Wow. That’s all I can say is wow. IMHO, this is the best HP yet. I want to see it again. It is quite funny in many parts and ways. Well done by the cast and the director (whom I don’t really care for).
Thoughts? Comments, criticisms?
More tomorrow, but it’s 0306 here and I’m off to bed.
The most emotionally satisfying of the movies for sure. IMHO this is the first film to actually be debatable as better than the book. I’m not saying it is, I realize that’s kind of heretical, but it’s open for debate I think.
I’ve heard this one referred to as the “Empire Strikes Back” of the HP series, that seems like a pretty good comparison. Now I’m just worried that that the splitting of the final book into two movies will make for one pretty boring and lackluster first half…But that’s a whole other discussion.
It was okay. I remember enjoying the last movie a little bit more, if only because there seemed to be more happening.
My biggest complaint about this film, however, is that they removed all background for the title. We didn’t get to see how much of a jerk Harry’s father was, or how Snape was bullied throughout his stay at Hogwarts. So, by the time Snape admits he is the half-blood prince at the end of the film, who cares? There’s really no emotional impact.
I figure they could have cut about 75% of the repetitive teenage emotional drama (although, a lot of it was pure fun) to fit in the revelation of Snape’s character.
Acting wise, the Tom Riddle kid was pretty creepy, and Emma Watson acted the pants off Daniel Radcliffe (who still comes across as wooden). Jim Broadbent was worth his weight in gold; he’s always a hoot in whatever film he’s in.
Umm, Harry’s father was established as a jerk in Order of the Phoenix (the book, anyway, I can’t recall about the movie), not Half-Blood Prince.
I had a great time, though.
ETA: And something got in my eye when everybody was dispelling the Dark Mark.
I think Rowling expanded on it in HBP, dealing also with the issue of Snape’s crush on Harry Potter’s mom. (Or was that in Deathly Hollows? I don’t remember. I do remember there were a lot of Snape flashbacks in the book, and that they shed light on who Snape really is, and Who Snape Really Is is the most interesting aspect of the septology, and they cut it out of this movie, which is bad.)
Overall, I thought the movie was decent. The “dark tone” seemed a bit mechanically executed. Meh.
There was a part I thought could have been much better, but I thought the book could have been much better in this regard as well. The scene in the cave, where Dumbledore has to drink that liquid that makes him feel real bad somehow. Harry Potter ends up getting him to finish it off by basically just asking him “please.” What should happen in the scene is Dumbledore refuses, tries to refuse absolutely, and Potter uses the fact that Dumbledore is an incapacitated older gentlemen to hold him down and force him to drink at wandpoint. That would have made for a dramatic and interesting scene. With significant allusions to the Malfoy/Dumbledore scene later on. The scene as it is just kind of falls flat.
I stayed up late re-reading the book before going to go see it tonight. There isn’t much in the book about Snape and Harry’s father, other than the frequent use of levicorpus. Slughorn is the one who drools over Harry’s parents. The revelation of Snape being the HBP is not a “WOW” in the book either, as emotions are so high anyways that it’s almost an aside.
The flashbacks in HBP are of Voldie, not Snape. Despite being the focus character, he doesn’t garner much attention - it’s just when he does, he does it with a bang.
I have never understood the criticism of Radcliffe being wooden. Certainly in the first film, he lacked some confidence and he doesn’t always obviously “react” in various other films, but (especially) in this one, he does a fine job. He has a light comedic touch, but also shows remorse, regret, sadness, anger etc well.
Emma Watson improved immeasurably for this film–in HP5, she was overemoting like crazy at first, then seemed to settle into things. Her best film is either this one or HP3, IMO.
Things I wished were in this one, but weren’t:
The set up for the wedding. It would have been nice to see Fleur again.
I miss the Dursleys in every film they’re not in. And what to do now with all the backstory of Lily and Petunia?
I’m sure there’re are more things, but I am sooo tired. I need to see it again to really be able to comment.
Rickman’s Snape was fantastic, except the ending was weak (I disagree that there wasn’t enough between Snape and James. It needed perhaps a fleeting reference to that old wound, but really the film needed more tension between Harry and Snape. They didn’t bother with that, so that anyone seeing this film as a stand alone is bound to be 
about that).
Things I Liked:
Biggest one: they captured the essence of the relationship between the Big Three and the “flavor” of the Hogwarts World cinematically. This is huge and very satisfying.
Young Riddle was well done.
I also really liked the story Slughorn told about Lily. It was almost a poetic reference and made her come more alive than “you have your mother’s eyes”.
I liked the added scene at the Burrow–it seems rather pointless (was it just to show the havoc wrought or the DeathEaters power?), but it made a good scene. Who was the Bad Dude–is that Fenrir? He didn’t look like a werewolf to me.
