THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: 0bsessions on 08 Jul 2009, 16:30
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So, the new Harry Potter flick comes out a week from today. With that in mind, I figure now's as good a time as any to get the inevitable thread started.
And oh, look, a shiny new trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96QRVfto7OM) to go along with the thread.
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WOO FUCK YEAH
...don't judge me...
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I am so fucking excited.
And it's directed by David Yates, director of the 5th one. So it's guaranteed not to be as shitty as #s 3 or 4.
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Man Prisoner of Azkaban was a pretty solid film. And Goblet of Fire was...well let's just move on.
Anyway, I'm totally going to the IMAX to see this. Est and Eris are coming with me as well, whether they want to or not.
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I am so fucking excited.
And it's directed by David Yates, director of the 5th one. So it's guaranteed not to be as shitty as #s 3 or 4.
Cool, the 4th one really was terrible. The 5th one was actually not bad.
So yeah, I'm going to go see this, despite disliking the book more than the others in the series.
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Yeah Yates is set to direct the two-part 7th movie, too. So this is pretty much his acid test.
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This actually looks like kind of a fun film, although I think it would be a lot better if combined with drinking so I think I'll wait for the DVD. I will watch basically anything with Alan Rickman in on principle.
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I am sooooooooooooooo excited. I saw the new trailer when I saw Transformers and I was bouncing in my seat. Jim Broadbent is probably going to be an excellent Slughorn and from what it looks like they're going to be rather close to the book.
So yeah. I'm seeing this after I get off work Wednesday.
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WOOO
I have my tickets for opening day!
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Seeing it with my mom no matter what.
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Being dragged to see this, but in return I'm dragging her to see Limits of Control.
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It's a summertime "shut my brain off and entertain me" sort of flick.
And I will be there with my lads looking at all the pretty special effects and being entertained.
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Jim Broadbent is probably going to be an excellent Slughorn and from what it looks like they're going to be rather close to the book.
Congratulations! You sold a ticket with that.
Being dragged to see this, but in return I'm dragging her to see Limits of Control.
One of my favorite movies this year, but it is rather frustrating. (mostly just C&C type stuff)
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Argh, I'm so excited about this! It's going to be terrible, but it's Harry Potter!
I really wish I didn't have to look at Emma Watson for two-ish hours, though. She makes me irrationally angry.
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I just noticed both producers and the director are all named David.
I felt the need to let you all know.
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I just noticed both producers and the director are all named David.
I felt the need to let you all know.
That's a mighty fine piece of info, and the only bit of the film I'm really interested in. :lol:
Seriously though, I got bored with the whole franchise a little while ago. No intention of going to see this, which is odd considering I would have been pretty excited about this a couple of years ago.
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I still find Emma Watson to be mildly attractive and I now feel weird about it because so many people seem to hate her.
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The chick who plays Tonks is cute. Clemence Poesy is beautiful, too bad she's not coming back. I really liked her in 'In Bruges'.
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Saw a trade screening about a week and a half ago, it's pretty good. Prepare for tons and tons of awkward teenage romance drama moments.
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Prepare for tons and tons of awkward teenage romance drama moments.
Yeesh. I'll wait for the DVD rental then.
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Are you actually surprised, Satsugaikaze? I'm guessing you didn't read the book, because that is pretty much note for note how I'd describe the book.
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It was easier to ignore in the book. =P
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See the problem with adapting book 6 for the screen is that essentially nothing happens in it. It's just a set-up for the 7th book, and has like, 3 major plot points in it. They can't really make a movie where nothing happens, so it's like, 25% moving the plot forward, 75% awkward teenage romance. Thankfully, they decided to leave out Harry being a massive twat and talking in caps/italics for half the book.
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I thought the 5th book had that problem more than the 6th. The 6th actually introduced new concepts and exposition (the Horcruxes, V-mort's childhood) but the 5th book plodded along at a leisurely pace, absorbing all teen drama possible until the last 100 pages.
Then again, the 5th one is one of my favorites for that very same reason. Character development, ftw.
