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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Jul 19, 2009 14:30:58 GMT -5
Saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie last night. I'm not happy.
I can handle deviations from the books, so that is not a problem. However, the problem is that from this movie, the last movies can't be anything but a disaster. Here's the problem: if you paid close enough attention at the movie, you can know that there are 6 horcruxes. The diary, the ring, and the locket are three. But what are the other three? Given just the movie, we have NO clue at all. None. So what is going to happen in the last movies? Harry and the gang have to find the locket, yes, but then what? According to the movie, horcruxes can be any common object. Yet somehow, this gang of teenagers is supposed to find them, with absolutely no insight into what they are? Are they going to just start destroying random objects?
Going in, I figured that, at the very least, the 6th movie would have to leave the viewer thinking, "The locket, the cup, the snake, something of Ravenclaw's or Griffyndor's." Instead, we are left with, "When will Ron and Hermione finally hook up?"
A 2.5 hour movie and they wasted two hours doing Lavender Brown and Quidditch, and spent 1/2 hour at the lake and Dumbledore's death. The whole last installment is about the search for horcruxes, and it is going to be done blindly? How can they search for horcruxes when they have no clue what they are looking for? Or will they just borrow Luna's spectrospecs and look for rackspurts?
And once again, the Dumbledore in the movie is an abomination. As I said, I can handle discrepancies with the book, but come on, do they have to make the DD character completely opposite of what he is in the books? Note in the movie when they discover that Valumart wants to split his soul into 7, DD is overcome and decrees, "This is worse than I could have imagined." In the book, however, his response is completely opposite: "This is what I feared." And it's too late now, but someone could have told Gambon to give Dumbledore just a bit of compassion instead of being an uncaring dork?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2009 15:37:11 GMT -5
The 7th book will be two movies, so they'll at least have a bit more canvas on which to paint.
I didn't think the movie did justice to Ginny. Not only did the attraction come out of nowhere, they didn't give Ginny enough credit for the woman she is becoming. Actually, I don't think the actors were up to the romance -- not Radcliffe and Ginny (forget her name) and especially not Grint and Watson. Neither pair had any sexual chemistry.
I also found myself wondering how they were going to finish the book when we were already two hours into the movie and the horcruxes had not even been mentioned. I wonder how much of the battle at Hogwarts was cut?
Even so, Yates is such a vast improvement over Columbus and the junk that was movies 1 and 2, I'm willing to forgive a lot. It also helps, I'm sure, to have read the books. The imagination fills in a lot of the missing pieces.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Jul 19, 2009 16:09:37 GMT -5
The 7th book will be two movies, so they'll at least have a bit more canvas on which to paint. But what is there to paint? As I said, in movie land, they have 3 horcruxes to figure out with not a single clue of what they should be looking for or where they should be looking or even where to start! At least in the book, they knew to look for objects that belonged to founders, and to look in places where Valumart had been, but that was because Dumbledore figured that out. In the movie, we don't know where the ring came from, and all we know about the cave is that it had been the site of dark magic. The locket apparently was replaced by RAB, but that doesn't give us any insight into what the other 3 horcruxes might be. I'm just looking at this from a movie standpoint, and trying to separate it from what I know from the books. And from the movie standpoint, assuming that the ultimate outcome is to defeat Valumart by destroying the horcruxes, then there really is no way to do that without somehow getting more information. Where do we get that from? Dumbledore is dead, so he is not a source. Presumably we could find RAB, who might know more information, but that is pushing things a little, don't you think? The problem is that even if we knew a location, it wouldn't help because the object could be anything. So we also have to know a possible identity of the object. I suppose he could just see the three objects by reading Valumart's mind, but sheesh. You could go to that well once, maybe, but for all of them? That would be an awfully lame plot. In the end, that wouldn't surprise me if that's the way they went. Harry finds out right away what and where the horcruxes are, and the movie is built upon the quest to get them and the battles that ensue.
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Post by goGopherBill on Jul 19, 2009 17:28:52 GMT -5
gee ,not everybody will read a book with ..like 500 pages.. I saw the movie today ..and lots of people chuckled at the romantic FOREPLAY.
Try and imagine what creature were the 3 watching at the end of the movie?
The special effects were good..the actors were faithful to their roles...I missed more of the Twins though. It will be another hit..with another movie or 2 or 5 later.
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Post by stonehands on Jul 19, 2009 21:45:21 GMT -5
I tend to view the books and the movies as separate entities and consider them loosely affiliated and not linked. This easily could have been a two part movie and may have been more satisfying but I was pleased with it although I liked Order of the Phoenix much better.
For the most part the viewer (that may or may not have read the books) knows that: Dumbledore is dead, 2 horcruxes down 5 to go, Ron likes Hermione, Ginny likes Harry, Snape is the Half Blood Prince, and Draco is officially a Death Eater. The next installment will hopefully be a tying of loose ends from this movie learning more about Voldemort and the beginning of the quest. I would hope the second part concludes with the battle.
What bugs me most is people that bring their kids and allow them to jabber through the whole entire movie.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2009 20:58:34 GMT -5
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Post by mbrooks on Jul 25, 2009 7:45:22 GMT -5
I didn't like it either. Too much was left out that was extremely important - the horcruxes, the battle at the end. The attack on the burrow was ridiculous - I'm guessing that the Weasleys rebuild it for the wedding in Deathly Hallows.
I know that they can't include every single thing but I sure could have done with less 'snogging'. I will say that the way Tom Felton played is role was fabulous.