The expansion of Draco’s character–it’s good to see that “bad guys” can be given depth and complexity. I missed Moaning Myrtle, though.
Love, love, love the comedy and the romance and the oblique references to more adult themes.
Things I Didn’t Care For:
I never did warm up to Gambon’s Dumbledore (I wasn’t over the moon about Harris’ either). He has good lines; I just don’t like the way he delivers some of them. And he has awful lines, too–I don’t know if Yates means to talk down to the audience or feels the need to get the 6 year olds in the audience up to speed but many lines are trite and overwritten. Anyway, I thought Gambon did an OK job as AD, but (IMO) his big, final scene falls flat. After the impressive display in the cave, it jarred me. I did like the wand tribute after.
I didn’t care for the way the director handled the ending of this movie. I like that he created some ambiguity re the Big Three, but the demise of that VIP character was brushed aside. I so wanted to hear Fawke’s song!
Neville, Seamus, Dean et al each get about oh, one line each in this movie. Not sure how to fix that, but I missed them.
The apple/bird thing was clever, but (again, as in HP5) the camera dwelt much too long on that damned birdcage.
Did anyone else notice that Voldemort was nary to be seen?
There will be more, but I can’t think. After having been up for 21 hours, I found I slept very badly and my brain is full of cotton wool.
Keep those thoughts and opinions coming!
I’ve never read any of the books but do love the movies.
I’ve heard a review from another person whose never read the books and they said that while the movie was definately good it did feel like a chapter in a story rather than a stand alone film. He said while other films (he used Order of the Pheonix as an example) had a build up to a big finale ending the HBP did not.
That was his only complaint about the film.
I don’t understand why the screenwriter decided to destroy the Burrow. Was he given instructions to write Deathly Hallows with no Bill-Fleur wedding?
I didn’t so much mind being presented with the Lupin-Tonks pair-up as a fait accompli. That was a pretty good time-saver.
But if Deathly Hallows is going to be two films, ISTM that a lot of the stuff in the book that would have made two movies a good idea are going to suffer for not having been foreshadowed in HBP.
IIRC, the fact of Snape having any opinion of Lily Evans aside from calling her a Mudblood (in OoTP) was not established until the Pensieve chapter in Deathly Hallows.
Pensieve scenes that were cut from this story:[ol]
[li]Ministry of Magic official visit to the Gaunts; establishes the existence of the ring and the necklace, as well as Riddle’s hereditary gift of Parseltongue.[/li][li]The founder of Bourgin and Burke discussing their acquisition of the locket.[/li][li]Tom Riddle visiting Hepzibah Smith, and learning of the existence of the locket and the Hufflepuff cup.[/li][li]Morfin Gaunt’s meeting with his nephew.[/li][*]Voldemort’s job interview with Dumbledore.[/ol]ETA: I realize that there wasn’t any good way of getting them into this movie, but I’ll be interested in seeing how the screenwriter gets that exposition into the next film.
Also, I didn’t really see the need for the scene in the Muggle coffee shop at the beginning. Harry reading the Daily Prophet in the Underground is pretty close to a violation of the Statute of Secrecy. Or possibly an actual violation. Plus, he’s just sixteen (either nearly, or barely). A little precocious to be hitting on that waitress, I thought.
Nice-looking waitress, though. I also thought that. 
Indeed. Way out of his league. I also thought that. 
That reminds me. The theater I saw it in had some kind of chimp in the projection booth, so I can’t be sure the coffee shop scene was the first scene. Was it, and if not, what was?
Since I don’t have much time I am just gonna list thoughts as they come and as I type them:
I thought the movie was bad. Not the worst movie ever, but WAY worse than all of the other HP movies. It was boring, too teenage angst (which I know is a big part of the story, but it was just slow). The only “action” that happened was the toilet scene and the added scene in the field.
Toilet scene was pretty good. I liked the way they did the Secumsemptra spell, since It’s probably the most violent spell in the series.
HATED THE ENDING!!! The book had about 5,000 times more drama. Harry was told to “wait down below” and just watched everything? No. In the book he was pinned down by a spell and it was frigging torture for him to watch everything. He sees Dumbledore killed and just stands there? That’s way out of character for Harry. That whole scene was done very poorly.
-No giant battle?? Nothing of the 'Crew (Ginny, Herm, Ron, Luna, Neville) barely dodging killing spells because of the Felix? Fighting their hearts out even though Harry was no where to be seen, just at the mere thought of him coming back to them? This book was the next in a very important chapter of the DA. They’re still fighting harder and stronger than anyone else…and it was totally left out of the movie.
