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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ***Spoilers***

Discussion in 'Archive: SF&F: Films and Television' started by Jedi_Master_Conor, Jul 11, 2007.

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  1. Jedi_Master_Conor

    Jedi_Master_Conor Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 24, 2005
    So OOTP was released today. I saw it and thought it was pretty good. Now we should probably turn to HBP now. :p Can't wait to see Snape finally get the DADA position and then probably what everyone looks forward to seeing is how they handle Snape offing Dumbledore. I think it'll be a safe bet when this comes out that scene will be the most emotional one to date in all the HP movies. It's scheduled for a Nov 2008 release I believe. At least we won't have a gap again with a year of no Harry Potter stuff.
     
  2. -polymath-

    -polymath- SFF:F/TV Trivia Host star 4 VIP - Game Host

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    Jun 7, 2007
    Premature. That is all. :p
     
  3. ObiWan506

    ObiWan506 Former Head Admin star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 5, 2003
    As soon as I read HBP the one thing I couldn't wait to see on the big screen was the cave scene and the Death Eaters invading Hogwarts. That's going to be something and I can't wait. Filming begins this fall and it will be out next year.
     
  4. NateCaauwe

    NateCaauwe Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    May 30, 2005
    If Yates handles Dumbly's death anything like Sirius' then I'm kinda worried. But then again Sirius' death was a little...different than your traditional avada kedavra (In the book at least).
     
  5. Moleman1138

    Moleman1138 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 18, 2004
    It's only a 16 month 10 day wait. I'm really interested in seeing what the Astronomy Tower will look like since it's one of the first sets they're already illustrating.
     
  6. Katana_Geldar

    Katana_Geldar Jedi Grand Master star 8

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    Mar 3, 2003
    There's really one thing I'm looking forward to The Phoenix Lament. That scene was made for film. :_|
     
  7. darth_paul

    darth_paul Jedi Master star 5

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    Apr 24, 2000
    Yates says he anticipates HBP will be a very different experience. Which is good news to me. I didn't hate OotP, but I didn't love it either (when I've got more time to be longwinded I'll post my thoughts in the OotP thread), and I was disappointed at the end to know that Yates would be continuing with the next film. I've actually thought having fresh blood every time after Columbus has been positive overall for the series (though I dearly wish Cuarón would return!), and Yates's work did not scream instant keeper to me. But if he really will make a substantially different movie next time around, it might at least keep things flowing and fresh in the way changing directors has.

    I think HBP is going to be a very challenging book to adapt, because it's structurally so odd. Much of the main story isn't really that important in the long run at all, and the heart of the book, what's really important, is all in the last eighty pages or so. We spend major portions of the book in the Pensieve, and none of that can really be cut back, because it is all supremely important in establishing Voldemort's past, present, and future, which seems to be the main work of HBP. And, its main stories, such as they are, don't really properly resolve at the end of the book; I've said ever since my first reading that it's distinctly the first part of a two-parter, inseparable from whatever Deathly Hallows will bring. There is a lot in the book begging for the big screen, but the book overall is I think probably the hardest to adapt smoothly of the series, and I'm going to be very interested to see how they handle it.

    -Paul
     
  8. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

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    May 31, 2005
    I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've never liked his death in the book. It´s such a dud.

    Yates has a second problem to deal with, too, imo -- Sirius's character was never developed as well in the films as in the books, which is my big problem with Cuaron#s POA. The bond between him and Harry just doesn't quite work. So for people who haven#t read the books, I think it's only natural that they're left scratching their heads when that scene comes in the movie.
     
  9. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    I was worried about hearing they already picked Yates again, but after seeing OOTP today I'm happy. There were only one or two little details I didn't like, but I think he capptured the magic and the heart of the books perfectly.

    It'll be interesting how they do HBP, though. Very different movie.
     