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I'm seeing this with my girlfriend at the premiere, I have no background on the story though as I never got into the book or movie series.
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I just found out that Bruno Delbonnel is the cinematographer on this one. Color me interested.
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I still find Emma Watson to be mildly attractive and I now feel weird about it because so many people seem to hate her.
<DELETED DUE TO SCORN>
I'll go home now
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wow
that would be creepy even in the comics discussion forum
good job
In other news, I am gonna be seeing this on Thursday as a date. (Love of Harry Potter is close to a dealbreaker thing for me.) I've never been a huge fan of the films compared to the books, but as long as they throw in the scene with Luna commentating I will probably not be too unhappy with this film. I mean it is probably my favourite scene in the books and it is one of the only casting choices they got really right in my opinion so it will almost definitely be the high point of the film for me.
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Man. That was pretty fucking great. As I expected, despite not enjoying the book so much (I'd rank it dead last in terms of the series), the movie translates very well to film. Yeah, some shit was omitted, but this was the first one yet with clear hints and foreshadowing, which are things I always love. One of, if not the best entires into the film franchise.
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Great. Now I have to see it four times. Asshat.
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<<FUCKING SPOILERS IN THIS THREAD FROM HERE ON IN>>
I figured we'd take care of that right now since the movie's out. Saw it last night at a midnight screening, almost didn't due to my friends being asshats and not managing to get there until about 11:15, and the theatre we went to, despite showing it on six screens sold out nearly five theaters and the one we got seats in was already so packed we had to split into two pairs just to get seats.
I think this one definitely translated to film better than most of the others so far, but its got a lot of problems with it too. One of the guys who went with us had never seen any of the movies or read any of the books (yeah, under a rock) and had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on, ever. He's a pretty bright guy so I think that makes this only a movie accessible to followers of the complete story so far. Which while I think is a flaw I realize it probably won't impact sales too bad since nearly everyone in this country in fact has seen at least the movies so far.
I also think that there wasn't a goo leadup until the climax. I mean, it was pretty much teenage love drama for about 30 minutes after the last plot point, then all of a sudden it was "Okay Harry let's go ohh giant rock in the ocean OMG DEAD". I mean, the movie really just seemed to make it look like it came out of absolutely left field.
I did enjoy it though, even though I think everyone in the audience that clapped after the movie was over should have their pinkies broken.
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SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF the ending. The whole movie was paced well and done well, and then they get to the end and it's just DUMBLEDORE'S DEAD OH THIS PLACE IS PRETTY. End of film. I am angry.
However the rest of the movie was incredibly funny and done quite well. Little things here and there that made me a little ticked off but not major. Now I just want to see Deathly Hallows even more eeeeeeeee.
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Spoiler:
Okay I don't understand why the Burrow had to catch on fire. I'm fine with the movies not completely matching the books and all, and I guess they were just trying to deepen the drama of the Harsh Times in the harry potter world, but why they chose to do that makes no sense to me. The Weasley house is supposed to have the same protection as Hogwarts.
Anyway I actually enjoyed this film, which is not something I could say for any of the other HP movies I have seen. My favorite part by far is when Harry says Sir
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My favorite part was easily the Felix scenes. Radcliffe completely fucking nailed how I've always imagined that part.
"And..you know...the pincers...snip snip."
I really want to see a movie about Daniel Radcliffe playing a drunk now.
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SPOILER
Ok, the only parts I'm rather upset with being left out are all the other memories, which are pretty important (especially where they lead up to what the other horcruxes would be), and the funeral, mostly because I agree with Liz and thought the "THIS PLACE IZ PERTY" was kinda dumb.
END SPOILER
Other than that, the film was pretty great. The Felix scene and Ron's love potion scene were hilarious, Lavender was creepy as hell, Malfoy was pretty damn good, and though he wasn't quite what I imagined the character to be, Slughorn was pretty darn good as well.
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Yeah I can easily say that was by far the best part of the movie, from the beginning of when he drank the potion all the way to where he gets the memory. Not word for word like the book at all and Aragog's dead body came out of nowhere (since they never mentioned he was sick, you just haven't seen him since the second film) from a movie perspective but it was funny as hell and still managed to capture the feel of that entire chapter spot on.
