Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

[Bunk]

Ok, watched this last night. I'll start by saying that I have not read any of the books, but have seen all the movies, and generally enjoyed them.

This movie left me feeling 

since it just hit video:

[Slyfeind]

Um, what? It's not due out on video for another two months.

But yeah, it was a pretty uneventful book too. There was a parallel they drew from the first time Voldemort rose to power, how everybody was getting married and/or having kids as a sort of Wizarding World baby boom. So all the snogging was at least semi-justified.

In the book, the vanishing cabinet was so a small army of Death Eaters could invade Hogwarts and have an awesome smashing battle scene. For some reason, I guess they didn't want an awesome smashing battle scene in the movie.

'Nother thread here?

[Broughden]

Just saw it two days ago at the dollar theatre. Glad I waited to only pay a dollar.
You would rather fill a 2 and 1/2 hour movie with whinny love sick teens than the awesome battle at Hogwarts and Dumbledor's funeral and its significance? WTF?
The producers and director on that movie were fucking idiots.

Waste of time and money.

[Morat20]

What's weird is that, in the movie, Harry and Ginny were far less angsty and annoying. And so was Ron and Hermione. I didn't want to see the movie (damn kid made me go) simply because those four pissed me off so goddamn much in the book.

I think they left out the battle because half the next movie is the Battle of Hogwarts, although the ending of that would be totally lame if it weren't for Mrs Weasely and Neville.

Seriously, Harry's an annoying hero. He just sort of loafs around, getting by mostly on sheer luck and apparently the reflexes years worth of child abuse instilled in him.

Also, what the fuck was up with the ending of HBP? I realize that the "mystery" of the identity of the half-blood prince was pretty fucking lame in the book, and mostly ignored in the movie, but damn -- couldn't they have done better than THAT?

[Khaldun]

The curious thing about Harry as protagonist is that he knows he's not much of a hero, that he's passive, that things happen to him and he gets by mostly through luck, friends, deus ex machina, and so on. He says so in the books, quite often, and in the movies too. About the only active thing he ever does is submit to death, and even that's basically a trap that's been set up by other people and circumstances. But this is a classic thing in stories that turn on prophecies of one sort or another.

[HaemishM]

So Harry is essentially Anakin from the Phantom Menace?

LE AWESOME. 

[ghost]

This book is the equivalent of God Emperor in the Dune series.  It is long and not particularly action-ey.  Still, there is little excuse for the putrid shit which was this movie.  The direction was terrible, the cinematography was bad in almost every scene and the only reasonable acting was from the young guy that played Tom Riddle.  I am not impressed with Yates at all.

[Reg]

It was incomprehensible drivel from beginning to end. I watched it with my 80 year old mother who has seen all the movies but not read the books.  She was afraid to admit that she had no idea what was happening in it for fear I'd think she had Alzheimer's. She was awfully relieved when I told that the only reason I had a clue was that I'd read the damned book.

[Riggswolfe]

Sadly this was probably my favorite of the books and the movie was...watchable. Barely. This book had a ton of subtle things that happened and it left you with a feeling that something monumentous was coming in the next book.

 Dumbledore's funeral in the book was awesome and had some incredible imagery. Not to mention the vow that Harry and the others make. All of that was lost. Not to mention the Half Blood Prince subplot is handled about a million times better in the book. It's practically a throw away in the movie.

And don't get me started on Malfoy. In the book you truly get a feeling that maybe he is a bully but not a budding Death Eater. The movie? Not at all.

[ghost]

They didn't even really touch on the Half Blood Prince part of the story at all.

Also, it seemed almost as though none of the characters were actually in the movie other than Ron.  The typical witty (ish) dialogue was completely gone.  I hope this director does better with the next one.  I hear they're splitting it into two movies.  Gotta keep that gravy train rolling.

[Slyfeind]

And don't get me started on Malfoy. In the book you truly get a feeling that maybe he is a bully but not a budding Death Eater. The movie? Not at all.

Urh? I think Malfoy was the only part of the movie that was loyal to the book. In both media, Malfoy was a kid who thought he was an awesome "bad guy" but when the chips were down, he didn't have it in him.

[ahoythematey]

Malfoy was the best part of the movie, and the only good thing in it.  The rest of it was pants.

[Rasix]

Finally saw this.  Had been wanting to see this since my son was born.

There were a few funny lines, but other than that this was easily the worst movie of all of them.  They really just fumbled through most of it, getting the essence of just about every scene totally wrong. The Malfoy stuff was done better than I expected.

[01101010]

The whole movie line Harry has been nothing more than an average wizard who, as others have said, gets lucky much of the time. Every struggle he's been in usually ends up with him getting the worst end of it. Had he not been a Horcrux, I doubt there would even be a footnote about him other than his parents getting killed by the big bad.

I'd say Hermione was the best of the gang in terms of breadth of knowledge, but wound much too tight around her moral high ground to be of any use - which means Ginny gets the title, reinforced in the movie and the Phoenix. Ginny is bad ass and has her morals loosened just enough to make everyone her bitch.

[UnSub]

I've never read the books, especially since the movies look like they'd be more interesting if they were about Hermione, the one who actually knows stuff.

[Selby]

Saw this the other day.  As a stand-alone movie it worked just fine to drive the movies to the final one in the series.  Compared to the book there were quite a few things left out and changed as far as the general feel (plus the angst, which I felt was a bit different in the books vs. the movie, more annoying in the movie really).  But as a stand-alone movie for those who've never read the books, it would probably be just fine.  I ended up really not caring any particular way since I read the books a while back and got my impressions of how they went then.

[NowhereMan]

Also saw this over the holidays. It's bad, it might do it's job of filling in a few plot points on the way to the next one but it really wasn't a good adaptation of the book nor a good film in it's own right. The whole thing felt really disjointed, they did a poor job of conveying plot points such as why the book mattered and really didn't manage to pull any of the plots that it did cover in a coherent stream. Things happened, things happened somewhere else and suddenly different things were happening in the last plot. The only thing they covered that made sense was Ron's romance and I really don't understand why that got so much screentime except for opportunity for 'hilarity' and 'emotion'.

Also as has been said elsewhere it was boring. Lots of talking, mostly about stuff that wasn't well explained or followed up or lead into.

[WayAbvPar]

Watched this again now that it is on HBO. Jesus fucking CHRIST it is dark. Not foreboding, or depressing, or heavy- too dark to see wtf is going on in literally at least 40% of the scenes. In a darkened theatre with a 200 foot screen this might be ok, but at home on a 60" screen with ambient lighting it is fucking unwatchable.