  10. Moleman1138

    Moleman1138 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 18, 2004
    OOTP makes me want the next installment more than any other. The opening is what is going to be difficult. Do you start with The Other Minister, Spinner's End or The Dursleys. I prefer the latter unless the scene before it is very very short.
     
  11. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    I think it will start with Spinner's End, but be much shorter. That really sets up the entire book, with the unbreakable vow, tying Snape to Draco and leading to Dumbledore's eventual death.
     
  12. Moleman1138

    Moleman1138 Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 18, 2004
    Would it work with Snape offscreen. He's there we just don't see him to surprise the ending.
     
  13. darth_paul

    darth_paul Jedi Master star 5

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    Apr 24, 2000
    I think you cut The Other Minister, because it's basically irrelevant. In the book, it serves to answer an audience curiosity about how government works, and as a way to do a little summary of the events of the preceding books. But unless there's something major in DH involving the Muggle government, there would be no reason to put that scene in the movies, ever.

    I say begin with Spinner's End. It's dark and creepy, and it establishes really useful backstory and an undercurrent of foreboding that will run across the work. It will only be a few minutes, and can kick things off. Then we go to the Dursleys', but spend as little time there as possible -- the time there is short in the book, and should be done in a very few minutes in the film.

    -Paul
     
  14. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

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    Oct 13, 2003
    Exactly as I see it happening. It also establishes that Draco and Snape will be major characters again, setting up the rest, and adding real foreboding to why Harry feels he must find out what Draco is up to, and the strange accidents happening around Hogwarts (because of Draco) besides the usual rivalry.

    Snape and Draco rule this movie, second only to Harry and Dumbledore, and maybe Slughorn. The rest of the story is basically Harry/Ginny & Ron/Hermione, Potions class, and Dumbledore's lessons.

    Throw in OWL results, an Apparation lesson, the Slug Club, the twins' shop, Aragog's death, Felix Felicis, the Daily Prophet reports of the ongoing war, a short part with the Dursleys, and maybe Fleur/Bill & Tonks/Lupin, and you've got your story!
     
  15. DarthAJ

    DarthAJ Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Dec 9, 2004
    As my favorite of the series, I can only hope Yates treats Prince right. I'm really looking forward to the LV Pensive scenes as well as the "Lightning-Struck Tower". The whole battle at Hogwarts has a very cinematic quality to it that I hope he will be able to convey to the screen. Can't wait for November '08!
     
  16. Bacon164

    Bacon164 Chosen One star 8

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    Mar 22, 2005
    I can already see the main titles flashing by in the clouds as we move down towards Spinner's End to spot Bella and Narcissa rushing towards Snape's home. It's a perfect opening in a cinematic sense, much more so than a scene about politicians we really could care less about.

    I hope that Dumbledore's return to Privet Drive will mirror his arrival in the first film as far as camera angles, editing, and music is concerned.
     
  17. Radical_Edward

    Radical_Edward Jedi Youngling star 3

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    May 2, 2002
    Oh no :eek: Yates is doing HBP too? :_|

    NOOO! Please, Lord, no!

    Anyone but him! Cuaron, or Newell, or, hell, I'd even take Columbus after seeing the travesty that OOTP (aka, the most expensive non-linear clip-show in history) was made into. No reason we need to stick to old faces; if they're really that desperate for a lousy director, then recruit Bay, or Ratner, or Bruckheimer, or Boll...well, not him, but anyone else would do.

    After seeing how he failed to make Sirius' death have any sort of emotional impact, at all, even in the slightest degree, I have lost hope of ever seeing a good dumbly-death sequence ever put to screen.

    //sigh [face_tired]
     
  18. ObiWan506

    ObiWan506 Former Head Admin star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Aug 5, 2003
    You must agree that he didn't try to make Sirius' death his own right? The way Sirius died was the way he died in the book. Yates could've caved and made it more dramatic, but he kept the consistency and made it the death it was meant to be. Not some over the top event. I really have to respect that.
     
