Harry Potter and the “Hey! Let’s Blow Up a House at Christmas!” Half-Blood Prince

Thursday, July 16th, 2009 by swordofdestiny at 5:44pm
9 Responses (Add)

A little about me

Don’t mind the small spoiler in the title, it was in one of the trailers anyways. Anywho, I am a long time Harry Potter fan. I was a fan before the movies, mind you. I was 10 when I read the first book and I read the last book completely in about 48 hours after it came out. I generally thought the fifth book did well and it didn’t make my “that didn’t happen, that didn’t happen” things tingle. So, review story time!

Starting from when I sat down in the theater and nearly exclaimed as I thought I had broken the chair (new theater, the chairs lean back on will, moreso than most chairs people use for PCs, which took me for surprise as I expected the back of the seat not to move) and waited twenty or so minutes for the movie to start. My friend and I decided to get there twenty or so minutes in advance so that we could get a decent seat. We got decent ones, but they were towards the front, the back half of the theater was stuffed to the brim with people. More good news, some other friends of mine had actually chosen the same showing to go to so we all sat together. Going to the movies alone is dull and unrewarding in my opinion, so I try to always go with at least one person.

I refrain from buying concessions as they wanted $3.50 for a (probably 20 ounce) bottle of water and $4.00 for a large soda. I had eaten before I came though, I was rather thirsty by the end of the two and a half hour trek Finally, after twenty minutes of waiting the advertisements started to roll with very few seats left empty. This was a 9:55 PM showing, the 6:45 PM, 7:30 PM, and 8:00 PM showings were all sold out. I also thought to myself watching these advertisements, “I paid $5.00 (yay college student discounts) for this ticket, why are we getting advertisements before we watch the movie. I mean, don’t they get enough from overpricing their concessions?” As a comparison, the prices at the local high school’s football games (I know them because I work them some Friday nights because, strangely, I enjoy helping out the Band Boosters) we sell water (20 oz) for $2.00, and soda (20 oz) for $2.50. Actually, nothing on that menu is more than $3.00 (from when you add both chili and cheese to a hotdog, it comes to $3.00), which includes popcorn, hot dogs, frito chili pie, etc. Sorry, I digress.

First off, if you haven’t read the books, you’ll find absolutely nothing wrong with the movie and will be leaping at the chain to get your beady eyes on the seventh movie. However, if you were upset at the second movie for leaving out Nearly Headless Nick’s Dethday Deathday Party (sorry I for some reason had Dethklok on the mind) you’ll be annoyed by one of the biggest differences in this movie from the book. The “Hey! Let’s blow up the Burrow on Christmas Eve!” scene where Fenrir and Belatrix set fire to the Weasley house and ultimately destroy it just seemed kind of random to me. It also made several things that happen at that setting in the seventh book unlikely to be at that location (if they’re not omitted) in the seventh and eigth movie. Also, they left out Bill (older Weasley brother) and Fleur (the woman participant in the TriWiz) completely. Also, Charlie (another older Weasley brother) is no where to be seen either. That was the only thing that really irked me. Still, leaving out the meeting between the new Minister of Magic and the Muggle Minister was kind of surprising. Heck, from watching the movie, you wouldn’t know there was a new minister in this one.

At the beginning there is a CGI sequence of a bridge being destroyed. However, if you watch the bridge when it falls, there’s no one on it except for people at the ends running off of it. Then it shows you a headline that says something about the death toll rising and a picture of where the bridge used to be. I saw no one die on that bridge, but well that is CGI for you. They also got several events backwards and changed whom discovers a certain room.

Certainly, I enjoyed the movie as I try not to be overly critical of book to movie films. By far the worst movie adaption of a book that I’ve seen was Eragon. To be honest though, I believe that I’ll wait for the seventh film to come out on DVD, buy it and then wait until the day that I’m going to see the eigth one and watch it before going to the film so that to me it will be one long film instead of a film that really wont be able to have much of an ending. Also, if you are a big fan of the movies and you haven’t read the books, go contribute to J.K. Rowling’s massive retirement fund (thank you Fort for that comment) by buying and then reading the books. Trust me, you’ll be glad that you did. There are several things the movies can’t incorporate and will be a shame if you don’t get to know about them. You obviously can read if you’re reading this right now, so do it. I guess you could also pick up audiotapes, but nothing beats a good hardback book. I recommend getting them in hardback because you’ll probably read them again and again. Plus, they’ll fill up that bit of open bookshelf you have lying around.