Replacing the funeral with all of them randomly pointing their wands into the air and dispelling the mark was just downright retarded, my friend mentioned previously who has no idea what any of this nearly burst out laughing, and I was inclined to agree with him. Seriously hammed the whole thing up and tarnished the end of the film a bit.
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Phil the bit with the wands may have been silly but goddamn I cried like a little girl. I absolutely BALLED. I felt kind of pathetic, not gonna lie.
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boring movie, not horrible (good sets and FX), but the acting has gone in the shitter and i blame the director. my friend literally burst into tears after it ended (specifically because they decided not to include the battle at the end). myself, i disliked the whole Sweet Valley Hogwarts feel most of the movie had. some parts were funny, but again, the story material just highlights how awful daniel radcliffe is at his job. the felis scenes, i felt like he was rolling, or high, or just plain retarded.
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but as long as they throw in the scene with Luna commentating I will probably not be too unhappy with this film
FUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUU FILMMAKERS
Em, other than that I was quite taken with this film. I mean, I didn't have particularly high expectations of it, but I think it was actually a rather good adaptation. Some laughs to be had to. I actually was quite a fan of the Felix scenes, to be honest.
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Just saw it. I thought it was very good, aside from the ending, which felt very "Oh yes we just killed the most powerful wizard in the world, now let's mosey on over to the pub for a spot of Winchester." I miss my climactic battles :(
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I liked the 4th better than the 5th actually. Am I in the minority there?
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Yes.
Oh my god, yes.
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Most definitely. They spent 15 minutes beefing up the dragon fight in an incredibly stupid way.
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In my defense the had no Quidditch in the 5th. What the fuck man.
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There was no quidditch in the fourth either...
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There was actually a reason for it in the 4th.
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There was no Quidditch in the 4th due to the Triwizard Tournament and the pitch being taken over by a hedge maze. There was no real excuse for movies 3 and 5, though.
Also Zombie, your avatar rocks.
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I just saw it and in the end I'm basically really disappointed with it. For the most part it was good but it was just so anticlimactic that it left a really bad taste in my mouth. Honestly the ending let the whole film down which is a shame because it was so strong for basically all of it.
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Also Zombie, your avatar rocks.
I don't plan on changing anytime soon.
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Oh hey, I talked to a girl who has seen it. No Luna Quidditch scene apparently.
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Oh hey, I talked to a girl who has seen it. No Luna Quidditch scene apparently.
No commentary, but she wears the lion hat.
Good enough for me.
/wants a Luna spinoff series
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the luna quidditch scene is pretty much my favourite thing in the whole books. actually, i think that luna in general is my favourite thing in the books.
a lion hat is not an adequate substitute. i was very saddened.
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There were some problems with the book but I think the movie was good enough. Except the ending that was just fucking MEH! I mean... "This is pretty..." ... and that's it?!
O well... At least I got to see Ginny on bathrope. And she was cute & hot as HELL. Easily the most beautiful girl so far after Emma Watson and the crazy Luna [I don't know why I like her, I just do]
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Radcliffe's lips creep me the hell out.
Otherwise: Long, boring, very pretty.
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Something I liked about this movie (as opposed to the others in the series) that I felt noteworthy:
In Harry Potter's universe, much like ours, there is genocide, racial cleansing, and oppression. Since the books are third-person limited, they can only really illustrate this by showing Harry's perspective of it all. Since displaying a single, primary character's internalized struggle is a very slippery slope in filmmaking, the creators of these movies seemed to have resigned themselves to just reiterating what literally happened, hoping we would fill in the blanks and sympathize with Harry anyway. Hasn't worked out so well, I'm afraid.
This movie, though, I liked (romance bullshit aside). Tom Riddle seemed less like a posh dick and more like the brilliantly evil motherfucker he actually was. Voldemort in the fifth movie reminded me of Billy Corgan having a migraine, so this was definitely an improvement. Snape seemed much darker and more looming than whatever mannequin impersonation became of his previous roles. All that takes subtle film techniques and angles, as well as good acting, and though Harry was still a bit of a dweeb (though I sensed an improvement in his acting), the characters had a bit more dimension this time around.
