? Aurors protecting Harry?) but it also didn't fit into the movie! It was a stupid detour from the story and it really didn't add anything! That was just more time that was wasted on pointless crap.
The end. I thought the CoS movie had the worst ending. I was wrong. Fine, they left out the funeral. I get that, they can always explain that he's buried at Hogwarts later on. But there were several other things that pissed me off about this:
- The overall feeling of the ending was not one of hopeful determination. Or even resigned determination. It fell completely flat. The first time I saw it, at midnight, we were in a very loud and interactive theater. I fully expected a thunderous round of applause when the movie ended. Instead it was slowly scattered applause that finally built up into everyone joining in. I don't think this was because people were shy, or even because people didn't like the movie. It was because the ending is awkward and not even really very final. The second time I saw it, I heard someone near me say "What? That's it?!"
- Hermione awkwardly assuring Harry that Ron is ok with him and Ginny (as long as they keep the snogging to a minimum) in the middle of Harry telling her about some Very Serious events. I think it was supposed to bring some comic relief and levity to the scene, but it didn't. It was just awkward. The scene basically played out as:
Harry: Dumbledore is dead and I have to destroy the Horcruxes on my own!
Hermione: Yeah but...you and Ginny! SEX, remember? Lulz.
Harry: I'm not coming back to school next year.
Ron: I'm just going to sit by myself on these steps because I clearly can't compete with Harry and Hermione's EPIC friendship.
Harry: Hogwartz iz so pretty u guyz!
THE END.
- And in all seriousness, I really don't think that we got to see enough of Harry's frustration. He's frustrated that he couldn't save Dumbledore, he's furious at Snape, and everything that happened that evening was in vain because the Horcrux wasn't even real. None of this really came across.
Things that I didn't hate with a blinding passion, but are still worthy of mentioning:
- What was up with McGonagall's pointy robe? I mean, it was fine for one scene I guess, but why did she have to wear it ALL the time? The costume designer seems to have gone a bit crazy with pointy stuff. Did you notice those creepy dark-haired twins at Slughorn's party were wearing equally weird and pointy dresses? I mean they were cool, but a little intense.
- On the subject of clothes, I have to admit that I found it a bit odd that Ginny shows up to Slughorn's slightly formal dinner wearing a fancy sequined dress, but then wears a boring homey-looking dress to his very fancy Christmas party.
- Why didn't Harry get into a shit ton of trouble after, you know, almost killing another student with a dark spell? It also bothered me that Draco didn't try to Crucio him first.
- I really wish that they had showed the diadem at some point. We spent so much time in that room, would it really have been so hard to give us one teensy little glimpse of it?
But I promise, I didn't completely hate it! There were some REALLY awesome things about this movie and they did such a great job with so much of it. Except, uh, all that stuff I listed above. So yeah...
Things I liked:
- The acting of the trio, overall. I've always though that Rupert Grint outshone the other two by so much, but in this movie they finally caught up with him. Daniel Radcliffe seems to have finally learned how to alter his facial expressions and vocal tones to convey emotion. And THANK GOD Emma Watson stopped acting with her eyebrows!
- On the subject of acting - Tom Felton, you fucking rock! Draco was SO FREAKING GOOD in this movie!
- The staircase scene at the Burrow was so awesome!
- Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes was pretty much perfect.
- Slughorn in general was great. (...although the Draught of Living Death is a sleeping potion, not a poison. But I'll let Kloves slide on that one)
- The scene where Ron and Harry struggle over the newer potions book was so funny and such a good addition!
- I talked a lot about the sex crap in my hate section, but I didn't mention Ron and Lavender. Because that was actually well done. She was funny and Ron was funny. I loved the scene on the train where she draws the heart and then Hermione walks by and sees it. It was well-placed, cute, and not over the top.
- Luna will ALWAYS bring the awesome.
- Harry under the influence of Felix Felicis was probably my favorite part. They did such a great job with that.
- Also the bit about Lily's magical fish was sweet.
- The scene in the cave was pretty much as close to the book as it could possibly be, and it was awesome. And Dumbledore's epic use of fire was, well, epic.
- I really liked the way they changed the astronomy tower scene to Harry choosing to trust Snape. It added more weight and drama to it and was a cool change.
- THANK GOD Draco disarmed Dumbledore. If they had fucked that up, I might have actually flipped out and pulled some crazy Misery-type shit.
- Bellatrix Lestrange. She is so wonderfully deranged! I fucking LOVED the scene in the great hall where she runs down one of the tables and kicks shit over.
- And the scene near the end where all the candles go out. It created such a haunting effect. THAT is what a good scene looks like! It was fucking PERFECT!
- I totally cried when everyone lifted up their wands for Dumbledore! It was a great way to convey that emotion without having the funeral.
And so, like I said in the beginning of this extremely long post, the movies will always have things that I like and things that I don't. Unfortunately, the first time I saw HBP I was so overwhelmed by all the things I didn't like that it ruined the movie for me. The second time, though, I did really enjoy it. It's far from perfect, but it's not a bad movie either. And I'm sure that I will see it a few more times in the next couple of weeks. I still haven't seen it in imax 3D. :D