New Release: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

After seeing the 6th film based off of the most successful book series since the Bible, I've never been more excited to spend $20 in my lifetime.

I guess I got into the Harry Potter books somewhere in the middle. I definitely got the fifth book the summer it came out, and I'm pretty sure I got the fourth book when it came out as well. I do enjoy the books, although I wouldn't exactly consider them classic literature. The plot and mysteries of each novel have all been interesting, although I wouldn't say that the Harry Potter novels feature a great vocabulary or poetic writing.

What makes Harry Potter great is its depth. The world that J.K. Rowling created contains mythical creatures based off of stories from many cultures, over thousands of years. Each book, especially the last four, are just deep. The scope of the story itself is almost as relevant as the events that occur within. The fact that over the course of 4,000 combined pages readers have remained dedicated to this world, is proof that many of the events within the novels are all relevant to each other.

This, of course, is the problem with the movies. There is simply not enough time to give each story its fair treatment on film. Interestingly, even though the first two books were arguably the worst, simply because of the length of the stories, Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets might be the most accurate of the Harry Potter films. However I, as well as many other Potter fans, could see ahead to the latter movies and know the problems that they would face.

Movie theaters don't have intermissions anymore. You can't show a four hour film in theaters. Sure there are very long movies, although they usually are for independent films. The longest, recent, mainstream film that I can think of was Return of the King, which was 3 hours and 20 minutes. And that's only because New Line was not going to get in Peter Jackson's way. But Warner Brothers doesn't care.

Two years ago, after Grindhouse bombed in the box office, Warner Brothers came to the conclusion that people don't want to see long movies. Which is absurd. Besides the massively successful Lord of the Rings movies, the Pirates of the Carribean series were insanely financially successful. People see the Pirates movies for Johnny Depp and zombie pirates, yet somehow they're almost three hours long. Anyway, after Grindhouse bombed, Warner Brothers made Order of the Phoenix(#5), the longest of the Harry Potter books, into the shortest of the movies.

Even before Order of the Phoenix(which I will refer to as OotP from now on) came out, I knew that the only possible way to do the book series right, would be to make more movies than there are books. Even if Warner Brothers didn't think that audiences don't like long movies, the theater owners would object to a four-hour movie because they couldn't show as many screenings as a two-hour film. At first I thought that if they released one book into multiple movies, they might give a discount for Volume 2 if you bought tickets for Volume 1. I then realized that people will buy tickets for both films no matter what, so there's no way they'd do that. Still after the way OotP was butchered, I was happy when they announced in March that the final book would be made into two movies.

On the other hand, this almost seemed like an admission of guilt from Hollywood. They're basically saying that they screwed up with the first six books, but they'll do the seventh one better. Why is it that the last book, which is more than 100 pages shorter than OotP, is the one that needs to be made into two movies?

Going into Half-Blood Prince I felt hopeful. This is a story that is shorter than OotP, yet is being made into a film that's 20 minutes longer. As a film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HBP) is very good. And as an adaptation of the book, it is certainly much more accurate than the previous film. But try as I might, I can't help but be disappointed.

Everyone that I know who didn't read HBP loved the movie. They felt that the story was understandable, without any gaps of explanation that were obvious in the previous film. Whether you read OotP or not, it was obvious that the plot in that movie was rushed.

However, HBP was more deceitful in its lack of information. It seems as though every element makes sense in and of itself. Film scholars would argue that a movie that's an adaptation should stand by itself, and a movie that's part of a series should also stand by itself. In that regard, yes, HBP is very successful. However, without giving away any major spoilers, there are a few examples of how HBP will make the last two movies harder to explain.

Right off the bat, when the meaning behind the title of the story, the Half-Blood Prince, is revealed, it is done very quickly. One would think that the significance of the meaning of the movie would be of great importance.

Elves have played a very crucial role in the book series, yet in the movies there was Dobby in the 2nd movie, and Kreacher briefly mentioned in OotP. First of all, Kreacher was responsible for all of the events that went down at the end of OotP, a fact that was totally ignored in that movie. But additionally, in the 6th book, Kreacher comes into Harry's possession and both him and Dobby play major roles in the final book. That was overlooked.

While a large amount of HBP revolves around Harry trying to retrieve a memory, when he finally finds it, it isn't even explained that well. Now those who only saw the movie may think that it was. However, the entire basis of the seventh book revolves around Harry searching for things that were based off of knowledge that the reader knows, but the viewer does not (this is all very hard to phrase without spoiling anything).

It's very hard to talk about my problems with HBP without sounding like a whiny nerd complaining about who shot first(I can't believe that has its own Wikipedia page). And perhaps I am. However, I don't believe that everything in the movies need to be the same as in the books.

For example, the opening scene in the film was totally different than in the book, but it worked well for the big screen. There are also aspects that were left out of HBP that I don't really think hurt the series that much. For example, in the book there is a character who planned on getting married and had an encounter with the werewolf Frenrir Greyback. This character was not mentioned in the movie at all and Greyback was only seen for a few seconds. While that part would have been cool in the movie, leaving it out was understandable.

My problem simply lies when the film doesn't back up the parts it decides to show. Leave out whole subplots, that's fine. However, don't have a build up, and then either not provide more information, or provide information that is contrary to the information that will be provided in future films.

I think that all of the Harry Potter movies, through all 4 directors, have done a good job of bringing the magical world to life. However, David Yates, who has done the last two movies, seems to do a greatest hits collection. I'd rather have more small scenes taken out, while having the moments that need to be stressed, stressed.

Hopefully, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being broken up into two films(both being directed by Yates), fans will finally get their due. And that is why I am so happy, as a broke and unemployed graduate, to throw away another $20, just to see the finale done right.