Kevin's Watch

Saw it this weekend, very enjoyable, and well done.

This book, was smaller than 4 and 5, so probably easier to decide what to cut, but, it didn't suffer from the cuts and changes, even some of the more subtle hints that some didn't catch onto until Book 7 was released, were included, which I was pleasantly surprised to see included. Looking forward to Book 7 being split into two movies, curious as to where they'll make the split.

Spoiler

I suspect perhaps right before or right after Dobby rescues the Trio from the Malfoys basement.

The 4th movie, suffered from the beginning being incomprehensible, even to those of us who've read the book. Another 10 minutes would made a world of difference. 5th movie, I'm not sure what they could've done, because the book was just so large, but, I think another 10 or 15 minutes of background clues could've done it jsutice.

Half Blood Prince is definitely one of the best of the series, IMHO.

hmm...

Come on down to the JK Rowling forum to discuss this as well, sindatur. It seems you're in a minority concerning this installment of the series.

Not alone, but in a minority.

Menolly wrote:hmm...

Come on down to the JK Rowling forum to discuss this as well, sindatur. It seems you're in a minority concerning this installment of the series.

Not alone, but in a minority.

Oh yea, forgot there was a Rowling specific forum

Really? It hasn't gone over well so far? I'll have to check that out?

sindatur wrote:

Menolly wrote:hmm...

Come on down to the JK Rowling forum to discuss this as well, sindatur. It seems you're in a minority concerning this installment of the series.

Not alone, but in a minority.

Oh yea, forgot there was a Rowling specific forum

Oh no problem.
Hence my constant forum pimping.

And no need to feel embarrassed for posting here. It is a movie.

sindatur wrote:Really? It hasn't gone over well so far? I'll have to check that out?

Spoiler

wayfriend eloquently states the biggest complaint in that thread. Except for one line in passing, and original ownership of the potions textbook, the entire title of the movie has no bearing on the story in the way this was edited. We loose everything regarding Snape and his motivations. I can't imagine what those who have only followed the movies without reading the books are thinking. They must be completely lost in the overall story arc at this point.

Well, my friend who's read all the books said as we walked into the cinema to watch HBP:

Spoiler

"the Half-Blood Prince isn't really relevant to anything"

so I was ready for that. If there is any more significance to him in the book, my friend doesn't remember it.

I thought Order of the Phoenix was a better film; I think its emphasis on paranoia and doubt suits me better than the usual Potter stuff.

CovenantJr wrote:Well, my friend who's read all the books said as we walked into the cinema to watch HBP:

Spoiler

"the Half-Blood Prince isn't really relevant to anything"

so I was ready for that. If there is any more significance to him in the book, my friend doesn't remember it.

I thought Order of the Phoenix was a better film; I think its emphasis on paranoia and doubt suits me better than the usual Potter stuff.

Spoiler

The only actual signifigance is that Harry, Snape and Voldemort/Tom are all Half Bloods. And the Death Eaters are all bigoted against Half-Bloods and Muggle Borns, so it shows Snape was bigoted against his own kind when he joined the Death Eaters, and all along, because of Snape's attitude, we assumed he would certainly be a Pure Blood. Though, I seriously doubt many can actually claim 100% pure blood (notice in an earlier book/movie Malfoy references 16 generations or something that they can trace their pureblooded-ness to)

CovenantJr wrote:Well, my friend who's read all the books said as we walked into the cinema to watch HBP:

Spoiler

"the Half-Blood Prince isn't really relevant to anything"

so I was ready for that. If there is any more significance to him in the book, my friend doesn't remember it.

Well...
The way I read Deathly Hallows, I think the background is imperative to at least attempt to understand the Half-Blood Prince's actions, both at the end of H-BP and throughout DH.

CovenantJr wrote:I thought Order of the Phoenix was a better film; I think its emphasis on paranoia and doubt suits me better than the usual Potter stuff.

I agree, although so far PoA is still my favorite of the films.

sindatur wrote:

Spoiler

The only actual signifigance is that Harry, Snape and Voldemort/Tom are all Half Bloods. And the Death Eaters are all bigoted against Half-Bloods and Muggle Borns, so it shows Snape was bigoted against his own kind when he joined the Death Eaters, and all along, because of Snape's attitude, we assumed he would certainly be a Pure Blood. Though, I seriously doubt many can actually claim 100% pure blood (notice in an earlier book/movie Malfoy references 16 generations or something that they can trace their pureblooded-ness to)

Spoiler

The Snape/Lilly storyline, showing their childhood friendship and her subsequent turning away explains so much about Snape's attitude towards and protection of Harry. The abuse by Snape's father towards his mother explains his hatred of Muggles. The little notes inside the potions textbook by Snape...although that does not surprise as being cut.

All of the above helps explain Snape's actions in the next book. And the movie goers have none of that to draw upon.

...unless I'm mixing my books up...

Also, I'm pretty sure all of the Weasley's are Pure Blood. They just don't take excessive, if any, pride in the fact.

Yes, it's mentioned very early, maybe even in the first book, that the Weasleys are a pure blood family. Certainly it came up before I stopped reading them.

sindatur wrote:

Spoiler

Though, I seriously doubt many can actually claim 100% pure blood (notice in an earlier book/movie Malfoy references 16 generations or something that they can trace their pureblooded-ness to)

That reminds me of a TV programme I saw a year or two ago, in which several British people of varying degrees of national pride and xenophobia agreed to be tested to see how genetically British they were (or rather, western European, since the testing isn't that precise). More than one of them claimed ten or more generations of pure British blood, only to discover their genetic heritage was something like 20% African and 10% Middle Eastern. Anyway, the point is I agree with you.

Menolly wrote:

Spoiler

All of the above helps explain Snape's actions in the next book. And the movie goers have none of that to draw upon.

