Why is this one ragged on so much? - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) Discussion

[–] melco92 9 years ago

Seems like most people are miffed that they left out so many scenes about Voldemort's back story. Also that there wasn't a whole lot of mystery as to who the Half-Blood Prince was, and all the teen romance stuff was kind of awkward.

I thought it was fine though, and the last ten minutes or so are exceptional. IMO, this one has the best ending in the series.

Reportin' live for Black TV: White folks are dead, we gettin' the f*@# outta here!

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[–] johnnm58 (545) 3 years ago

You know what you're talking about. The ending was good.

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[–] Distantwords 8 years ago

All of the movies had changes from the books. Some minor, some not so minor. I think this one gets as much grief as it does is because it chose to focus on secondary events like the teenage romance, and ignore too much of the main focus; Voldermort's backstory. It also took screen time for a sequence not in the book, the attack on the Weasley house, that did not actually serve any purpose other than manufactured drama/tension.

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[–] curlymst3000 8 years ago

Agreed, especially with the attack on the Weasley Burrow. Perhaps the most asinine sequence in the entire series. No tension at all and just brings the story to a screeching halt for the sake of having an "action" scene, though I hesitate to even consider it that.

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[–] bbnj62 8 years ago

Should have been a two parter as well adding in much of the skipped elements

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[–] lilwith 8 years ago

No... it easily could've just been a 2hr30min movie (like the first 2) and tell more backstory for Riddle. I didn't mind the romance so much... but it was still done better than Goblet and Order (I hate OotP movie)

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[–] thom_bengtsson93 8 years ago

I absolutely hate Order of The Fenix to the fullest.
Professor Umbridge completely destroys the whole movie, even the parts she's not actively involved with. Yet I really liked the book.

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[–] thotuknew 8 years ago

See I think she made the movie. I hated her more in the movie than the book.

faith begins at the end of your comfort zone.

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[–] Unknownian 8 years ago

"Yawn"......that's why. It moves at a snail's pace.

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[–] The-Massi 8 years ago

There was everything in the movie except what it had the priority to be... there was a book at the beginning which Harry grabs and keep it then Professor Snape who tells 'I am the Half-Blood Prince' when the movie ends! Wasn't it something like this? We almost saw nothing else about the Half-Blood Prince (I have to say I love this name & character and how Rickman played it!). If the title of the movie was something else it sure would be less disappointing. So, just a major weakness on this 6th HP movie and its director and the people who chose him that I see... I was kinda surprised when he took both the last movies direction job too, actually!

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[–] jimbob122 8 years ago

Exactly... they just didnt focus on what were the more important elements of the movie. The half-blood prince element of the movie was really useless. The book was mainly where you learn a good deal about voldemort and snape and the movie lacked that. 4 5 and 6 were all a little disappointing to me

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[–] jajceboy 8 years ago

It's been a while since I read the book but I seem to remember there was more mystery surrounding it. We got to know Voldemort's background, childhood and all that. And Half-Blood prince was a mystery throughout, not just touched upon as in the movie.
I don't remember the book focusing that much on romance stuff as the movie. At times it felt like Jane Austen.
So I think people ragged on cause they changed focus to something that's less important.

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[–] Romanator69 8 years ago

For the most part I liked it, but they butchered two big scenes.

Snapes unbreakable vow. In the book he goes in to detail about why he's still bad and helped potter in the previous years.

Dumbledors death and everything after was great in the book. The movie scene was weak in comparison.

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[–] TheBigYawn 8 years ago

I partially agree.

The motivation on Snape's part to make the unbreakable vow seemed weak as presented in the film. It makes more sense in hindsight why he agreed to do it considering he worked for Dumbledore and wanted to convince Voldemort, but in the film it seems he only wanted to prove Bellatrix wrong out of pride. That's a cheap treatment of such a complex character. We need to remember that this is all the audience knows about Snape's motivation for putting his life at risk here by making the vow... until Deathly Hallows: Part 2. I think the scene would play better if Narcissa had subtly tried to seduce him into helping her. That sounds like a more credible excuse for making the vow than his ego supposedly getting the best of him.

I thought DD's death was fine. However Snape's reveal fell completely flat.

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[–] TheBigYawn 8 years ago

Judged as films on their own Order of the Phoenix has far more flaws.

GoF and HBP are equally good in my opinion, for different reasons.

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[–] Harbinger_3781 8 years ago

Always thought the Harry Potter story should have been made into a TV series, not movie series. TV series can get into the small details of the stories(only with a small setback on the effects and set budgets), while a 2-hour movie can hardly cover a 200-paged book, let alone one with 600 pages.

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[–] CynicalDremer 8 years ago

A TV series? No. The actors would age too much to get all aspects of the books in and how long can a series run before the audience gets bored or the actors want to move on?

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[–] Ilyathe2nd (145) 4 years ago

Disagreed, CynicalDremer. Firstly, the main cast stayed in the film production for the whole stretch. The filming schedule was from September 2000 to December 2010, with some additional filming for DH part 2 in 2011. So that was not a major issue.

Secondly, a tv production could take a similar time to film per season as the films, so that's not an issue either. What would have changed is getting all the material filmed, forming a deeper and wider world of magic.

Thridly, aging would not have been more of an issue, as it might in fact have taken less time to make 7 annual seasons than it did to make 8 films. By the start of filming in Sept. 2000 the first 4 books had been published, so a schedule, storyline and broader concept could have been worked out precisely for the first 4 seasons in advance. The other three came out in 2003, OotP, 2005, HBP, and 2007, DH, so no missed years would have been needed waiting for material until book 7. Season 1 could have been broadcast in 2001, 2 in 2002 and so forth, reaching book 7 in 2007, when it had just been published, and that might have necessitated a small delay, as with Game of Thrones has done waiting for GRRM. Maybe JKR could have given the production the book material before it was published, who knows. All I see is that an episodic take on the series could have included much more, if not all of the book events.

And Harbinger, let's remember A Game of Thrones, The Crown and several others that had more than enough of a budget to pull the task off, so special effects really aren't as big of a problem as on thriftier tv networks. HP would have been event tv, pulling in all the important aspects.

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[–] AndrewGS 8 years ago

I think this film more than the other films feels very compressed if not like a highlights reel, it feels like a lot of the story elements are given very little screentime. Plus Harry and Ginny have very little chemistry, hurting one of the plots (I liked it in the book and was disappointed in the adaptation).

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[–] johnnm58 (545) 3 years ago

the bold and me

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