Ginny, however, sucked.
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I still find Emma Watson to be mildly attractive and I now feel weird about it because so many people seem to hate her.
Oh yes, Hermioninone...Hermeione...Hermeiones? She's the only thing notable about the Potter films. The rest is for wankers and pre-teens.
But Hermoionene? I would . . . rend her buttocks.
TMI?
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Nope. Just fucking creepy.
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See kids, this is what happens when you learn sex ed from bus stop graffiti.
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My girlfriend and I saw it last night, we both thought it was pretty solid until the last quater of the film, so pretty much what a majority of people here thought really. I know time constraints and money budgets would've been a big factor in this but I was pretty let down that the battle at Hogwarts was cut down to Bellatrix blowing out the windows and kicking some cutlery around. C'mon, really?
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Otherwise: Long, boring, very pretty.
Hi yall. Now, I don't feel qualified to say anything, ever, because someone might use it to 'action their life' and that hella scares me. Hiiiiiiiii though. Seriously, this hi goes out to all my bros and bitches, this hi is going to resound throughout the universe and cave my tower of sweaty balls onto itself. :police:, you lot OK. In fact, some of you damn fine.
With the awkward introductions out of the way, let me begin my tale. Now I did see this movie, and I have at some stage read the books and since forgotten most of whatly and the byandby. So I figured this movie required getting my drink on. So I did, and got called out in the ticket line for ordering a half-full cola :evil:. I got way bored of the movie at what I could imagine, if pressed, was 3/4 of the way through it. I was also rude enough to talk on my mobile once, because organising my post movie drink was more important.
Then I went drinking at a bar I used to work at, failed to find the only song I wanted to sing at karaoke. Got majorly weirded out and then kicked out for drinking from a hipflask...there's a reason I shouldn't drink rum, alone, in public places but I forget exactly why. Then I went to a pink bar and starred at the wall. There was ska [not dead?] on the radio and it was pretty great. In fact, I was listening to ska during some of the movie, something about the pacing of HP6 really wore me down.
Also, Ginny and Harry had some mad chemistry.
I came back to this to add I will actually watch this while sober and not distracted. And flowers teach sex education way better than toilet walls, I hope, I'm counting on them to undo my horrendous mistake in learning from the former.
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Saw the film on the weekend - definitely stronger than the goblet of Fire, not as strong as the others -
a. The film needed to focus a wee bit more on Malfoy, who went from simple bully to realizing that he'd gotten in way over his head in the book; and
b. They needed the fight scene at the end - otherwise why bring the Deatheaters in? Just so Draco could have a cheering section?;
What did they do right? Well -
a. The teenage romance bits worked surprising well;
b. The finding of the horcux scene was well shot and carried out;
c. The scene where Harry gets the real memory from Slughorn was nicely done, and reasonably true to the book.
Generally, I enjoyed the movie - it did what I expected it to do (which was entertain me) and didn't make me go WTF? or why is this in this movie?
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If anyone has seen Galaxy Quest, I really feel like Alan Rickman delivered the "I am the Half-blood Prince" with scorn equal to when he has to say "By Grapthar's Hammer, what a savings." It's a horrible line, and it demeans Alan as an actor and Snape as a character, especially after the movie cut out like 75% of the Half-blood Prince stuff. I watched that scene going "the Half-blood... who?" The kids, especially Daniel Radcliffe, aren't getting any better at dramatic scenes. Harry looks like he's savagely constipated when he's standing over Dumbledore's corpse.
THAT SAID, I still enjoyed the movie. The retarded teenaged angst stuff that clogged the book was mostly cut out, with most of the remains being more funny than tiresome. I literally lol'ed a few times. The comedic sections were good enough to inspire me to find any other comedy involving the kids, leading me to Extras, and the conclusion that Daniel Radcliffe is, in fact, a great actor- he's just awful at doing dark scenes.