A friend of mine called it 90210 with owls. I'm re-reading it this weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2009 9:02:37 GMT -5
What wedding? I don't think Bill W's in the movies, so they're probably going to skip that.
My biggest gripe, plot-wise, besides the horcruxes, was the whole Half-blood Prince angle. It's the name of the movie! But the significance was almost a throw-away line.
Snape's the best character in the whole series, imo.
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Post by mbrooks on Jul 25, 2009 10:42:00 GMT -5
Agree with you on Snape - amazing character through-out.
Well the wedding is where our heroic trio take flight after being invaded by Voldy's gang. If they don't include that, I'm wondering where and how they'll take off.
Also agree about the Half Blood Prince angle - that was another thing that got me upset. Gah.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Jul 25, 2009 10:59:57 GMT -5
Agree with you on Snape - amazing character through-out. Well the wedding is where our heroic trio take flight after being invaded by Voldy's gang. If they don't include that, I'm wondering where and how they'll take off. There are far bigger issues, I wonder about. Will the do the flight from the Dursley's? AFAIK, there hasn't been any mention of Harry having to stay there for his own safety, which breaks on his 17th birthday. If nothing else, that is a very movie friendly scene, which you would think they would want to include with all the excitement. So what do they do? All of a sudden introduce this idea that Harry has to escape from Little Winging, pretty much out of the blue?
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Post by mbrooks on Jul 25, 2009 12:52:34 GMT -5
Here's the crazy thing - I just looked at the IMDB page for Deathly Hallows. There's Bill and Fleur but no Dursley's in the cast listing.
Why do I have a feeling that the movie will open with him sitting around the table at Tonks' parents.
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Post by The Bofa on the Sofa on Jul 25, 2009 12:56:33 GMT -5
Here's the crazy thing - I just looked at the IMDB page for Deathly Hallows. There's Bill and Fleur but no Dursley's in the cast listing. Why do I have a feeling that the movie will open with him sitting around the table at Tonks' parents. Will Hedwig be with him? That would be too bad, although I still don't think you can interpret too much from the cast. Bill and Fleur could show up in a couple different ways. Even without the wedding, Ron goes to Shell Cottage for Christmas.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2009 16:37:01 GMT -5
I saw it again today with my middle daughter (we were bored, so we went). I liked it a lot better the 2nd time. It's very funny, when it's funny, for one thing. I think the horcruxes were covered better than I initially thought -- and there's a very good scene where Dumbledore realizes (suspects?) Harry to be the 7th. I also think there will be ways to backtrack a bit in the next two movies and fill in some of the blanks, if they do it right.
Besides all that, as a movie -- leaving the books out of it -- it was really well made.
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Post by mbrooks on Jul 25, 2009 17:37:52 GMT -5
I think I'm gonna have to go back and see it a second time, too. I know I missed a bunch...especially since I was sitting there wondering what happened to this or that
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2009 11:05:36 GMT -5
I have just finished re-reading the last two books (amazing what one can accomplish when one stays away from VolleyTalk). I think the way the solve the horcrux problem p-dub originally posted about is to find a way to still give Harry access to the memories Dumbledore showed him in the 6th book, but which were left out of the 6th movie. Really, all they had to go on in the 7th book is that Riddle liked to collect things, and that Dumbledore suspected Nagini was one and that famous items from the Hogwarts founders would be the others. Thing is, it’s fairly important that we know Dumbledore knew what he was doing (more or less).
The problem, EVEN when they split the thing into two movies, is going to be all the stuff they still have to cram into these things, especially if they start adding stuff they left out of the 6th movie. Just for example, what gets cut from all of this:
*Rita Skeeter’s Dumbledore expose (which leads to a lot of back history re Dumbledore, the Hallows, Grindelwald, Dumbledore's family and much more) *The Dursleys departure (just for the scene between Harry and Dudley) *The breaking of the protective charms and the flight from the Dursleys (major action sequence no. 1) *Scrimgeur and the items from Dumbledore’s will *The wedding (and the attack and flight -- MAS #2) *Do they bother with the “Voldemort taboo” or do they go straight to #12 Grimmauld Place? *Kreacher explains RAB (which could also be used for clues about other horcruxes) *Mundungus and the locket *The whole incursion into the Ministry of Magic and their escape with the locket (MAS #3) *Then they’re on the run for what seems like forever, with Harry in V’s mind, the locket making them all grumpy, Ron leaving, the Goblins, a trip to Godric’s Hollow, Bagshot and the snake (MAS #4), more from Skeeter’s book, the sword and the silver doe, Ron coming back, the trip to Lovegood’s and another escape (MAS #5) *The Tale of the Three Brothers and figuring out what the Hallows are *Their capture and confinement at Malfoy Manor *Yet another escape, this time to Shell Lake (does Dobby reappear? If not, how do they finesse this?) (MAS #6) *More exposition: Ollivander’s info about the Elder Wand and bargaining with Griphook *Planning the Gringott’s heist *The Gringott’s heist (no small cinematic feat) and escape (MAS #7) *Back to Hogwarts: Aberforth and his story, the DA and their story *Figuring out the Ravenclaw horcrux (and finding it) *The Battle of Hogwarts (another huge undertaking, cinematically) (MAS #8) *Snape, V and the elder wand *Snape’s memories (most important part of the movie, imo) *Harry v. Voldemort (with resurrection stone) *King’s Cross with Dumbledore (do they do this differently?) *Harry redux and Harry v. Voldemort again (plus Neville v. Nagini) *19 years later
So. Too much for two movies. What do they cut and where the heck do they divide the two movies?
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