OK, so I finally saw Half Blood Prince

[darkwing_duck1]

My numerous issues with the book aside, what the heck was going through their minds when filming this?

The dialogue is SOOOO stilted. Aside from DD, everyone's lines were ground out with an almost mathematical precison, a droning cadence that reminded me of Ben Stein in Ferris Beuler. Highly UNnatural and frankly boring. The fact that everyone spoke with this "half voice" delivery almost like they didn't want to be overheard.

And the action scenes were just flat. The "battle at the Burrow" was anything but. Just a few minor flashes of light and lots of running around in the corn (or whatever) fields. The invasion of Hogwarts likewise just seemed to "be", as if they did it just because it was needed to kill off DD. There was no "flash" to it, it almost seemed perfunctory.

And the cinematography was the same dreary, washed out pallate I've come to associate with the later Potter films. Just sad...really really sad.

Each film since they got rid of Columbus has gotten just a little bit worse. HBP continues the trend and accellerates it.

I'm glad I Redboxed it. Even paying regular rental or "cheap theater" ticket price would have been a waste of money.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Sooo.... I take it you didn't like Half-Blood Prince?

 

[darkwing_duck1]

As bad as the book was (and is) it at least has more life to it than this film...

 

[JacksonArcher]

I loved the film. It was the most comical of the films but also the darkest, which I thought was a really interesting balance. I mean, you call the cinematography deary, but it was absolutely fascinating... layered, rich, and some of the best looking imagery I've seen in a Harry Potter film. The Oscar nomination was well-deserved.

 

[Agenda]

I agree that HBP was subpar. I think the films in general are overrated among both critics and fans. I'm not a big Harry Potter buff. I really don't care that they changed and left out stuff from the books. But nonetheless, I think they just don't compare to the books - as flawed as they were - as a source of entertainment. Maybe that's coloring my view of things.

 

[knine]

I've found there is correlation between the quality of the HP film the thickness of the book it's based on. The thicker the book, the worse the movie is. HBP was no exception. It wasn't really super terrible, but they just seem so rushed.

 

[ParticleMan]

The one niggling thing that sticks with me in HBP is the complete lack of direction movie Harry is left with versus book Harry. Movie Harry has no leads whatsoever for finding the Horcruxes. No mention of Riddle taking "trophies" of his victims...no mention of his obsession with the Hogwarts founders...no memories of Hufflepuff's cup...nothing. Sure, the book left it vague, but at least book Harry had an idea. Poor movie Harry has nowhere to start...

 

[FluffyUnbound]

I think that the Columbus films got a bad rap. The best of the films is probably Chamber of Secrets.

In the other films, the directors just didn't have the time and space to tell the story properly. And I don't mean that in a fanboyish "I want all my favorite parts left in" way, either. These stories are fundamentally mysteries. They are fantasy, they are coming-of-age tales, they are English boarding school stories, all of that - but first, they are mysteries. And you can't just pick up a fun mystery novel and say, "OK, let's cut out every other chapter and film it." It's like making a new version of 10 Little Indians, but having only four people die. It doesn't work.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Never read the book, but the movie felt to me like nothing but a placeholder. It seemed like despite everything that happened that nothing had happened, and it was just a bridge between the last and the next and nothing more.

 

[Neroon]

Never read the book, but the movie felt to me like nothing but a placeholder. It seemed like despite everything that happened that nothing had happened, and it was just a bridge between the last and the next and nothing more.

I felt the same way but enjoyed both nevertheless. They struck me more as the classic "calm before the storm" type of work. We all knew the conclusion was coming next, so this felt more as the "set-up" for that conclusion.

 

[ParticleMan]

I think that the Columbus films got a bad rap. The best of the films is probably Chamber of Secrets.

In the other films, the directors just didn't have the time and space to tell the story properly. And I don't mean that in a fanboyish "I want all my favorite parts left in" way, either. These stories are fundamentally mysteries. They are fantasy, they are coming-of-age tales, they are English boarding school stories, all of that - but first, they are mysteries. And you can't just pick up a fun mystery novel and say, "OK, let's cut out every other chapter and film it." It's like making a new version of 10 Little Indians, but having only four people die. It doesn't work.

Exactly! It seems that stuff has been cut out willy-nilly. And the HBP movie had the advantage of knowing how it all ended before production. I can see how certain things that turned out to be important get left out in the earlier films, but not with HBP.

 

[23skidoo]

Exactly! It seems that stuff has been cut out willy-nilly. And the HBP movie had the advantage of knowing how it all ended before production. I can see how certain things that turned out to be important get left out in the earlier films, but not with HBP.