-On a personal note I am disapointed they left out my favorite line in the book. While Harry is chasing Snape he tries to Crucio him and Snape retorts with “No unforgivable curses for you Potter”. There is so much in that line that I always loved it, second favorite in the whole 7 book series.
I am sure there are other things that I didn’t like, but I have run out of time…I’ll be back to list more, and to probably defend myself against the myriad of complaints I’m gonna get from a lot of people here
I liked the movie but I agree 100% with this. No way in hell would Harry just stand there and watch Death Eaters close in around Dumbledore. When Snape shows up pointing his wand at Harry, I thought maybe he’d be the one to immobilize him, and that still would have worked, I think. The scene was pretty intense in the book. Not so much here.
The ending was butchered. The exit from the castle was pointless, while in the book it was fraught with drama and emotion. Snape screeched and spit vitriol at Potter in the books - here, nothing. No immobilization, no semi-epic battle, no nothing. Gah.
And this part drove me up a freaking wall:
After the last Pensieve scene:
Dumbledore: I knew we were up against seriously dark magic, but until tonight I had no idea just how bad things were.
Potter: That’s where you’ve been going all term, isn’t it? To find the horcruxes?
Dumbledore: Yes, yes it is. In fact, let’s go find another one now.
But…you…what…you just said…you had no…DAMMIT!
Burning down the Burrow made me very sad, and I don’t see the point. I’m guessing that means no Bill-Fleur wedding, which means no Shell Cottage, which means they’re going to bend the entire chapter in Deathly Hallows about burying Dobby and meeting with Olivander and Griphook right over and do it squarely up the bum. Sadness.
I agree with all your criticisms. I disagree that the movie was bad, I still found it enjoyable, but many of the big pay-off scenes were either cut or muted. The ending was particularly bland and they seemed to do a poor job of showing the degree of peril and uncertainty that the Death Eaters were causing throughout the book.
I wonder if they are going to use a lot of the cut scenes from HBP to fill out the first half of DH. With Dumbledore dead they could easily show the chaos in the muggle and wizarding worlds for the first half of the next installment which was largely cut from this move. They could lay out the Tom Riddle scenes that explain the horcruxes. Maybe they’ll show the wedding and the other peripheral relationships as flashbacks while Harry and Co. are miserable and on the run.
I was wondering if that was in the book because I didn’t remember it and of course the Burrow is very important to Book 7. This is probably the biggest departure from the books, which makes me wonder if Rowling herself wrote it in.
I wish they’d had the Dursleys instead of flirting with the waitress.
The best surprise was Tom Felton as Draco; the kid (well, technically he’s an adult now) can act. I totally bought his “unable to concentrate on anythign other than the impossible task” performance.
Did anybody else find it perversely erotic the way Dumbledore kept encouraging Harry to “get close” to Slughorn by any means, btw?
Somehow Rickman made avada kedavra more chilling than I expected.
I was surprised there was no Ralph Fiennes (and just a second or two of Timothy Spall). And I wish that Slughorn’s altered memory had been a little more obviously altered.
Generally though I loved it. The main problems I had is that it wasn’t two movies like Deathly Hallows because they had to cut so much.
I’m wondering if Dobby will be appearing in Deathly Hallows at all. They left him out of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix. I remember that in the run-up to OotP the publicity people were saying that the screenwriter initially had been intent on leaving Kreacher out, but Rowling vetoed that on account of the important role Kreacher had to play in the final book.
So, I see a possibility that they’ll leave out the death of Dobby, and have Kreacher carry out the rescue from Malfoy Manor. Probably without dying, because he’ll still need to be there for the battle of Hogwarts.
Unless they have Neville do it. :rolleyes:
I haven’t seen the movie yet … but my recollection of Dumbledore’s state of knowledge prior to Harry retrieving the true memory from Slughorn was that he knew Riddle had made a Horcrux (since he’d already found and destroyed one at the start of the book), suspected he’d made more than one, and had no clue just how many more than one he’d made. That’s pretty key information, as you can imagine, as you needn’t bother going after Voldy directly until you know you’ve rendered him mortal. In the meantime, you keep looking for more just in case there are any.
I imagine he’d been hoping that there were, say, three. So he’s thinking, “One down, another located; I’ll go whack that one, and maybe we’ll be almost done.” Then Harry alerts him that there are actually six, (or really, as we find in TDH, seven) and Dumbledore realizes that he really, quote, “had no idea how bad things were.” In any case, he wouldn’t want to shift to offense until he knew he had them all; and to to that, he’s got to know for certain how many ‘them all’ is.
Hrrm, when I originally heard the line I thought it sounded like Dumbledore was surprised by the type of magic that was in play rather than the number, but your interpretation does make infinitely more sense.