9 Comments

Geeks Getting Out and About | Chris Pirillo

July 17th, 2009
at 1:38am

[...] Have you made it to the theater to see the new Harry Potter movie yet? [...]

Tetris Potter ~ Windows Fanatics

July 17th, 2009
at 4:15am

[...] you made it to the theater to see the new Harry Potter movie [...]

Harry Potter and the ?Hey! Let?s Blow Up a House at Christmas!? Half-Blood Prince - Harry Potter Blog

July 17th, 2009
at 10:53am

[...] This article is featured on the custom Harry Potter Blog at Auto-Blogs.us. [...]

Robert Glen Fogarty

July 17th, 2009
at 5:28pm

I want to read this post, but I haven’t seen the movie yet. So all I’ve got to say for now is: that’s one gigantic second paragraph! Please consider breaking it up a bit? It’s murder trying to read a big chunk of text like that! Cheers!

swordofdestiny

July 17th, 2009
at 5:37pm

Thanks for the advice. It’s fixed now!

Robert Glen Fogarty

July 17th, 2009
at 5:39pm

Awesome! Much easier to read now. Thankee!

Geeks Getting Out and About | dv8-designs

July 17th, 2009
at 6:46pm

[...] Have you made it to the theater to see the new Harry Potter movie yet? [...]

The Craw

July 27th, 2009
at 8:29pm

So, being a gen-you-wine “Potter-Head” I was first in line today to see Half-Blood Prince.

So sad, so… very… sad.

It was an interesting movie. Nice special effects.
Disjointed enough however that one needed to have seen all the previous movies and/or read the books to follow the plot.
…HOWEVER, it bears little resemblance to the aforementioned books.

Really. I can forgive replacing the actions of one character with another character, to save time, I can even forgive eliminating whole chapters for the sake of brevity, but to change scenes, edit whole parts, and invent whole chapters???

Some examples of lost scenes:

Dumbledore confronting the Dursley’s? Gone.

The invention of a fight at the burrow, including the destruction of the whole house? Really? Where’s Bill & Fleur going to get married next movie? (Oh that’s right, in the movies, they AREN’T! Heck, they aren’t even in –this- movie!)

The “Meeting of the Ministers” scene? Gone. Heck there’s absolutely NO sign of Scrimgeour –anywhere- in the whole movie!

Tonks rescuing Harry from the train? Nope, now it’s Luna, looking for Wrackspurts! (???)

The slow build up leading to the Quiddich victory kiss? Gone. Now just a “close your eyes” peck in the Room of Requirement, and that was –nothing-!!

The two months of Harry & Ginny dating? Gone.

Harry breaking up with Ginny to protect her? Gone!

Harry’s ownership of Grimmauld Place and Kreacher? (Key for the next movie) Gone.

The Gaunt house flash-backs? Both gone. And with them any mention of Merope, Voldemort’s mother. Gone too the mention of her locket by Caractacus Burke.

The memories of Hokey the house elf, and of Dumbledore’s job interview with Voldemort? (Key for the next movie) Gone. In fact, all references to the valuable heirlooms such as Hufflepuff’s cup are gone.

Crabb & Goyle polyjuiceing into girls to stand watch? Funny, but… gone.

Snapes “Defense Against the Dark Arts” lessons? Gone.

Apparition lessons and test? Gone.

Hermione & Ron’s Prefect status? (Well, since it wasn’t mentioned LAST film, why mention it now?)

Harry’s appointment as Quiddich captain? (No mentions, only implied during the tryouts)

Mundungus stealing Sirius’ property? (KEY for the next movie) Gone.

Snap’s betrayal of Trelawney’s prophecy to Voldemort? (HUGE!) Gone!!!

Harry petrified by Dumbledoor to protect him? GONE!

The Hogwarts battle between Death Eaters and Order members? (and Bill’s disfigurement?) GONE!!

Dumbledore’s funeral? GONE!!!!

…oh sure, we’ll probably get to see a few of the minor bits I’ve mentioned in the “deleted scenes” portion of the “Deluxe” version of the DVD, but for the screen version, We get such add-on scenes as:
Harry wandering the underground, and chatting up a waitress??
The aforementioned Burrow fight and subsequent burning??

Not to mention, Harry NOT petrified, but willingly hiding and watching Dumbledore’s assassination? (Does anyone besides me see how that fundamentally would change Harry’s view of himself?) Yeash!

All in all, I am happy they are making Harry Potter movies, but they are –nothing- compared to the books, and THIS one should be prefaced with “Loosely based on the novel by J. K. Rowling”!!