Janvier Soldat And The Half Blood Prince

Ever since Prisoner Of Azkaban, we'd come to accept the fact that the Harry Potter movies weren't going to faithfully follow the book word-for-word. And that was okay, because the first two movies did a good job at that and also point out the fact that if they did used the book as script, we'll be already watching Goblet Of Fire in 4 hours or more, or as a two-parter like how Deathly Hallows is going to be.

So we did a expectation shift and thought that, so long as they get the storyline in with nothing to drastic a deviation, we should be able to accept the show.

And with that, we got to enjoy the Harry Potter universe from a different angle. School uniforms, their dress suits (which look snazzier with the robe), admittedly werewolves didn't look as scary as the Grim (heh), spells you never heard mentioned before ("Bombarda Maxima!"), see lots of picturesque views of the castle and the surrounding landscape, the way wizards duel (forget about Snape vs Lockhart, see how the Death Eaters and Order Of The Phoenix all hold their wands and their stances as they fought in the Department Of Mysteries), the Daily Prophet's newspaper format and fonts, the way they speak to each other.

It's like Lord Of The Rings in a sense - if everyone spoke exactly as how Tolkien had wrote in the book, most people would be lost or falling asleep.

Only now that it's already the sixth movie, and it's quite a given that you should be somewhat familiar with the backstory in order to fully appreciate what's going on in the movie. And more importantly, we feel, is to NOT READ THE BOOK just before the movie. Otherwise we'd be busy looking for all the missing bits than paying attention to how the movie's going. A quick summary of what the Half-Blood Prince is all about if you need, and then read the book after the movie to fill in the gaps.

As we remember Half-Blood Prince focused a lot on school life once more and the exploration of Dumbledore's memories regarding Voldemort's history, and everyone was worked up over the Potions textbook that once belonged to the Half-Blood Prince that Harry's currently using for Year 6. The novel focused quite a lot on these bits that it wasn't really a gripping read until the last part of the book.

That the movie kept straight to the storyline with only a few diversions and still took two and a half hours? Yes, we can see why Deathly Hallows is going to be a two-parter rather than a straight 4-hour movie. The flow of the movie was certainly much better than the book and it's much easier to understand what Dumbledore was up to with muddling around with memories. And the blossoming relationships were a hoot to watch.

And we think that if the movie was not called 'Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince', they wouldn't even bother so much with explaining about the Half-Blood Prince. The movie didn't emphasized a lot on it, after all.

Now only if they don't take too long to show the Deathly Hallows.