However remember the last book is being done as two films (which based on the comments here probably has some people rolling their eyes in disgust). They did the thickest book, Phoenix, as one movie, and Deathly Hallows wasn't the thickest book. So I think they will be having to add stuff - and what better material to add than stuff taken from the other books.

I had no problem with HBP except that the revelation of who the Prince was wasn't handled very well. I disagree about it being the most comical of the movies. It had that, of course, but it was also a very dark movie. Maybe just as some Whovians can't accept romance in Doctor Who, and some Trekkies get gas pains whenever humor raises its ugly head in Star Trek, some folks don't think Potter should be dark. I think it works quite well, personally.

Is HBP my favorite Potter film? No, but it's hardly the worst, either. It's main problem is that it's not a standalone story. Arguably none of the others are, really, but HBP is very much intended, both as a book and as a film, to set up the finale. That's the way most series are. And some people don't like that so you end up with comments like "placeholder". I saw the same thing when The Two Towers came out from people unfamiliar with Lord of the Rings. Many of the negative comments about the Bond film Quantum of Solace reflected the fact people were not aware that it was part 2 of a trilogy. A lot of people found Empire Strikes Back disappointing because it wasn't a self-contained story, either, and so on. In worst-case scenarios this sort of thing has killed a potential series - see The Golden Compass for Exhibit A and read all the reviews about the fact the film had no ending. Well duh, it was part 1 of 3. Unfortunately we won't see parts 2 or 3 now.

As a huge fan of the Potter films and the Potter books, I can take swipes at critics all I want, but the great thing is no one's going to undo the movies or the books. If Deathly Hallows tanks with critics and factions of SFF fandom, who cares? It'll still come out and the story will still be completed. Fans of His Dark Materials, Lemony Snicket, Narnia, Spiderwick and other failed series should be so lucky. Potter fans can relax. I'm more worried about, say, fans rejecting the new Doctor Who, which could be a show-killer.

Alex

 

[CaptainCanada]

They did the thickest book, Phoenix, as one movie, and Deathly Hallows wasn't the thickest book. So I think they will be having to add stuff - and what better material to add than stuff taken from the other books.

I'd disagree there. Order, while the thickest book, lost a lot of its sideplots (and a lot of which was atmosphere) - Hallows, by contrast, is pretty much 700 pages of plot, similar to Goblet (the other film for which splitting was considered). The last half of it is one big setpiece after another.

That said, one imagines all the relevant exposition can be easily conveyed; just include it with the rest of the stuff Dumbledore sends HRH at the start of the movie.

I quite liked HPB; while it dropped a lot of the dramatic elements, it was extremely funny, and probably captured the interpersonal dramas and school feel of the books the best of any of the films.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

I mean, you call the cinematography deary, but it was absolutely fascinating... layered, rich, and some of the best looking imagery I've seen in a Harry Potter film. The Oscar nomination was well-deserved.

There's no warmth in the imagery. Columbus used a warm, vibrant color pallate that infused the screen with a glow that gave things a magical feel. The post-Columbus films all look like they were shot through a grey/black haze. Very flat, very cold.

The one niggling thing that sticks with me in HBP is the complete lack of direction movie Harry is left with versus book Harry. Movie Harry has no leads whatsoever for finding the Horcruxes. No mention of Riddle taking "trophies" of his victims...no mention of his obsession with the Hogwarts founders...no memories of Hufflepuff's cup...nothing. Sure, the book left it vague, but at least book Harry had an idea. Poor movie Harry has nowhere to start...

Well, they did get in the idea of pensives, so they can always just use that as ain "info dump" in the next one.

I had no problem with HBP except that the revelation of who the Prince was wasn't handled very well. I disagree about it being the most comical of the movies. It had that, of course, but it was also a very dark movie. Maybe just as some Whovians can't accept romance in Doctor Who, and some Trekkies get gas pains whenever humor raises its ugly head in Star Trek, some folks don't think Potter should be dark. I think it works quite well, personally.

There is a world of difference between a film having a dark "tone", or dark characters, or a dark story, and being filmed in a dark, flat manner that renders the visuals unappealing to the eye and detracts from the overall impression of the film.

And that still doesn't address the stilted, wooden performances from a cast I know can do better...

 

[Gaith]

The dialogue is SOOOO stilted. Aside from DD, everyone's lines were ground out with an almost mathematical precison, a droning cadence that reminded me of Ben Stein in Ferris Beuler. Highly UNnatural and frankly boring. The fact that everyone spoke with this "half voice" delivery almost like they didn't want to be overheard.

