the prophecy was a bit garbled in the movie. it states:
“the one with the power to vanquish the dark lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and the dark lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the dark lord knows not… and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…”
the movie cuts it short, and has harry hearing it with his friends. the book has the full version, heard only by dumbledore and harry in dumbledore’s office. dumbledore finally explains some things to harry, one of them is why he was chosen. riddle only heard the start of the prophecy, upto the born as the seventh month dies. he did not hear the rest.
there is a hogwarts train scene where harry wonders how it would be if riddle had picked neville instead of him.
The scene at the Burrow was so Children of the Corn, no? (for those who are too young, Children of the Corn was a very bad horror movie in the 1970s or so which had previews shown of various teens running through row after row of corn [maize to you non-Americans], being chased by godknowswhat.)
I do wish they would stop messing with the scenery. Hogwarts is different every single movie and now the Burrow as well. AD’s office seems to stay the same, as does the boy’s dorm and the common room for Gryffindor, but that’s it. The train station changes every time, too. :rolleyes:
yep, children of the corn. or any scary running through the corn thing, very done before. odd because they said they didn’t want to do a hogwarts battle because it will be done again at the end of the series.
running through high stalks of grass has never been done before… huh.
The layout of Hogwarts changes in every film. The great hall does remain the same, but if you look closely at the end of the film, you can see the hourglasses for the 4 houses–that was not located there in prior films.
The huge clock was also missing this time, as was the (for lack of a better word) portico where Hermione, Harry and Sirius landed on Buckbeak in HP3.
The potions classroom is also different–the gold painted trim on the arches and the direction the room is facing.
Hogwarts has gotten bigger in every film (which is fine–it has to be). Hagrid’s hut has changed position at least 3 times, HP1, HP3 and now HP6.
There is still a lake (loch) near the castle, but it’s position and length has also changed, as has the forest that surrounds most of it. That forest may or may not be the Forbidden Forest…
It’s not enough to jar me, but it is noticeable.
The scene between Harry and Dumbledore with the potion was lacking. The scene in the book was wrenching - and that didn’t carry through in the least.
The fire in Hagrid’s hut made absolutely zero sense the way the movie played out - it was just random destruction when they hadn’t done anything else whatsoever in the castle. At least in the book they were generally causing mayhem in the castle and the fire was fallout / continuation of that.
Agreed with the poster that commented that the revelation of Snape as the HPB was “so what?”.
Although the background of Voldemort added a LOT to the book, I can sort of see their decision to eliminate most of that in the movie.
WTF with the attack at the Burrow? The “action” there belonged in the final scenes, not just shoved into another time and place entirely.
Chemistry between Harry and Ginny… utterly lacking. And the two had practically zero onscreen time.
I thought Draco’s acting was really good - he did a wonderful job of showing himself as conflicted, evil-wannabe, but not entirely at ease with harming others.
Yes, Draco was quite good. I disagree re the chemistry between Harry and Ginny–it is there, just not shouted. The next film will decide that for me.
There is so much chemistry between Hermione and Ron (which is down to their acting since in life they are just good friends) that perhaps anything else pales? Anyway, my beef with the Harry/Ginny thing is lack of chance for any tension to develop. They are kept apart, but they should have laid more ground work, even one small scene (more than Harry seeing her in the window) would have done the trick. Or have him make some allusion to Ginny (not named) when AD is mildly teasing him about the cafe girl. Something…
Kudos to Draco for making me care about him finally. It is my imagination or did they try to make Neville look more obese in this film? His waiter jacket is way too big for him.
I remember seeing Bellatrix wreaking havoc on the great hall before the Death Eaters escaped from Hogwarts.
We had also wondered if the funeral scene would be used to open the next movie instead of ending this one. And I keep thinking about Dumbledore’s Army, if the idea will be reinforced before the final movie.
And having seen this a second time (the first time I was like WTF?), I can see how portentous the wrecking of the great hall can look to the students. The second time around, when the candles blew out, it seemed weightier to me. School will indeed not be the same for quite some time to come for the kids.