I guess what this review is trying to say is- the most recent Harry Potter movie is definitely worth your time and money- it may be horribly flawed, but it is still quite entertaining- but if both are in limited supply, watch Extras instead, because it rules.
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I will definitely agree that the HBP thing was terribly handled. You'd think they'd handle the titular plot line with some care, but it was really just boiled down to a couple brief mentions and the sectum sempra thing. On the other hand, when you get down to it, the whole Half-Blood Prince thing really wasn't all that important to the book's plotline anyway and it really wouldn't be considered an issue if the book were titled something else. The line was very shoe-horned, though.
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I'd actually forgotten what the title of the movie was by that point (since it doesn't matter that much), so when Snape turned around and said "I am the Half-Blood Prince" I thought:
1 Was that supposed to be the big dramatic reveal? Because it was kinda lame.
2 How did Snape even know that Harry was wondering who the Half-Blood Prince is in the first place?
3 Were we supposed to be wondering? Because it really didn't seem that important. A curiosity at best.
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Exactly. Movie producers should've just realized that they had cut out the whole HBP storyline all ready and just renamed the movie. But for the love of god, I feel bad for Alan Rickman. I want to send him a Wallgreens card or something. "Sorry WB ruined your artistic integrity! Please don't kill yourself. Love, fans."
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Oh please, like that would've worked. Can you imagine the fanboy/girl outrage if they changed the title of the movie? Let's disregard the fact that the title of the book was kind of stupid on its own (Naming an entire book after what essentially amounted to a subplot? No thanks), that aside, people still would've bitched a lot more about that happening than the plotline seeming rather shoe-horned in (Which it honestly kind of was in the book too).
It was basically a shitty situation all around.
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An alternative solution would be to have filmed another 15-20 minutes of the Half-blood Prince subplot so that, when the revelation comes, we actually know about the character in question. HBP was only like 2.5 hours long as it stands. If you're going to sit through a movie for 150 minutes, I, for one, wouldn't mind spending another 15 so that the movie has some sort of cohesion and satisfying closure.
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You're probably in the minority on that one. Two and a half hours for a movie that is essentially for teenagers is a bit much as it is, clocking in just shy of three hours would probably really hurt it. I really don't see much room for adding the HBP subplot. What I think they'll more likely do is make reference to it in the eighth movie. It would be very easy to slip reference to it in Snape's flashback at the ass end of Deathly Hallows.
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2 How did Snape even know that Harry was wondering who the Half-Blood Prince is in the first place?
Because Harry tried to use a spell created by the hald-blood prince against Malfoy and also against Snape. So I think Snape knew about Harry having the book.
That's the best answer I can think about.
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I guess. The half-blood prince had all kinds of great notes in his books, and Harry was definitely fortunate to get them, but I didn't realize that the HBP had actually cooked up his own spells. So when Snape said Harry was trying to use one of his own spells against him (right before the "big reveal") I didn't quite buy it.
But whatever. I think we're all in agreement that that part of things was poorly handled.
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That's what I thought about the HBP line being pointless, really. If Snape had reflected the spell, walked over to Harry and just said "You dare to use my own spell against me?" or whatever he said, that would have been it, mystery solved, Snape is the Half-Blood Prince. Show, not tell, in a backhanded kind of way. Takcing on the "Yes Harry I am the Half-Blood Prince" was ridiculous and redundant. It's the kind of thing that would have some kind of DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUUUN music behind it in a spoof movie.
I generally wasn't sold on this one... I'm not much of a Potter fan regardless, but I enjoy watching movies, particularly at the cinema, and have seen all the HP films so far ( it is like a tradition for my mother and I now) but this is the first time I've ever left the cinema feeling underwhelmed after any of them. Most tellingly is that even my mother didn't really enjoy it, for many of the same reasons I didn't.