  19. Sn4tcH

    Sn4tcH Jedi Master star 4

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    Oct 22, 2004
    That's exactly what I said. Yes, he trimmed and cut, but the moments that mattered were exactly as I saw it when I read it. I can honestly say Yates has turned Harry Potter from a collection of important sections from the books filmed, into something character driven, and I cannot wait to see what he does to HBP. I've never seen Azkaban or Chamber (but I have read them), but Columbus and Newell both were obviously more concerned about accuracy than getting the feeling.
     
  20. darth_paul

    darth_paul Jedi Master star 5

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    Apr 24, 2000
    Even if one accepts the actual mechanics of the death itself, its integration into the film was abysmal, and was indeed one of the low points of the film for me. (I found everything after the Hall of Prophecy utterly lifeless, for that matter.) We see Harry's immediate reaction, which was a pretty strong quotation of Frodo's reaction to Gandalf's death in Fellowship of the Ring, complete with slow motion and the submergence of the soundtrack. Then Harry runs off after Bellatrix, and that's the end of that. There are no repercussions, no real long-term reaction, no fallout from Sirius's death. Everyone, Harry included, seems to forget anything happened and never remember it again. So there is no emotional resonance whatsoever -- Sirius's death, in the context of the film, meant nothing in the long run. (Not to mention that it's hopelessly confusing, and never clarified, because no one ever. freaking. talks. about. that. veil.) I would gladly have taken high melodrama, because at least that would have given us something. But Sirius's death, as it was integrated into the movie, had all the emotional resonance of -- well, of nothing, because it never mattered.

    At least he can't do that to us with Dumbledore's death, because there are major reaction scenes I don't think can be axed and there's a funeral that I would hope and pray would not be cut. But whatever one thinks of the moment of the death itself, the way the film gives it no emotional meaning and virtually writes it off as irrelevant really makes me concerned about his ability to handle all the deep emotion involved in Dumbledore's death in any meaningful way.

    Edit:
    If you liked this about OotP, do yourself an enormous favor and watch Azkaban. Me, I don't think that Yates succeeded in making a real movie on its own terms out of OotP; I rank it among the filmed-collections-of-scenes numbers. But Cuarón really did. He distilled the book down to a story, and made a film about that story. He worked the material in a beautiful way, to produce a coherent film that is legitimately good in its own right, without the book, the only Potter film of which I feel that can be said. If you liked that perception of OotP, I can't imagine that you wouldn't adore Azkaban. I know I do.

    -Paul
     
  21. Katana_Geldar

    Katana_Geldar Jedi Grand Master star 8

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    Mar 3, 2003
    IMHO Azkaban is the worst of the Potter films, but then I read the books and liek everything to be "just so". [face_mischief]

    I agree that HBP is an odd book, though I think starting it with The Other Minister (perhaps some footage from the Muggle news about the murders, the bridge and the hurrcanes through that politcian who tries to blame the PM for all of it) then a shift to Spinner's End.

     
  22. Darth-Kevin-Thomas

    Darth-Kevin-Thomas Jedi Master star 5

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    Sep 27, 2002
    But who do we cast for slughorn and the new Minister Rufus Scrimg..whatever

    dkt
     
  23. Darth_Pogey

    Darth_Pogey Jedi Master star 4

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    Apr 4, 2005
    Brian Cox should play Scrimgeur, goodness knows who could play slughorn.

    I'm also intrigued as to who will play the Gaunt family.
     
  24. Count_Doodie

    Count_Doodie Jedi Youngling star 2

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    May 25, 2006
    rhys ifans for the Morfin(sp) would be good.
    -doodie
     
  25. -polymath-

    -polymath- SFF:F/TV Trivia Host star 4 VIP - Game Host

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    Jun 7, 2007
    I think that the producers are going to have to replace Gambon if they want to have this movie work. Gambon lacks the wistful and whimsicalness that Dumbledore is all about. He has no creative range and is, imo, a terrible actor playing a character that deserves so much more.
     
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