I am bopping around the internet a bit, reading various reviews. Most critics don’t seem to like it much. Anthony Lane (The New Yorker) whom I have yet to find likes ANY film, says rather nasty things about AD and HP’s relationship. TheNewYorker
I thought that double entendres of this sort were hallmarks of the middle school set, but apparently Mr Lane finds them the last word in humor.
The Guardian’s Xan Brooks snipes that The Trio seems to be on heavy medication and that their hearts are not in it. WHAT?
Even Roger Ebert, who has (AFAIK) never read the books seems kindly but tepid in his review. Roger And I don’t think that Gambon stole the show.
I realize it’s not great cinema, but I don’t understand the snark from Lane or Brooks. It seems over the top for what is basically a beautifully filmed, averagely plotted film.
Just got back from seeing it. And of course I have a few thoughts.
Tom Fenton did a fantastic job as Draco. (he’s also grown up to be quite good looking) They did a great job with showing how isolated his assigned task was making him.
Ginny was awesome, she is quite a good actress.
The Burrows scene, I think I know why they did it (aside from adding an action scene). The pan down to Molly’s face makes me think that it’s a foreshadowing of her battle with Bellatrix at the end of Deathly Hallows. Which makes me think they’ll film it correctly and with any luck include her famous line.
The Cave scene was beautifully done but the acting needed work. The ending felt flat to me and I really didn’t feel the emotion I was expecting to.
Very obviously the setup for the final confrontation, but still quite well done. As usual, they had to hack lots of the book out, but they managed to do a decent job of covering what they cut out through dialog.
But, oh my oh my…the girls have grown up VERY nicely.
I thought the Burrow was different. So different, in fact, that I wasn’t sure it even was the Burrow. So when the house burned down, I thought “oh, the Weasley’s vacation house burned down…too bad.”**
And I agree that there was no chemistry between Harry and Ginny - which is good because there shouldn’t be: in a perfect world, Harry would have ended up with Hermione!!
**(Of course, the Weasley’s having a second vacation home doesn’t make sense given their economic situation [though doesn’t Arthur get a big raise at some point in the books??], but it’s nicer to think that it was not the Burrow that was destroyed. Anyways, I don’t think they ever explicitly referred to it as “the Burrow” in this movie, so it’s possible.)
naaah, in a perfect world harry would end up with luna. he needs some whimsy in his life.
harry and ginny work because she gives him his hearts desire: a family. ginny is a calm, level headed, very powerful witch. she is a good partner for him. and one kinda odd thing i’ve noticed in the psat few films… she looks rather like the actress that plays harry’s mum… odd that. could be a contributing factor.
I really wanted this to be better than it was. It seemed like it took a long time to get going.
My main issue with this film was the elimination of Voldemort from it. By that I mean the reduction in the number of memory scenes. All we got was the orphanage scene and the Slughorn memory. I remember reading the book and thinking the background on Voldemort really gave the series an extra edge. I love backstory in general. But the film just didn’t bother with any of it. Instead we got to see Ron’s love life. Now those bits gave the film some great humour but they could have cut down on them to include the more important parts of the book. I also don’t think they gave enough focus to the Half Blood Prince. In the book Harry becomes obsessed with the HBP. There are a few scenes where someone goes “Harry you should get rid of the book” but we are never told in the film why.
I also thought Ginny was very weak. I thought that in the books too. She’s never really given any personality and the actress playing her doesn’t bring any to the role. I never really bought them being in love.
I do think that Grint, Watson and Felton were really good in this film though. Felton especially, he really sold me on Malfoy’s isolation and anguish.
It’s like they took the Burrow and added about 4 floors and 3 staircases to it. I don’t mind, but it took some getting used to. What was more confusing was its being surrounded by head high wheat/grass all of a sudden.
I know you’re kidding, but really, Rowling couldn’t have made it clearer if she tried. It was obvious from the beginning that Hermione had it Bad for Ron and (to follow the whole epic tradition), Harry rescues Ginny–just like in a fairy tale. True, she’s 11 when he does it and he’s 13, but the message and intent is clear. If that’s not enough, in that amortentia potion, Harry smells something that reminds him of the Burrow. Plus, having had his experience, he won’t marry a Muggle. It would have been a grand political gesture, but Harry found where he belongs in the magical world: the Muggle world holds very few fond memories for him.