I eventually came to the conclusion that, had the entire film be a sort of 'break from the norm' of the HP films and focus entirely on the characters as they develop into young adults, relationships and all, that it would have been a better film and a much better lead-in for the next. As it was it felt like the film-makers were finishing up the script, realised they were running out of time, and shoved all the exposition in for the last twenty minutes, in a very basic synopsis-like (synoptical?) fashion. "Okay, they find a Horcrux in a cave, go back to Hogwarts, Deatheaters attack, Malfoy can't kill Dumbledore so Snape does... that covers it, right?"
I also thought - admittedly I haven't been bored enough to read the most recent book yet - that it doesn't seem to be as much of a shock when Snape kills Dumbledore... the fact he knew Harry was down there seemed to suggest he had ulterior motives in doing the deed, which I'm led to believe is because it is part of The Plan and Snape is a good guy? I don't know if that's true or not. Reading the book it was much more of a hammer blow and completely out of nowhere.
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I have yet to see this - however, my other half went to see it, and I will report, as best I can recall, what she said - verbatim.
"We were told it was going to be 3-D. The only thing 3-D was the intro, and then we were left holding onto these stupid glasses for two hours."
"In the other Harry Potter movies, you could always just jump in, no matter where the movie was, and you could expect a reasonable amount of fun, magic, and just generally enjoy it. It didn't have to be prefaced with, 'well, this is what happened before to lead to this'. I felt like this one needed that. There was definitely a lack of fun - and the scenes where they could have gone crazy with CGI magic, they didn't. It's like they held everything back for some reason. They barely even showed any moving pictures, and that's been an inclusion of all the other films; the photos in the newspapers moved, the paintings came alive, and there was almost none of that."
"I really wasn't impressed, and wish they'd not only made it shorter, but maybe used someone that could have done a better job of depicting the Harry Potter world."
Now, some disclaimers here: She has not read any of the books, so she had no idea going in what to expect, because I expressly did not tell her. I wanted to know what she thought about it without knowing. She's not a huge fan of Harry Potter, even though I am - and she knows that I am. She's just your average viewer, that went to the movie without the knowledge of what the book held. Without knowing what was canon or what wasn't - this was what she thought of the movie.
Myself - I will be waiting for it to hit DVD before I bother with it.
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I've watched Harry Potter 1-5 but I never watched them again. I am wondering if anyone of you watched the latest Harry Potter. Was it good?
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Waht?
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The only thing I can say about this movie is that even though it's been a while since I read the book, and the movie is always significantly cut in some places, I felt like I just saw half of what actually happened. I think they were focusing too much on the romance and too little on what was actually going on behind all of the hormones.
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Movie Sucks
Thanks
RC
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I must be one of the few people that actually enjoyed it for what it was, and not what it could/should/would have been. :|
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Too many people have read the books and are constantly comparing the movies to the books.
Too many people get hung up on the bad and don't enjoy the good.
I thought the movie had some funny stuff, some interesting stuff, and some cool effects. A movie is not "ruined" by some bad bits of dialogue or weird choices by the director; it's just not perfect. If you come away from a movie feeling like you were entertained and got your money's worth, it was a good movie.
I think most people, even here, thought it was pretty good. It's just natural to pick things apart.
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I did enjoy the movie quite a bit. But I don't know how the 7th movie is going to work out considering some major chunks of information they left out of the 6th movie, but I guess I'll just have to suck it up and wait and see.
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I think that clues and such are a big part of why they've broken the movie into two books. It's hard to argue that, due to content involved, both Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix probably needed to be broken up even more, but they'll probably be shoving a lot of that exposition and foreshadowing into the seventh one.
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I understand the rationale for splitting the last book into two movies; there's so much story to tell, and they don't want to cut too much. What I'm wondering is why the change of attitude. The first movie was nearly three hours, and I thought it was great. Harry Potter books are big; not just in number of pages, but in scope. They could (for example) spend half an hour on a quidditch match and a lot of people would be okay with that. So I was all set for a whole series of "epic" movies, a la Lord of the Rings.
But then the movies started getting shorter, even as the books they were based upon were getting longer, which was weird. So why are they now suddenly concerned about giving the last book a proper treatment? They didn't seem to have a problem short-changing some of the middle ones.