That may well be what my friend meant:

Spoiler

that the whole thing with the Prince is more about characterisation than plot. The plot still works without any of the stuff about the Prince; you just lose some depth of understanding. In that sense, it's helpful but not necessary.

Menolly wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:I thought Order of the Phoenix was a better film; I think its emphasis on paranoia and doubt suits me better than the usual Potter stuff.

I agree, although so far PoA is still my favorite of the films.

I don't remember much about watching PoA - just being constantly angry because Sirius is so completely unlike the way he's described (in my opinion).

Anyway, one other thing my friend told me about the book of HBP versus the film was

Spoiler

there were far more of Tom's memories in the book, and they were the best part. The friend was quite annoyed that only a couple of them made it into the film. He said the insight into Voldemort's past was the most interesting element of the whole book.

But again, I'm just going on what I was told. I gave up reading the books after Goblet.

Yes, the Weasleys are known as Pure Bloods, but, that's beside the point, because they're not Death Eaters, they're "Blood Traitors" as the portrait and Kreacher called them.

In OotP and all along, we get that James and Snape didn't get along, and Lily was a friend of sorts, don't we? And it's not until DH we find about Snape's true motivation, though they've been banging "Lily's eyes" home to us in the movies, so I have no doubt it will be fleshed out properly in DH. Sure, there's more little things, but, I believe the movies have enough to grasp it.

One thing I've been noticing about the films is that with each successive installment, the sense of time diminishes. I assume the books continued the 'one book per school year' format? The films now feel like they take place in a couple of weeks, not ten months. That's probably inevitable, because there isn't time to fit in all the essential plot elements and the annual landmarks that show passage of time. Still, it's something that vaguely irritates me. Then again, I'm a perfectionist.

Incidentally, my Potter experience went like this: books 1-3, film 2, book 4, film 3. Pause for several years. Last week, films 5 and 6.

I mention this because I think the fact that I saw OotP and HBP basically back-to-back has coloured my view of them - and some things that are old news are new news to me. Such as Luna. I find her immensely annoying, but I also quite like her.

It's a shame you quit after Goblet of Fire. OotP is where the series really took off

Oh...
Luna is one of the best parts of OotP onward in the books.
IMO anyway.

sindatur wrote:It's a shame you quit after Goblet of Fire. OotP is where the series really took off

I felt that three quarters of Goblet was filler, and since OotB looked to be a weightier volume, I just couldn't face the prospect of even more pointless filler.

Oh, I've also read the last chapter of the final book. I wanted to see the ending.

CovenantJr wrote:Oh, I've also read the last chapter of the final book. I wanted to see the ending.

Oh...
...you didn't!!

CovenantJr wrote:One thing I've been noticing about the films is that with each successive installment, the sense of time diminishes. I assume the books continued the 'one book per school year' format? The films now feel like they take place in a couple of weeks, not ten months.

Yes. And another negative about this movie is that there is almost nothing about the three main characters being students at Hogwarts. They're just at Hogwarts. Snape becomes the DADA teacher, and we never even see him teaching it.

Also agree on the comment about how the HBP in HBP is necessary to provide background going into the final book. However, I don't agree that having it only helps. I think its a bit more important to make the ending plausible. By sacking those details, they sack the plausibility.

wayfriend wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:One thing I've been noticing about the films is that with each successive installment, the sense of time diminishes. I assume the books continued the 'one book per school year' format? The films now feel like they take place in a couple of weeks, not ten months.

Yes. And another negative about this movie is that there is almost nothing about the three main characters being students at Hogwarts. They're just at Hogwarts. Snape becomes the DADA teacher, and we never even see him teaching it.

Indeed. I'd forgotten he was DADA teacher until someone mentioned it to me a couple of days ago. When he was appointed, I was looking forward to seeing him in that position. By not showing him teaching it for even a moment, the film seems to be saying "and then DADA lessons proceeded as normal", which is both unlikely and nonsensical (the former because Snape teaching DADA has to be noteworthy, and the latter because there's no such thing as normal in DADA).

Menolly wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:Oh, I've also read the last chapter of the final book. I wanted to see the ending.

Oh...
...you didn't!!

Yes I did. And it's the first time I've ever even considered doing such a thing, which should tell you something about how boring the books were becoming for me. I was faintly curious as to where it was all going, but I didn't want to trawl through what looked like being a great deal of tedium to get there. I will agree that it seems everything improved after I stopped reading, but the deed is done now.

CovenantJr wrote:

sindatur wrote:It's a shame you quit after Goblet of Fire. OotP is where the series really took off

I felt that three quarters of Goblet was filler, and since OotB looked to be a weightier volume, I just couldn't face the prospect of even more pointless filler.

Oh, I've also read the last chapter of the final book. I wanted to see the ending.

I wouldn't call alot of GoF filler, but, padded is probably a good word. Lots of reminding the audience what happened in the first 3 books, so they could see the foreshadowing and learn to look for it. Even the S.P.E.W., which many thought was filler (and was left out of the GoF movie) plays out later on.

Menolly wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:Oh, I've also read the last chapter of the final book. I wanted to see the ending.

Oh...
...you didn't!!

My mom always reads the last chapter of a book first, and she says it ahs no impact on her enjoyment? Me...I don't even like to read the chapter titles before I get there.

Agreed. But this was a special case.

sindatur wrote:

Menolly wrote:

CovenantJr wrote:Oh, I've also read the last chapter of the final book. I wanted to see the ending.

Oh...
...you didn't!!

My mom always reads the last chapter of a book first, and she says it ahs no impact on her enjoyment? Me...I don't even like to read the chapter titles before I get there.

*vigorously nodding*
The less spoiler, the better.