harry potter 6
warning: spoilers for the movie!
So the movie starts with lots of disruptions around London. While I thought it was cool, I was sort of sad about two things: (1) there were no people on the bridge that collapsed and in the book it was a supposed to be a lot of deaths (although the vibrating bridge thing at its natural frequency was cool) and (2) there was no scene with the Muggle Prime Minister! One of JKR's favorite scenes, and they couldn't show it?? I guess it was sort of superfluous.
I didn't really like the way Harry's meeting Dumbledore wasn't really explained at all. No Dursleys, just Harry sitting at a train station hitting on a girl, and then poof, meeting Dumbledore. No anticipation of leaving the Dursleys. While the scene was really comical and well done, I felt it still lacked Harry's excitement that finally he was going to know what was going on.
This movie was full of scenes that never happened in the book. In some ways it worked really well - you don't know what's going to happen if it didn't happen in the novels! It was also a great way to show more of their personalities; I definitely got the sense that this was something that could have happened in the HP universe.
Relationships were also really prominent in this movie. Overall, it was really well done; I love the fact that it was pretty funny. Hermione and Harry actually talking about their respective crushes seemed a little too much, but I suppose that's the movies - you can't be as subtle as you can in a book. Lavender was brilliant. "Won won!" I have to say, though, that it was jarring at first to see her face (and Cormac McLaggen's), since they weren't really featured in the previous films. Do they keep the same actors to play the characters throughout the films?
Snape was a little too much this time around. Yes, I know he talks slowly and deliberately. While it was fantastic in PoA, it got long and drawn out in HBP. We love you, Alan Rickman, but could you hurry it up a bit? And the end about him being the HBP - the effect was definitely *not* what it was supposed to be.
Malfoy... I don't know how to feel about his story arc. In the books, you're not supposed to know what he's up to until it happens, but in the movie, there are random shots of him working on the vanishing cabinet. It makes sense to include it for plot purposes, but I'm a book purist. Also, I was totally looking for a statue with a tiara while they were in the Room of Requirement, but I didn't see it. Wonder if it was there.
And I'm also a little sad that we didn't get to hear Dumbledore's theory on what the horcruxes are. How is Harry supposed to find them in the next movie??
So yeah, I had a lot of minor nitpicks, but overall the movie was really fun and worth seeing (twice). I love the detail in the movies, and I think David Yates did a good job of portraying 16-year-olds. Also, even when I knew what was going to happen, it was still a scary, suspenseful movie. Fenrir Grayback was really scary. The Slug Club was funny. All in all, a great movie =)
So the movie starts with lots of disruptions around London. While I thought it was cool, I was sort of sad about two things: (1) there were no people on the bridge that collapsed and in the book it was a supposed to be a lot of deaths (although the vibrating bridge thing at its natural frequency was cool) and (2) there was no scene with the Muggle Prime Minister! One of JKR's favorite scenes, and they couldn't show it?? I guess it was sort of superfluous.
I didn't really like the way Harry's meeting Dumbledore wasn't really explained at all. No Dursleys, just Harry sitting at a train station hitting on a girl, and then poof, meeting Dumbledore. No anticipation of leaving the Dursleys. While the scene was really comical and well done, I felt it still lacked Harry's excitement that finally he was going to know what was going on.
This movie was full of scenes that never happened in the book. In some ways it worked really well - you don't know what's going to happen if it didn't happen in the novels! It was also a great way to show more of their personalities; I definitely got the sense that this was something that could have happened in the HP universe.
Relationships were also really prominent in this movie. Overall, it was really well done; I love the fact that it was pretty funny. Hermione and Harry actually talking about their respective crushes seemed a little too much, but I suppose that's the movies - you can't be as subtle as you can in a book. Lavender was brilliant. "Won won!" I have to say, though, that it was jarring at first to see her face (and Cormac McLaggen's), since they weren't really featured in the previous films. Do they keep the same actors to play the characters throughout the films?
Snape was a little too much this time around. Yes, I know he talks slowly and deliberately. While it was fantastic in PoA, it got long and drawn out in HBP. We love you, Alan Rickman, but could you hurry it up a bit? And the end about him being the HBP - the effect was definitely *not* what it was supposed to be.
Malfoy... I don't know how to feel about his story arc. In the books, you're not supposed to know what he's up to until it happens, but in the movie, there are random shots of him working on the vanishing cabinet. It makes sense to include it for plot purposes, but I'm a book purist. Also, I was totally looking for a statue with a tiara while they were in the Room of Requirement, but I didn't see it. Wonder if it was there.
And I'm also a little sad that we didn't get to hear Dumbledore's theory on what the horcruxes are. How is Harry supposed to find them in the next movie??
So yeah, I had a lot of minor nitpicks, but overall the movie was really fun and worth seeing (twice). I love the detail in the movies, and I think David Yates did a good job of portraying 16-year-olds. Also, even when I knew what was going to happen, it was still a scary, suspenseful movie. Fenrir Grayback was really scary. The Slug Club was funny. All in all, a great movie =)