Blooded.

[alexandraerin]

So, I saw the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a while back and I don't think I ever wrote up my thoughts on it.

It takes kind of an odd approach to the source material... there are dark forces swirling about, a decade-spanning war is coming to a head once more, conspiracy and murder and magic and mystery... and yet with so much potential for truly epic storytelling, the filmmakers choose to focus more on the soap opera-style melodrama of teenage romance and angst in a film that just plods on and on with no end in sight.

So, you know I liked it.

No, seriously, I thought it was a decent movie. It wasn't the book, but they couldn't have filmed the book.

The one part of it that ended up striking a sour note for me was the gutting of the mystery of the identity of the Half-Blood Prince. In the book, Harry's as obsessed with finding out who the genius was who wrote all the notes in his old textbook as he is with finding out what Draco's up to. The movie pays lip service to his attempts to catch Malfoy, showing him watching the Marauder's map and so forth, but he reads the name in the front of the book and doesn't think twice about it. His attitude seems to be "don't know, don't care". This makes Snape's declaration at the end--a dramatic revelation in the book--kind of an odd anti-climax. Dropping it, though, would have made the title seem even more out of place.

I can understand if they didn't feel they had room for a whole investigative subplot, but a few more lines playing up the book and its importance in Harry's newfound academic success... allowing a few more references to the Half-Blood Prince (Harry saying he owes him a lot, Hermione saying it's only because of the Prince that he's succeeding... this would also have allowed them to slip in a quick reference to the name's origin, Hermione saying, "How do we know the Prince was a he? There was an Eileen Prince at Hogwarts.", which could have been called back to after Snape's declaration.

Anything else that played up the book and Harry's "intellectual debt" to its previous owner would have made the ending more of the gut-punch it needed to be for the title to make sense. Yes, I know that most of the audience already knew who the Half-Blood Prince was going in and so any extra tension or mystery would be lost on us, but it's things like this that make me feel like the movies don't stand up as well on their own as they ought to.

I have a differing opinion from a lot of people, in that I liked the first two movies the best, I thought the third one seemed pretty good, and I didn't much care for the fourth or fifth ones. It seems' there's a critical (and to some extent, popular) consensus that Chris Columbus delivered a pair of clunkers and the third one's where it started to get good, but... meh. I think at their core, the first two books were just more filmable, being shorter and less intricate. I watched the first three before I got into the books, and after reading them I didn't feel like the first two had really been missing anything critical, while the third one started a trend of such uneven omissions, with the odd decision not to explain the origin of the Marauder's map or the names on it.

Evanna Lynch continues to be a bright spot of the later movies. I have mad fierce love for Luna Lovegood, and the actress who brings her to life does an incredible job with a character who would be so easy to get wrong. I hope she has a long and enjoyable career ahead of her.

Comments

[nomananisland.livejournal.com]

I somewhat agree. The first two books translated to film quite well, detail wise. They were also the most kid-friendly, on film and on paper. The third movie left out some detail, but at the level of just film as art, I think of the six it's actually the best movie -- cinematically and storywise. I think it looks better than Columbus' films, and had a darker, better acted plot.

The latest batch, from four onwards, lack detail and the emotional ooomph. They're just boring.

[zathras-ix.livejournal.com]

And, of course, Evanna Lynch could also play ŦΨØ when Tales of MU goes mainstream… :D

[crispiness.livejournal.com]

Oh hell yes. That would rock.

In case it's not obvious, I agree; she does Luna really well.

I always go and see the Harry Potter movies when they come out, but don't get much out of them besides the spectacle. I know the plot too well to have much dramatic involvement... I'm constantly analysing what they left in and out and why. Bad habit, kills enjoyment.

Hopefully the decision to split Deathly Hallows into two movies will improve matters. Though I don't know where they'll split it... there's no good midpoint that comes to mind.

[the-leaking-pen.livejournal.com]

ive been saying since they announced the movie series, books three and on need to be 2 movies each, with a break at christmas. except the last one, the one that seems to really be okay being one movie. but they are breaking it up in order to fit in more action. le sigh.

[alexandraerin.livejournal.com]

I think the only way to really do them justice would be to do an unusually high-budget British-style television show, with each book being a short season of roughly hour length episodes.

Some things would still get changed for pacing reasons and difficulty of text-to-visual translation, but you could fit so much more in.

[the-leaking-pen.livejournal.com]

oooooo. like the way they did Dune, but without the suck. I like!

I may have spent too long thinking about this.

[moofable.livejournal.com]

I’m annoyed that they didn’t alter the Half Blood Prince thing since they already changed things. They could simply not mention it until when Potter throws spells at Snape, and they could have Snape say something revealing that he is the Half Blood Prince. Potter could then tell Hermione who would puzzle it over and wonder out loud why the Death Eaters would pall around with a half blood anything since they are so fond of pure bloods. Harry could then remember seeing it in the awesome potion book. Then the movie could end on “what on earth is up with Snape?”