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For one, you're mistaken. Half-Blood Prince is actually third longest of the films, only eight minutes shorter than the longest, which is Chamber of Secrets. I will concede that, ironically, the shortest film yet is dedicated to the longest book of the series (Half Blood Prince), but it honestly didn't miss nearly as much important content as the Goblet of Fire, which was only four minutes shorter than Chamber of Secrets. Also, none of the flicks even sniff the three hour mark. Chamber of secrets is almost two and a half on the dot, which is the norm for a blockbuster flick.
The thing you have to remember here are these are movies aimed at children and teens with a principle cast made up primarily of children and teens. When most people are growing up, anything more than that magic 2 1/2 hours is usually way too drawn out (It was almost impossible to get anyone I knew to sit through any of the Lord of the Rings movies). There's a reason blockbusters clocking in past 2 1/2 hours are pretty rare, the average movie going audience doesn't want to sit in a crowded theater for three hours and change counting previews. Hell, I dug the LotR movies, but getting through them in theaters was a chore, and I still don't like to do the extended editions at home in one sitting for any of them.
The final movie is being split up because they have a lot of left over ground to cover, but splitting up the earlier films isn't really plausible either. Again, I remind you, the principal cast of these movies is almost entirely under twenty years old. Logically speaking, if they were going to split up movies other than the latest, the fourth would've been the logical point, which would put the series on pace for eleven movies. Can you imagine filming eleven movies through your formative teen years? That would essentially destroy what little bit of a childhood any of the cast had and probably kill any interest in the series due to over saturation (To keep them on pace with the actors' ages, we'd need a new one damn near every six months).
Logistically speaking, it would've been an absolute fucking nightmare. It essentially couldn't be done without a revolving cast. Comparing it to Lord of the Rings is about the worst comparison possible. The entire cast of LotR was already adults and thus unlikely to change appearance over a lengthy production and the series was only three books long, less than half the length of the Harry Potter series.
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[...] The entire cast of LotR was already adults [...]
No way ... those hobbits were tiny!
And I see your logic. It's just that as Rowling junkies we want more.
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The reason they're breaking up the last book rather than any of the others is pretty straightforward if you think about it. The earlier books, while longer, had a lot of exposition/dialogue/subplots that could be comfortably excised without upsetting any but unnecessarily obsessed fans. However, the last book has a lot of actions - scenes that will make for great cinematic pieces - the dragon tearing out of Gringotts, for example. They don't want to cut any of the action down, because they know the audience will appreciate that, and they can't really trim everything else down and just make it a slideshow of action scenes. The only realistic way to approach it is two halves.
At least the narrative naturally splits in two - there are two points in the middle you could do it, but best would probably be after the escape from the Malfoy's.
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Thank you! I've been saying all that since the split was announced. I still don't comprehend all the people bitching that S.P.E.W. was cut. No one here is doing it, but fuck it's around.
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SPEW was not really necessary to the plot. At all. Hermione will probably still feel horrible if they do the scene with Kreacher about the locket, but the club itself is unneccessary. There have been a lot of things cut in the films that are largely unneccessary to the plot. Really the only reason I think they brough Quidditch back in the 6th movie was because of McLaggen and having Lavender be a fan girl over Ron. The only time I get upset over cutting material is when they cut something that's actually important to the plot or add things that are kind of stupid. Lack of more memories that are pretty damn important for the next movie was just straight dumb and wouldn't have taken much time to add. However, though setting the Weasley's house on fire was stupid, since they haven't had Bill as a character in the movies and they didn't bring back Fleur, I severely doubt there will be a wedding now, so that's not an issue. But without those two, H,R,G, + others can't escape from the Malfoy's and hide at Shell Cottage. So yeah. Problems.
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Couldn't they just add a couple of people wearing the buttons? Maybe an offhand comment on it?
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I'm pretty glad that plotline was removed. Easily one of the worst elements of the books. Like, I get why it was there, but it was executed so poorly and never really went anywhere.
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I thought it was just there to show how bad author avatars can get when they forsake the need for subtlety.