What were you expecting? A touch of sexiness, perhaps? If so, then I gotta note, there's no sex in Hogwarts:

The film is fairly nervous about these crushes, eager to show its heroes consumed by the pleadings of desire but equally determined not to contemplate its natural conclusion. “All she wants to do is snog me,” Ron says of Lavender, though I couldn’t tell whether he is complaining about her constant attentions or ruing her ladylike reluctance to get his wand out and go the distance. There is a telling hint of censure in the editing, as Yates waits for the lips of Harry and Ginny to draw near and then cuts to a bolt of purgatorial flame that strikes outside, like a rival coup de foudre. No wonder L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, has given the movie its blessing. (David Denby, The New Yorker)

It was one thing when the kids were twelve or thirteen, but by this point it's ridiculous, and thus scuppers the nearly romance scenes, which are pretty much half the movie right there.

 

[CaptainCanada]

There's no warmth in the imagery. Columbus used a warm, vibrant color pallate that infused the screen with a glow that gave things a magical feel. The post-Columbus films all look like they were shot through a grey/black haze. Very flat, very cold.

The Columbus films have the standard Hollywood colour pallate, and he has characters react to every thing like they've never seen it before. The darker, magical-realist approach of the later movies I think is much more suited to the films.

 

[JacksonArcher]

There's no warmth in the imagery. Columbus used a warm, vibrant color pallate that infused the screen with a glow that gave things a magical feel. The post-Columbus films all look like they were shot through a grey/black haze. Very flat, very cold.

The Columbus films have the standard Hollywood colour pallate, and he has characters react to every thing like they've never seen it before. The darker, magical-realist approach of the later movies I think is much more suited to the films.

I agree with CaptainCanada. As the teenagers become older and the world darkens, so should the color palate. I mean, things get very serious in the later books and Columbus' middle-of-the-road, pedestrian, craftsman-like look would feel out-of-place. It worked for the first two films where things were more innocent, but as the books and consequently films darkened, so did the cinematography, so it was a natural progression.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The dialogue is SOOOO stilted. Aside from DD, everyone's lines were ground out with an almost mathematical precison, a droning cadence that reminded me of Ben Stein in Ferris Beuler. Highly UNnatural and frankly boring. The fact that everyone spoke with this "half voice" delivery almost like they didn't want to be overheard.

What were you expecting? A touch of sexiness, perhaps? If so, then I gotta note, there's no sex in Hogwarts:

No, I expected them to talk like real people. Instead just about everyone delivered their lines in the same measured, subdued montone with distinct, timed pauses between each character. It was very unnatural, almost stage theatrical. Either way, it sounded less like real people talking and more like actors delivering lines.

There were two instances that tried to break out of that a bit: one was Harry and Hermione in the library, which worked pretty good. The other was anything where Lavender had a part in it, which sucked mightily. Either the girl playing her is the worst young actress in the history of movies, or she was VERY badly directed.

I do argree with your larger point about the romances though. Of course when you're stuck with Rowling's rediculous Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione, there's not much to work with, but that's another crit entirely.

There's no warmth in the imagery. Columbus used a warm, vibrant color pallate that infused the screen with a glow that gave things a magical feel. The post-Columbus films all look like they were shot through a grey/black haze. Very flat, very cold.

The Columbus films have the standard Hollywood colour pallate, and he has characters react to every thing like they've never seen it before. The darker, magical-realist approach of the later movies I think is much more suited to the films.

I agree with CaptainCanada. As the teenagers become older and the world darkens, so should the color palate. I mean, things get very serious in the later books and Columbus' middle-of-the-road, pedestrian, craftsman-like look would feel out-of-place. It worked for the first two films where things were more innocent, but as the books and consequently films darkened, so did the cinematography, so it was a natural progression.

There is nothing "middle of the road" or "craftsman" about Columbus' work. He infused the WW with a sparkle and a glow that lent it a magical ambiance that set it apart from the muggle world. In the later films, the only way to tell them apart visually is the costumes and the obvious 1700s style sets.

 

[LitmusDragon]

I liked Half Blood Prince, my favorite in the series aside from The Prisoner of Azkaban. Then again, I liked all the films. The weakest I think was the first because it had some major pacing problems.

There is nothing "middle of the road" or "craftsman" about Columbus' work. He infused the WW with a sparkle and a glow that lent it a magical ambiance that set it apart from the muggle world. In the later films, the only way to tell them apart visually is the costumes and the obvious 1700s style sets.

I'd have to disagree with you there. To me, there's Alfonso Cuaron's visual flair in the third movie, and then there is everything else. HBP came the closest to matching it I think.

The Columbus films are fine but nowhere near as dramatic visually.

I suppose it may just come down to the preference for different directing styles.

 

[CaptainCanada]

There is nothing "middle of the road" or "craftsman" about Columbus' work.

No, that's pretty much the definition of Columbus' work. He's a studio director who delivers solid, uninventive direction.

He did a good job, overall, in setting the franchise up, but it never soared under him.