Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Book:

I’ll know for sure when I read DH next week, but as it stands this’ll be either my first or second favorite.

Like everyone else, I loved learning more about young Voldemort and getting to spend real time with Dumbledore as opposed to just a scene at the end where he explains the plot.

Half Blood Price (DH even more so) fleshes him out where you really understand why he’s the only one Voldemort ever feared, perfectly setting up his death as an enormous blow to the wizarding world. You really feel that without Dumbledore, there’s no one to stand in Voldemort’s way.

As for Voldemort, the memory scenes are what makes this book so interesting. It’s great getting to experience him at different stages in his life, and seeing the monster slowly but surely come to the surface.

Snape also gets some good development, a little less than OOTP, but the revelation that he overheard the prophecy really twisted the knife for Harry and combined with him killing Dumbledore, did a good job getting people’s noses off the scent going into DH.

But the real x-factor for me is Slughorn. The new professors that come into the series all exhibit different shades of wizarding society, and his “starfucker” quality for lack of a better phrase, was interesting.

Even more interesting is the felt immense guilt and shame for what he told Voldemort about Horcruxes, and how that still didn’t stop him from “collecting”.


———————————————————————

Movie: 

All of the praise Cuaron gets for his work on POA is much more deserved by David Yates and Bruno Delbonnel IMO. I think this is much more clever and generally nicer to look at.

However, it does make some cuts that bother me. I really wanted to see the other memories, if for nothing else than too see Voldemort’s earlier self (the waxy facial features described in the job interview flashback especially) and to better understand the Horcruxes going into DH.

I also would have liked to see the scene with Scrimgeour at the burrow, which they somewhat understandably replaced with the Death Eater attack to give the movie a little more action.

And as with the last two films, I wish they spent a little more time on the ending. I don’t think there was enough time to let that sink in.

With a run time of 2 and a half hours, adding those things would have pushed the movie towards Irishman territory. There’s really nothing in this I would cut, so alas here we are. We’ll have to wait for the TV adaptation to see those I guess.

Block or Report

mm liked these reviews

' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_c385f83a-9538-4d82-9a6b-da1f2499f35e" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-c385f83a-9538-4d82-9a6b-da1f2499f35e'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div -tile300x250 -alignleft -bottommargin'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'med_rect_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-c385f83a-9538-4d82-9a6b-da1f2499f35e'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-c385f83a-9538-4d82-9a6b-da1f2499f35e'));
' ].join(''); if ( adsScript && adsScript === 'bandsintown' && adsPlatforms && ((window.isIOS && adsPlatforms.indexOf("iOS") >= 0) || (window.isAndroid && adsPlatforms.indexOf("Android") >= 0)) && adsLocations && adsMode && ( (adsMode === 'include' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) >= 0) || (adsMode === 'exclude' && adsLocations.indexOf(window.adsLocation) == -1) ) ) { var opts = { artist: "", song: "", adunit_id: 100005950, div_id: "cf_async_33b82fef-0b1b-4878-9bd0-7954c4abc961" }; adUnit.id = opts.div_id; if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } var c=function(){cf.showAsyncAd(opts)};if(typeof window.cf !== 'undefined')c();else{cf_async=!0;var r=document.createElement("script"),s=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];r.async=!0;r.src="//srv.tunefindforfans.com/fruits/apricots.js";r.readyState?r.onreadystatechange=function(){if("loaded"==r.readyState||"complete"==r.readyState)r.onreadystatechange=null,c()}:r.onload=c;s.parentNode.insertBefore(r,s)}; } else { adUnit.id = 'pw-33b82fef-0b1b-4878-9bd0-7954c4abc961'; adUnit.className = 'pw-div'; adUnit.setAttribute('data-pw-' + (renderMobile ? 'mobi' : 'desk'), 'sky_btf'); if (target) { target.insertAdjacentElement('beforeend', adUnit); } else { tag.insertAdjacentElement('afterend', adUnit); } window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', (event) => { adUnit.insertAdjacentHTML('afterend', kicker); window.ramp.que.push(function () { window.ramp.addTag('pw-33b82fef-0b1b-4878-9bd0-7954c4abc961'); }); }, { once: true }); } } tag.remove(); })(document.getElementById('script-33b82fef-0b1b-4878-9bd0-7954c4abc961'));