I liked a lot of the individual scenes, but thought it fell a little bit flat as a total film, and dragged in a couple places. As others have said, having read the book hampered my enjoyment of some parts - I kept wondering if they destroy the Weasley house how that will play into the big wedding battle scene in the next book, and if they don’t show all the Riddle memories, how are they going to figure out the horcruxes? Also, I wasn’t entirely clear which wand was on Dumbledore’s desk at the end. Especially since my impression of the HBP book was that it was predominantly about the series of flashbacks.
In the other direction, not remembering the climactic battle at the end and Harry begin paralyzed, I wasn’t bothered so much by that scene. They made a big deal out of establishing Harry’s trust in Dumbledore and his following his directions even if he didn’t understand them earlier tin the film - also, the way it was portrayed here it seemedlike Dumbledore was killed before Harry knew what was happening and as soon as it happened charged into battle.
They kind of dropped the ball with the whole half blood prince thing. In the books Snape knew Harry had the book and tried to catch him, anda bigger deal was made of the mystery. Here Snape just randomly announces at the end “aha! I’m the HBP!” I guess the scene with Malfoy all bloody clued him in, but I don’t think I would have caught it if I hadn’t read the book.
I liked all the burgeoning love stuff, although I thought it was slightly done in the Goblet of Fire film. I loved all the ho yay between Ron and Harry and the broomstick as penis posturing scenes at the Quidditch match.
I totally missed whatever Harry / Hermione ambiguity people are talking about at the end.
Seeing as how the opening scene was a bookend to the last film, I’m thinking the next film will start with Dumbledore’s funeral.
Overall I feel like I have to reserve judgement until the next film. There were a lot of things that should have been set up in this film that weren’t - so I’ll have to see how well they integrate them into the next films.
Background: Seen all the movies, have tried to get into the books several times, every time I get frustrated with Rowling’s writing and give it up.
I quite enjoyed this. Maybe my favorite of the movies so far, or at worst my second favorite after the third. My only disappointment was the ending - about from Harry unimpressively “force feeding” Dumbledore the rest of the potion, through the wand raising. I felt that entire section was weaker than it should have been, given how strong the rest of the movie was.
I thought all of the “high school” scenes worked great, and the Quidditch match as well. I would have liked some more exposition on the whole Half Blood Prince thing. Overall quite happy with it though, and may go back to try to see it again next weekend.
Third time around and now I really see this film as a set up for the next two.
Examples:
The taking of Ollivander in the first scene by the DeathEaters.
The ambiguity from Ron’s POV re Harry and Hermione, underscored by the last shot–Harry and Hermione are together at the balustrade, Ron is a step away and has been distanced from them the entire scene.
Harry telling Hermione that Draco was lowering his wand, plus his witnessing Draco crying.
Lupin and Tonks involved but also struggling a bit (hope that storyline is not ignored in the next film).
The picture of Regulus Black in Slughorn’s office.
Pettigrew with Snape–looks like that storyline will be used.
The crucial, crucial scene between Snape and AD–that Harry overhears. Nice cinematic touch that–avoids a whole 'nother sequence with Hagrid, yet tells what needs to be told in a very short time.
I really only miss “Blocked, again and again until you learn to discipline your mind, Potter!”. That line needed to be in this movie, IMO.
Anyone else notice that the Tube station girl says she gets off at 11pm, but the clock in the home where Harry and AD arrive says 1035?
I can see the next film showing the Trio on the run, with flashbacks used for the funeral, and perhaps the Trio will figure out that Voldemort preferred significant objects in which to keep his soul shards. IMO, having AD say that in this film would make the next film too predictable.
I thought the exact same thing after seeing it today. I loved the 6th book, but the film just felt like exposition for the Big Final Battle. There really was no big narrative or quest or anything pushing forward the story. The question of who was the Half-Blood Prince was all but forgotten until the very end, and which point the revelation doesn’t have any meaning. It was just a bunch of scenes that don’t really play out until the 7th book.
